In the Napoleon reading, it was discussed that the nature of creating an Empire was changing, that people would no longer accept empire, that they were no longer ignorant to the oppression that was brought about by empires. As a result of this Empire builders had to find different ways to create empires, Napoleon used more force, occupying and controlling everything that he could handle, though as we saw this did not last long at all. It is because of the decline in the ability to use military as empire building tools that we see the rise of "Engineers and Doctors" (Pg. 287) according to Burbank and Cooper as the new catalysts to colonialism.
One of the examples here is when it comes to the European colonization of China. China was a well developed nation at the time with resources that the Europeans wanted, but because they were well developed the Europeans could not just invade and occupy as they had previously done when creating colonial empires. Instead they colonized China with war and politics. The Europeans still used war with the Chinese, just not occupation as had been seen in previous empires, the British and Chinese had a series of wars known as the Opium wars. When the British came out on top of these conflicts rather than attempting to occupy China, they instead enacted their own rules within china, such as trade rights, specific ports for the Europeans to trade in, and they couldn't not occupy anything, so they took Hong Kong. The most important aspect here though was the political rules that were placed into effect. The most important notion here is "After its defeat in the opium wars, China had to trade on others' terms" (Burbank and Cooper, pg. 297). The Europeans though they did not have to occupy all of China had managed to completely take control of its global trade market.
Now many could argue that this is not colonialism but instead just politics at work, as Britain did not actually occupy China. And thus this question is posed, did Britain turn China into a colony, or was it just politics?
Politics at work. Hong Kong became a colony of the British Empire right after 1842, the end of the First Opium War. The Empire attempted to colonize the whole of China and everything of it. But it was not possible partially due to China's size.
ReplyDeleteAnd even though the economics of Qing Dynasty-China was under British authority, Hong Kong merchants retained a place in sea faring trade.