Talk:Second Opium War

Peabody Essex Museum Edit-a-thon Spring 2014

(1 image added)

US involvment

Why isnt the US listed in the campaign box? Just after the wars beginning in 1856, the US Navy warships landed 250-300 sailors and marines and destroyed 4 Chinese forts, aswell as defeated an assault by a 3000 man strong Chinese army. --Aj4444 (talk) 02:43, 27 July 2009 (UTC)

you have an emotional nationalism and that can distort things. It's hard for people to accept that the US was insignificant in the 19th century. Putting the treaty on Wangxia on a par with European activities is silly, particularly as the US promised not to sell opium, not to appropriate land and dropped its request to meet with the Emperor. What the US asked for would be called 'Most Favored Nation" status today - that US merchants be treated the same as everyone else. Here's a link to documents relate dto the Treaty: http://web.jjay.cuny.edu/~jobrien/reference/ob51.html —Preceding unsigned comment added by Gaintes (talk • contribs) 21:38, 3 May 2008 (UTC)

why would we want to be involved?70.90.87.73 (talk) 14:36, 18 August 2011 (UTC)

coolies

Permitting Chinese to work overseas is nothing more than the export of Chinese laborers to colonies. Around 1860, a large number of Chinese were recruited as "contractual workers". In reality, these Chinese, labeled as "coolies" were taken to America and Southeastern Asia. Their destiny was as miserable as the black slaves from Africa.

Your point being? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 86.184.116.38 (talk) 23:21, 19 April 2010 (UTC)

And you hope to achieve _________ by saying "Your point being?" 173.183.79.81 (talk) 08:50, 21 March 2011 (UTC)

USS Levant

I removed "American warships, including Levant, bombed Guangzhou. The people in Guangzhou and soldiers launched a resistance against the invaders and forced them to retreat from Humen." 1) The Levant's article says they were fired on, however doesn't mention the ship taking part on the bombardment of Guanhzhou. 2)The next paragraph indicates that the US and Russia sent no military aid, meaning their militaries didn't take part and contradicting this statement. 3) This statement is completely unsourced. 70.168.32.250 13:01, 12 August 2006 (UTC)

Opium Legal or Not?

The article on the Treaty of Nanking apparently says that the treaty legalized the opium trade in China, but this article on the Second Opium War says that the Arrow was boarded partly because it was suspected of opium smuggling. Did the legal status of opium trading change between the first and second war? I'm doing a report on this and the Boxer Rebellion for school. Non-User 02:27, 04 April 2005

some sort of discussion

Oh shut the >.< up you, I grew up in a British Colony and british try to brain-washed us all the time, tell us that we are less worthy and they are like survior to us, blah blah blah. Oh yea, then encourage us to be like Banana and take out mother tounge away. So tell me what exactly the different of brain-washed by Britsh or communist??? Personally I don't appreciate your opinion because before like the last two decade of 1997, Non-British people in Hong Kong are simply nothing. 142.161.94.69 04:29, 31 January 2006 (UTC)

No, I am not having problem with the article, the article is actually pretty good. I just dont like what 142.161.94.69 said above about the BS of like China have no free speech and stuff. To us, the lost of the opium war is very degrading and to make thing even worse is those British goverment of colonies said that the British are one the ones who set the people of the colonies free and then putting them into melting pot and strip, bash those people's original indentites. .....That why I was furious and type word that is innappropiate word I here, I am sorry. I will put that potty word away and put a >.< face instead. 142.161.94.69 23:39, 31 January 2006 (UTC)

--Relax, the fact of the matter is that white people tried to get the Chinese addicted to drugs so they could make money. Don't freak out because you can't handle it that the British were brutal monsters in the past. Right-wingers, god it's not enough that your politics of selfishness dominate our dying world, you want to seem like angels too. Give me a break. (Comment left by 24.193.227.161)

Fair Trade??? So why today, isn't Colombia allowed to export all the cocaine it wants, and Afghanistan all the heroin it wants. Again, it's going to take some research to find it, but even the British at the time didn't believe what they were doing was right; there was an impassioned debate in Parliament against the opium trade and an escalation into war. If you really can't face the fact about the brutality of the Western powers, maybe it would be easier on your soul if you saw it as a conflict between capitalists and progressive Liberals in which the capitalists won; though I doubt that that would fit into a right-wing world view either.Cetot 07:30, 9 September 2005 (UTC)

--So why do you think European countries should be allowed to dictate to China what China should allow or disallow to trade? As other articles had stated, Europeans wanted Chinese products but China had little need for European products. How is this unfair trade?

It may seem unfair to the Europeans because they are only eager people wanting more land and resources not avaiable to them. They want people to be converted to christians like them so as to be controlled like the sheeps they are. Today we have a result of all this.

Why do you think you can dictate to a country what their immigration and emigration policies should be? Maybe the United States should allow Mexico to write our immigration policy. And speaking of oppression, look at your own history in the mid 1800s.

Just face it, it was the arrogance of European countries brought about by their superior technology which gave them the license to destroy the native civilizations throughout the Americas, enslave the Africans, colonize India and southeast Asia, and force open doors in East Asia. Whether or not this was good or bad is debateable. Sour pickle 23:14, 2 August 2005 (UTC)

China is a country of tradiotional spirit and nothing and nobody, be it the British, the Japanese the American... can crush that. The more you push us around, the more we rise up against it, because that it the true Chinese spirit. No political parties or ideologies are perfect in the world, becuase perfection doesn't yet exist. But we are striving fornear perfection, and one day we're gonna overtake all of the other countries in the world beca use we are the BEST. We work hard and are ever so determined to right the wrongs all the other countries have done to us. So by next century, Japan, prepare to kiss our backside and America, prepare to beg for forgivness and Britain, you'll regret the Opium War. China is a great nation, the Western countries are just jealous and scared, but let me tell you this, we WILL dominate the world and be the BEST! We will NOT let you push us around any longer, and we will stand for what we believe in!!! Missbrainy.

And what is it you 'believe in' exactly? By the tone of your contribution i would suggest arrogance, xenophobia verging on racism and the pursuit of long-term grudges created by your massive inferiority complex. However, please feel free to enlighten me on these 'beliefs'. I await your response with interest.Samgb 09:24, 15 June 2006 (UTC)

-For real. Missbrainy, how are you any different than the Europeans in your attitude? You're not. You will dominate the world and be the best? For some reason I feel that the Europeans felt the exact same way. Please leave your racism at home, if you must have it at all.

Small Armies?

OKay, I'm not Chinese but I'm really interested in the size of the Chinese Imperial Army. I mean, why only 10k-20k troops? From what I learned, the Chinese used to field armies by the hundreds of thousands. SO why the very few numbers? & for God's sake, hadn't any of Qing generals read The Art of War? Sorry, this just baffles me for sometime. The approaches to the capital & the capital only guarded by 10k troops....Rad vsovereign 11:31, 17 July 2007 (UTC)

well, the qing army at the time was extremely depleted. after fighting the first opium wars, the taiping rebellion, and corruption. there was not much that the army could do. sometimes, the non-banner troops were not counted, only Manchus could become banner, regular Han (the vast majority of people in china)could not. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 75.68.228.120 (talk) 19:52, 13 January 2008 (UTC)

China was never able to field an army larger than 50k. Logistically speaking it was impossible to feed 50k men with food transported by horse/men drawn wagons. A single 100k+ army as listed in the chinese classics is an exaggeration no doubt. More likely, there were several 30K armies operating separately. One should also note that Chinese mobilization was a snail crwawl. There were no railraods and the roads were not well maintained, the troops lacked any discipline whatsoever and by western standards were nothing more than a sick man. By modern standards the chinese imperial army is in fact a corrupt and expensive circus. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 202.40.202.126 (talk) 12:49, 8 October 2009 (UTC)

And maybe you can keep your European bigotry right where you come from. If you ever bothered to research the entire history of China, you would have noticed they fielded armies amounting into the millions, but I presume you'll dismiss it all as false and Chinese Communist propaganda with your bullshit American imperialist fallacies. By modern standards, the US army (that's right, your country), is a joke. They fail against random militants armed with AK-47 and take 10 years, trillions of dollars, tens of thousands of casualties and many more civilian casualties to kill one single militant: Osama Bin Laden. Keep your biased views right where you come from. The world has had enough of the Western lies already. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 203.213.42.184 (talk) 05:29, 8 May 2011 (UTC)

WP:MILHIST Assessment

A nice, informative article. Nice section breaks, and I like that it includes pictures, and that fancy HongKong banner. Overall, it is still a bit short, particularly in the introduction. The introduction, to my mind, needs to summarize the entire article. LordAmeth 12:34, 11 September 2006 (UTC)

treaty of Nanjing (Nanking)

opium was specifically never mentioned in the treaty, certainly not legalised it was in the treaty of tianjin.....would delve into my history books to give you the details, but.....

regards

Elgin and looting

Here is a passage I removed from the article:

Elgin was acutely sensitive to the charge of looting , as it was his own father, Thomas Bruce (1776–1841), who, from 1799 to 1803, removed from the Acropolis in Greece what are now known as the Elgin Marbles to Britain, where they remain to this day, a subject of rancor between the Greek and British governments.

This paragraph is unsourced, misleading and (in its present state) irrelevant. The subject of looting at the Summer Palaces is interesting and has been studied. James Hevia's book, English Lessons, for instance, gives detailed descriptions of how armies of the British Empire (including that involved in the Second Opium War) conducted looting operations in a systematic, institutionalised manner. It makes no sense to talk of Lord Elgin being acutely sensitive to the charge of looting since it was his responsibility to oversee such operations. It is quite unlikely that he felt any sort of remorse for his father's actions in Greece. Pinkville (talk) 19:49, 1 October 2009 (UTC)

Background

In the Background section, it says "The Qing Dynasty court rejected the demands from Britain, France, and the US." However, only British demands were mentioned. What were the French and American demands? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 96.244.13.112 (talk) 23:37, 8 October 2009 (UTC)

Amur

Amur Annexation is listed as a territorial change but Russia wasn't part of this war. Maybe the war revealed China's weakness to Russia, but this seems to be an independent issue from the war and was conducted separately from it. So I've removed it as a territorial change in the infobox. Spellcast (talk) 09:21, 13 July 2011 (UTC)

Victor Hugo letter regarding looting of Summer Palace?

An anonymous editor wrote in the article (I reverted the change since content questions don't belong in the article itself):

>>> I don't see any comment about Victor Hugo's public letter on the topic of Robbery and Plunder of Summer Palace? Is it too hard to admit yet today? <<<

If anyone knows of this or has time to research it, that may prove useful. Facts707 (talk) 14:02, 4 August 2011 (UTC)

Article Name

Given the discussion at Talk:First Opium War, worth linking on this page's talk space that "Second Opium War" is actually (and increasingly) the preferred term used to discuss this conflict, despite the *Arrow* War having been preferred in the 19th century. — LlywelynII 13:49, 25 January 2014 (UTC)

... allegedly murdered ...

"Half were allegedly murdered by the Chinese in a fashion ..." This implies that the murder is uncertain (which it is not - see entries for Parkes and Loch (and probably several original sources)).

I suggest to rephrase: "Half were murdered by the Chinese, allegedly in a fashion ..."

A user — Preceding unsigned comment added by 193.170.196.53 (talk) 16:12, 27 January 2014 (UTC)

"Background"

I've just deleted this part as it was exactly repeating the "outbreak" part that just follow. I thought it was better to keep the text included in a broader structure. Regards, KaptainIgloo (talk) 08:46, 22 April 2014 (UTC) KaptainIgloo