FIRST OPIUM WAR - 1839 AUGUST 23 HONGKONG PORT WAS CAPTURED BY THE BRITISH -THROUGH AUDACITY AND INJUSTICE

FIRST OPIUM WAR - 1839 AUGUST 23 

HONGKONG PORT WAS CAPTURED BY THE BRITISH -THROUGH AUDACITY AND INJUSTICE

August 23rd, 1839 – First Opium War: the UK captures Hong Kong as a base as it prepares for war with Qing China:

Opium Wars arose from China’s attempts to suppress the opium trade. Foreign traders (primarily British) had been illegally exportingopium mainly from India to China since the 18th century, but that trade grew dramatically from about 1820.

 The resulting widespread addiction in China was causing serious social and economic disruption there. In March 1839 the Chinese government confiscated and destroyed more than 20,000 chests of opium—some 1,400 tons of the drug—that were warehoused at Canton (Guangzhou) by British merchants. 

The antagonism between the two sides increased a few days later when some drunken British sailors killed a Chinese villager. The British government, which did not wish its subjects to be tried in the Chinese legal system, refused to turn the accused men over to the Chinese courts.

Hostilities broke out several months later when British warships destroyed a Chinese blockade of thePearl River (Zhu Jiang) estuary at Hong Kong. 

The British government decided in early 1840 to send an expeditionary force to China, which arrived at Hong Kong in June. The British fleet proceeded up the Pearl River estuary to Canton, and, after months of negotiations there, attacked and occupied the city in May 1841.

 Subsequent British campaigns over the next year were likewise successful against the inferior Qing forces, despite a determined counterattack by Chinese troops in the spring of 1842. 

The British held against that offensive, however, and captured Nanjing (Nanking) in late August, which put an end to the fighting.

Peace negotiations proceeded quickly, resulting in the Treaty of Nanjing, signed on August 29. By its provisions, China was required to pay Britain a large indemnity, cede Hong Kong Island to the British, and increase the number of treaty ports where the British could trade and reside from one (Canton) to five.

 Among the four additional designated ports was Shanghai, and the new access to foreigners there marked the beginning of the city’s transformation into one of China’s major commercial entrepôts. 

TheBritish Supplementary Treaty of the Bogue (Humen), signed October 8, 1843, gave British citizensextraterritoriality (the right to be tried by British courts) and most-favoured-nation status (Britain was granted any rights in China that might be granted to other foreign countries). Other Western countries quickly demanded and were given similar privileges.


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TREATY OF NANKING  1842 AUGUST 29



Reparations and demobilisation[edit]

Treaty of Peace, Friendship and Commerce between Her Majesty the Queen of Great Britain and Ireland and the Emperor of China
Signing of the treaty on board HMS Cornwallis
Type	Bilateral / Unequal
Signed	29 August 1842
Effective	26 June 1843
Condition	Exchange of ratifications
Parties	China  United Kingdom
Languages	English and Chinese
Treaty of Nanking at Wikisource

The Qing government agreed to make Hong Kong Island a crown colony, ceding it to the British Queen "in perpetuity" (常遠, Cháng yuǎn, in the Chinese version of the treaty), to provide British traders with a harbour where they could unload their goods (Article III). Pottinger was later appointed the first governor of Hong Kong.

The Qing government was obliged to pay the British government six million silver dollars for the opium that had been confiscated by Lin Zexu in 1839 (Article IV),

 3 million dollars in compensation for debts that the Hong merchants in Canton owed British merchants (Article V), 

and a further 12 million dollars in war reparations for the cost of the war (VI). 

The total sum of 21 million dollars was to be paid in installments over three years and the Qing government would be charged an annual interest rate of 5 percent for the money that was not paid in a timely manner (Article VII).[3]

The Qing government undertook to release all British prisoners of war (Article VIII) and 

to give a general amnesty to all Chinese subjects who had cooperated with the British during the war (Article IX).[3]

Treaty of Nanking
Traditional Chinese	南京條約
Simplified Chinese	南京条约
[show]Transcriptions

The British on their part, undertook to withdraw all of their troops from Nanking and the Grand Canal after the emperor had given his assent to the treaty and the first installment of money had been received (Article XII). British troops would remain in Gulangyu and Zhoushan until the Qing government had paid reparations in full (Article XII).[3]