The last imperial government in China.
Called “Manchu” from “Manchuria” and “Da Qing” meaning “great purity,” the Manchu dynasty was known for great territorial, economic, and commercial expansion and lasted from the mid-seventeenth to the early twentieth centuries.
The Manchu people originated from the Jurchen tribes, who had conquered northern China between the twelfth and thirteenth centuries. The Ming dynasty (1368–1644) established control over the Manchus by bestowing titles of honor on them and granting them trading privileges. By the late sixteenth century, the Manchus had a firm base along the northern border of Korea, while other Manchus established a thriving trade in furs, horses, and luxury items. Those Manchus who had adopted the trading livelihood became acculturated to the Chinese way of life and were no longer tribal.
The ascent of the Manchus in China brought hope to Western traders, who had already realized significant profit from Chinese trade. For instance, the Dutch, whom the Portuguese had barred from entry to Canton (Guangzhou) under Ming rule, had their trade desires revived with the establishment of the Manchu regime. Traditionally, the only open port of trade existed in Canton. The single-port system of trade changed in later Manchu times.
During the eighteenth century China experienced significant territorial and commercial gains. Handicraft industries, such as porcelain manufacture and painting flourished. The spice trade prospered under the Manchu dynasty as well. By the late eighteenth century a steady stream of trade was established between Canton, India, and England. The English imported tea in great amounts, importing over forty-million pounds in the 1750s. Raw silk, porcelain, rhubarb, lacquerware, and cassia also figured prominently. The English exported to China woolen fabric, lead, tin, iron, copper, furs, linen, and other assorted items. China exported to India nankeen cloth, alum, camphor, pepper, vermilion, sugar, confections, drugs, and porcelain. Imports from India included raw cotton, ivory, sandalwood, and silver. Opium also entered China in great quantity from India.
Traders often dealt with opium on a cash basis because of the illicit nature of the drug. For a time, particularly toward the end of the Manchu dynasty, opium addiction in China grew to such an extent that there were economic repercussions. It caused stagnation in demand for other commodities and a steady drain of silver ingots, China’s official means of exchange.
Tea dominated the market, in part because of the prohibition on rice exports and the limitation on silk exports. Furthermore, Europe produced no tea, thereby fostering a great demand for it there. Chinese merchants in Canton established a monopolistic guild known as the cohong, or hong, merchants in 1720. In 1754, the Manchus ordered the cohong merchants to insure the good behavior and transit duties of foreign traders. These merchants survived for many years because they maintained a system of mutual guarantee called the “Consoo fund,” to which they would pay 10 percent of their trading profits. The cohong used this fund in times of emergency, particularly when the Manchu government demanded payment for favorable treatment.
Generally, the balance of trade in Canton during the eighteenth century favored China, since it needed little in the way of foreign products such as waistcoats and fleece stockings, while Western merchants bought large quantities of tea, silk, and rhubarb.
Chinese society under the Manchu dynasty refused to rely on foreign merchandise for anything and held the view that trade for foreigners was a privilege and not a right. The emperor Qianlong (r. 1735–1796) once wrote to King George III through his envoy explaining that the Chinese had never valued or needed ingenious items from the West. Furthermore, like the Ming that preceded it, the Manchu state generally distrusted international trade, though this distrust did not always seem apparent from the thriving commerce associated with China’s east coast.
Manchu foreign trade policy, particularly in earlier times, reflected its concern with national security. As China’s economic growth sparked the curiosity of European maritime powers, the Manchus tried to limit contacts between the outside world and those likely to revolt. An imperial edict in 1759 permitted maritime trade only at the port of Canton. Similarly, to restrict the proliferation of Chinese traders in Mongolia, the Manchus took strict measures to regulate trading through the use of permits. The Manchus did not issue the permits easily, and they required the permits to show the quantity of goods and number of persons allowed. The Manchus feared that if Chinese moneylenders and traders increased in Mongolia, their presence would incite rebellion among Mongols. Such a possibility only increased the Manchu fears about national security. Manchu leaders saw trade as a catalyst for unrest and disorder as well a way for confidential defense information to be passed to foreign entities, which in turn would lead to an outflow of silver and crimes such as piracy.
As a result of such uncertainty, Manchu officials turned to their control of contact with Taiwan, through which regulations established limits on ship size and licensing. Unfortunately, such a system proved problematic because it allowed senior officials on the east coast to profit disproportionately by controlling maritime and coastal trade. While some rulers in earlier dynasties had effectively realized the benefits of state-implemented taxation of valid international trade, the Manchus did not succeed in developing the necessary trappings of such a system. Instead, they relied on brides or established monopolies. The onset of significant European trade would prove permanently damaging to this system and to the Manchus.
The British government and the British East India Company had established preeminent trade in India and its waters, and they began to resent the series of restrictions that the Manchus had placed on trade. The need for a trading base in the Far East became apparent when in 1743 George Anson, a commodore in the Royal Navy, was forced to stop in Canton harbor because of a severe storm that damaged his vessel. While Anson believed that the administration would recognize international maritime laws, he instead faced many administrative hurdles, including refusal to transmit messages, high prices on inferior supplies, and refusal to repair the ship. In response, the East India Company sent negotiator James Flint, a company trader, to China. Flint, who had learned to speak Chinese, conveyed the British concerns about the ports and corruption to the emperor, who initially seemed understanding. The emperor, however, ultimately decided that he was not friendly to this cause. He had Flint arrested and jailed for three years for breaking Manchu regulations by sailing north, improperly presenting petitions, and learning Chinese.
Rather than reserve some of their rules or embrace the foreign traders and their requests, the Manchus responded by steadfastly reinforcing their administrative policies. By the nineteenth century, the Manchus felt pressure from Europeans, British traders in particular, who had repeatedly requested that their government establish official trade relations with the Manchu governing elite. These British merchants had already had success in trade with southern China, and they wanted to expand this success into the bulk of the area controlled by the Manchus. Multiple attempts to establish trade relations failed, however, until the British won the First Opium War (1839–1842) and forced the Manchus to sign the Treaty of Nanjing in 1842. This treaty, unfair by any standards, obliged the Manchus to open multiple ports to foreign trade and residence. The treaty forced the Manchus to pay for opium destroyed in 1839 during an attempt to constrict the flow of the drug into China. It also set the prices for certain commodities, such as tea, silk, cotton, woolens, ivory, metals, and alcohol. The Treaty of Nanjing set the stage for several trading treaties to follow. Pressure and intrusion from the West only added to the deterioration of the Manchu regime, which was already weakened by internal uprising.
Contributing to the Manchu decline were the British defeats of the Chinese, an unmanageably expanding population, the loss of silver to traders, the challenges of the educated in finding official employment, widespread opium abuse and addiction, weakening of the dynastic armies, and rampant suffering and loss of morale. The fundamentally republican and nationalist Sun Yatsen nurtured a movement to overthrow the Manchu dynasty so that a republican form of government could take hold in China. The Manchu (Qing) dynasty, the last regime of monarchic rule in China, fell in 1911.
Sanchitha Jayaram
See also: China; Ming Dynasty; Opium.
Hsü, Immanuel C.Y. The Rise of Modern China. New York: Oxford University Press, 2000.
Sanjdorj, M. Manchu Chinese Colonial Rule in Northern Mongolia. New York: St. Martin’s Press, 1980.
Spence, Jonathan D. The Search for Modern China. New York: Norton, 1990.