The advocates and motives of the Opium Wars

[Ian_Lee]

I don't think it is wise to forever harp on the Opium War.

Such harping nurtures a victimized mentality which leads to blaming all of China's current problems on the foreign powers in particular US (which ironically US was the country that inflicted least damage during that period).

Look forward.

[Quest]

I don't think it is wise to forever harp on the Opium War.

Such harping nurtures a victimized mentality which leads to blaming all of China's current problems on the foreign powers in particular US (which ironically US was the country that inflicted least damage during that period).

Look forward.

Who is blaming all of China's current problems on the US for what the US did during the opium war period?

[Ian_Lee]

Quest:

Go visit all those Mainland-based "patriotic" forum. They almost blame US for everything including their diaherra.

When did I write US had a role in the Opium War?

I merely wrote that such victimized mentality caused by the Opium War leads to a blaming foreign power mentality.

[Guest Mat]

Moderation was a problem during the Opium Wars.

R,

M.

[XiangYu]

people responsible for the opium war is the british people. THe chinese used opium as medicine, and what did the british people do to it? made it into drugs and sold it to the chinese. Because of the chinese isolation, the british (more like the europeans) can't make money off china, so they decided to do business with china the cheap way.

[Sima Old Bandit]

 

Britain did not intend to permanently keep Hong Kong in the first place. Otherwise why would London sign a 99-year lease on New Territories in 1898?

The initial areas were taken in perpetuity. The NT areas were on a lease for 99 years as the governor at the time felt that was as good as forever.  99 years is a standard lease even today in some London properties.  They probably didn't want to fight a war if they could avoid it as the need was immediate for the British and there was chinese opposition.  But were they to do so, they would have got it in perpetuity if they knew.  Just like when they grabbed the original hk islands, had they asked for more in one fell swoop they would it have gotten them in perpetuity.

 

 

May I remind you that China should have retaken HK a long time ago since Beijing deemed those unequal treaties as null and void.

 

Regardless of whether they were signed off in perpetuity, China could take them back or buy them back because it is hard for Britain to resist a strong China. The one thing about Britain by this point is that they had some decency.  It's like how India won their independence peacefully - if it was China, that would not have gone the way it did, not without a fight.

 

Hong Kong's prosperity is now dependent on access to the chinese market. If China closes that it can exist but is no longer the golden egg laying goose. Should she turn off water and electricity and combine that with a blockade or deny food exports, Hong Kong is finished in days.  Handing it back gracefully was the logical thing, had keeping it been an option, they would not have given it back.

 

If China is so committed to taking back Taiwan, Hong Kong and Macau would not be spared.  In fact they declared the treaty for Macau void and that was signed in perpetuity.  They just let the status quo remain and said they would deal with it at an appropriate time.  As it happened Portugal relinquished her overseas territories and entered talks with China.

 

Re: Sun Yat Sen. China was a mess at that point.  That doesn't justify anything though. China had golden ages of stability before Britain was even developed.