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Chinese Account of the Opium War
This is a reproduction of a book published before 1923. This book may have occasional imperfections such as missing or blurred pages, poor pictures, errant marks, etc. that were either part of the original artifact, or were introduced by the scanning process. We believe this work is culturally important, and despite the imperfections, have elected to bring it back into print as part of our continuing commitment to the preservation of printed works worldwide. We appreciate your understanding of the imperfections in the preservation process, and hope you enjoy this valuable book.
- GenresHistory
88 pages, Kindle Edition
First published January 1, 1888
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Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 reviews
February 22, 2017
Its actually by Yuan Wei, the other guy is just the translator or compiler or something. Anyway this account didn't really change my view of the Opium War, which is generally sympathetic to the British. But it does give an interesting account of why the Chinese think they failed. Namely, they didn't handle their internal dissenters properly, and they large scale political strategy was wrong. They didn't properly play European powers off one another. They didn't press their advantage when they had it, and they accepted peace when they did have an advantage. They straight up bungled it. Its also interesting for a number of other reasons. Everything is written with the "Middle Kingdom" assumptions baked in, and you can really tell. The westerners are just out of control pirates, etc. Yet there is clearly some tension in there even within the author's mind, as the attitude of the Emperor was clearly backwards and outdated, and made the Chinese adopt an overly hostile and arrogant attitude towards the British, and fail to function properly diplomatically as a member of the international community. A lot of the text had to do with specific battles and internal Chinese politics, which I feel like I don't know enough about China to really have been enlightened by, but maybe you'll do better.
October 20, 2025
I'll be blunt with ya'll-- I'm surprised there's other reviews for this book.
In general, I agree with some of the major comments made in the other reviews. This is a short summary of the First Opium War by Wei Yuan translated by Parker. Essentially the major takeaways from the book are Chinese perceptions of Britains' various motivations and thoughts through parts of the war, as well as the mis-managed events on the Chinese side.
HOWEVER-- I would read this book only after reading a western account of the opium war. There are several things (such as motivations and some minor skirmishes) that aren't true, and it is more properly understood if one has knowledge of the opium war.
Overall, this was semi helpful. What is much more helpful is The Opium War through Chinese Eyes by Arthur Waley which gives translated diaries of Chinese citizens who lived through British conquest, and Chang Hsi and the Treaty of Nanking by Ssu-yu Teng. Chang Hsi is mentioned briefly in this book, but Wei Yuan doesn't do his part justice in my opinion.
In general, I agree with some of the major comments made in the other reviews. This is a short summary of the First Opium War by Wei Yuan translated by Parker. Essentially the major takeaways from the book are Chinese perceptions of Britains' various motivations and thoughts through parts of the war, as well as the mis-managed events on the Chinese side.
HOWEVER-- I would read this book only after reading a western account of the opium war. There are several things (such as motivations and some minor skirmishes) that aren't true, and it is more properly understood if one has knowledge of the opium war.
Overall, this was semi helpful. What is much more helpful is The Opium War through Chinese Eyes by Arthur Waley which gives translated diaries of Chinese citizens who lived through British conquest, and Chang Hsi and the Treaty of Nanking by Ssu-yu Teng. Chang Hsi is mentioned briefly in this book, but Wei Yuan doesn't do his part justice in my opinion.
October 3, 2017
Wei Yuan is one of China's realists: one of the few truly geostrategic thinkers who had a deep understanding of the relations between states, since China's own Warring States period in antiquity. His account of the Opium War against Britain (1839-1842), translated here by Edward Harper Parker, is equal parts an apologia for his close friend and collaborator Lin Zexu, an indictment of the strategic incompetence of the Qing military élite, and a brilliant after-action report which highlighted not only the tactical and strategic failures of the Qing military, but also made note of missed opportunities.
For example, the Qing could have taken advantage of an uprising of the Nepalese against British India and opened a second land front in the Opium War - but they did not understand the relevance of the Nepalese grievances to their own conflict and wrote it off as a 'barbarian' matter. They also failed to take advantage of an American-brokered peace, which would have been on more favourable terms than the Qing eventually got, and allowed the Cantonese to murder several Americans indiscriminately (after which the offer was withdrawn). And, lastly, they failed to take advantage of French traders' discontent with British comportment in Canton, to stir up trouble between the French and the English, which could only have been to Chinese benefit. As Wei himself puts it:
Oh! opportunity! opportunity! It is only the true genius who can take opportunity by the forelock! It is only the sagacious who never miss opportunity. But the next best thing is to repent when the opportunity has gone by. Repentance, followed by capacity to change for the better, will yet enable us to repair our errors at some future time!
The book consists of two chapters. The first chapter seeks to exonerate Lin Zexu, who was at the time scapegoated for starting the entire conflict. He notes that Lin, despite his having taken an early hard line against opium traders, was actually open to compromise on the subject of broader trade. And in terms of military tactics, Lin advocated for taking a defensive posture and 'borrowing' the technology of the British to fight the British - both suggestions that were ignored or overridden by Lin's rivals in Beijing. The second chapter highlights the humiliating defeats that took place after Lin's dismissal and exile to Xinjiang, and makes the suggestions that even at that late date, the war was not completely lost, and could have been concluded on more favourable terms.
It is monstrously unfortunate for China that Wei Yuan's later work - his famous Gazetteer which was a geographical and cultural survey of Western nations and the reasons for their rise - was all but ignored by the Qing intelligentsia. Perhaps that might have allowed the Qing to 'repair [their] errors', and survive the later crises of the Taiping Rebellion, the upheavals of the 1890's and the Boxer Rebellion.
Parker's translation is quite good and easy to follow, but unfortunately his romanisation scheme is pre-Wade-Giles, which makes the romanisations frustratingly hard to read. (This isn't his fault, so I don't hold it against him. And he more than makes up for it by including the original Chinese characters in footnotes at the bottom of each page.) He leaves out a few passages, but makes note of these omissions and gives his reasons for excluding them.
For example, the Qing could have taken advantage of an uprising of the Nepalese against British India and opened a second land front in the Opium War - but they did not understand the relevance of the Nepalese grievances to their own conflict and wrote it off as a 'barbarian' matter. They also failed to take advantage of an American-brokered peace, which would have been on more favourable terms than the Qing eventually got, and allowed the Cantonese to murder several Americans indiscriminately (after which the offer was withdrawn). And, lastly, they failed to take advantage of French traders' discontent with British comportment in Canton, to stir up trouble between the French and the English, which could only have been to Chinese benefit. As Wei himself puts it:
Oh! opportunity! opportunity! It is only the true genius who can take opportunity by the forelock! It is only the sagacious who never miss opportunity. But the next best thing is to repent when the opportunity has gone by. Repentance, followed by capacity to change for the better, will yet enable us to repair our errors at some future time!
The book consists of two chapters. The first chapter seeks to exonerate Lin Zexu, who was at the time scapegoated for starting the entire conflict. He notes that Lin, despite his having taken an early hard line against opium traders, was actually open to compromise on the subject of broader trade. And in terms of military tactics, Lin advocated for taking a defensive posture and 'borrowing' the technology of the British to fight the British - both suggestions that were ignored or overridden by Lin's rivals in Beijing. The second chapter highlights the humiliating defeats that took place after Lin's dismissal and exile to Xinjiang, and makes the suggestions that even at that late date, the war was not completely lost, and could have been concluded on more favourable terms.
It is monstrously unfortunate for China that Wei Yuan's later work - his famous Gazetteer which was a geographical and cultural survey of Western nations and the reasons for their rise - was all but ignored by the Qing intelligentsia. Perhaps that might have allowed the Qing to 'repair [their] errors', and survive the later crises of the Taiping Rebellion, the upheavals of the 1890's and the Boxer Rebellion.
Parker's translation is quite good and easy to follow, but unfortunately his romanisation scheme is pre-Wade-Giles, which makes the romanisations frustratingly hard to read. (This isn't his fault, so I don't hold it against him. And he more than makes up for it by including the original Chinese characters in footnotes at the bottom of each page.) He leaves out a few passages, but makes note of these omissions and gives his reasons for excluding them.
Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 reviews