The historical gateway to China, Guangzhou is a thriving metropolitan city at the heart of national and global economic processes.
Located just north of Hong Kong in the southeastern province of Guangdong, Guangzhou, or “Canton” (based on the Portuguese Coutco), is a wealthy and modern city. It has deep historical roots and is at the center of China’s rapid industrial development.
Guangzhou was already an important river and seaport by 214 B.C.E., when the emperor Qin Shihuang made the city the administrative seat of the Nanhai (South Sea) prefecture. Roman traders arrived soon after, followed by Arab and Southeast Asian traders during the Tang dynasty (618–907). Once Arab traders lost the ability to organize long journeys, however, Guangzhou’s international trade declined until the arrival of Europeans in the sixteenth century.
The Portuguese were the first Europeans to arrive, coming to Guangzhou in 1514. Tensions between the Chinese and the Portuguese grew until the Chinese leased Macao to them in 1557. Allowing foreigners to set up a trading base away from the city was in keeping with China’s long-held custom of sustaining substantial trade while minimizing cultural and personal contacts. The Dutch came shortly thereafter, followed quickly by the British. Trade in silk, tea, porcelain, and cotton was brisk despite the controls of the Ming dynasty. After consolidating power, the emperor Kangxi of the Qing dynasty (1644–1911) opened the nation’s ports to foreign trade in 1685, just as Britain was becoming the dominant Western trading power in the region.
The emperor Qianlong sought to limit foreign influences in 1757, restricting all foreign trade to Guangzhou. Foreign traders were not allowed to enter the walled city; instead, they were relegated to specially designated “factories.” They were prevented from learning Chinese, could work only through assigned interpreters, could not bring women or weapons, and could only stay in Guangzhou during the trading season. Also, all transactions had to go through the cohong, a monopolistic guild organized by thirteen government officials.
Despite burgeoning trade, the British sent successive trade missions near the turn of the eighteenth century seeking access to other ports. The dramatic emergence of tea consumption in Britain led to a considerable trade deficit. British traders responded by promoting opium consumption in China, reversing the trade flow by the 1830s. While the Chinese emperor had passed several laws and had appealed to the British to curb the opium trade, opium consumption rose unabated, wreaking havoc on China’s society and economy. The opium trade increased even more after the British East India Company lost its monopoly on British trade to China in 1833.
Lin Zexu, a government official sent to stop the opium trade, confiscated and destroyed 20,000 chests of opium in 1839. The drug traders appealed to and then partly funded the British navy, which responded by bombarding and subjugating several cities. The First Opium War (1839–1942) ended when the Chinese capitulated to the Treaty of Nanjing, which ceded Hong Kong to the British. The treaty also ended the Canton System by opening five so-called treaty ports to foreign trade, including Shanghai. The foreign settlements were considered to be extraterritorial space, with each site governed by the laws and customs of the foreign nation. Foreigners not only had their own police force and justice system, but also controlled trade, taxes, and tariffs. China quickly entered into similar treaties with other Western powers, granting all foreign traders the same advantages through linked most-favored-nation clauses.
Guangzhou’s economy and population quickly declined as Hong Kong and other ports took its role in foreign trade. Nonetheless, Guangzhou was at the center of several political movements, including the pseudo-Christian, anti-Qing “Taiping Rebellion” of the 1850s. Later, Sun Yatsen, the founder of the Nationalist Party, organized several coup attempts from Guangzhou. One of the first communist communes in China was set up in Guangzhou in 1927. Guangzhou became a major industrial center in the 1930s before being taken over by the Japanese in 1938. Finally, the communist takeover of Guangzhou in 1949 signaled the defeat of Chiang Kaishek’s Nationalist forces.
While Guangzhou’s development was not one of Chairman Mao Zedong’s priorities, Deng Xiaoping chose it for the first market reforms of the late 1970s. Located near the Shenzhen and Zhuhai Special Economic Zones, Guangzhou has reestablished itself as a vital gateway to China and as the fifth-largest city in China.
W. Chad Futrell
See also: China.
Garrett, Valery M. The Heaven Is High, the Emperor Is Far Away: Merchants and Mandarins in Old Canton. New York: Oxford University Press, 2002.