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How Did Foreign Imperialism Affect The Qing Dynasty

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Foreign imperialism impacted the Qing Dynasty significantly politically, economically, and socially, and also played a large role in the fall of the Qing Dynasty. The aftermath of the Opium Wars against Britain (and France) were arguably what forced China’s doors open to western influence, allowing foreign ideas to spread within China.

From a political standpoint, the first and second Opium Wars dramatically altered the international relations between Qing China and the European powers. The end of the Opium Wars saw the Treaty of Nanjing and Tianjin signed, forcing the traditionally isolationist and inward Qing China to allow European powers in. China was demanded to surrender Hong Kong, open a total of fifteen treaty ports and allow foreigners to travel freely in the interior of China. With the sudden introduction of international trade, Western culture began to bleed into China with the introduction of products like bread, coffee or matches, as well as ideas with books published on the foreign political ideas, social structures and economies. …show more content…

With the newly established foreign trade, tea and silk were in great demand with exports increasing over 500%. Farmers saw how much the tea and silk industry was flourishing and switched from agriculture, leading to the appreciation of the price of food. In contrast, China’s import of western machine-made fabrics rose from 730 thousand pounds before the Opium Wars, to an incredible 2.3 million pounds by 1864, putting the traditional and pricier hand-made textile industry out of business. Many workers from other industries such as boatmen had also lost their jobs. With the widespread of poverty from the soaring food prices and falling employment, the Chinese economy took a great hit from foreign

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The Chinese had already known about the existence of opium, but did not start smoking it until the habit of snaking tobacco in the Americas spread to China creating addictions that fueled the opium trade and infiltrated imperial troops (www.britannica.com). The current Chinese ruler at the time did try to restrained and limit the trade of the drug, but since the balance of trade for Europe, especially England, had shifted dramatically in their favor (since they became a great fan of silk, porcelain, and tea from China) they were not about to lose their valuable opium trade business (www.britannica.com ). England could not help, but engage in two opium wars with China (the former coming out as victor in both wars), the first led to a pause in prohibiting the drug and the second extinguished the idea of possibly banning it altogether because of that it took many years to pass before India and China came to an agreement to try to stop the sell of opium and even more for people's addictions to disappear (www.britannica.com ). Unfortunately, for China this caused a decline in the economy since the balance shifted from China exporting more than importing to the other way around, it also affected many of the Chinese inhabitants since many of them grew addicted to opium and like any other drug, it took its toll on the person and China's population. Europe, on the other

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