First Opium War and the Treaty of Nanking
- Date
- 1839–1842 (Treaty of Nanking, 29 August 1842)
- Category
- Military & conflict
- Region
- Qing China (south and east coast)
- Era
- Modern
- Significance
The First Opium War (1839–1842) pitted the Qing dynasty against the British Empire after China's suppression of the illegal opium trade at Canton.
From 1840 a Royal Navy expedition exploited overwhelming technological superiority—steam-powered gunboats, heavier cannon and disciplined infantry—to defeat Qing forces along the coast and the Yangtze, threatening Nanjing by August 1842. The conflict ended with the Treaty of Nanking, signed on 29 August 1842, the first of what the Chinese came to call the 'unequal treaties.' Its terms ceded Hong Kong Island to Britain in perpetuity, opened five treaty ports (Canton, Amoy, Foochow, Ningpo and Shanghai) to British trade and residence, abolished the Cohong monopoly, imposed a large indemnity, and—through supplementary agreements—granted extraterritoriality and most-favoured-nation status to British subjects. The war shattered Qing claims to manage foreigners on its own terms and inaugurated what Chinese historiography calls the 'century of humiliation.' It opened China to expanding Western (and later Japanese) commercial and political penetration, and stands as a defining episode in the nineteenth-century encounter between European imperial power and the Asian states.
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Empires active in 1839–1842 (Treaty of Nanking, 29 August 1842)
- Russian Empire1721 CE – 1917 CE
- British Empire1583 CE – 1997 CE
- French Colonial Empire (Second)1830 CE – 1962 CE
- Qing Dynasty1636 CE – 1912 CE
- Spanish Empire1492 CE – 1976 CE
- Portuguese Empire1415 CE – 1999 CE
Related military & conflict events
- The Taiping Rebellion1850–1864
- American Civil War and the abolition of slavery1861–1865 (Emancipation Proclamation 1 January 1863; 13th Amendment ratified 6 December 1865)
- Battle of Waterloo18 June 1815
- Napoleon's invasion of RussiaJune–December 1812
- The Franco-Prussian War, German unification and the Paris Commune19 July 1870 – 10 May 1871; German Empire proclaimed 18 January 1871
- Haiti declares independence after a successful slave revolution1 January 1804
Further reading
If you read one book
The Opium War: Drugs, Dreams and the Making of China
Award-winning history of the war and its long shadow.
Get it on Amazon →Also worth reading
- Imperial Twilight: The Opium War and the End of China's Last Golden Age — Amazon →
Imperial Twilight: The Opium War and the End of China's Last Golden Age
Baillie Gifford-shortlisted narrative of how the Opium War became inevitable.
Get it on Amazon →
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