China had early commercial contact with the west since the beginning of the Christian era. China opened only two ports to foreign traders. In the 18th century, the English East India Company enjoyed the monopoly of eastern trade. Chinese silk, cotton and tea were in great demand in the European markets. For these, payment was made in silver. The trade was favorable to the china. The unequal balance of trade between the two countries created uneasiness among the British. Tea had become the national drink and by early 19th century British ships were transporting millions of kilograms of tea to England. Unfortunately, British were unable to come up with products to sell to the Chinese. As a result, in some years, 90% of the cargo brought by British ships to china consisted of silver bullion. British viewed such as imbalance as unhealthy. So they started selling opium in china on a large scale.
Opium trade was profitable to the British traders, but did much physical and moral damage to the Chinese. The opium while addicting the Chinese population was draining a huge amount of silver from china. Soon British exports to china increased.
In 1839, when a Chinese government official seized an opium cargo and destroyed it, Britain declared war and easily defeated china. The Chinese were then forced to pay heavy damages to the British traders. The Chinese government also agreed that British would be tried for any crimes committed in the English rather than Chinese courts. This was known as extra territorial rights. The Chinese government was no longer free to impose tariffs on foreign goods. Hong Kong was turned over to Britain.
Soon France entered into similar unequal treaties with china on the pretext that a French missionary had been murdered. England and France fought another war with china. China was defeated and was forced to grant more privileges to the conquerors.
Japan tried to increase her influence over Korea, which was under Chinese domination. China resented this and the two countries went to war. China gave Korea her independence and gave Formosa (Taiwan) to Japan. She had to pay war damages of 150 million dollars to Japan.
France, Russia, Britain and Germany gave loans to china to help her meet this payment. In return these western countries divided china into spheres of influence, which meant that each country had certain regions of china reserved exclusively for its purposes.
The United States feared that china would be completely given out in spheres of influence and that its trade with china would be shut off. Therefore USA gave the ‘Open Door Policy’. According to this policy, all countries would have equal rights to trade anywhere in china.
The scramble for privileges stopped in china after an uprising against the foreign powers known as the ‘Boxer Rebellion’. But the Chinese failed and had to pay heavy war damages. Imperialism continued through warlords. In a period of a few decades, china had been reduced to the status of an international colony.
The division of China into spheres of influence has often been describes as ‘the Cutting of the Chinese Melon’.
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