S01E28 Taiping Rebellion: Unequal Treaties and Modernizing China

09/15/22 • 26 min

This week, we're talking about how the unequal treaties forced on China during the Second Opium War further clarified anti-imperialism as a driver in later Chinese revolutions.

Foreign powers readily turned to force to push things along in China whenever dialogue got stuck. Force had worked before, and they thought force was the only language that the Chinese consistently understood.

Foreign Powers' Neutrality in Taiping Rebellion Conflict

Part of this episode will follow Lord Elgin's travels up and down the Yangtze River. British engagement with the Taiping was an interesting mixed bag: they despised the uncouth manners of Taiping representatives but appreciated the possible trade opportunities the Taiping might possibly have offered.

Yet, British and other foreign powers' policy of neutrality in the Taiping Rebellion meant that they had to work with both sides of the conflict to ensure that trade agreements with one side or the other produced anything.

And so that leaves open the possibility of future foreign intervention on one side or the other of the conflict.

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S01E28 Taiping Rebellion: Unequal Treaties and Modernizing China

This week, we're talking about how the unequal treaties forced on China during the Second Opium War further clarified anti-imperialism as a driver in later Chinese revolutions.

Foreign Powers' Neutrality in Taiping Rebellion Conflict

And so that leaves open the possibility of future foreign intervention on one side or the other of the conflict.

If You'd Like to Support the Podcast

Subscribe, share, leave a rating.
Give once, give monthly at www.buymeacoffee.com/crpodcast
Subscribe to the substack newsletter at https://chineserevolutions.substack.com/

Also...

Please reach out at [email protected] and let me know what you think!

Previous Episode

S01E27 Taiping Rebellion: Second Opium War-Storming the Dagu Forts

As part of the ongoing series on the Taiping Rebellion, we're taking a look at the storming of the Dagu Forts, which guarded the waterway approaching Beijing. While the civil war between official Qing forces and Taiping rebels was going on, the foreign powers decided to push their own issues with the Qing government.

Of interest to us is how this reduced the prestige and authority of the Qing Dynasty. While the Taiping Rebellion ultimately failed, it advanced the specific understanding of later revolutionaries who would overthrow the Qing: get rid of the foreign Manchu overlords and replace the imperial dynastic system.

Storming the Dagu Forts

In May 1858, a combined British-French fleet bombarded and took the Dagu Forts by storm. This was the most important Chinese coastal fortification, protecting the direct waterway to Beijing.

Foreign powers were careful not to act unilaterally, keeping the balance of power between foreign powers acting in China and trying to demonstrate to the Chinese that they weren't trying for a trade monopoly.

They succeeded in forcing the Qing government to negotiate a new treaty with foreign powers, granting additional trade concessions and freedom of movement for foreign nationals.

The most galling concession for Qing prestige was the permanent stationing of European ambassadors in Beijing. The path foreign diplomatic staff would take was the traditional route for foreign tribute missions. This time, the foreigners would be coming and going with zero tokens of submission to the Chinese emperor.

About the Taiping Rebellion...

Foreign powers were trying to be neutral in the Taiping Rebellion. They just wanted to sell their products and buy Chinese products.

What distinguished foreign intervention in China from imperial ventures elsewhere was the relative lack of attempts to conquer and rule portions of Chinese territory. Yet foreign armies ran all over China, looting, killing, and destroying anyhow.

Foreign powers would ultimately intervene on behalf of the Qing, but it wouldn't leave them looking like the ones in charge.

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Subscribe, share, leave a rating.
Give once, give monthly at www.buymeacoffee.com/crpodcast
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Also...

Please reach out at [email protected] and let me know what you think!

Next Episode

S01E29 Taiping Rebellion: Introducing Zeng Guofan

This week we regroup and look at the big picture of what the Taiping Rebellion is showing about the theme of our podcast, and we introduce Zeng Guofan, a guy we here at Chinese Revolutions (we as in the "more fun to say 'we' than 'I' because it makes it seem like I've got a whole department") have been excited to talk about for a long time.

The Taiping Rebellion made China's lack of sovereignty problem longer and worse. The rebels could trade with foreigners, making it seem like foreign powers could do whatever they wanted, whenever. Then the official side of the foreign powers decided to have a Second Opium War, knocking the official authorities flat.

Zeng Guofan

Zeng Guofan (1811-1872) was a Confucian scholar of the highest possible rank. He came from a poor but educated farming family in Hunan. Where his father tried to pass the lowest examination well into his 40s, Zeng Guofan passed at 22.

He will be appointed the task of suppressing the Taiping Rebellion not because he was a military man but because he could be trusted to handle the political question of how to recruit and deploy forces to crush the rebellion.

What Makes for a Successful Revolution?

We took a digression into what China's reconfiguration would have to look like, for a revolution to be successful. The conclusion for now is:

Restoration of Chinese sovereignty
Solidification of an economy that rewards free enterprise
Allotment of state power to protect the production of resources and rule-based distribution of rewards for that production

And we're only going to see this come through after the founding of the People's Republic of China in 1949.

We'll explore that thesis as the podcast goes on.

Books Cited in Today's Podcast

By Peter Padfield

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