The Shock of the West — The Age of Colonization

Last time, we saw that the Asia of the 18th century stood at the center of the world’s wealth. China’s tea and silk, India’s cotton, Southeast Asia’s spices — the world’s silver flowed into Asia, and its prosperity seemed unshakable. Yet around that very same time, on the opposite side of the globe, one revolution had begun. Production by steam engine and machinery, that is, the Industrial Revolution. It was a weapon, a loom, and a ship. The Europe that seized this new power would, in the space of only about a hundred years, remake the balance of power in the world from its very roots. Asia, once the center of the world, is pushed toward the world’s margins — this episode is the story of that great transition.

The Industrial Revolution, an Invisible Weapon

The Industrial Revolution, which began in Europe in the latter half of the 18th century, was one of the great transitions that occur only a handful of times in human history. Until then, weaving cloth and spinning thread had all been the work of human hands. But the steam engine and machinery came to produce goods at dozens of times the speed of a person. In the production of cotton textiles in particular, Britain seized an astonishing power.

Here an ironic reversal takes place. It had once been India that was the textile factory of the world. The whole world had longed for Indian cotton cloth and paid for it in silver. But the British cotton cloth, produced in great quantity by machine, was cheap and overflowed into the markets in vast amounts. Before long, British-made cotton cloth flowed even into India’s markets, and India’s textile industry, unable to compete by hand, is said to have been gradually driven into a corner. Europe, which had been the side that ‘bought,’ had turned into the side that ‘sold.’

The Industrial Revolution was not only the power of goods. The same technology produced stronger cannon and faster steamships. Steamships made of iron could ascend rivers without relying on the wind, and they were armed with powerful guns. When the power of the economy and the power of the military were thus joined into one, the relationship between Europe and Asia tilted rapidly from equal trade toward one-sided domination.

The Opium War — The Door Opened by Gunboats

The event that most symbolically displayed this reversal of power was the Opium War between the Qing and Britain. Its origin lay in the imbalance of trade we saw last time. Britain bought Chinese tea in great quantity, and as payment for it, silver kept flowing into China. Seeking to reverse this flow, Britain brought into China opium produced in India. Opium ate away at the people, addiction spread, and now silver came to flow out of China.

The Qing government regarded this as a grave harm and set about cracking down. It banned the smuggling of opium and confiscated and disposed of the vast quantities brought in. Britain, opposing this, sent its forces in the name of protecting its own commerce, and in 1840 the Opium War began. Before the steamships and modern weapons born of the Industrial Revolution, the Qing army was helpless.

The result of the war was the Treaty of Nanking, concluded in 1842. By this treaty the Qing ceded Hong Kong Island to Britain and accepted the opening of five ports, including Shanghai. Further, the payment of an enormous indemnity and limits on its power to set tariffs freely were imposed upon it. This is regarded as the beginning of the so-called unequal treaties, which the Qing was made to conclude from a position not equal to that of foreign nations, and it is positioned as the opening of an era later spoken of as ‘China’s century of humiliation.’

The Colonization of India and the Partition of Southeast Asia

Whereas China had its door pried open by pressure from outside, India was drawn more deeply and for longer into colonial rule. That current is said to have begun surprisingly early. One of the things regarded as its starting point is the Battle of Plassey in 1757. This battle, in which the army of the British East India Company defeated the Nawab of Bengal and others, is spoken of as the beginning of India’s colonization.

What deserves attention is that the entity that came to bring India under its control was, at first, not a state itself but a single corporation, the East India Company. Seeking the profits of trade, the company held an army, bound itself to local rulers or fought against them, and gradually came to govern broad regions of India in substance. One could say that the fragmentation of the Mughal Empire we saw last time became the opening that allowed this penetration. India, which had wealth but lacked the power to unite as one, was little by little swallowed up by a company that had come from outside.

And then, after the Indian Rebellion that broke out in 1857, the following year, 1858, the long-continued Mughal Empire vanished in both name and substance, and India was placed under the direct rule of the British government. The land that had been the textile factory of the world was now repositioned as a supplier of raw materials for the home country’s industry and a market for its products. Around the same time, Southeast Asia too was partitioned by the great powers. Britain extended its rule to the Malay Peninsula and Burma, the Netherlands to the islands of Indonesia, and France to the Indochina that bound together Vietnam and Cambodia, until by the end of the 19th century much of Southeast Asia had been colored in on the map of colonies.

And so, in the 19th century, a Europe that had seized the Industrial Revolution subordinated Asia one after another by the power of economy and military. Asia, once the center of the world, was pushed toward the world’s margins in the space of only about a hundred years. Yet Qing China, which had reigned longest at the summit of the East Asian order, had not yet completely fallen. While exposed to pressure from outside, a great wavering had begun within it as well. Next time, we will trace the story of the sleeping lion, the Qing dynasty, meeting its twilight in the space between rebellion and reform.