What caused the conflict between China and Britain over the sale of opium? Why did China lose this series of wars?
What will be an ideal response?
A. Opium Conflict
1. narcotics are addictive; they create captive markets and command high
prices
2. makes them ideal commodities for relatively poor producer economies
seeking rich markets
3. British wanted to sell the drug in China and the Chinese authorities wanted
to stop them
4. situation became acute in the 1830s
a. Britain boosted the opium traffic by abolishing trading monopolies
among its own subjects and opening free trade with China
b. the Chinese emperor appointed Commissioner Lin to end the opium
trade
5. appeals of Chinese to British on grounds of morality
a. Britain was unresponsive to appeals
6. Lin confiscated all the opium he could find and flushed it into the sea
a. could not secure promises from the British merchants that they
would withdraw from the trade
b. imperial court suspended dealings with Britain
7. Britain formed military blockade of China's ports, reopened trade by force
a. Chinese refused Britain's terms
b. British warships, with opium vessels in their wake, sacked China's
coastal and river towns
c. Chinese counterattack made no difference
8. Treaty of Nanjing ends war
a. Hong Kong went to Britain and opened five other ports
b. paid a colossal indemnity of 21 million silver dollars
c. British officials, not Chinese, would have the right to settle disputes
between British and Chinese subjects
d. Britain would have what we now call "most favored nation" rights in
China
B. Reasons for defeat
1. Chinese defense was chaotic
a. expedients were magical, some original, but all had a touch of
desperation about them
b. supply department failed, inflicting unendurable hunger on army
c. commanders received rewards for writing reports on nonexistent
victories
d. embezzlers raided the war chest
e. only a fraction of the army arrived in time for the battle
f. misunderstanding their orders, troops attacked the main city gate
armed only with knives
g. deficiencies of organization and generalship
2. British strengths
a. forces had state-of-the-art munitions—products of the early phases
of industrialization—and steam-powered gunboats
b. recruited large numbers of men from India
c. substitution of machine power for manpower
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A) ?30 B) ?40 C) ?45 D) ?50 E) ?55
The crisis stemming from German non-payment of its 1922 reparations installment
a. caused Britain to send troops into the Ruhr to collect the payments in kind. b. led to severe hyperinflation, as Germany's "passive resistance" made the mark worthless. c. led the Soviet Union to annex Upper Siberia in lieu of "reparations due." d. resulted in a successful Bolshevik revolution in Germany. e. led to the invasion of Poland by the German army.
The reconstruction of southern society was particularly difficult because:
A) the southerners had lost their position in the international cotton market. B) the integration of 4 million newly freed slaves posed grave political questions. C) southern cities had suffered so severely in Sherman's and Grant's campaigns that many were not fully rebuilt until the early 20th century. D) about 23 percent of the southern population had died. E) the infrastructure of the South was so damaged that it set the region behind for decades to come.
How did Sumerian scribes learn the cuneiform writing system?
A) They were taught at special schools. B) They were taught at home by their fathers. C) They were taught by priests, who were solely responsible for this important teaching. D) They were taught as part of their mandated training as members of the army.