RG

IN CONTEXT

Focus

Decline of imperial China

Before

1793 Lord Macartney’s trade mission to China is rebuffed.

c.1800 Opium is increasingly used to pay for Chinese goods, sparking a balance of payments crisis.

1839–42 The First Opium War ends with Hong Kong ceded to Britain and five Treaty Ports opened.

1850–64 The Taiping Rebellion brings China close to complete disintegration and kills millions.

After

1899 The anti-Western Boxer Rebellion is put down by an eight-nation foreign force. It signals the effective end of Chinese imperial authority.

On October 6, 1860, after years of sporadic conflict known as the Second Opium War, an Anglo-French force seized the ...

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