Commissioner Lin and the Opium War

337 Pages·1964·8.624 MB·English

by  Hsin-pao Chang

HARVARD EAST ASIAN SERIES, 18
COMMISSIONER LIN AND THE OPIUM WAR
The East Asian Research Center at Harvard University ad­
ministers research projects designed to further scholarly un­
derstanding of China, Korea, Japan, and adjacent areas.
HARVARD EAST ASIAN SERIES
1. China's Early Industrialization: Sheng Hsuan-huai (1844-1916) and Mandarin
Enterprise. By Albert Feuerwerker.
2. Intellectual Trends in the Ch’ing Period. By Liang Ch’i-ch’ao. Translation by
Immanuel C. Y. Hsü.
3. Reform in Sung China: Wang An-shih (1021-1086) and his New Policies. By
James T. C. Liu.
4. Studies on the Population of China, 1368-1953. By Ping-ti Ho.
5. China's Entrance into the Family of Nations: The Diplomatic Phase, 1858-1880.
By Immanuel C. Y. Hsü.
6. The May Fourth Movement: Intellectual Revolution in Modern China. By Chow
Tse-tsung.
7. Ch'ing Administrative Terms. Translated and edited by E-tu Zen Sun.
8. Anglo-American Steamship Rivalry in China, 1862-1876. By Kwang-Ching Liu.
9. Local Government in China under the Ch'ing. By T’ung-tsu Ch’ü.
10. Communist China 1955-1959: Policy Documents with Analysis. With a fore­
word by Robert R. Bowie and John K. Fairbank. (Prepared at Harvard Uni­
versity under the joint auspices of the Center for International Affairs and the
East Asian Research Center.)
11. China and Christianity: The Missionary Movement and the Growth of Chinese
Antiforeignism, 1860-1870. By Paul A. Cohen.
12. China and the Helping Hand, 1937-1945. By Arthur N. Young.
13. Research Guide to the May Fourth Movement: Intellectual Revolution in Modem
China, 1915-1924. By Chow Tse-tsung.
14. The United States and the Far Eastern Crisis of 1933-1938 (from the Man­
churian incident through the initial stage of the undeclared Sino-fapanese war).
By Dorothy Borg.
15. China and the West, 1858-1861: The Origins of the Tsungli Y amen. By Masataka
Banno.
16. In Search of Wealth and Power: Yen Fu and the West. By Benjamin Schwartz.
17. The Origins of Entrepreneurship in Meiji Japan. By Johannes Hirschmeier,
S.V.D.
18. Commissioner Lin and the Opium War. By Hsin-pao Chang.

Commissioner Lin Tse-hsü
Courtesy of Lin Ch’ung-yung, fifth-generation descendant
of Commissioner Lin
COMMISSIONER LIN
AND THE OPIUM WAR
Hsin-pao Chang
HARVARD UNIVERSITY PRESS
Cambridge, Massachusetts
1 9 6 4
© Copyright 1964 by the President and Fellows of Harvard College
All rights reserved
Distributed in Great Britain by Oxford University Press, London
Preparation and publication of this volume have
been aided by grants from the
Ford Foundation
Library of Congress Catalog Card Number: 64-21786
Printed in the United States of America
FOR GLEN W. BAXTER

FOREWORD
T he Opium War, generally taken as the opening event of China’s
modern history, has embittered Chinese patriots and embarrassed con­
scientious Westerners for more than a century. In mainland China it is
used today not only as evidence of inveterate Western iniquity, but
specifically as proof of the Marxist-Leninist theorem that free-enterprise
capitalism leads to aggressive “imperialism” which allies with reactionary
“feudalism” to the detriment of the common people everywhere. The
modern Chinese sense of grievance over the war is reinforced by the plain
facts that opium smoking was pernicious and that Commissioner Lin’s
effort to suppress the opium trade was the immediate occasion for
hostilities.
It would be hard to devise a more stark and simple, black and white,
story of Chinese victimization than the facts of history seem to portray.
In comparison, the wrongs suffered by the American colonists, which led
them to rebel against British tyranny, sink into insignificance. Indeed, the
question is unavoidable: why was the Chinese reaction to the opium evil
not more vigorous?
The inquiring scholar finds the Opium War less starkly black and
white: he may conclude that Anglo-Chinese hostilities would have
occurred even if there had been no opium trade, that other Western
powers would have aggressed against China even if Britain had not, and
that Chinese patriots today would have a sense of grievance even if Sino-
Western relations had avoided warfare. These suppositions follow from
the basic fact that Chinese civilization had developed its own distinctive
ways, different from Western ways, but that by 1840 it had lost the
power to sustain itself vis-à-vis the expanding West. The rule of a million
or so Manchus over some 300 million Chinese was a symptom of the in­
stitutional distinctiveness of the Chinese empire, which made it behave
quite differently from a modern nation-state or from the China of today,
where a late-maturing nationalism now views the past with a considerable
feeling of shame.
The traditional Chinese sense of cultural superiority, or culturalism,
viii FOREWORD
intensifies the modern sentiment of nationalism and nationalistic griev­
ance. The adjustment of modern China to the multi-state system, her
proper functioning as part of the world community, will remain incom­
plete until this sense of grievance at her modern history is exorcised by a
rational perspective on it. I am not certain this can ever be achieved, for
the decline and fall and revolutionary transformation of the old Chinese
civilization has been an unprecedented tragedy for the participants, and
it is still unfolding. But the need for the historian’s rational analysis and
dispassionate understanding of events is plain. Naturally, this must be
a work of individual judgment, an effort not to sit as a judge only but to
be a witness for all sides of the argument and to recapture the circum­
stances, the moods, and the beliefs of the protagonists. To do this for the
Opium War is an exacting task.
Hsin-pao Chang has brought to this work many years of careful self­
training in the historian’s craft, an unusual grasp of the materials in
Chinese as well as in English, and a thorough devotion to seeking the
truth of history without a priori interpretations. He has used the newly
published diary of the protagonist on the Chinese side, Imperial Com­
missioner Lin Tse-hsii, and has had access to British and American business
archives, including the monumental repository of the papers of the lead­
ing firm in the China trade, Jardine, Matheson and Company, at Cam­
bridge University. While these Western records generally confirm aspects
of the story already known, Dr. Chang’s penetration of hitherto unused
Chinese materials gives us a more balanced account of the origin of the
Opium War than has ever been available in any language. Taken as a
whole, his work can contribute to building a common understanding of
this early conflict between China and the West and of the heritage of
ideas and emotions that it bequeathed to us.
John King Fairbank
Francis Lee Higginson Professor of History
Harvard University