Opium War

Opium War (1839–42), fought in China by the British, the first in a series aimed at opening ports and gaining tariff concessions. The pretext was the burying of 20,000 chests of opium by the Chinese. China had banned the opium trade in 1799, but with the aid of corrupt Chinese officials British merchants still made enormous profits from it. British troops occupied Hong Kong in 1841, and the fall of Chinkiang (Zhen-jiang) in 1842 threatened Peking (Beijing) itself. The Treaty of Nanking (Nanjing) ceded Hong Kong to Britain and granted British merchants full rights of residence in the ports of Amoy (Xiamen), Canton (Guangzhou), Foochow (Fuzhou), Ningpo, and Shanghai; Britain was also to receive over $50 million war indemnity. The United States gained trade facilities by the 1844 Treaty of Wanghai. Further hostilities, in which French joined British troops (1856), led to more concessions, notably in the Treaties of Tientsin (1858) to which Britain, France, Russia, and the United States were parties, which legalized the opium trade, and when Kowloon was ceded to Britain and part of Manchuria to Russia (1860).