The Opium War of 1840 marked a turning point in
Chinese history. From early in the 19th century, Britain
started smuggling large quantities of opium into China,
causing a great outflow of Chinese silver and grave economic
disruption in China. In 1839, the Qing government sent
Commissioner Lin Zexu to Guangdong to put into effect the
prohibition on opium trafficking. When, in an effort to
protect its opium trade, Britain initiated the First Opium
War in 1840, the Chinese people rose in armed struggle
against the invaders under the leadership of Lin Zexu and
other patriotic generals. But the corrupt and incompetent
Qing government capitulated to the foreign invaders time and
again, and finally signed the Treaty of Nanjing with
Britain, a treaty of national betrayal and humiliation. From
then on, China was reduced to a semi-colonial and
semi-feudal country.
After the Opium War,
Britain, the United States, France, Russia and Japan forced
the Qing government to sign various unequal treaties, seized
“concessions” and divided China into
“spheres of influence.” To oppose the twin evils
of feudal oppression and foreign aggression, the Chinese
people waged heroic struggles, with many national heroes
coming to the fore. The Revolution of the Taiping Heavenly
Kingdom in 1851, led by Hong Xiuquan, was the largest
peasant uprising in modern Chinese history. The Revolution
of 1911, a bourgeois-democratic revolution led by Dr. Sun
Yat-sen, ended the rule of the Qing Dynasty. The monarchical
system that had been in place in China for more than 2,000
years was discarded with the founding of the provisional
government of the Republic of China. The Revolution of 1911
is of great significance in modern Chinese history. But the
fruits of victory were soon compromised by concessions on
the part of the Chinese bourgeoisie, and the country entered
a period of domination by the Northern Warlords headed by
Yuan Shikai. The people lived in an abyss of misery in this
period.
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