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How the Opium Wars Shaped China's Approach to Trump's Trade Threats · Trumponomics

• 0:02
  Speaker 1: We're used to hearing US China economic relations discussed in
• 0:06
  Speaker 1: the context of the latest presidential tweet or a summary
• 0:11
  Speaker 1: of Donald Trump's calls with President she Jin Pen. At
• 0:15
  Speaker 1: the most a broader historical reference might hearken back to
• 0:19
  Speaker 1: President Obama or on a good day, China's opening to
• 0:23
  Speaker 1: the West in the late seventies. What if that doesn't
• 0:27
  Speaker 1: go remotely broad enough. What lessons to the eighteenth and
• 0:32
  Speaker 1: nineteen centuries hold for trade relations between China and the West.
• 0:37
  Speaker 1: Can we into it from the past, whether we're in
• 0:41
  Speaker 1: a trade skirmish or a trade war. And by the way,
• 0:45
  Speaker 1: back in the day, a trade war really was a war.
• 0:59
  Speaker 1: Welcome to bench of a show about the global economy.
• 1:02
  Speaker 1: I'm Daniel Moss, economics writer and editor at Bloomberg Opinion
• 1:07
  Speaker 1: in New York, and I'm scot landman and economics editor
• 1:11
  Speaker 1: with Bloomberg News in Washington. When we talk about China
• 1:15
  Speaker 1: and quote unquote the West, we need to remember that
• 1:19
  Speaker 1: the West, it's mostly a proxy for Great Britain, the
• 1:24
  Speaker 1: pre industrial power of that time. The US was certainly
• 1:28
  Speaker 1: on the scene, but very much in a supporting role.
• 1:33
  Speaker 1: Now that's reversed. But how much has really changed. Reading
• 1:38
  Speaker 1: Stephen Platt's newly published history of the Opium Wars, I'm
• 1:42
  Speaker 1: struck by how similar some of the economic undercurrents are
• 1:47
  Speaker 1: to today. A couple of things that jump out, at
• 1:50
  Speaker 1: least at the start of the book. China restricts but
• 1:53
  Speaker 1: nevertheless prospers from trade, and there's a foreign merchant class
• 1:58
  Speaker 1: almost begging Western governments, please don't have feigned China. And
• 2:04
  Speaker 1: we're fortunate to have the author with us on Benchmark.
• 2:08
  Speaker 1: Stephen Platt is a professor of Chinese history at the
• 2:11
  Speaker 1: University of Massachusetts at Amherst. The full name of his
• 2:15
  Speaker 1: book is Imperial Twilight, the Opium War and the End
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  Speaker 1: of China's Last Golden Age. Steve, Welcome to Benchmark, and
• 2:23
  Speaker 1: congratulations on the book. Thank you. It's great to be here.
• 2:26
  Speaker 1: Thanks for having me so in the broad sweep of history.
• 2:31
  Speaker 1: How much of the back and forth between the US
• 2:34
  Speaker 1: and China resonates with you and why it resonates deeply?
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  Speaker 1: And I think one of the most important things is
• 2:41
  Speaker 1: to think about how it resonates in the Chinese context.
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  Speaker 1: I think with all this talk of trade war today
• 2:48
  Speaker 1: that has a particular meaning for Americans, but um in China.
• 2:52
  Speaker 1: I mean China's modern relations with the West began with
• 2:57
  Speaker 1: absolutely literal trade war, the Opium War. That this is
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  Speaker 1: seen as the opening of the modern age, the forcing
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  Speaker 1: open of Chinese ports um. And for that reason, I
• 3:06
  Speaker 1: think issues of trade negotiating, issues of trade war tapped
• 3:10
  Speaker 1: into far deeper nationalist responses in China than they do
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  Speaker 1: in the United States. Right now, what were the opium walls?
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  Speaker 1: What do they have to do with trite great question, um, Well,
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  Speaker 1: from one perspective, I mean the reason that they are
• 3:24
  Speaker 1: called the opium wars, and it's really the first one
• 3:26
  Speaker 1: from eight forty two that centers on opium UM. The
• 3:30
  Speaker 1: war was provoked by a Chinese crackdown on British drug
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  Speaker 1: dealers UM who had been smuggling opium which was produced
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  Speaker 1: in Britain's colony in India, and they were carrying it
• 3:42
  Speaker 1: to the Chinese coast and selling it there. And it
• 3:45
  Speaker 1: was in response to this crackdown that Britain ultimately went
• 3:48
  Speaker 1: to war. So the critics of it called it the
• 3:49
  Speaker 1: opium War UM. They charged that Britain was trying to
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  Speaker 1: expand the market for drug dealers. Those who were in
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  Speaker 1: favor of the war and these were the champions of it.
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  Speaker 1: They denied that had anything particular to do with opium,
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  Speaker 1: and as they saw it, this was a way of
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  Speaker 1: opening China to foreign trade, UM, to free trade, ironically,
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  Speaker 1: um every trade at the point of a gun. Up
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  Speaker 1: until that point, China had restricted Western trade to the
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  Speaker 1: one single city of Kenton down in the south, and
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  Speaker 1: just a little tiny compound outside of the city was
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  Speaker 1: the only place where the British and Americans could trade.
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  Speaker 1: The Opium War forced open five cities along China's coast
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  Speaker 1: to foreign trade, again in hopes that the British would
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  Speaker 1: be able to and you know, here's where we get
• 4:28
  Speaker 1: modern residences, and hopes that the British would be able
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  Speaker 1: to address their longstanding trade imbalance with China by getting
• 4:34
  Speaker 1: China to buy more British goods UM in these other cities.
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  Speaker 1: What happens, though, is in and this is why we
• 4:40
  Speaker 1: refer to Opium War's plural um, that this gets repeated
• 4:44
  Speaker 1: over and over. Um. There's another one by Britain, there's
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  Speaker 1: the other by France and other countries. Um. And these wars,
• 4:50
  Speaker 1: which are trade wars, each one results in the opening
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  Speaker 1: of more and more and more Chinese ports to foreign trade, Um.
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  Speaker 1: And this aim that if they could just get these
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  Speaker 1: ports opened, that the Chinese would buy all kinds of
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  Speaker 1: British and American goods. Um. The you know, this never
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  Speaker 1: really comes true, so that the war becomes a service
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  Speaker 1: self fulfilling prophecy and repeats itself over and over. Now, Steve,
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  Speaker 1: I know you're a historian and you've intensively studied what
• 5:18
  Speaker 1: happened in the Opium Wars in the nineteenth century. But
• 5:22
  Speaker 1: history is important for understanding our world today. And I'm
• 5:27
  Speaker 1: wondering if you substitute the US for the UK, how
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  Speaker 1: would you compare the hand that America has today versus
• 5:36
  Speaker 1: what was held by Britain and the Western Powers back
• 5:40
  Speaker 1: in the eighteen hundreds. Oh, we have a much stronger
• 5:43
  Speaker 1: hand now. Um. The trade was far far more limited
• 5:48
  Speaker 1: in the eighteenth than early nineteenth centuries. Back then, the
• 5:53
  Speaker 1: trade was extremely important for both sides. Um. Great Britain
• 5:56
  Speaker 1: got all of its tea from China. That was the
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  Speaker 1: only place in the world they could buy it. And
• 6:01
  Speaker 1: largely they were selling cotton goods and they were carrying
• 6:04
  Speaker 1: silver to pay for it. Um. China desperately needed that silver.
• 6:07
  Speaker 1: It had a growing population, and the silver inflow from
• 6:10
  Speaker 1: Britain helped to from Britain and America helped to stabilize
• 6:14
  Speaker 1: the economy. Back then, the Emperor of China could sort
• 6:17
  Speaker 1: of posture and imagine that China didn't really need foreign
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  Speaker 1: trade and confusion. Scholars were loath to admit that foreign
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  Speaker 1: trade was actually necessary for China. Um. They like to
• 6:27
  Speaker 1: talk about how easy it would be to shut it
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  Speaker 1: down and just you know, stop wasting Chinese money on
• 6:32
  Speaker 1: foreign goods. Today, the U S and China are so
• 6:35
  Speaker 1: deeply integrated that it's impossible to draw the line exactly
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  Speaker 1: where where US trade gives off it or where is
• 6:42
  Speaker 1: our US profits leave off in Chinese profits pick up.
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  Speaker 1: You could draw battle lines in the nineteenth century that
• 6:48
  Speaker 1: you can't draw now. But the basic impulse is still there.
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  Speaker 1: It's um this, I mean, the impulse behind the Opium
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  Speaker 1: War is the same impulse we have now in the US.
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  Speaker 1: This this resentment about Chinese trade practices, about China dictating
• 7:01
  Speaker 1: trade on its own terms, about the imbalance, about the
• 7:04
  Speaker 1: Chinese not buying enough American goods. Um. So the complaints
• 7:08
  Speaker 1: have always been there. Um. Back then they addressed to
• 7:12
  Speaker 1: trade imbalanced by by bringing in opium, which turned out
• 7:14
  Speaker 1: to be the one thing that the Chinese would buy
• 7:16
  Speaker 1: in unlimited amounts. Today, I think the hand of the
• 7:20
  Speaker 1: United States is much stronger visa of each China because
• 7:23
  Speaker 1: China is well aware of how necessary American trade is
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  Speaker 1: for it, and there's there's no way to pretend that
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  Speaker 1: they could simply do without US trade. Where the two
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  Speaker 1: largest economies in the world, and we're deeply intertwined, So
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  Speaker 1: in a certain sense, it's far riskier to both sides
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  Speaker 1: to be going down the road of trade war threats. Um.
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  Speaker 1: It's you know, it's it's certainly not going to turn
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  Speaker 1: into a literal war like the Opium War did. Um.
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  Speaker 1: But at the same time, it seems impossible to pick
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  Speaker 1: out some way to harm or gain advantage from the
• 7:51
  Speaker 1: other side without harming yourself. Steve, I haven't read all
• 7:55
  Speaker 1: of the book, but in the opening chapters several things
• 7:58
  Speaker 1: jump out at me. You portray a China in the
• 8:02
  Speaker 1: late seventeenth and early eighteenth century that benefited enormously from
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  Speaker 1: trade with the West, yet imposed tight restrictions that the
• 8:12
  Speaker 1: Western merchants chafed under. And yet and yet those Western
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  Speaker 1: merchants were absolutely paranoid that their home governments would somehow
• 8:24
  Speaker 1: annoy the Chinese and that window into trade would be
• 8:28
  Speaker 1: shut off once again. How does that resonate today? Well,
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  Speaker 1: back then, I mean, one of the things that was
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  Speaker 1: so remarkable about the Opium War is that there were
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  Speaker 1: a period of at least eighty years there were Britain
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  Speaker 1: already had a military advantage over China and could have
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  Speaker 1: gone to war over markets if it had desired to,
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  Speaker 1: but they didn't. And part of this was the perception
• 8:52
  Speaker 1: of China's strength. In the late eighteenth century. China was
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  Speaker 1: seen as just impossibly unified, prosperous. It was the largest
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  Speaker 1: empire in the world. It had roughly a third of
• 9:02
  Speaker 1: the world's population lived in China then, and the view
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  Speaker 1: of Americans and British in the late eighteen third ninete
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  Speaker 1: centuries was that um basically, if they were to cause
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  Speaker 1: any trouble at all in China, that the emperor could
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  Speaker 1: just wave his hand and shut them out of the
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  Speaker 1: China trade forever, and they would lose all of their
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  Speaker 1: access to tea. Um. They would lose this you know, really,
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  Speaker 1: I mean for the British Empire is really the lifeblood
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  Speaker 1: of the empire it kept in India afloat. So the
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  Speaker 1: merchants themselves were quite terrified of trying to change anything
• 9:33
  Speaker 1: in China because again this this view of Chinese power.
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  Speaker 1: As China began to slide, however, and in the early
• 9:41
  Speaker 1: nineteenth century, China was weakened by internal forces that again
• 9:46
  Speaker 1: resonate a lot today. I mean, the big ones were overpopulation, um,
• 9:51
  Speaker 1: official corruption, um, sectarian descent. Theyre a large uprising of
• 9:56
  Speaker 1: the white lotus sect. These weakn to China to a
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  Speaker 1: point where the Opium War suddenly seemed to be possible.
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  Speaker 1: The residence today, I think is again we're always served
• 10:06
  Speaker 1: shifting back and forth between and and you know, if
• 10:09
  Speaker 1: you if you follow the China watchers, either China is
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  Speaker 1: this unstoppable juggernaut that's destined to rule the world and
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  Speaker 1: we better behave ourselves and watch out, or it's viewed
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  Speaker 1: as being on the verge of collapse because of all
• 10:20
  Speaker 1: of its internal problems and internal contradictions. And obviously both
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  Speaker 1: of these can be somewhat true at the same time.
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  Speaker 1: And the view from the early nineteenth century is that
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  Speaker 1: even at a time when China seemed immensely powerful um,
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  Speaker 1: there were huge problems within its society, which ultimately the
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  Speaker 1: British were able to take advantage of. So was the
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  Speaker 1: paranoia among business people that foreign governments would antagonize China,
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  Speaker 1: justified in chapter three side a prominent director of the
• 10:48
  Speaker 1: East India Company as saying that it was quote most
• 10:51
  Speaker 1: advisable to let the government of China alone. Yeah, things
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  Speaker 1: generally worked best in that era when relations between China
• 11:01
  Speaker 1: and the West were left to businessmen, the merchants trading
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  Speaker 1: with each other. That the actual merchants of Great Britain
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  Speaker 1: and America and the Chinese merchants of Canton who traded
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  Speaker 1: with them had very friendly relations for the most part.
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  Speaker 1: That this was actually a very peaceful meeting of civilizations.
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  Speaker 1: There wasn't this great sort of clash of civilizations that
• 11:21
  Speaker 1: we think about between China and the West. And when
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  Speaker 1: trade was in their hands it went quite smoothly. The
• 11:28
  Speaker 1: problems come when when Britain tries to send diplomats over
• 11:31
  Speaker 1: to China to meet with the with the emperor and
• 11:34
  Speaker 1: then they get asked to cow tow, which is this
• 11:37
  Speaker 1: sort of ceremony of kneeling nine times and banging your
• 11:40
  Speaker 1: head on the ground um and the British would refuse
• 11:42
  Speaker 1: to do that, and then tensions would arise from that.
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  Speaker 1: But whenever problems arose, generally if the government, if the
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  Speaker 1: government's in Beijing and London backed off and left things
• 11:53
  Speaker 1: to the merchants of Canton, they would right themselves again.
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  Speaker 1: So I mean, certainly in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries
• 11:59
  Speaker 1: up to the Opium War, um, the legitimate trade this
• 12:02
  Speaker 1: I'm not talking about the smuggling trade here, but the
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  Speaker 1: legitimate trade was a real stabilizing force in international affairs.
• 12:08
  Speaker 1: Briefly described for Steve what the East India Company actually
• 12:13
  Speaker 1: was and in its heyday it sounds like it may
• 12:17
  Speaker 1: have resembled Walmart, Apple or Boeing in essence, was it
• 12:22
  Speaker 1: more powerful and from the Chinese perspective, more relevant than
• 12:26
  Speaker 1: a state? Great question. I mean, I guess it's Walmart
• 12:30
  Speaker 1: with an army if you want to think about it
• 12:32
  Speaker 1: that way. Um, the East India Company, it was a
• 12:35
  Speaker 1: it was a private company with shareholders that paid dividends um,
• 12:38
  Speaker 1: that conquered India. It had its own military. Um. The
• 12:43
  Speaker 1: if you look at the East India Company in India, however,
• 12:46
  Speaker 1: it looks very different than the East India Company in China.
• 12:49
  Speaker 1: In India, that's where the East India Company was, was
• 12:52
  Speaker 1: a force of conquest and control, establishing colonies there in China.
• 12:57
  Speaker 1: They had a small staff you know about about twenty
• 13:00
  Speaker 1: East India Company representatives in Canton and these were basically
• 13:04
  Speaker 1: just accountants. They were being counters, They were quiet, They
• 13:07
  Speaker 1: had no visions of empire or conquest um. They just
• 13:10
  Speaker 1: wanted to keep track of the tea sales. They essentially
• 13:13
  Speaker 1: were Britain for the Chinese. Um that the Chinese government
• 13:19
  Speaker 1: did not want relations with British officials. They wanted the
• 13:22
  Speaker 1: the so called Taipan, the head of the of the
• 13:25
  Speaker 1: British merchants at Canton effectively was the representative of the
• 13:29
  Speaker 1: British government, even though the East India Company was a
• 13:31
  Speaker 1: private company. And the point where everything goes wrong in
• 13:35
  Speaker 1: Canton um is in eighteen thirty four when the East
• 13:39
  Speaker 1: India Company, which up until that point had had a
• 13:42
  Speaker 1: monopoly on all British trade to China um loses that
• 13:45
  Speaker 1: monopoly in Britain. It's derailed by free trade activists in
• 13:48
  Speaker 1: Great Britain who who think that the monopoly of the
• 13:51
  Speaker 1: East India Company is stifling the expansion of trade in China.
• 13:55
  Speaker 1: UM and their arguments succeed. Parliament takes away the East
• 13:57
  Speaker 1: India Companies uh uh monopoly in China, and starting from
• 14:02
  Speaker 1: eighteen thirty four onwards, any British firm that has a
• 14:05
  Speaker 1: shift that it can send to China can get into
• 14:07
  Speaker 1: the tea and the opium trade. UM. And this is
• 14:10
  Speaker 1: where the chaos starts coming in. So as horrible as
• 14:14
  Speaker 1: the East India Company was in India, and I hesitate
• 14:17
  Speaker 1: to say anything good about this company whatsoever, UM, it
• 14:19
  Speaker 1: actually served as as a as a stabilizing force in China.
• 14:23
  Speaker 1: And the best relations between Britain and China took place
• 14:26
  Speaker 1: through the East India Company and the Chinese merchants of Canton. Steve,
• 14:31
  Speaker 1: let's talk about one of the interesting characters in your book.
• 14:35
  Speaker 1: His name is Lord McCartney, and his mission to Beijing
• 14:38
  Speaker 1: to establish a permanent diplomatic presence ended in failure. The
• 14:43
  Speaker 1: Emperor told him China had no need for British manufactured goods.
• 14:47
  Speaker 1: But McCartney succeeded in one area. He saw weaknesses in
• 14:51
  Speaker 1: the regime that others just didn't really tune into. Today,
• 14:55
  Speaker 1: it's fashionable to think of China as kind of a
• 14:58
  Speaker 1: juggernaut that will surpass the US. Tell us a little
• 15:03
  Speaker 1: bit about him and what you think he might make
• 15:05
  Speaker 1: of China today. Well, Lord McCartney, he was this. Um,
• 15:10
  Speaker 1: he was Great Britain's very first ambassador to China. There
• 15:13
  Speaker 1: would only be two of them prior to the Opium War.
• 15:16
  Speaker 1: And in this era, being an ambassador meant that you
• 15:18
  Speaker 1: traveled over to the country and then you came back. Um.
• 15:21
  Speaker 1: He had actually hoped to be able to stay on
• 15:23
  Speaker 1: in Beijing, but the Emperor wouldn't let him. Um. He
• 15:25
  Speaker 1: had this there, this famous embassy that was just a
• 15:28
  Speaker 1: miserable failure. Um. They dithered over ceremony about whether he
• 15:34
  Speaker 1: would perform the Kau Tao. UM. And he had all
• 15:36
  Speaker 1: kinds of demands for the Chinese government that um, that
• 15:39
  Speaker 1: China should open more reports. UM. I mean in a
• 15:41
  Speaker 1: certain sense, the Opium War which came in the eighteen forties,
• 15:45
  Speaker 1: McCartney came in seventeen nineties. Um. So the Opium War
• 15:48
  Speaker 1: forty years later was essentially forcing on China the things
• 15:52
  Speaker 1: that McCartney had asked for in his embassy. Um. You know,
• 15:56
  Speaker 1: they wanted an island off shore that they could use
• 15:58
  Speaker 1: as a warehouse, etcetera, etcetera. So he was famously dismissed
• 16:01
  Speaker 1: from Beijing. The Emperor sent an edict to the King
• 16:04
  Speaker 1: of England saying, we have no need for your country's manufacturers.
• 16:07
  Speaker 1: Please don't bother us anymore. Um. And it was really
• 16:11
  Speaker 1: in his sort of humiliated resentment after this trip that
• 16:15
  Speaker 1: he started writing down everything that he thought was wrong
• 16:17
  Speaker 1: with China, and he had her reports. I've still not
• 16:20
  Speaker 1: been able to track out exactly and track down exactly
• 16:23
  Speaker 1: where he was getting all his information, But his view
• 16:26
  Speaker 1: was that despite the fact that Westerners saw China as
• 16:30
  Speaker 1: impossibly prosperous, um and powerful, than in fact it was
• 16:34
  Speaker 1: decaying from the inside. At that time, China's government was
• 16:37
  Speaker 1: the Qing dynasty, which was ruled by Manchoos who were
• 16:41
  Speaker 1: racially different from the Chinese. So the the vast majority
• 16:44
  Speaker 1: of the population who are Han Chinese were essentially subjects
• 16:47
  Speaker 1: of the Manchoos. And as McCartney saw it, he said,
• 16:50
  Speaker 1: they a revolution is going to come and the Chinese
• 16:53
  Speaker 1: are going to rise up and overthrow the Man choose.
• 16:56
  Speaker 1: He predicted it would come before his own death, which
• 16:58
  Speaker 1: didn't actually come true, but At the same time, he
• 17:01
  Speaker 1: was the first one to inject this sort of uh
• 17:04
  Speaker 1: note of skepticism about about China's power, that if you
• 17:08
  Speaker 1: look behind the surface, that there's a there are actually
• 17:10
  Speaker 1: real problems there. And somebody wrote recently that the China
• 17:15
  Speaker 1: bears in the US have all gone into hiding right now,
• 17:17
  Speaker 1: that China just at this particular moment, seems to be
• 17:20
  Speaker 1: such a jugger in such an unstoppable juggernaut, um, that
• 17:23
  Speaker 1: its economy is doing so well. It's so the government
• 17:26
  Speaker 1: is so confident, she jimping, the president is consolidating his
• 17:31
  Speaker 1: power so effectively that again we're entering into an era
• 17:35
  Speaker 1: that of this vision of China as being unified, powerful, prosperous,
• 17:41
  Speaker 1: but obviously people who live there and people who insightful
• 17:45
  Speaker 1: reporting um, even if they're somewhat quieted at this time,
• 17:48
  Speaker 1: point out that the government still faces enormous problems there.
• 17:52
  Speaker 1: And again the root of some of these problems traced
• 17:55
  Speaker 1: right back to the same ones in the nineteenth century,
• 17:58
  Speaker 1: especially the problem of of official corrupt and resentment of
• 18:01
  Speaker 1: people on the ground of officials who squeeze them for bribes,
• 18:06
  Speaker 1: problems of overpopulation, of managing such a huge population um
• 18:11
  Speaker 1: that these echo again, Steve, you describe a massive pirate
• 18:17
  Speaker 1: insurrection off the Chinese coast that the regime spent many
• 18:22
  Speaker 1: years trying to suppress. When we look at China's efforts
• 18:26
  Speaker 1: to project power into the South China Sea, how much
• 18:33
  Speaker 1: of China's strategic framework has been shaped by that pirate experience.
• 18:38
  Speaker 1: The pirate experience is just part of a much bigger picture,
• 18:41
  Speaker 1: which is China's naval insecurity. So the Qing dynasty again,
• 18:46
  Speaker 1: this this government of Manchu's was really a land power
• 18:49
  Speaker 1: that their biggest words were fought in Central Asia to
• 18:52
  Speaker 1: conquer territory, and they generally did not maintain an effective navy,
• 18:58
  Speaker 1: largely because after they conquered Taiwan in the seventeenth century,
• 19:02
  Speaker 1: there was no real threat to them along their coast whatsoever.
• 19:05
  Speaker 1: And in the early nineteenth century they were suddenly faced
• 19:08
  Speaker 1: with a new problem, which was this pirate insurrection that
• 19:11
  Speaker 1: you mentioned, This massive fleet of pirates, you know, larger
• 19:14
  Speaker 1: than the Spanish armada, raiding the coast, conquering territory, um
• 19:19
  Speaker 1: taxing the populations, and the chink dynasty, and it managed
• 19:24
  Speaker 1: to suppress them, but quite desperately because their actual naval
• 19:28
  Speaker 1: ships were not capable of fighting these fighting the pirates,
• 19:32
  Speaker 1: these Chinese pirates. So the way China did manage to
• 19:36
  Speaker 1: suppress those pirates, Um, they made some improvements to their
• 19:40
  Speaker 1: naval forces, but ultimately they relied on amnesty or the
• 19:44
  Speaker 1: promise of a settled life in China. And they told
• 19:46
  Speaker 1: them if they turned themselves in that they could some
• 19:48
  Speaker 1: of them would get they would get commissions in the
• 19:51
  Speaker 1: Chinese navy. Um, they could live on land peacefully and
• 19:54
  Speaker 1: ultimately and they sort of won them back. Um, this
• 19:57
  Speaker 1: is you know, this is part of the culture of
• 20:00
  Speaker 1: the Empire, that China is such a desirable place to
• 20:03
  Speaker 1: live in at the center of civilization and prosperity, that
• 20:06
  Speaker 1: who would not want to be welcomed back into the fold.
• 20:09
  Speaker 1: So they succeed with the pirates. But then comes the
• 20:13
  Speaker 1: Opium War and just this disastrous mismatch between the British,
• 20:18
  Speaker 1: who have the Royal Navy, the most powerful modern naval
• 20:22
  Speaker 1: force in the world, against China, which has a long
• 20:25
  Speaker 1: and vulnerable coastline and no effective navy whatsoever. So the
• 20:29
  Speaker 1: Opium War was a completely one sided war. Um fought
• 20:33
  Speaker 1: on water for the most part, and it's the memory
• 20:36
  Speaker 1: of this weakness UM that ultimately leads to the rise
• 20:41
  Speaker 1: of naval power today that China does not very consciously
• 20:44
  Speaker 1: does not want to be pushed around as it had
• 20:46
  Speaker 1: been in the past. UM. And today this is this
• 20:49
  Speaker 1: is taking this is taking place with the essentially claiming
• 20:52
  Speaker 1: the entire South China Sea, which debate the actual reality
• 20:59
  Speaker 1: of the man Apps involved as much as we want UM.
• 21:02
  Speaker 1: The story that's coming from the government is that this
• 21:05
  Speaker 1: is territory that belongs to China, where Chinese sailors used
• 21:09
  Speaker 1: to go all the time, and we must protect it, UM,
• 21:12
  Speaker 1: and we must bring it back into the fold. And
• 21:14
  Speaker 1: this chip that's left on the country's shoulder from the
• 21:18
  Speaker 1: Opium Wars of the nineteenth century of being bullied by
• 21:20
  Speaker 1: by Western naval powers UM has sort of come full
• 21:24
  Speaker 1: circle now and now they have the fleet UM, and
• 21:27
  Speaker 1: you know, the U S. The U. S. Navy is
• 21:29
  Speaker 1: at this point the only one that can match it
• 21:32
  Speaker 1: in terms of power in the Pacific, oh ye, in
• 21:34
  Speaker 1: the South China Sea. Steve, it sounds like you're saying,
• 21:39
  Speaker 1: in terms of explaining the current economic underpinnings of China's
• 21:45
  Speaker 1: economic relationships, the Opium War was at least as important
• 21:50
  Speaker 1: as World War Two, the Communist Revolution, and Dungs opening
• 21:55
  Speaker 1: to the West. It is um and certainly in the
• 21:59
  Speaker 1: eyes of China. As current president Ji Jimping, you know,
• 22:02
  Speaker 1: the Opium War is sort of the origin point for
• 22:04
  Speaker 1: what he calls China's struggle for national rejuvenation, and in
• 22:08
  Speaker 1: speeches he prefers in the past he was the hundred
• 22:11
  Speaker 1: and seventy years struggle. Now it would be the hundred
• 22:13
  Speaker 1: and seventy five years struggle UM of the Chinese people,
• 22:16
  Speaker 1: UM to recover from the Opium War, essentially the Opium
• 22:20
  Speaker 1: War and everything that it brought, the exploitations of the
• 22:22
  Speaker 1: nineteenth century. This is something that he has taken a
• 22:25
  Speaker 1: step beyond what earlier Chinese leaders have grappled with. It
• 22:31
  Speaker 1: wasn't really until the nineteen twenties and thirties in China
• 22:34
  Speaker 1: in the Republic that this war became known in Chinese
• 22:37
  Speaker 1: as the Opium War, and that it became a sort
• 22:40
  Speaker 1: of a centerpiece for nationalist education as representing UM the
• 22:44
  Speaker 1: moment when China was dragged kicking and screaming into the
• 22:47
  Speaker 1: world of imperialism, the moment when China, when the Grand
• 22:52
  Speaker 1: Old China was laid low by an upstart Western power,
• 22:56
  Speaker 1: and that century of humiliation keeps getting extended, and that
• 22:59
  Speaker 1: they went into the Japanese invasion than in the early
• 23:02
  Speaker 1: PRC THEUS, it sort of ended in nine and now
• 23:06
  Speaker 1: the PRC came, the Communists came to power, so we
• 23:09
  Speaker 1: can put that behind us, but she Didnping is very
• 23:12
  Speaker 1: much continuing it. And his vision, which is so central
• 23:16
  Speaker 1: to what he calls the Chinese dream and what his
• 23:19
  Speaker 1: his vision for the future of China is, is that
• 23:22
  Speaker 1: his vision is to recover the greatness that China had
• 23:25
  Speaker 1: prior to the Opium War, to recapture that lost era.
• 23:30
  Speaker 1: And in doing that, it's not just a matter of
• 23:33
  Speaker 1: the economic power of China. It's not just a matter
• 23:36
  Speaker 1: of sort of the respect of China or its influence
• 23:39
  Speaker 1: in Asia. It's also very specifically about China's relationship to
• 23:43
  Speaker 1: the West. And as he sees it, the Opium War
• 23:47
  Speaker 1: was for the moment when the Chinese started looking to
• 23:51
  Speaker 1: the West for how you become strong. They started looking
• 23:54
  Speaker 1: towards Western models, either adopting Western weapons or later on
• 23:58
  Speaker 1: a Western political structure with the Republic, And as he
• 24:02
  Speaker 1: sees it, this is something that that China will finally
• 24:05
  Speaker 1: get passed, and he looks at the world now he
• 24:07
  Speaker 1: sees that Britain has already declined. Um he believes that
• 24:10
  Speaker 1: the United States is declining, and that the future belongs
• 24:13
  Speaker 1: to China. And so going back to the Opium War
• 24:17
  Speaker 1: and trying to recapture the moment the era before that
• 24:20
  Speaker 1: is a way of taking a sort of washing away
• 24:24
  Speaker 1: that entire long era where China, where China was humiliated
• 24:28
  Speaker 1: before Western power. Steve really appreciate you joining us. Congratulations
• 24:34
  Speaker 1: on the book and sketching the deep historical context of
• 24:39
  Speaker 1: today's economic relations. Thanks so much for having me. This
• 24:42
  Speaker 1: is really enjoyable. Benchmark will be back next week. Until then,
• 24:49
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• 24:52
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• 24:57
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• 25:00
  Speaker 1: time to rate and review the show so more listeners
• 25:03
  Speaker 1: can find us. You can also check us out on Twitter,
• 25:06
  Speaker 1: follow me at Scott Landman Dan You're at Moss Underscore Eco,
• 25:12
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• 25:15
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• 25:19
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• 25:22
  Speaker 1: Francesca Levy. Thanks for listening, See you next time.