Reading Notes

The Search for Modern China by Jonathan D. Spence

China in the mid 1700s. Mid to Late Qing. Western trade pressure before the Opium War. (around page 120)

"Coolie laborers also began to take opium, either by smoking it or by licking tiny pellets of the drug, to overcome the drudgery and pain of hauling huge loads day after day. (Shrewd yet ruthless employers, observing that the coolies could carry heavier loads if they were under the influence of opium, even made the drug available to their workers.)"

Greed at its finest. Everyone else can go to hell if I stand to profit. Narrow sight. It was like the American slave owners feeding cocaine to the African slaves, then reversing their position when hey became fearful of slave violence.

"Why did the Chinese of the mid- and late Qing begin to smoke so much opium? Since there is no contemporary Chinese literature on this, we can only speculate; but we know that the taking of opium derivatives has the effect of slowing down and blurring the world around one, of making time stretch and fade, of shifting complex or painful realities to an apparently infinite distance. Chinese documents of the time suggest that opium appealed initially to groups confronting boredom or stress. Eunuchs caught in the ritualized web of court protocol smoked opium, as did some of the Manchu court officials, who often had sinecures of virtually pointless jobs in the palace bureaucracy. Women in wealthy households, deprived of the opportunities for education and forbidden to travel outside the walls of their homes, smoked opium. Secretaries in the harried magistrates' offices smoked, as did merchants preparing for business deals and students preparing for - and even taking - the state examinations. Soldiers on their way into combat against groups of rural rebels smoked."

Nothing has changed. The same niches in society still exist, and drugs still fill that void.

"In 1754, when an English sailor was killed by a Frenchman in Canton, Qing officials showed their determination to intervene in cases occurring within their jurisdiction even when no Chinese were involved. All trade with France was stopped until the French officers yielded up the killer. Ironically, the killer was shortly thereafter released because the emperor Qianlong, to celebrate the twentieth year of his reign and the Qing victories in the Zunghar wars, had ordered a general amnesty for all convicted criminals."

LOL. Squabbling over who makes the decisions, without caring about the outcome. You only want the ball because I have it. Oh yeah? Prove it. Here. Hey man, I don't want your stupid ball.

"A great many punishments could be commuted for cash, depending on the severity of the offense: 1/2 tael of silver for twenty blows with the bamboo, 3 taels for sixty blows, 10 taels for one-and-a-half year's exile, 720 taels for perpetual banishment, and 1,299 taels and up for strangulation or beheading. Although such commutations were based on sliding scales according to an individual's official rank or assumed ability to pay, the system clearly benefited the wealthy, to whom such sums were comparatively trivial. For a poor peasant or urban worker they might constitute several weeks or even years of income. "

I never got how bail is an acceptable way to get out of jail time in a democratic society. How is it justice that the wealthy can pay a fee to avoid serving penance? I guess it is very appropriate justice for a capitalist society, though, where poverty itself is a crime.

"Furthermore those scholars who had passed the lower-level-Confucian examinations were exempt from corporal punishment and, hence, escaped the fearsome beatings that often forced confessions from terrified commoners."

Scholars exempt from corporal punishment is a huge inequality! The laborer who depends on his physical health to earn his bread gets is punished with a debilitating beating that may render his body unable to work for the rest of his life. An official who doesn't need to exert physical labor gets off with a slap on the wrist.

A commoner doesn't dare contest an official! Even if they are both found equally guilty, the commoner's punishment may ruin his life, while the official's penalty is soon forgotten. This kind of unequal law is a petri dish for vile, corrupt extortive practices of the upper class over the lower.

George Macartney  1737-1806 Diplomat sent to China to convince Qing government to open trade

"The human mind is of a soaring nature and having once gained the lower steps of the accent, struggles incessantly against every difficulty to reach the highest."

The Qing thought by barring him from returning to Britain by ship the way he came, it would demoralize him and thwart his nation's efforts. But instead, the journey by land revealed to the foreigner the declining condition of the civilization- and reaffirmed his conviction trade would come - that China was futilely resisting an eventual turn in the tide.

"Macartney had no counterforce to employ. He could only leave China by the designated land route to Canton, taking as many notes about the country as he could along the way and jotting in his journal his personal view that this awesome-appearing country had grave internal weaknesses that threatened to destroy it."

By not being flexible, by forcing their political competitors into a corner... China's foreign policy mounted Western pressure against it. And China's stubbornness was not matched by its nation's declining might. It could not withstand the high-pressure channels bursting holes to get in.

If China had let the West trade its baubles and trinkets... established proper channels of trade - perhaps the opium smuggling could have been mitigated, better controlled. Then again, if China had opened its trade, perhaps history would be telling the story of how that mistake made it even easier for opium to find its way to China - who knows?

If the Qing had let Macartney sail away, perhaps he would not have seen the details of the Chinese civilization that led him to believe the empire was decaying and would cave to the West.

You can't force people into a corner. You have to give them room, a way out that saves face... and then, let them destroy themselves with their own laziness and greed and stupidity. If you are too rigid, then you will be battered down. Every time they throw their weight upon you, you will bear the burden. If you give a little, they will stumble over their own imbalance and tumble to your feet.

"By dint of tenacity and a certain amount of bribery, Flint, sailing first to Ningbo and then to Tianjin in a small 70-ton vessel, the Success, was able to have his complaints carried to Peking. The emperor initially seemed to show flexibility, and agreed to send a commission of investigation to the south. But after the Success, sailing back to Canton, was lost at sea with all hands except for Flint (he had traveled south independently), the emperor changed his mind."

Y'all don't seem to be understanding the concept of 'what I say goes'. Here, let me demonstrate for you. I downfeel-likeit, okay? And now you go to jail.

"Flint was arrested and imprisoned for three years for breaking Qing regulations against sailing to northern ports, for improperly presenting petitions, and for having learned Chinese."

LOL. That last kicker had to be added, just to throw mud in the face - arrested for learning our language, you barbarian!