History 1601E Lecture Notes - Lecture 18: Taiping Rebellion, God Worshipping Society, Lin Zexu

• School: Western University
• Department: History
• Course: History 1601E
• Professor: Cary Takagaki

Document Summary

All the foreigners came for trade (portuguese/dutch ) were only allowed to stay in macao? and they were not allowed to stay over night. A english guy attempted to trade with areas other than guangzhou (illegal) China replied that we don"t need anything from europe; we only trade with you because of our compassion. In order to keep trading with us, you need to follow our rules, otherwise the harmony is broken (confucius idea) . First imported to england in the late 17th century. They initially wanted to trade products with china, but china didn"t seem to desire anything from them. The british wanted to sell wool, but chinese were used to wearing cotton. Also, according to confucianism, merchants are at the lowest level, the government is not supposed to get profit from trade/promote trade. So unlike british government (which was taxing all their products), the chinese do not think trade is important.