The Scramble for China: Foreign Devils in the Qing Empire, 1832-1914

This 2011 book is about the western forces at work in Qing dynasty China around the 19th century. Robert Bickers is a historian and professor at the University of Bristol, UK. He studied at the SOAS in London and in Beijing, and is literate in Chinese. Bickers is an academic, but this doesn't read like a textbook. The writing is fluid, and things are kept moving at a brisk pace. There is even dark humor to be found in the tragic absurdity of the events described. The book focuses on British treaty ports, although other European countries and Chinese cities come into view.The story begins in 1832 with life on a narrow stretch of land allotted to westerners for trade in Canton (modern day Guangzhou). A number of character studies are sketched, from East India Company traders who agitated for war, to Qing officials who dumped fabulous fortunes of narcotics into the South China Sea. The Opium Wars are quickly recounted, useful as either an introduction or a review of the events. The naval attacks are only briefly revisited. Another chapter summarizes the history and culture of Qing dynasty China in order to set the stage.The strength of this book is it's description of British China after the treaty ports of Shanghai, Canton, Ningbo, Fuzhou and Xiamen had opened in 1842. Hong Kong was ceded to Britain at the same time. The new settlements, the British settlers and their subjects from Malacca, Singapore and Calcutta are resurrected from memoirs and news stories. There is a wealth of information about the development of the ports and interaction with the interior. The other treaty countries, France, America, Russia and Germany are given more minor roles to play.Piracy and smuggling was rife at the treaty ports. British traders flew flags of other nations to evade British customs, and local traders flew British flags to feign British protection. Qing subjects emigrated to Australia, America and Africa during the gold rushes. Treatment of indentured servants and coerced laborers led to the term 'shanghaied'. All was supported by the extra-territoriality clauses in the Nanking Treaty, shielding British and their collaborators from Qing law. An affront to national honor was cause for further concessions and reparations.Missionaries played a large role in expanding the western presence in China, translating on reconnaissance voyages and treaty negotiations, and traveling beyond the limits of treaty ports. Allowed to distribute religious materials they unwittingly seeded the Taiping Rebellion, a millenarian movement against the Qing dynasty in 1851. Some 30 million people died. Qing opium and British piracy crackdowns swelled rebel ranks until they reached the Yangtze river, seized Nanjing, and threatened Shanghai. The solution was to hire British and US mercenaries.An 1856 Qing arrest of a Chinese crew (possibly smugglers or pirates) flying the union jack near Hong Kong led quickly to the second Opium War. The British bombarded Canton, and an Anglo-French coalition attacked coastal cities and forts, looting and burning down the Summer Palace. Treaties added ten ports (with French, Americans and Russians crowding in), legations in Peking, interior travel and Yangtze river rights, missionary/convert rights and war reparations worth billions today. Russia sliced off northeast Manchuria, securing the port of Vladivostok.The book covers pre-WWI Japanese incursions into China. With US Commodore Perry's 1855 opening of treaty ports, Japan began to 'westernize'. Fear of colonization led to rapid militarization after the Meiji Restoration of 1868. The killing of Okinawan shipwrecked sailors by Taiwanese aborigines sparked a Japanese punitive invasion. Tensions over Korea became a case for war with the Qing in 1874. This led to the loss of Taiwan, the Dalian seaport and Liaodong peninsula. Ports were opened in Hangzhou, Suzhou and Chongqing, and more war reparations paid.By the turn of the 20th century reform and revolution were in the air. As imperial powers picked at the carcass of Qing China, Sun Yat-sen and others led cosmopolitan plots to overthrow the dynasty. The sick man of Asia was assailed from all sides, not least by famine and flood. Reactions to foreign intervention resulted in the 1899 Boxer Rebellion, threatening legation and mission alike. International forces invaded Peking, looting and raping on the way, and more money and land was extorted. A rising tide of nationalism spelled the end of the Qing monarchy in 1911.In 1913 foreign interests backed the military autocrat Yuan Shikai over the newly formed democratic republic. As he ascended the dragon throne Japan captured Qingdao and demanded concessions. Like all things in life times change. Profits of trade diminished as opium was supressed. British taste in tea turned to Indian produce. Firms made more money in railroads, mining and finance. One idea of this book is that China and the world each sought trade but wanted it on their own terms. It's a shame that war was the best the west had to offer the game.There isn't much moralizing about acquisition of ports by gunboat, but this is not a justifying exercise either. Bickers recreates the actions and attitudes of the foreign community of the era. The book refutes some official communist history about a century of humiliation, but largely supports it. On a more general level it shows what can happen when global commerce is enforced by worldwide military might. Britain didn't colonize China as it did in America, India and Africa, although the unequal treaties were an intermediate step in the growth of international capitalism.

A second hand book in 'good condition' means a clean copy with no mark-ups. I was very disappointed with the numbers of mark-ups in green texta and feel the condition of this second hand book was totally misrepresented for the price.

Meticulously research, The Scramble for Chinashould be hugely informative in explaining to westerners thetreatment meted out to China in the nineteenthcentury. Certainly, it does paint a vivid picture of the buccaneeringactivities of the foreigners as they forced China to trade on termsthat they set unilaterally in the infamous "unequal treaties" sohumbling for the Chinese state. I hadn't grasped that China decreedthat all foreign powers had to acknowledge at least in a symbolic waythat they were subservient to it, something bound to offend the cocksure imperialists who boasted possession ofthe Gatling gun. There is fascinating detail about the interaction astwo cultures collide, and the accommodations made both diplomaticallyand domestically; Chinese mistresses were acquired by many of theEuropeans. And there is the intriguing account of Robert Hart whichconfounds expectations that there could be no middle way. Born in Northern Ireland, Hart was anacknowledged and loyal servant to China for decades ensuring thesmooth running of the customs and nudging China towards modernisation bybuilding grand strings of light houses and so on.However the shortcomings of the bookare twofold. First it documents things most heavily from a westernperspective whereas a Chinese view would be far more refreshing andfrankly more useful if we are get an understanding of modern day China.Second it is long on narrative and short on overarchinganalysis. The title, echoing the "Scramble for Africa", promises wide-angle history: this book is narrow-focus. Bickers shies away from bold, visionary analysis of geo-politics and refuses to engage in speculation about what the future may hold. He even seems apprehensive aboutstating his wider views too baldly. He says wryly that China thinks it is differentfrom other countries, thereby proving that in this regard it is justthe same as them. And in the closing sentences suggests he is notoptimistic about the future. "Chinese youth come out into the worldequipped for instinctive indignation at China's past humiliations,something that might make a very awkward world for all of us". Perhapsif Prof Bickers was willing to risk expanding on this we might be ableto do more to avoid this fate.

Based on reviews and because this was fairly recent, I hoped it would offer a fresh new take on Western Imperialism in China in the 19th century. Not so much. The ponderous British writing style is the opposite of engaging and there's really not much new here. You're better off reading older, better written stuff by the likes of John K. Fairbank than wasting your time on this. And if you really want something more recent, try the books by Stephen Platt, though they are also overly detailed at times.

Scholarly and uncompromising - hard work but well worthwhile. Despite a degree of complexity it is probably one of the clearest introductions to the impact of Imperialism on China. It makes it possible to comprehend the background that could produce Chairman Mao.Written by an author who respects the English language and does not fall into the slovenliness of using the present tense in historical narrative. Truly an academic's work, but demands effort from the reader - not for the lazy seekers for a quick fix.

Robert Bicker’s ‚The Scramble for China‘ cannot be recommended to the reader expecting a narrative on the events unfolding from the 1830s onwards but will face an eclectic selection of rich (short) stories of every day’s socio cultural life in these times wrapped around historic events mentioned in a few sentences. The author demonstrates an enormous wealth of knowledge on the subject but unfortunately fails to present his readers with a readable and coherent narrative.

This is an excellent account of China's ordeal at confronting modernity in the shape of the imperial powers. As a guide to the origins Chinese attitudes concerning foreign towards the west this is a superb start.

The title of this book seems to both evoke a mysterious, now lost, time, and condemn itself to obscurity as an irretrievably niche subject treatment. However, as another reviewer has commented, this seemingly super-specialist period of Chinese history is brutally relevant for understanding China today and the new generation of young Chinese professionals and politicians that will in all probability come to have a great effect on the world during our lifetime.Bickers tells the history of the clash of two proud, arrogant and xenophobic civilisations both over-engaged with their own honour and grandeur. The main protagonists, Britain and China, are not considered in isolation, but with all the chaos that the international settlements and harrumphing diplomats of America, France, Germany and Japan brought with them. Bickers shows how the European civilisations argued, traded, bullied and brow-beat their way up China's coast and inland up her rivers, carving out national concessions and international settlements, such as that at Shanghai, along the way. He also describes the Chinese reaction, and the disownment of the Qing empire that had the misfortune to be in charge when these forces came to bear on China by the modern Communist Party. The constant contemporary re-invocation of this "century of national humiliation" is shown to colour the way young China thinks and interacts with the world today.The story is told at both macro and micro levels, and Bickers regularly illustrates wider phenomena with telling personal tales of the post-modernist micro-history type which serve to bring the lost world of the Chinese treaty ports to life in a way which would be impossible for a purely political, high-level narrative. A good example of this is the adventures of Hugh Hamilton Lindsay and Karl Gützlaff in Chapter 1, `Unwelcome Guests', along with the grumbles of the Canton traders, which illustrate the patronising mystique with which the Chinese, and the Qing, were viewed and portrayed, the conflation of personal with national honour, and the frustration with restrictive trade laws and yearning for more. His portrayal of the microcosmic worlds of the isolated European lighthouse overseers should also be noted for his ability to make a seemingly dry subject both interesting and shocking.The Scramble for China also deserves attention for its cool, incisive treatment of some enduring issues. For example, Bickers' treatment of the Qing court does not attempt to conceal, indeed brings out the subtlety of its position as both Manchu in its internal identity and Chinese on an international level. It also shows the irony of the contrast of the Qing Emperor at the beginning of the period, both China embodied and more than China, painted as a powerful tyrant by the European press, and a cunning player in the Great Game who cannily played off one European power against another, with its failing position towards the close of the period, its popular support eroded by anti-Manchu, anti-foreign nationalists, and forced to rely on foreign support to survive, eventually becoming the rulers of a powerless Japanese puppet state, Manchukuo.There are two major criticisms I have with this interesting work which adds greatly to the recent cull of books on China which in the main focus solely on the nation post-Communist revolution. The first is that the book has a very heavy preponderance of the Western viewpoint, and it would be greatly enhanced by looking at the contentious issues considered through Chinese as well as European eyes. This isn't to say that the book is wholly without Chinese perspective, but there is definitely a much greater focus on Western perceptions, and there is nothing to match the many European micro-histories weaved into the narrative.My second criticism is that one of the most interesting instances in which Bickers does consider the Chinese perspective - viz. the modern day colouring of Chinese attitudes as a result of the scramble for China - receives only a modicum of discussion, consisting of a couple of pages in the Introduction and the final chapter. I can't help feeling that there is a lot more Bickers could have expanded on here, as it is evident that he is extremely well-informed as far as Sino-European relations are concerned.Having said this, I would definitely recommend this to anyone wanting to get a better understanding of modern China. The Scramble for China deserves a place on the shelf next to Kissinger's On China and McGregor's The Party.

This is an excellent introduction to this fascinating subject. It is written in a fast-paced style quite unlike that which one might expect from an academic, so that it is very easy to read. As well as covering all the essential basics, it has some thought provoking things to say about the Chinese soldiers and their performance in the field. Highly recommended.