12 - Foreign Trade and Investment

Summary

By the mid-eighteenth century, the Qing dynasty (1644–1911) was the dominant power within Asia. Its political system and institutions of state building were founded on structures inherited from previous Chinese dynasties as well as on the social and cultural codes of interaction among polities across Central Eurasia, East Asia, and Southeast Asia. Foreign trade between China and other countries within and outside Asia was a calculated matter of political strategy and economic gain. In the decades leading up to the First Opium War of 1839 to 1842, China’s stance with respect to the Sino-Western trade became increasingly at odds with British ambitions in Asia. The growing tensions stemmed from abiding differences in the political economy of not just two nations, but two empires. The overseas influence of the British Empire took on a forceful new impetus with the British Industrial Revolution, and, over the nineteenth century, technological improvements in transport continued to power Western expansion in global trade.