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In the beginning was Zhoukoudian’s man, a Sinanthropus living 500 000 years ago near Beijing.

In the paleolithic, 25 000 years ago, Northern Chinese made the technological advances and Southern ones drifted along. It was Pangu’s time in mythology  whose eyes became the Sun & Moon.

During the neolithic, from 10 000 to 2000 years ago, Mongol type patches of civilization  near Ganzhou and a nexus in the Huanghe valley   slowly expanding under the guidance of the Three Sovereigns 皇, one Heavenly 天 / one Earthly 地 / one Tai 泰, followed by the Five Emperors of which one can give historic mention of The Yellow Emperor 黃帝 or Huangdi since he was cited by Sima Qian. The initiator of China’s civilization and Father of Han Chinese might have lived in Shandong and then Hebei regions or for some in Henan but around the Yellow River for sure.

Then the dynasties Xia around 2000 years ago, Shang and more important the Zhou beginning in     -1122 and enduring until -221, 900 years almost a millenium. During one of its sub-divisions, the Spring and Autumn period such men as Lao-Tseu 570-490 BC and Confucius 555-479 BC lived, the former writing the Daodejing and founding Taoïsm in the process while the latter is to be regarded as one heck of a humanist, philosopher and man of State. From the same period, yours truly cannot bear passing upon the Chinese Saint patron of builders and contractors, Lu Ban 魯班.
A craftsman extraordinaire.

Then legions of men and legends span the Imperial times. From the Qin -221 BC to the Qing ending in 1911, China mostly minded its own business and built itself.

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Then on the 18th of October 1860, the Second of the Opium Wars ended with the Peking Convention when Emperor Xiafeng’s brother, Prince Gong,  ratified the 1858 Treaty of Tientsin/Tianjin,

Let’s put the above sentence in context to see if one can extract the answer to our title’s second question from it. Tianjin is the portuary city below Beijing in the above map in that deep bay/sea by the two Korea. as for the Opium Wars, they had begun with the British whom, having established trade with China through the British East India Company from around 1635 onward, felt  a little disadvantaged.  The Portuguese who had initiated the commercial exchanges with China from their Macao outpost and after them the Spanish exchanged silver, the only really acceptable currency for the Qing Dynasty. The Chinese of then wanted little from the reemergent Western Civilization, little in goods and in all truth little to do. The Divine nature of the Emperor in the Tributary system made it nearly impossible for the ruling elite/cast whom already despised the traders per se to conduct business transactions with the Europeans and later Americans. By some miracle, Guandong, Fujian, Zhejiang and Jiangsu were staffed with bureaucrats and a heavily taxed and as heavily corrupted trade system was established. In effect China was still a “closed country”.

Then the Canton System concerned silk, porcelain and of course tea from China and Silver from the West. The British suffered from gold to silver exchanges but mostly from their incredible fondess for the steeped leaves concoction. The tea alone almost imbalanced the trade. So they found something else to make extra profit on : opium. So British Empire Indian poppies fields were put in high gear and the drug went to China. Opium was of course banned in the Celestial Empire land. In 1810, a decree begins :

Opium has a harm. Opium is a poison, undermining our good customs and morality. Its use is prohibited by law.

And yet, commercial imperatives you know . . . So that in 1839, Imperial commissioner Lin Zexu cleaned the Canton port by confiscating all opium and warning of death penalty for its trade hence.
And a British Indian Army was there soon after. The first Opium war ended in 1843 by way of the Treaty of Nanking opening new ports for trade, ceding Hong kong to Queen Victoria and recognizing Britain as an equal. The following year, France and the U.S. signed similar treaties.

The Chinese did not have their hearts set to applying those treaties to say the least and in order to control some of the exchanges had the naval authorities bear down on Chinese vessels found to be involved in them. Some British trader extended their flag to traders to somewhat protect them from Chinese control. Then  in 1856, a piracy charge against a vessel linked to the British whom got all edgy over it and The Second Opium War began. France joined in on the pretext of a murdered missionary and the two allies went on to seize Canton itself. The Russians and American offered the pair their moral support, the latter joining in a couple times. and in 1858 the Tientsin/Tianjin treaty was signed. Including the opening of the Peking Imperial City, ten new ports opened for international trade, foreign vessels on the Yangtze and travel rights all over China, that treaty too was too hard to swallow for the Rulers which changed the Emperor’s mind and sent General Rinchen to the Taku forts. In 1859, he resisted there a British naval force. So that the Franco-British force was back in 1860 and over summer closed in on Beijing ending at the battle of Palikao and Rinchen’s army and Mongolian Elite Cavalry was destroyed on the 21rst of September. The Chinese Emperor fled. The Imperial Summer Palace and Old Summer Palace were looted, ransacked by the Anglo-French troops and although Lord Elgin wanted the destruction of the whole Forbidden City, the French and Russian diplomats restricted the scope of it to the burning of both Summer Palaces  ( sic ).

Then on the 18th of October 1860, the Second of the Opium Wars ended with the Peking Convention when Emperor Xiafeng’s brother, Prince Gong,  ratified the 1858 Treaty of Tientsin/Tianjin,

And we have come full circle.

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China is now the most populated Nation in the world, Beijing has the second passenger airport in the world, Shanghai the biggest port ( China has 8 out of the top ten 😯 ), three of the top ten corporations at market value, two of the biggest oil & gas corps the most Internet users ( although probably the least content access, sigh ) and they are sitting on the World’s biggest reserves of Rare Earth metals which modern technologies gobbles up like candy. We have stopped selling them drug and shifted to selling them our manufacturing jobs. They picked it up and are growing by leaps and bounds up even to the stars. And now, NOW, we want to contain them? We went to war to have them open up, darn it!

Well! They’re open, for business mostly, isn’t that which we wanted in the first place?
So just shut up, will ya and don’t blame it on Mao.

早晨好全部, Tay.