The Opium Wars between 1840-1861  marked a turning point in Imperial China’s decline as the doors to its nation were forced open to foreign trade and occupation through a humiliating defeat to a foreign power.

Previously between the 1600s and the 1700s, China pursued an isolationist policy under the Qing dynasty. All maritime trade with foreign merchants was to be conducted through the Canton system, the thirteen Cohong trading companies of the port city of Guangzhou (Canton) that were recognized by the imperial government. As a port city situated on the delta of the Pearl River, the location of Guangdong was ideal for delivering trade inland. However, as the European demand for Chinese products like silk and tea skyrocketed, merchants grew extremely frustrated with the limited access to Chinese markets through a single port. In order to limit foreign influence, foreigners were not allowed to learn the Chinese languages or to bring women and intermarry with the locals. In fact, in 1759, Emperor Qianlong of the Qing dynasty set forth the “Prevention of Barbarian Ordinances” as follows:

“内地物产富饶，岂需远洋些微不急之货，特以尔等自愿懋迁，柔远之仁，原所不禁。今尔等不能安分奉法…向后即准他商贸易，尔亦不许前来”

“Within our lands, we have great wealth, why on earth would we desire the inferior products brought from abroad? The tributes given to us out of kindness were originally unregulated. Yet if there lies the possibility of unrest through their presence, even if we permit their foreign commerce in the future, they will not be allowed entry into the nation.”

Thus, isolated to a single locale, the competition was fierce amongst European powers for the access to limited amounts of Chinese products and resources.

In order to address these issues, the first formal British diplomatic mission to the Chinese was conducted in 1793. The Macartney mission was dispatched with a delegation under the name of King George III to Emperor Qianlong in Beijing to bargain for relaxed trade barriers.At that time, the Qing dynasty was powerful enough to reject the British delegation with the same stance as stated within the Prevention of Barbarian Ordinances: we have no need for your products, get out. Similarly, in the first international treaty formed by the Qing dynasty with Russia, the Treaty of Nerchinsk of 1689, resolved a border dispute with the Qing having enough of a position of dominance to reject a capitulation to foreign demands.

Owing to the above and a long history of empire with nominal tributary nations, the initial attitude of imperial China towards foreign powers was one of sino-supremacy and haughty contempt. Yet after the British began using opium grown in its colonies in India to acquire Chinese silver as a currency to purchase Chinese goods. With the rampant opium addiction and economic havoc caused by silver inflation, the international conflict culminated as the First Opium War. Weakened in its isolation without the benefits of the Industrial Revolution, Qing China lost miserably in the First Opium War, signing the Treaty of Nanking in 1842, the first of a series of unequal treaties, granting extraterritoriality to all foreigners as ports were forcibly opened to foreign trade. After the loss of the Second Opium war in 1860, the Treaty of Tianjin further expanded benefits for foreign nationals. The ramifications of the humiliating military defeats, the imperial concessions and the influence of opium continued throughout future time periods, impacting future nationalists and indelible marks on Chinese foreign policy.