mighty Celestial Kingdom would now be at the mercy of the Western powers. During the next fifty years, England, France, and others would carve up China’s coast into “spheres of influence.” While China never became a colonial possession like India, and its imperial family nominally remained in power, it was powerless to stop the settlement of its port cities by the reviled fanqui or to stem the still-growing addiction of its people to the “foreign mud.”
