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Archive 1 | Archive 2 |
I fixed it and commented to the editor who established the previous version upthread. Still, I'll post my thoughts here for any incoming editors: generally speaking, we should always start the first sentence off with the name we're using as the article's namespace. There is some discussion above as to whether "First Opium War" or "Opium War" should be preferred, but going from one to the other should involve a proper discussion and page move. The previous edit used the much less common "Anglo-Chinese War", which is bland to the point of violating WP:NPOV given the overwhelming use of the other names for the conflict in common and scholarly English works and the increasing trend towards labeling the Arrow conflict as the Second Opium War. — LlywelynII 12:35, 25 January 2014 (UTC)
[Minor term edit above to account for possible corpus variants created by Ngram's unhelpfully bizarre treatment of hyphenated terms]. — LlywelynII 12:41, 25 January 2014 (UTC)
What was effectively a merge discussion was already initiated in the talk page for my merge source artice (under Talk:Opium Wars#Disambiguation page).
The initial poster, Spellcast ( talk · contribs), on 00:57, 4 June 2011 made the motion: "..( Opium Wars) should be changed into a disambiguation page instead of one article trying to cover two separate wars. See for example, the Anglo-Sikh wars.." and support was indicated by four users ( FunkyDuffy ( talk · contribs), Philg88 ( talk · contribs), CWH ( talk · contribs), and 75.18.196.20 ( talk · contribs · WHOIS)). -- Kiyoweap ( talk) 01:00, 7 April 2013 (UTC)
OK, to summarize it seems that we have a (small) concensus to proceed as follows-
Is that a fair summary of what should be done? Best Regards, ► Philg88 ◄ talk 22:26, 13 April 2013 (UTC)
My rationale for removing the East India Company as a belligerent from the article's infobox was as follows:
I don't have an axe to grind either way but I think that it's important we get it right. ► Philg88 ◄ talk 08:41, 9 February 2014 (UTC)
All the sources make note that the silver deficit was one of the causes of the war(s), and indeed our articles even make note that the Brits had to pay an extra exchange fee to convert gold to silver. Was there a reason the Chinese preferred silver to gold? Two kinds of pork ( talk) 05:14, 27 February 2014 (UTC)
I took the liberty of revising the lede in light of the information in Steven Tsang's book, A Modern History of Hong Kong, cited in the note, which draws on a series of monographs. Here are more extensive notes and quotes from the book:
ch ( talk) 02:54, 21 April 2011 (UTC)
ch ( talk) 04:00, 26 May 2014 (UTC)
"By the 16th century China was one of the leading nations of the world. It was prosperous, economically self-sufficient and isolated. European countries came to China to buy its tea, silks and spices and offered European industrial goods in exchange. But, the Chinese emperor would have none of the European goods, which he outright banned. Hence, gold and silver were the only acceptable medium of exchange." [1], says an awful,lot in not a lot of words."
This sentence appears in the introduction:
The British government objected to the Chinese Empire's insistence on negotiating with all foreign representatives, including Britain's diplomats, on the basis that they were foreign barbarians accepting a position of submission, an assertion which the British never formally accepted but had to work around and overlook.
I'm having a hard time understanding what's going on here. Who does "they" refer to? Is the British government objecting to something on the basis that Chinese are barbarians, or are Chinese refusing to negotiate with the British because the British are barbarians? This sentence should be rewritten
Zdorovo ( talk) 16:35, 11 September 2014 (UTC)
I wonder if the opening sentence shouldn't just use the common name, "Great Britain" or perhaps "United Kingdom." It now looks at first glance if the war was "fought between Great Britain and Ireland." The text of the treaty seems to be slightly different in different places in any case:
Cheers, ch ( talk) 17:34, 23 September 2014 (UTC)
Sometimes being or attempting to be too correct or literal can be a dangerous thing. There id always in situations when previously existing political entities no longer exist there is the "then" so and so. The government of the British Empire has been for some time Her/His Majesty's Government. Just what constitutes the political entities effected by that government is up to discussion since even as late as a couple days ago, Mary Qeeen of Scots would have had her revenge on another Elizabeth if the vote had gone otherwise. Thank goodness the latest Liz's heir apparent is not named James. So what now-a-days is the good ole Soviet Union ranking as a WP recognized appellation when it comes to treaty parties? 66.74.176.59 ( talk) 14:42, 24 September 2014 (UTC)
A 1847 book from a British bureaucrat became a reliable source? It just look absurd by any standard. Vinukin ( talk) 20:15, 27 July 2015 (UTC)
This article appears to be very one sided- British. Can any more sources be found to provide an alternate POV? Is there a link to this in the Chinese version of wiki, which might help? (if there is one) otherwise the page should be flagged as biased.
82.30.38.216 (
talk)
22:12, 29 June 2016 (UTC)
The report lists the ships as follows:
I'm not familiar with ship categories but based on Template:Rating system of the Royal Navy and Rating system of the Royal Navy, I've categorised the third and fourth rate ships as ships of the line, and the fifth and sixth rate ships as frigates. This is so the list isn't unnecessarily long in the infobox. Feel free to correct it if it's not accurate to categorise it like that. Spellcast ( talk) 15:16, 9 July 2016 (UTC)
File:Flag of the Qing Dynasty (1889-1912).svg and File:Flag of the Qing Dynasty (1862-1889).svg are anachronistic flags. Although there was no official national Chinese flag at the time, I'd be fine with adding a flag icon that was de facto used during the war. So I've added File:Imperial Chinese junk flag.jpg, which the National Maritime Museum said was captured during this war and was used by the Commander-general of Guards Brigade of the Eight Banners. Spellcast ( talk) 17:59, 9 June 2016 (UTC)
Maybe it was just me being stupid but I needed to read it three times to understand what this convoluted sentence was actually saying: "As demand increased in Europe, the profits European traders generated within the Asian trade network, used to purchase Asian goods, were gradually replaced by the direct export of bullion from Europe in exchange for the produce of Asia."
English isn't my first language and I don't feel confident to rewrite it myself. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 2A02:8109:9080:19AC:20E4:1DA1:BAC1:B662 ( talk) 15:22, 15 May 2017 (UTC)
This section has many well detailed sources and is a trove of useful information, but it is disorganized atm. I am thinking of taking the time to shift it around or rewrite it entirely using existing sources. Maybe make a visual aid for the European-Chinese trade. Thoughts? --SamHolt6 08:17, 20 May 2017 (UTC)
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This article is very detailed and well sourced, and, given the historical effects of the war, I'm glad that the SamHolt6 has nominated it for GA status. Some initial comments:
This discussion has been moved from Talk:First Opium War.
This page has improved tremendously over the last few months. Having been on my watchlist for years and creating almost every battle article of this war, this is great to see. However, I respectfully don't think this is ready for GA status yet. (But it should be OK to update the C ratings to a B at the very least). Obviously this a big topic with lots of things to cover. But this article is still too...I guess the word that comes to mind is fragmented. What I mean is it's missing key info in painting an overall clear and cohesive historical narrative - particularly on the military history (which is why it's full of 2-3 sentence paragraphs). For example, the very first armed conflict of the war ( Battle of Kowloon) and the events leading up to it weren't added until over a month after the GA nomination! Another example is the article's lack of British justification of war (beyond merely wanting free trade). Any understanding of why Britain sent an expeditionary force cannot be complete without reading Lord Palmerston's letter to the Chinese emperor and his instructions to the Elliot cousins (the joint plenipotentiaries) - both of which the article lacks. (Yes it says he told them to acquire the cession of an island but there's a heck of a lot more in his instructions than that!). And on the battles in the war section, it's one thing to say that 'battle of x was fought at this location on this date'. But it's another thing to present the series of events in a clear historical manner as to why they fought at a particular location on a certain date. I notice many of the sources and info in the war section are taken from the battle articles. Now there's nothing wrong those sources, but if you're only presenting info by summarising existing Wikipedia articles, you'll never get a complete understanding without actually reading the books on the subject. Again, this is a big topic and it's good to see constant improvement. But I think there's a while to go before it can be considered GA material IMO. Spellcast ( talk) 15:42, 5 July 2017 (UTC)
With all that out of the way, I will say that I am immensely enjoying my time working on this article. We have a while to go before it can be classified as a good article, but I believe that it will make it there one day. Thank you again for your assistance Spellcast and Sp33dyphil. I look forward to putting more work into this page. SamHolt6 ( talk) 13:48, 7 July 2017 (UTC)
As per the discussion above, this article is missing some content with regards to British justification for the war. In addition, the narrative with respect to the individual battles could be improved. I have not been able to check the print sources to verify some of the claims that are made. This is a major historical topic with significant political repercussions, and so hopefully there'd be more editors writing and reviewing the article. Regards, -- Sp33dyphil © hat ontributions 05:25, 12 July 2017 (UTC)
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Some sources (notably Mcpherson and Gough) refer to high causalities suffered by the British at Chusan due to disease. This will need to be elaborated on further.-- SamHolt6 ( talk) 14:53, 28 July 2017 (UTC)
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So TwinkleMore ( talk · contribs) has changed “Qing China” to “Qing dynasty” in the inbox on every Opium War related article. I’ve restored the original term. We have 3 options for what to call China as a country in the inbox:
1) China - The most common, simple, straightforward name used at the time and in the present day.
2) Qing dynasty - Refers to the ruling family’s era, not a country name. That's why the article was moved from a capital to lower case d. Nowhere near as common as ‘’China’’ even if you use the 19th century spelling “Ta Ching”.
3) Qing China - Good compromise of the two. Best choice IMO. Because in a modern context, there's been different iterations of China (PRC and ROC) since the 175 years after the war, whereas the UK today is still the same country. So China by itself is perhaps too simplistic and lacking nuance, and Qing dynasty isn't even a country name. But Qing China combines the key elements of the two: the most common name (China) and the historical clarity of the era (Qing).
Spellcast ( talk) 13:09, 12 October 2017 (UTC)
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both Yī kŏu tōngshāng and "Single port commerce system" are “一口通商”, why undo to “口通商”? -- 27.18.102.129 ( talk) 01:47, 6 June 2018 (UTC)
"the perceived weakness of the Qing dynasty resulted in social unrest within China, namely the Taiping Rebellion." seems like a highly flawed statement. The Taiping emerged in regions not directly affected by the war for reasons totally unrelated to its causes (the Taiping being motivated by a mixture of religious, racial and economic tensions that, from the case of the 1796 White Lotus Rebellion, were demonstrably already in evidence well before the 1OW broke out.) — Preceding unsigned comment added by 59.124.142.241 ( talk) 10:41, 24 December 2018 (UTC)
I moved establishment of treaty ports to the results section of the military infobox, it was previously in the Territorial changes section. The ports were not ceded or annexed by Britain, but simply had certain laws applied to them, and as such were not territorial changes, but mere terms of the Treaty of Nanking. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Azaan Habib ( talk • contribs) 10:24, 13 August 2020 (UTC)
The article says: "In 1810, the Daoguang Emperor issued an edict concerning the opium crisis". As Daoguang only became emperor in 1820, either the year is wrong or the name of the emperor schould be Jiaqing. -- Proofreader ( talk) 14:53, 18 November 2020 (UTC)
This entire article overlooks the most obvious reason for the opium war, economic strategy.
In an effort to find alternative meanings, so-called scholars throughout the ages are cited that come up with theories that are, frankly, difficult to believe. Furthermore, there is not a single mention of lead opium smuggler Jamsetjee Jejeebhoy in the entire article. This line is, frankly, ludicrous: "The East India Company itself neither produced nor shipped opium."
Some of the marginal theories for the reasons behind the war may be suitable for corner cases in academic journals but they make no sense outside the faculty lounge, especially in Wikipedia. The English wanted a war for political reasons? Or the English -- who had extensive diplomacy including through vast parts of Africa -- were insulted by Chinese diplomats?
How about something simpler: opium from India, which the British controlled, cost essentially nothing thanks to the drug dealer, Jamsetjee Jejeebhoy. Opium was addictive and addicts would do almost anything to get more including ignoring local laws, something that remains true to this day. Nothing cost the British less than opium; they merely needed to look the other way, barely, as Jejeebhoy let the opium flow. And the more it flowed, the more it benefitted the East India Company and the British Government. When the Chinese cut off the flow of opium -- in an entirely reasonable attempt to protect the health of their people, the value of their goods, and their national sovereignty -- the Britsh attacked.
Occam's razor is usually right and that remains true especially in this case. Addicting the Chinese to opium because opium was cheap and abundant was a morally reprehensible strategic move by the British, just as it remained a strategic move throughout the ages for various future drug lords. It's a strategy suited for Pablo Escobar and El Chapo, not the supposedly mighty and moral British government. Yet that is exactly the strategy they chose to use. Trying to clean it up, ages after-the-fact, is insulting and does not belong on Wikipedia.
LarsHenderson ( talk) 11:53, 5 March 2021 (UTC)
As when I read Britiannica, national interest, British history net, etc.
https://www.historic-uk.com/HistoryUK/HistoryofBritain/First-Opium-War/ Their version of all the Opium war was all universally to make it crystal clear that the British were definitely in the wrong and being jerks. But the current Wikipedia version is so different to that.
In britiannica, National interest and history uk version, etc (just a few top sources from a quick google search) they all explicitly state the British had wanted any excuse to wage war and extend their trading rights. That the Opium war was obviously about protecting the lucrative opium trade that the British had a monopoly on. That they even had an argument in parliament with some prominent politicians recognising the war as immoral. But ultimately the opium trade was too profitable for them to give up. That's the real reason for war according to the writers in history UK, national interest, britiannica, etc as well as so many other scholars.
But current Wikipedia version of both opium war, such major narratives are ridiculously missing but instead makes it seem like the entire and main reason for the wars was because China was either rude or refused to be reasonable on opium trade and also spins heavily on how Chinese acted horribly to the British that started second opium wars and even stresses on how the Chinese were smuggling the Opium in but leaves out the fact that the British were the ones mass producing opium despite it was illegal. It is such a biased revisionist view. Not just this article but all the opium war articles on Wikipedia is heavily revised.
What this article really needs on talk is first a consensus that the cause of opium war was because of British greed and the Opium trade profits.
That is the official view and narrative in britiannica encyclopedia as well as so many other scholars. However I am also not interested in a petty edit war with people wanting to keep up ignorance and deny that the British were the unfair bullies in that war.
If however there are many editors who agrees that the britiannica version of opium wars is more accurate and the Wikipedia article should be closer to britiannica version. And want to fix the article. That would be great. But it seems like the current wiki consensus in current wiki article is that both opium wars was mostly because the British were greatly wronged by China when they arrested a former pirate ship or killed one French missionary, etx and that's the whole reason for going to war for them. Whilst leaving out the real reasons for war was because of greed and opium profits.
Even if you add in the correct information to the article that the British were using Pretexts for both Opium wars and the real reason for war, was because they wanted to protect Their Opium trade profits as stated by many top scholars and britiannica. I doubt my edits would survive long. https://nationalinterest.org/blog/the-buzz/the-opium-wars-the-bloody-conflicts-destroyed-imperial-china-17212
I agree the article needs to be fixed and would like to Clean it up.. maybe later if I have more time in the end of year..in the meantime, if other editors disagree with what Lars and I wrote and think britiannica version of Opium wars is wrong. Make your points here. Casualfoodie ( talk) 16:25, 27 April 2021 (UTC)
I'd contend the arguments about "free trade" fall into economic interest arguments, but also say that if scholars have come up with a diverse range of theories than that should be represented. I don't think consensus has been reached, but feel free to correct me.
This article was the subject of a Wiki Education Foundation-supported course assignment, between 4 October 2021 and 9 December 2021. Further details are available on the course page. Student editor(s): Gdaymate011.
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This is an archive of past discussions. Do not edit the contents of this page. If you wish to start a new discussion or revive an old one, please do so on the current talk page. |
Archive 1 | Archive 2 |
I fixed it and commented to the editor who established the previous version upthread. Still, I'll post my thoughts here for any incoming editors: generally speaking, we should always start the first sentence off with the name we're using as the article's namespace. There is some discussion above as to whether "First Opium War" or "Opium War" should be preferred, but going from one to the other should involve a proper discussion and page move. The previous edit used the much less common "Anglo-Chinese War", which is bland to the point of violating WP:NPOV given the overwhelming use of the other names for the conflict in common and scholarly English works and the increasing trend towards labeling the Arrow conflict as the Second Opium War. — LlywelynII 12:35, 25 January 2014 (UTC)
[Minor term edit above to account for possible corpus variants created by Ngram's unhelpfully bizarre treatment of hyphenated terms]. — LlywelynII 12:41, 25 January 2014 (UTC)
What was effectively a merge discussion was already initiated in the talk page for my merge source artice (under Talk:Opium Wars#Disambiguation page).
The initial poster, Spellcast ( talk · contribs), on 00:57, 4 June 2011 made the motion: "..( Opium Wars) should be changed into a disambiguation page instead of one article trying to cover two separate wars. See for example, the Anglo-Sikh wars.." and support was indicated by four users ( FunkyDuffy ( talk · contribs), Philg88 ( talk · contribs), CWH ( talk · contribs), and 75.18.196.20 ( talk · contribs · WHOIS)). -- Kiyoweap ( talk) 01:00, 7 April 2013 (UTC)
OK, to summarize it seems that we have a (small) concensus to proceed as follows-
Is that a fair summary of what should be done? Best Regards, ► Philg88 ◄ talk 22:26, 13 April 2013 (UTC)
My rationale for removing the East India Company as a belligerent from the article's infobox was as follows:
I don't have an axe to grind either way but I think that it's important we get it right. ► Philg88 ◄ talk 08:41, 9 February 2014 (UTC)
All the sources make note that the silver deficit was one of the causes of the war(s), and indeed our articles even make note that the Brits had to pay an extra exchange fee to convert gold to silver. Was there a reason the Chinese preferred silver to gold? Two kinds of pork ( talk) 05:14, 27 February 2014 (UTC)
I took the liberty of revising the lede in light of the information in Steven Tsang's book, A Modern History of Hong Kong, cited in the note, which draws on a series of monographs. Here are more extensive notes and quotes from the book:
ch ( talk) 02:54, 21 April 2011 (UTC)
ch ( talk) 04:00, 26 May 2014 (UTC)
"By the 16th century China was one of the leading nations of the world. It was prosperous, economically self-sufficient and isolated. European countries came to China to buy its tea, silks and spices and offered European industrial goods in exchange. But, the Chinese emperor would have none of the European goods, which he outright banned. Hence, gold and silver were the only acceptable medium of exchange." [1], says an awful,lot in not a lot of words."
This sentence appears in the introduction:
The British government objected to the Chinese Empire's insistence on negotiating with all foreign representatives, including Britain's diplomats, on the basis that they were foreign barbarians accepting a position of submission, an assertion which the British never formally accepted but had to work around and overlook.
I'm having a hard time understanding what's going on here. Who does "they" refer to? Is the British government objecting to something on the basis that Chinese are barbarians, or are Chinese refusing to negotiate with the British because the British are barbarians? This sentence should be rewritten
Zdorovo ( talk) 16:35, 11 September 2014 (UTC)
I wonder if the opening sentence shouldn't just use the common name, "Great Britain" or perhaps "United Kingdom." It now looks at first glance if the war was "fought between Great Britain and Ireland." The text of the treaty seems to be slightly different in different places in any case:
Cheers, ch ( talk) 17:34, 23 September 2014 (UTC)
Sometimes being or attempting to be too correct or literal can be a dangerous thing. There id always in situations when previously existing political entities no longer exist there is the "then" so and so. The government of the British Empire has been for some time Her/His Majesty's Government. Just what constitutes the political entities effected by that government is up to discussion since even as late as a couple days ago, Mary Qeeen of Scots would have had her revenge on another Elizabeth if the vote had gone otherwise. Thank goodness the latest Liz's heir apparent is not named James. So what now-a-days is the good ole Soviet Union ranking as a WP recognized appellation when it comes to treaty parties? 66.74.176.59 ( talk) 14:42, 24 September 2014 (UTC)
A 1847 book from a British bureaucrat became a reliable source? It just look absurd by any standard. Vinukin ( talk) 20:15, 27 July 2015 (UTC)
This article appears to be very one sided- British. Can any more sources be found to provide an alternate POV? Is there a link to this in the Chinese version of wiki, which might help? (if there is one) otherwise the page should be flagged as biased.
82.30.38.216 (
talk)
22:12, 29 June 2016 (UTC)
The report lists the ships as follows:
I'm not familiar with ship categories but based on Template:Rating system of the Royal Navy and Rating system of the Royal Navy, I've categorised the third and fourth rate ships as ships of the line, and the fifth and sixth rate ships as frigates. This is so the list isn't unnecessarily long in the infobox. Feel free to correct it if it's not accurate to categorise it like that. Spellcast ( talk) 15:16, 9 July 2016 (UTC)
File:Flag of the Qing Dynasty (1889-1912).svg and File:Flag of the Qing Dynasty (1862-1889).svg are anachronistic flags. Although there was no official national Chinese flag at the time, I'd be fine with adding a flag icon that was de facto used during the war. So I've added File:Imperial Chinese junk flag.jpg, which the National Maritime Museum said was captured during this war and was used by the Commander-general of Guards Brigade of the Eight Banners. Spellcast ( talk) 17:59, 9 June 2016 (UTC)
Maybe it was just me being stupid but I needed to read it three times to understand what this convoluted sentence was actually saying: "As demand increased in Europe, the profits European traders generated within the Asian trade network, used to purchase Asian goods, were gradually replaced by the direct export of bullion from Europe in exchange for the produce of Asia."
English isn't my first language and I don't feel confident to rewrite it myself. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 2A02:8109:9080:19AC:20E4:1DA1:BAC1:B662 ( talk) 15:22, 15 May 2017 (UTC)
This section has many well detailed sources and is a trove of useful information, but it is disorganized atm. I am thinking of taking the time to shift it around or rewrite it entirely using existing sources. Maybe make a visual aid for the European-Chinese trade. Thoughts? --SamHolt6 08:17, 20 May 2017 (UTC)
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Reviewer: Sp33dyphil ( talk · contribs) 10:25, 24 June 2017 (UTC)
This article is very detailed and well sourced, and, given the historical effects of the war, I'm glad that the SamHolt6 has nominated it for GA status. Some initial comments:
This discussion has been moved from Talk:First Opium War.
This page has improved tremendously over the last few months. Having been on my watchlist for years and creating almost every battle article of this war, this is great to see. However, I respectfully don't think this is ready for GA status yet. (But it should be OK to update the C ratings to a B at the very least). Obviously this a big topic with lots of things to cover. But this article is still too...I guess the word that comes to mind is fragmented. What I mean is it's missing key info in painting an overall clear and cohesive historical narrative - particularly on the military history (which is why it's full of 2-3 sentence paragraphs). For example, the very first armed conflict of the war ( Battle of Kowloon) and the events leading up to it weren't added until over a month after the GA nomination! Another example is the article's lack of British justification of war (beyond merely wanting free trade). Any understanding of why Britain sent an expeditionary force cannot be complete without reading Lord Palmerston's letter to the Chinese emperor and his instructions to the Elliot cousins (the joint plenipotentiaries) - both of which the article lacks. (Yes it says he told them to acquire the cession of an island but there's a heck of a lot more in his instructions than that!). And on the battles in the war section, it's one thing to say that 'battle of x was fought at this location on this date'. But it's another thing to present the series of events in a clear historical manner as to why they fought at a particular location on a certain date. I notice many of the sources and info in the war section are taken from the battle articles. Now there's nothing wrong those sources, but if you're only presenting info by summarising existing Wikipedia articles, you'll never get a complete understanding without actually reading the books on the subject. Again, this is a big topic and it's good to see constant improvement. But I think there's a while to go before it can be considered GA material IMO. Spellcast ( talk) 15:42, 5 July 2017 (UTC)
With all that out of the way, I will say that I am immensely enjoying my time working on this article. We have a while to go before it can be classified as a good article, but I believe that it will make it there one day. Thank you again for your assistance Spellcast and Sp33dyphil. I look forward to putting more work into this page. SamHolt6 ( talk) 13:48, 7 July 2017 (UTC)
As per the discussion above, this article is missing some content with regards to British justification for the war. In addition, the narrative with respect to the individual battles could be improved. I have not been able to check the print sources to verify some of the claims that are made. This is a major historical topic with significant political repercussions, and so hopefully there'd be more editors writing and reviewing the article. Regards, -- Sp33dyphil © hat ontributions 05:25, 12 July 2017 (UTC)
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Some sources (notably Mcpherson and Gough) refer to high causalities suffered by the British at Chusan due to disease. This will need to be elaborated on further.-- SamHolt6 ( talk) 14:53, 28 July 2017 (UTC)
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So TwinkleMore ( talk · contribs) has changed “Qing China” to “Qing dynasty” in the inbox on every Opium War related article. I’ve restored the original term. We have 3 options for what to call China as a country in the inbox:
1) China - The most common, simple, straightforward name used at the time and in the present day.
2) Qing dynasty - Refers to the ruling family’s era, not a country name. That's why the article was moved from a capital to lower case d. Nowhere near as common as ‘’China’’ even if you use the 19th century spelling “Ta Ching”.
3) Qing China - Good compromise of the two. Best choice IMO. Because in a modern context, there's been different iterations of China (PRC and ROC) since the 175 years after the war, whereas the UK today is still the same country. So China by itself is perhaps too simplistic and lacking nuance, and Qing dynasty isn't even a country name. But Qing China combines the key elements of the two: the most common name (China) and the historical clarity of the era (Qing).
Spellcast ( talk) 13:09, 12 October 2017 (UTC)
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both Yī kŏu tōngshāng and "Single port commerce system" are “一口通商”, why undo to “口通商”? -- 27.18.102.129 ( talk) 01:47, 6 June 2018 (UTC)
"the perceived weakness of the Qing dynasty resulted in social unrest within China, namely the Taiping Rebellion." seems like a highly flawed statement. The Taiping emerged in regions not directly affected by the war for reasons totally unrelated to its causes (the Taiping being motivated by a mixture of religious, racial and economic tensions that, from the case of the 1796 White Lotus Rebellion, were demonstrably already in evidence well before the 1OW broke out.) — Preceding unsigned comment added by 59.124.142.241 ( talk) 10:41, 24 December 2018 (UTC)
I moved establishment of treaty ports to the results section of the military infobox, it was previously in the Territorial changes section. The ports were not ceded or annexed by Britain, but simply had certain laws applied to them, and as such were not territorial changes, but mere terms of the Treaty of Nanking. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Azaan Habib ( talk • contribs) 10:24, 13 August 2020 (UTC)
The article says: "In 1810, the Daoguang Emperor issued an edict concerning the opium crisis". As Daoguang only became emperor in 1820, either the year is wrong or the name of the emperor schould be Jiaqing. -- Proofreader ( talk) 14:53, 18 November 2020 (UTC)
This entire article overlooks the most obvious reason for the opium war, economic strategy.
In an effort to find alternative meanings, so-called scholars throughout the ages are cited that come up with theories that are, frankly, difficult to believe. Furthermore, there is not a single mention of lead opium smuggler Jamsetjee Jejeebhoy in the entire article. This line is, frankly, ludicrous: "The East India Company itself neither produced nor shipped opium."
Some of the marginal theories for the reasons behind the war may be suitable for corner cases in academic journals but they make no sense outside the faculty lounge, especially in Wikipedia. The English wanted a war for political reasons? Or the English -- who had extensive diplomacy including through vast parts of Africa -- were insulted by Chinese diplomats?
How about something simpler: opium from India, which the British controlled, cost essentially nothing thanks to the drug dealer, Jamsetjee Jejeebhoy. Opium was addictive and addicts would do almost anything to get more including ignoring local laws, something that remains true to this day. Nothing cost the British less than opium; they merely needed to look the other way, barely, as Jejeebhoy let the opium flow. And the more it flowed, the more it benefitted the East India Company and the British Government. When the Chinese cut off the flow of opium -- in an entirely reasonable attempt to protect the health of their people, the value of their goods, and their national sovereignty -- the Britsh attacked.
Occam's razor is usually right and that remains true especially in this case. Addicting the Chinese to opium because opium was cheap and abundant was a morally reprehensible strategic move by the British, just as it remained a strategic move throughout the ages for various future drug lords. It's a strategy suited for Pablo Escobar and El Chapo, not the supposedly mighty and moral British government. Yet that is exactly the strategy they chose to use. Trying to clean it up, ages after-the-fact, is insulting and does not belong on Wikipedia.
LarsHenderson ( talk) 11:53, 5 March 2021 (UTC)
As when I read Britiannica, national interest, British history net, etc.
https://www.historic-uk.com/HistoryUK/HistoryofBritain/First-Opium-War/ Their version of all the Opium war was all universally to make it crystal clear that the British were definitely in the wrong and being jerks. But the current Wikipedia version is so different to that.
In britiannica, National interest and history uk version, etc (just a few top sources from a quick google search) they all explicitly state the British had wanted any excuse to wage war and extend their trading rights. That the Opium war was obviously about protecting the lucrative opium trade that the British had a monopoly on. That they even had an argument in parliament with some prominent politicians recognising the war as immoral. But ultimately the opium trade was too profitable for them to give up. That's the real reason for war according to the writers in history UK, national interest, britiannica, etc as well as so many other scholars.
But current Wikipedia version of both opium war, such major narratives are ridiculously missing but instead makes it seem like the entire and main reason for the wars was because China was either rude or refused to be reasonable on opium trade and also spins heavily on how Chinese acted horribly to the British that started second opium wars and even stresses on how the Chinese were smuggling the Opium in but leaves out the fact that the British were the ones mass producing opium despite it was illegal. It is such a biased revisionist view. Not just this article but all the opium war articles on Wikipedia is heavily revised.
What this article really needs on talk is first a consensus that the cause of opium war was because of British greed and the Opium trade profits.
That is the official view and narrative in britiannica encyclopedia as well as so many other scholars. However I am also not interested in a petty edit war with people wanting to keep up ignorance and deny that the British were the unfair bullies in that war.
If however there are many editors who agrees that the britiannica version of opium wars is more accurate and the Wikipedia article should be closer to britiannica version. And want to fix the article. That would be great. But it seems like the current wiki consensus in current wiki article is that both opium wars was mostly because the British were greatly wronged by China when they arrested a former pirate ship or killed one French missionary, etx and that's the whole reason for going to war for them. Whilst leaving out the real reasons for war was because of greed and opium profits.
Even if you add in the correct information to the article that the British were using Pretexts for both Opium wars and the real reason for war, was because they wanted to protect Their Opium trade profits as stated by many top scholars and britiannica. I doubt my edits would survive long. https://nationalinterest.org/blog/the-buzz/the-opium-wars-the-bloody-conflicts-destroyed-imperial-china-17212
I agree the article needs to be fixed and would like to Clean it up.. maybe later if I have more time in the end of year..in the meantime, if other editors disagree with what Lars and I wrote and think britiannica version of Opium wars is wrong. Make your points here. Casualfoodie ( talk) 16:25, 27 April 2021 (UTC)
I'd contend the arguments about "free trade" fall into economic interest arguments, but also say that if scholars have come up with a diverse range of theories than that should be represented. I don't think consensus has been reached, but feel free to correct me.
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