Who was responsible for the Opium War?

Daoguang Emperor

• china’s emperor had long opposed opium on moral grounds but the final straw to suppress it led to a trade that drained China supply of silver

• took a long time to enforce the opium ban

• misinterpretated the British motive to trade

commissioner Lin

• Lin was a heavy critic of opium and was authorised by the emperor to act in his name

• he quickly got working in Canton arresting dealers and corrupt officials, demanding the users to surrender their smoker equipment

• he also ordered british merchants to hand over their opium for destruction

• Liin announced all british merchants had to retrieve back the opium and stay in Canton which took 6 weeks

• Lin considered the matter to be settled telling the emperor to send the British home with tea

merchants - Napier, Matheson

• Matheson who was a prominent merchant wanted to defend honour and impose a treaty arrangement on the Qing

• Napier was appointed Chief of trade in Canton

• He disregared Chinese restrictions and tried to communicate directly with the imperial representative Governor Lu

• This led to Lu stopping trade on September 2nd

Charles Elliot

• appealed to the british government after handing over opium and beng forced to remain in Canton asking for them to intervene

• he agreed to pay a season worth of opium which had to be sourced by the british government who were already heavily in debt

• the force of Lin telling the british to stay within Canton led him to panicking thus quickly promising the money

Palmerston

• he had initial misgivings about becoming involved yet due to pressure from english textile manafacturers he sent gunboats to chinese waters

• he convinced the british government to make china pay leading to war errupting

• communist china saw his decisons was a long-planned conspiracy