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The Opium WarsBe careful what you wish forA time when the West clamoured for free trade with ChinaOct 29th 2011 | from the print edition Dude, where’s my rickshaw?
The Opium War: Drugs, Dreams, and the Making of China.By Julia Lovell. Picador; 480 pages; £25.Buy from Amazon.co.uk HISTORY, it turns out, is not just written by the winners. In documenting the historical crapshoot of the last 200 years, there have been few losers more assiduous than the Chinese. So, apart from adapting first Karl Marx and now Adam Smith, what have they been writing? Rather a lot, it seems. A topic of choice is the Opium Wars, those 19th-century skirmishes on the far-eastern fringe of the British empire. They are largely unknown by British schoolchildren, but successive Chinese governments have made sure the same cannot be said for their overachieving students in the Middle Kingdom. In this section
Julia Lovell’s excellent new book explores why this period of history is so emotionally important for the Chinese. Drawing on original sources in Chinese and English, she recounts the events of the period in fascinating detail. More importantly, she explains how China has turned the Opium Wars into a founding myth of its struggle for modernity. Ms Lovell weaves this story into the historical brocade of the early 19th century, when European demand for Chinese silk, tea and porcelain was insatiable. To save their silver, the British began to pay for these luxuries with opium from India, and many Chinese were soon addicted. The Chinese emperor tried to stop the trade, and hoped to slam the door completely on the outside world. Between 1839 and 1842, the British manufactured a nasty little war in which they smashed the Chinese military, and justified it all in the name of free trade. The Western powers, hungry for more markets, then prised China open. Westerners have good reason to be ashamed of their treatment of China in the 19th century. Yet Ms Lovell contends that they administered only the final blows to an empire that was already on the brink. That is hardly how it has been portrayed in China, however, where manipulating memory is an important tool of government propaganda. In the 1920s Chinese nationalists began spinning the arrival of Western gunboats as the cause of all the country’s problems—the start of China’s “century of humiliation”. Chairman Mao also blamed Western aggression at the time of the Opium Wars for China’s decline. And so emerged the narrative of China as victim that can still be heard today, even as the country casts off its loser status. Despite China’s growing strength, Ms Lovell sees worrying similarities between China’s weaknesses today and those of the Chinese empire of 1838, describing both as “an impressive but improbable high-wire act, unified by ambition, bluff, pomp and pragmatism”. She finds parallels too in how the West sees China. Foreign policy hawks in 1840 repeated loudly that violence against China “was honourable and inevitable until, in the popular imagination, it became so.” Demonisation of China today, especially in America, can sometimes seem almost as shrill. Westerners interested in why China behaves the way it does should read “The Opium War”. So should Chinese readers, who could gain a more balanced view of their own history than they receive in school. In 2006, for example, China’s government shut down a leading liberal weekly over an article that challenged national orthodoxy on the Opium Wars. The Communist Party’s propaganda bureau accused the author of attempting “to vindicate criminal acts by the imperialist powers in invading China”. An internet post by a nationalist suggested the author should be “drowned in rotten eggs and spit”. Ms Lovell reassures her readers that not all Chinese buy into tired government propaganda. But the Opium Wars are always there, lurking in the Chinese subconscious, perpetuating the tension between pride and victimhood. Tellingly, Ms Lovell quotes George Orwell: “Who controls the past controls the future. Who controls the present controls the past.” from the print edition | Books and arts
Be careful what you wish for Oct 30th 2011, 16:04
“The Opium Wars” has been prevailing in Taipei for at least three months not only because Taiwan’s eslite bookstore sees this as the monthly best choice but also the author Julia Lovell masters Chinese history as well as realizes Chinese sufferings in Chinese modern history (from 1840 until now).
Born in 1975, Julia Lovell, a young scholar in Cambridge University, has a Chinese name “Lan Shi-Lin”. I heard of her fame when I studied in Chang-Gung University at the age of 21. Furthermore, I read her writings “The Great Wall” three years ago, shocked by her description of concise Chinese history with fluent sentences from the time when the Great Wall was connected by Qin Shi-Huang-Di to 2005’s anti-Japan paradise in most of China’s cities. In addition, she is also well-known as a Chinese-English translator and her masterpiece with reputation like English edition of Chang Ai-Lin’s “Lust, Caution” (whose movie edition is directed by Taiwanese Lee Ann and whose song at background is singed by Sony’s superstar Leehom Wang).
The Opium War in 1840 is the turning point of what then Qing Emperor Dau-Guang and his officers in Beijing led the Asian No.1 power begin to wane and of how sadly the massive Chinese lived in agony in this declining years. From Tang Dynasty, opium started to be transported from India and be prescribed as the medical use. After English East-India Company(EEIC) graudally controlled India from 18th century, the deal of opium in China was expanding with Mexican silver dollars flowing to British. The fifth Qing Emperor Yong-Cheng once strictly banned any deal and transportation of opium. But after the death of the sixth Qing Emperor Qian-Long, this deal “recovered” with the more inducement to “enjoy” gaily life only to smoke away day and night.
The situation of the crime deal was getting worsen giving this eighth Qing Emperor Dau-Guang a headache. He discreetly viewed all the opinion of volunteers who researched opium concerned, choosing Lin Ze-Hsu as the special administrator to solve this problem. Lin showed Qing Empire’s sovereignty in public by means of suspending foreigner’s representative in Guangzhou, especially inclusive of EEIC’s Charles Elliot; then, Lin ordered all Chinese and foreigner business about opium to hand over opium concerned to Qing military. Meanwhile, Lin wrote letter to British Empress Victoria persuading her and the British Congress to say this behaviour by EEIC was illegal. Thinking this behaviour as the big crime with serious anger, Lin did away with the opium by adding water and limestone to this nuisance for capital’s Emperor. What Lin did finally made British Congress incline to war against Qing military rather than admit their international crime. Miserably, the war terminated shortly after British military occupied Zhenjiang and Grand Canal near Beijing. Emperor Dau-Guang was forced to sign the treaty of Nanjing, the start of Chinese tragedy in modern history.
Many people are always unstoppable to feel that both the cause of war and the result of failure are that this Manchuria Empire lacked of efficiency and well-ranked weapon. They only blame on ruler who did know nothing. However, the contention should be that the deal of opium should be classified as whether one of free trade or the international crime, just as the argument of that faraway British Congress about 150 years ago. Undeniably, many matters we bump into on the spot can be deal with due to whether you and I own the power. So I am indeed careful for what I wish for, hoping I could help China become the real power as the present Japan or the United States even if I seeningly talk about China Study alone.
Recommended 107 Report Permalink 說明： 內容簡介鑽研中國近代史的英國歷史學家和張愛玲著作《色．戒》翻譯專家Julia Lovell，以嶄新思維和角度探討「鴉片戰爭」對現代中國的意義。 這位將華文作品代入西方世界的英國作家，有一個中文名字藍詩玲。 鴉片戰爭對中國而言，就是一場讓中國淪為半殖民地半封建社會的始作俑者，更意味中國悲劇和國恥的開端，「鴉片戰爭」是西方陰謀的記印；而對許多英國人來說，它已經淡化為歷史的注腳。作者同時採用了英文和中文原始資料，試圖從中英兩國的視角來解讀鴉片戰爭。 企圖以公平客觀的角度重審這場中英兩國都難啟齒的戰爭，姑不論是否能重現戰爭的真相，藍詩玲倒是有幾個新發現：在19世紀，鴉片貿易並沒有現代人所認為的那麼罪大惡極，當時鴉片被當作一種社交性的藥劑，類似於酒在當今社會的用途；另外，有鑒於當時在中英兩國之間有很多貿易合作，如果沒有中國的合作夥伴，鴉片貿易本身就不會存在，有許多普通的中國人將這場戰爭視為發財的機會，如果沒有他們，英國人不會打贏這場戰爭。 在普遍中國認為英國發動這場鴉片戰爭是罪無可赦的聲浪中，這位崇尚中國文化也與中國文壇有良好關係的英國作家，重新翻閱鴉片戰爭始末的這部著作，引爆了正反兩方的討論。也許毋庸賦予太過沉重嚴苛的評論包袱，或可視為一場充滿了貪婪、機會主義和偽善味道的故事。
===== 筆者之前有一本Julia Lovell所寫的The Great Wall的中國簡史書籍，可作為大學歷史中國史概論教材。Julia教授的中國國學及歷史學造詣很深，是英國第一大中國文史權威，很高興筆者被廣大經濟學人的讀者在此稱讚了一番，班門弄斧了一些。此後筆者常常會也兼寫Books & Arts 的心得感想分享於討論區內。這裡感慨一次毒品就是禍國殃民，不可為也，再則我國主權的確立，林公抗議的悲壯，切莫再有被遺忘的忠臣才是。今年春節時的「大清總督于成龍」放映，今天緯來電視放映到了最後六小時，實在為另一忠國忠民棟樑課程，其克勤克儉足智不在話下，是他們扛起一擔國家發展重責的，也是萬民之福。 這本書的中文版是2016年出版的八旗文化：鴉片戰爭。毒品、夢想與中國建構，Julia Lovell的中文名字是藍詩玲，這本是潘勛翻譯的。香港2011年書展有作者親自解說： |
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