Guangzhou

• Chinese/Japanese: 廣州 (Guǎngzhōu / Koushuu)

Guangzhou, historically known in English as Canton, is a major port city in southern China, and was from the 18th-19th centuries the chief port where Westerners - in particular the British East India Company - engaged in trade in China.

Name

The name Canton derives from an Anglicized, or European, pronunciation & spelling of Guangdong, the province within which Guangzhou is located.

History

While the Portuguese were restricted to Macao, the Dutch East India Company and later, from 1699 the British East India Company, came to trade at Canton. In the 17th century, policies and patterns of trade developed into what has come to be known as the "Canton system." The British, the Americans (from 1784 onward), and certain other Western powers were only permitted to trade at Canton, and not at other ports. Further, the Qing Court placed restrictions on the types and quantities of goods to be traded, the times of year trade could take place, etc.

The Westerners were not permitted to enter the city of Guangzhou proper, but were given land along the river, outside the city, where they then established small settlements and factories. Foreigners were not allowed to bring their wives to the settlements at Canton, were subject to Chinese law (i.e. they did not enjoy extraterritoriality), and had to contend with powerful competing Chinese merchant guilds.

It was through this trade that Britain and the other powers were able to obtain tea, silk, and porcelain to meet growing demand at home and in the colonies. They paid for these luxury goods chiefly in silver and gold, as Chinese merchants and authorities insisted they had little interest in English products such as wool.

Finding the Chinese regulations obnoxiously restrictive, the British send their first formal diplomatic embassy in 1793, headed by George Lord Macartney, in the hopes of securing more amenable trading conditions, including the opening of additional ports, the establishment of a formal embassy in Beijing, and certainly agreements on the level of tariffs. However, the embassy was ultimately a failure, and the British remained restricted to Canton.

By the 19th century, the British had managed to replace payments in silver and gold with the importation of opium. Efforts in 1838-1840 by local Canton authorities, headed by Imperial Commissioner Lin Zexu, to stem the flow of opium led to the outbreak of the Opium War (1840-1842), in which China suffered a humiliating defeat, and was forced to agree to a number of concessions, including opening up more ports to trade, granting extraterritoriality to Westerners in those ports, and ceding Hong Kong entirely to the United Kingdom.

References

• Albert M. Craig, The Heritage of Chinese Civilization, Third Edition, Prentice Hall (2011), 118-119.