Interpretations of the Opium War (1840-1842): A Critical Appraisal

-32inTi -rwetationp ,->t the Opium Wai ??84··-««4?? A .ritira] Appraisal Tan Chung Department of 'hiñese and Japanese Studie? University of Delhi Interpretations oí thf Jpium War have primarily emphasized the role of cultural conflict between China and Britain. The exponents of rnis school range from John Quincy Adams (1767-1848), the sixth U.S. president, old China hands like W. A. P. Martin 1 1827-3916) , H B. Morse (1855-1934), to the dean of modern Western scholarship on China, John King Fairbank. The most articulate theory of cultural conflict is, however, provided by Li Chien-nung whose unabashed plagiarism of £ H Pritchard's ideas on Si no-West em relations, and unscrupled application of clasw'caJ Chinese terms and phrase? out of nontext are only exceeded by his English translators' transgressions in t rulv rendering his widely-read book on modern Chinese history. That the confín» -ould have been a trade war or more particularly a war due to the rise and growth of the opium trade has received, if at all, a secondary emphasis in the scholarly literature The cultural conflict theory has evolved from instinctive prejudice — like Adams ' s condemnation of China ' s "arrogant and insupportable pretensions , " Martin " approbation of "the progressive spirit of the Western world," and disapprobation of "the conservatism of the extreme orient" to a deliberate distortion '-»f 'astory . In the view that -he Opium War was basically a punitive expedition against China's laggard politicn-socio-ethico-economic institutions, the followinq issue*have surfaced. the perception of "universal Kingship,' the "tributary system," stigmatizing of the foreigner, aversion to exotic products, "anti-commerciai " tradition, antipathy to foreign trade, and judicial eccentrici Ly . Closely -33related is the theory of "Sinocentrism" propounded by J. K. Fairbank and elaborated upon by Hark Mancali and John Cranmer-Byng. Much of the confusion about Chinese perception of "universal Kingship" is caused by the Chinese terms t'ien-tzu and t' ien-hsia, and the Confucian maxim of "T1 ien wu erh jih, min wu erh wang" ( ^- ^ ^- $ , 3f ^St ^. _J, ) . That the maxim has been grossly misunderstood is exemplified by its English transla4 tion, transforming wang, a prince or a chieftain among hundreds during Confucius ' s time, into "emporer" which was first instituted in China in 221 B.C. — some 258 years after Confucius' s death. This anachronism beclouds the true meaning of the maxim, which only metaphorically likens a wang ' s absolute lordship over his subjects to a single celestial body's shining upon the earth. Fairbank has interpreted the traditional Chinese political conception of a "Son of Heaven" as presiding over the "universe" (t' ien-hsia) , overlooking the important transformation of Chinese polity from a pre-221 B.C. mini-world confederation with t'ien-tzu as a tutelar leader of numerous autonomous, absolute rulers (wang) to a post-221 B.C. centralized, unitary empire reigned by a single absolute ruler who was styled t'ien-tzu as a matter of convention. Neither Fairbank nor any other scholar who thinks that imperial China was a Middle Kingdom (chung-kuo) rather than a typical pre-modern world empire has systematically examined and convincingly demonstrated the institutional differences between the two. Actually, Chung-kuo and its synonyms, Chung-t'u ( tr ¿. ) and Chung-yuan ( ir Ä?% ) as well as the term t' ien-hsia, were terms of the pre-imperial Chinese confederation, with Chung-kuo denoting the tutelar leader t'ien-tzu' s domain, and t' ien-hsia denoting all dominions within the confederation. After 221 B.C. , the two became synonymous. In the pre-221 B.C. context, the concept of Chung (center) was applied in the political sense. After 221 B.C. as Chùng-kuo became a misnomer, the concept of political "center" was totally lost. There was no trace of any established theory among Chinese political thinkers that China -34occupied the "center" of the universe and hence the name of Chung-kuo. Only under Buddhist influence did the Chinese become more direction-conscious in coining geo-political terms: calling India "Western Heaven" (hsi-t ' ien ^J J^ ) and China "Eastern Earth" (tung-t'u ^ _ì_ ) . "Tribute System" is more of a Fairbankian conception...