Evils of colonialism and the dawn of modern China in The Opium War

From The Week of January 7, 2013 Though nations are defined by the whole of their histories, their attitudes and dispositions are determined by key events, pivotal moments which shape their views and interactions with the world. A nation with no history of invasion, for instance, might only discover the evils of colonialism through conquest of other peoples while nations with a history of being invaded would know, from prior experience, that nothing good can come of conquest, no matter how pure the motives that initiated it. And so, just as the individual is defined by his experience, so too is a nation. This is enduringly demonstrated in Ms. Lovell's uneven history of one of China's formative events.

One of humanity's most ancient civilizations, China, for much of its history, considered itself superior to the rest of the world. While Chinese scholars were pondering the secrets of the universe and the self, European tribes were still futilely fumbling around for the lightswitch of civilization. But while this superiority held for centuries, the arrogance it bred eventually turned Chinese society insular, closing itself off to the outside world at a time when Europe, ignited by the Renaissance and the Enlightenment, was undergoing massive change.

Thus, when the British, beginning in the 18th century, came to trade for Chinese tea, they must have seemed a simple folk from an insignificant island, no more a threat to a hundred-thousand united kingdoms than a fly to an elephant. But in 1839, this illusion was dramatically and irreparably shattered when that tiny island nation, thirsting for tea but lacking the silver the Chinese wanted in exchange, went to war with the great Asian dragon and, in three years, brought an ancient empire to its knees.

Deploying weapons and tactics not studied by its generals, the British bombarded Chinese defenses, violated Chinese sovereignty and disregarded every dictate of international trade in order to achieve one simple goal, to compel upon China a trade agreement that would, in every way, benefit the British. For while they lacked the silver China would take in trade for tea, they had, in abundance, Indian opium, a powerfully addictive substance which, if it could be forced upon China, would not only net them all the tea they could want in turn, but create an enduring market of addicts who would trade the British almost anything in exchange for a fix. Fearing the worst, China revolted, rallying behind one of its national heroes to reject this deplorable exchange, but both their concerns and their resistance were swept aside, creating, in the ashes of Chinese pride, the stirrings of the modern Chinese state.

Meticulously reconstructing the events surrounding this conflict, The Opium War returns the reader to the simpler, crueller time of the 19th century when there was no apparatus in place to prevent the selfish needs of a stronger nation from exercising its power over a weaker brother. Ms. Lovell, a professor of Modern Chinese History, assembles the prime movers on both sides of this now nearly 200-year-old war, reviving the political machinations that ignited it and capturing the necessities of national pride that drove it to its coercive conclusion. But while she does a credible job weaving together both actor and event into a cohesive and comprehensible whole, the work aims higher than a simple re-imagination of a long-dead event. It ambitiously cultivates an understanding of present-day China from an understanding of the lessons and the effects of the First Opium War. By linking this conflict to more modern movements of Chinese pride, Chinese sovereignty and especially Chinese xenophobia, it unspools an engaging throughline from the modern day all the way back to the event that arguably launched the notion of contemporary China.

Unfortunately, while Ms. Lovell has an eye for detail that aids her well in the creation of a big picture, she exhibits here very little ability to hold the reader's attention during her re-telling of the actual war. She fails to animate any of her major players, save perhaps Lin Zexu, the imperial appointee who attempt to rid China of its opium. And given the number of actors involved in this destructive ballet, this is a damningly poor success rate for a history which rests upon its characters to embed us in the now alien ideas and cultures of the time. Moreover, the prose simply fails to hold ones attention, this in spite of a reader actively interested in this period of Chinese history.

There are notable virtues here. Ms. Lovell has winningly connected her chronicle to events that affect the people of today, both within and without of China. But her work's failure to transform the war and its players into a living, breathing moment in time prevents it from reaching the heights to which it aspired. (3/5 Stars)