Witoma And Sino-British Relations In The 19th Century

In order to break the Canton System and broaden Chinese market, Britain declared the Opium War and forced China to signe the Treaty of Nanjing. Thereafter, Chinese traditional tribute system was gradually broken down by western treaty system. In1842, T. F. Wade came to China as British lieutenant, but chose the way as a diplomat. He participated and witnessed the development of Anglo-Sino relation. In his forty years serving in china, his diplomatic thoughts changed under the influence of domestic and abroad situation. First he disapprove the gun-boat policy, later he supported and defended the cooperative policy, but confronted with great difficulty, he gradually giving up cooperation and went back to force threat. According to Wade's coherent experience in China, a study of him will help to understand the change and the reason of change in Anglo-Sino relation.Wade's experience in Anglo-Sino relation could be reviewed through three parts in my thesis.Chapter ? is the first part. it discusses the background of Anglo-Sino relation before Wade came to China. Some groups of conflicts will be analyzed in this part, such as the conflict between British Traders'desire and Chinese market's limitation, and the conflict between Britain and other western nations.The second part is comprised by Chapter ?,?,? and ?. First ? will introduce how Wade chose to be a diplomat and approached the center of Anglo-Sino relation. Next I will analyze the development of his diplomatic thoughts, and how he supported and defended the cooperative policy. Then I will review the difficulty of carrying out cooperative policy and analyze Wade's change. Finally, I will mention summarily Wade's contribution after his leaving China."Verbosity" will be the third part. In this part, I first summarize Wade's contribution to normalizing Anglo-Sino relation. Then I analyze why Wade's policy failed to lead a rapport relation between Britain and China:cross-cultural understanding could only be achieved by hard effort for long time even in stable situation, while China in the19th century suffered from both inside uprising and outside threat, and Britain had gradually lost its leadership in the competition between other western nations.