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> That's getting the causality backwards. Western colonialism didn't reduce China and India to insignificant economies; their insignificance is what enabled Wes

> That's getting the causality backwards. Western colonialism didn't reduce China and India to insignificant economies; their insignificance is what enabled Western powers to colonize them so easily. This is one of the most outlandishly false things I've read. China and india's economic significance is the reason why western powers wanted to colonize china and india in the first place. Their economic importance is why europe first sought out india and china. It's why columbus "sailed the ocean blue". > The reduction to insignificance already happened earlier, when the West began to industrialize. The colonization of india and china started before western industrialization. And it was colonizers who prevented india and china from industrializing like Japan. Funny how colonization ended and china ( and india though more slowly ) started industrializing huh? > For example, the establishment of free-trade zones for foreign merchants is judged to be humiliating because it was the consequence of military defeat. But when the CCP later established special economic zones to boost international trade, that was seen as very much a good thing. Because the former was for the benefit of foreign merchants to loot a nation and the latter was for the benefit of china. Surely, even you can see the difference of a territory conquered by a foreign power to loot a nation vs a territory a nation sets up itself for trade?

sudosysgen 7y ago
No it didn't. The first opium wars, at the start of the century of humiliation, began in 1839. Industrialization began in the 1780s. It was literally heavily armed, iron armored steamships versus middle-ages style sailboats. The Chinese were completely fucked at every single level economically compared to Great Britain, and that's why they lost. They literally didn't stand a chance due to their poor technological level, and that was pretty much their fault. Using GDP to measure economical supremacy when the two economies are as wildly incomparable as industrialized Great Britain and the agrarian Qing Dynasty is misleading at every single level. Yeah, China could grow hundreds of times more rice than Great Britain ever could. But Qing China wasn't able to make machine guns, it wasn't able to make steamships, it wasn't able to make any industrial equipment. And that's how Great Britain with 50 million people militarily crushed Qing China. It's because China failed to keep up with technology and lost it's massive lead during the renaissance. That meant that it got lost in the dust in the industrial wars of the time. It's really, honestly, a massive mistake that the Qing Dynasty made by not following western developments and not trying to industrialize despite its massive resources. It's economy was just a lot worse. Like, GDP per capita per year around 300$ (2019 dollars) bad. And that's what led to the century of humiliation, that plus their failure to adapt and industrialize when they had the chance, believing that they could buy the capabilities to face off with a modern army.
- elfexec 7y ago
  > The first opium wars, at the start of the century of humiliation, began in 1839. Industrialization began in the 1780s. We can argue about when industrialization began til the cows come home, but the benefits of industrialization weren't materialized until the latter half of the 1800s - after the opium wars when britain used stolen chinese capital and stolen indian resources. Everything you've written are nonsense repeated over and over again. It does get exhausting correcting them, but I'll give it another shot. > It was literally heavily armed, iron armored steamships versus middle-ages style sailboats. That was the case everywhere. Steamships didn't become truly relevant until the latter half of the 1800s because of how much coal was needed for these ships. Think about it. When the british were trying to blockade the US, it wasn't with steamships. It was with sail ships. Hell most of the naval ships decades after the opium war were still powered by sail. "sail was still the only solution for virtually all trade between China and Western Europe or East Coast America. " https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Steamship https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Steamship > The Chinese were completely fucked at every single level economically compared to Great Britain, and that's why they lost. Is that why the US beat britain in the american revolution? Because our economy was so much superior to Great Britain? Is that why the mongols were able to conquer china, russia, middle east? Because their economy was so much larger? Is that why the barbarians were able to overrun the roman empire? Because their economy was so much larger? Britain economy had nothing to do with opium wars. Do you know why? Because britain started the opium wars because china produced so much goods britain wanted while britain produced very little that china wanted. So the trade deficit was so skewed in favor of china that capital flowed exclusively from britain to china. The opium wars was britain's attempt to remedy it. Since britain's "amazing economy" produced nothing of value to china, they wanted to peddle drugs to china. I won't bother with the rest. Figure it out yourself. If britain's economy was so great ( as you implied ) there wouldn't have been any opium wars because britain could cost-effectively produce stuff for china. They couldn't. Hence why they needed to peddle drugs. Why do you think the corner drug dealers are dealing drugs? Because they can't produce or do anything else of value. That was britain.
  - sudosysgen 7y ago
    I never said that Britain was justified in any way in the Opium Wars, far from it. But that's irrelevant to my point anyways. Britain had ulterior problems than the trade imbalance with China. Throwing out 2.6 million pounds of opium (weight) and refusing to talk about it as you denied an embassy, because you saw yourself as a higher form of civilization than those pesky barbarians in the east of the world did absolutely nothing to help, which is why incidentally Russia France and the US were supportive despite not having the same problem as Britain. Refusing to consider a peace treaty, torturing POWs, killing messengers and so on is also a good part of why the opium wars actually went through, there were quite a few times parliament almost shut it down, and I'm pretty sure were it not for the insult that Qing China kept imposing due to their frankly stupid feudal bureacracy and It is true that opium had a large part in it and the British did like the tax revenue it gave. But, as it happens, the fact that China wasn't particularly interested in British manufactured goods isn't relevant to that question, because the fact that China wasn't interested in industrializing its vast worker base has nothing to do with the benefits of industrialization. Your analysis of steamships is incorrect, by the way. 6 British steamships sunk hundreds of Chinese ships, and were able to manoeuvre in ways that Chinese didn't know were possible at all. They also single handedly destroyed hundreds of artillery pieces and by virtue of being able to access shallower waters and going against wind and current so easily they were able to attack Naval fortifications from a side they weren't designed to protect from, destroying them, and were able to carry firepower comparable to entire Chinese fleets. Read about the individual Naval battles in the first Opium war, it's actually incredible just how efficient steamships were since the very beginning of the Opium Wars. They were literally a hard counter to the entire Chinese arsenal, except for land-based artillery of course. My claim of GDP being a good proxy for military capability was prefaced by specifying it applied to industrialized warfare only. And it works pretty damn well, actually, if you take into account morale and readiness. Not realizing it at the time is a mistake that Hitler made invading the USSR, costing him his life, and a mistake Hirohito made despite the warnings of Yamamoto, which lead to Japan losing WW2. Its pretty damn accurate assuming two stable nation states and factoring in the monetary equivalent of throwing bodies at the enemy. Yes, the Naval blockade of the US couldn't use steamships because they didn't have enough of them to block the entire shoreline of the US while keeping them supplied. The geography of the Chinese blockades were incredibly different. Chinese logistics were centered around the main rivers, since, you know, no real infrastructure. The British only had to blockade rivers in order to cripple the Chinese economy. China being a huge exporter of low-value added goods and materials, it was simply impossible for Britain to balance the trade equation. The fact that that simple proposition had to lead to a war is a good insight on why we got rid of the gold standard. Also, even before the industrial revolution, I can think of about 10 counter examples to production capability being the main driving force behind military victory, actually. Logistics and keeping your armies fed was possibly the biggest factor behind pre-industrial empires. Saying that the industrial revolution brought no benefit to warfare until the later half of the 18th century is positively ridiculous. Using industrial weaponry European powers were able to impose disgusting imperialist régimes in a flash, because it was a huge advantage. To most of their enemies, it simply was economically and technologically (two sides of the same coin) impossible to fight back. But you can figure this one out yourself :)

sudosysgen 7y ago

No it didn't. The first opium wars, at the start of the century of humiliation, began in 1839. Industrialization began in the 1780s. It was literally heavily armed, iron armored steamships versus middle-ages style sailboats. The Chinese were completely fucked at every single level economically compared to Great Britain, and that's why they lost. They literally didn't stand a chance due to their poor technological level, and that was pretty much their fault. Using GDP to measure economical supremacy when the two economies are as wildly incomparable as industrialized Great Britain and the agrarian Qing Dynasty is misleading at every single level. Yeah, China could grow hundreds of times more rice than Great Britain ever could. But Qing China wasn't able to make machine guns, it wasn't able to make steamships, it wasn't able to make any industrial equipment. And that's how Great Britain with 50 million people militarily crushed Qing China. It's because China failed to keep up with technology and lost it's massive lead during the renaissance. That meant that it got lost in the dust in the industrial wars of the time. It's really, honestly, a massive mistake that the Qing Dynasty made by not following western developments and not trying to industrialize despite its massive resources. It's economy was just a lot worse. Like, GDP per capita per year around 300$ (2019 dollars) bad. And that's what led to the century of humiliation, that plus their failure to adapt and industrialize when they had the chance, believing that they could buy the capabilities to face off with a modern army.

elfexec 7y ago
> The first opium wars, at the start of the century of humiliation, began in 1839. Industrialization began in the 1780s. We can argue about when industrialization began til the cows come home, but the benefits of industrialization weren't materialized until the latter half of the 1800s - after the opium wars when britain used stolen chinese capital and stolen indian resources. Everything you've written are nonsense repeated over and over again. It does get exhausting correcting them, but I'll give it another shot. > It was literally heavily armed, iron armored steamships versus middle-ages style sailboats. That was the case everywhere. Steamships didn't become truly relevant until the latter half of the 1800s because of how much coal was needed for these ships. Think about it. When the british were trying to blockade the US, it wasn't with steamships. It was with sail ships. Hell most of the naval ships decades after the opium war were still powered by sail. "sail was still the only solution for virtually all trade between China and Western Europe or East Coast America. " https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Steamship https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Steamship > The Chinese were completely fucked at every single level economically compared to Great Britain, and that's why they lost. Is that why the US beat britain in the american revolution? Because our economy was so much superior to Great Britain? Is that why the mongols were able to conquer china, russia, middle east? Because their economy was so much larger? Is that why the barbarians were able to overrun the roman empire? Because their economy was so much larger? Britain economy had nothing to do with opium wars. Do you know why? Because britain started the opium wars because china produced so much goods britain wanted while britain produced very little that china wanted. So the trade deficit was so skewed in favor of china that capital flowed exclusively from britain to china. The opium wars was britain's attempt to remedy it. Since britain's "amazing economy" produced nothing of value to china, they wanted to peddle drugs to china. I won't bother with the rest. Figure it out yourself. If britain's economy was so great ( as you implied ) there wouldn't have been any opium wars because britain could cost-effectively produce stuff for china. They couldn't. Hence why they needed to peddle drugs. Why do you think the corner drug dealers are dealing drugs? Because they can't produce or do anything else of value. That was britain.
- sudosysgen 7y ago
  I never said that Britain was justified in any way in the Opium Wars, far from it. But that's irrelevant to my point anyways. Britain had ulterior problems than the trade imbalance with China. Throwing out 2.6 million pounds of opium (weight) and refusing to talk about it as you denied an embassy, because you saw yourself as a higher form of civilization than those pesky barbarians in the east of the world did absolutely nothing to help, which is why incidentally Russia France and the US were supportive despite not having the same problem as Britain. Refusing to consider a peace treaty, torturing POWs, killing messengers and so on is also a good part of why the opium wars actually went through, there were quite a few times parliament almost shut it down, and I'm pretty sure were it not for the insult that Qing China kept imposing due to their frankly stupid feudal bureacracy and It is true that opium had a large part in it and the British did like the tax revenue it gave. But, as it happens, the fact that China wasn't particularly interested in British manufactured goods isn't relevant to that question, because the fact that China wasn't interested in industrializing its vast worker base has nothing to do with the benefits of industrialization. Your analysis of steamships is incorrect, by the way. 6 British steamships sunk hundreds of Chinese ships, and were able to manoeuvre in ways that Chinese didn't know were possible at all. They also single handedly destroyed hundreds of artillery pieces and by virtue of being able to access shallower waters and going against wind and current so easily they were able to attack Naval fortifications from a side they weren't designed to protect from, destroying them, and were able to carry firepower comparable to entire Chinese fleets. Read about the individual Naval battles in the first Opium war, it's actually incredible just how efficient steamships were since the very beginning of the Opium Wars. They were literally a hard counter to the entire Chinese arsenal, except for land-based artillery of course. My claim of GDP being a good proxy for military capability was prefaced by specifying it applied to industrialized warfare only. And it works pretty damn well, actually, if you take into account morale and readiness. Not realizing it at the time is a mistake that Hitler made invading the USSR, costing him his life, and a mistake Hirohito made despite the warnings of Yamamoto, which lead to Japan losing WW2. Its pretty damn accurate assuming two stable nation states and factoring in the monetary equivalent of throwing bodies at the enemy. Yes, the Naval blockade of the US couldn't use steamships because they didn't have enough of them to block the entire shoreline of the US while keeping them supplied. The geography of the Chinese blockades were incredibly different. Chinese logistics were centered around the main rivers, since, you know, no real infrastructure. The British only had to blockade rivers in order to cripple the Chinese economy. China being a huge exporter of low-value added goods and materials, it was simply impossible for Britain to balance the trade equation. The fact that that simple proposition had to lead to a war is a good insight on why we got rid of the gold standard. Also, even before the industrial revolution, I can think of about 10 counter examples to production capability being the main driving force behind military victory, actually. Logistics and keeping your armies fed was possibly the biggest factor behind pre-industrial empires. Saying that the industrial revolution brought no benefit to warfare until the later half of the 18th century is positively ridiculous. Using industrial weaponry European powers were able to impose disgusting imperialist régimes in a flash, because it was a huge advantage. To most of their enemies, it simply was economically and technologically (two sides of the same coin) impossible to fight back. But you can figure this one out yourself :)