CHINA'S MILLIONS

FOLLOWING THE DEFEAT and exile of Napoleon Bonaparte in 1815, Britain was the supreme global power, with a navy commanding the major sea lanes and an administration able to protect and promote the country's interests and ideologies throughout its imperial possessions. Yet, when, just one year later, Lord Amherst's embassy arrived in Peking, seeking an audience with the Jiaqing Emperor, it was rebuffed and instructed to leave. Whilst the immediate reason related to the refusal to kowtow, fundamentally, it stemmed from the way the Qing viewed China's commanding position in the world. A vast and ancient empire, protected by a fringe of tributary states, with a diaspora spreading across Southeast Asia, the ‘Middle Kingdom’, as it was known, was the natural centre of that world and the supreme power to which all other states were subservient. There was thus neither need nor inclination to enter into a trading relationship with a subsidiary state such as Great Britain.

Over the next twenty years, Britain's merchants and missionaries would seek to break down this resistance by peaceful means. But, as the legitimate pursuit of free trade became subordinated to the illicit import of opium from the Indian subcontinent, so commercial greed and inept diplomacy made a clash between these competing empires increasingly likely. Whilst the London Missionary Society (LMS) always strongly condemned the opium trade, through its eagerness to convert China's many millions, it became implicitly associated with, and at times facilitated, this policy of aggression, albeit unwittingly.

Confined to the contact zone of Canton (Guangzhou) during the trading months of October to March, and without wives or family, Western merchants recognised the importance of being able to speak the language but could not avoid the power struggle that this entailed. On pain of death, the Chinese were forbidden to act as teachers or transcribers for foreigners and, save in the strictly-regulated world of the co-Hong and compradore, there was minimal contact between the two peoples. Merchants, therefore, looked to missionaries to circumvent this ban and, as skilled linguists and determined proselytisers, members of the LMS were willing to take on this task.