"I set no value on strange or ingenious objects and have no use for your country's manufactures. " —The Qianlong Emperor rejecting the gifts of Britain's first envoy to China, Lord Macartney, 1793
The issues that underlay both the violations of the flag of truce and Elgin's retaliatory destruction of the Summer Palace went much deeper than the treatment of war prisoners. They involved Britain's determination to force China into the modern, industrial global economy against their will, and to use opium as their major import to exchange for China's commodities of silk and tea—a tactic violently opposed by the Chinese. To this end, the British had imposed two wars on the Middle Kingdom in the space of two decades to try to force not only the sale of opium into China, but also Chinese recognition of Britain as an equal trading nation. But the real conflict was more than economic. In fact, the burning of the Summer Palace represented both a culmination and a new beginning in a much larger game of cultural confrontation—a confrontation between two great world civilizations, one new and one ancient, each believing itself to be the pinnacle of civilization on the planet—a game that had begun nearly a century earlier.
When Macartney landed on the coast of China, his retinue and bag- gage were transferred to Chinese junks by order of the Emperor before he was allowed to move up the Bei He River en route to the capital, Peking. It was a dreary journey along muddy shores dotted with mud huts and tombstones. The Ambassador's ship had a large sign tacked to its mast by order of the Chinese government, which spoke volumes about the relations between Britain and China and anticipated the ultimate failure of the embassy. In large black letters, the sign in Chinese said simply: "Tribute from the Red Barbarians."
The issues that underlay both the violations of the flag of truce and Elgin's retaliatory destruction of the Summer Palace went much deeper than the treatment of war prisoners. They involved Britain's determination to force China into the modern, industrial global economy against their will, and to use opium as their major import to exchange for China's commodities of silk and tea—a tactic violently opposed by the Chinese. To this end, the British had imposed two wars on the Middle Kingdom in the space of two decades to try to force not only the sale of opium into China, but also Chinese recognition of Britain as an equal trading nation. But the real conflict was more than economic. In fact, the burning of the Summer Palace represented both a culmination and a new beginning in a much larger game of cultural confrontation—a confrontation between two great world civilizations, one new and one ancient, each believing itself to be the pinnacle of civilization on the planet—a game that had begun nearly a century earlier.
When Macartney landed on the coast of China, his retinue and bag- gage were transferred to Chinese junks by order of the Emperor before he was allowed to move up the Bei He River en route to the capital, Peking. It was a dreary journey along muddy shores dotted with mud huts and tombstones. The Ambassador's ship had a large sign tacked to its mast by order of the Chinese government, which spoke volumes about the relations between Britain and China and anticipated the ultimate failure of the embassy. In large black letters, the sign in Chinese said simply: "Tribute from the Red Barbarians."
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