civilization by slavish imitation of China.  The view of Chien Lung was no more absurd than that of Alexander the Great, sighing for new worlds to conquer when he had never even heard of China, where Confucius had been dead already for a hundred and fifty years.  Nor was he mistaken as regards trade:  China produces everything needed for the happiness of its inhabitants, and we have forced trade upon them solely for our benefit, giving them in exchange only things which they would do better without.

Unfortunately for China, its culture was deficient in one respect, namely science.  In art and literature, in manners and customs, it was at least the equal of Europe; at the time of the Renaissance, Europe would not have been in any way the superior of the Celestial Empire.  There is a museum in Peking where, side by side with good Chinese art, may be seen the presents which Louis XIV made to the Emperor when he wished to impress him with the splendour of Le Roi Soleil.  Compared to the Chinese things surrounding them, they were tawdry and barbaric.  The fact that Britain has produced Shakespeare and Milton, Locke and Hume, and all the other men who have adorned literature and the arts, does not make us superior to the Chinese.  What makes us superior is Newton and Robert Boyle and their scientific successors.  They make us superior by giving us greater proficiency in the art of killing.  It is easier for an Englishman to kill a Chinaman than for a Chinaman to kill an Englishman.  Therefore our civilization is superior to that of China, and Chien Lung is absurd.  When we had finished with Napoleon, we soon set to work to demonstrate this proposition.

Our first war with China was in 1840, and was fought because the Chinese Government endeavoured to stop the importation of opium.  It ended with the cession of Hong-Kong and the opening of five ports to British trade, as well as (soon afterwards) to the trade of France, America and Scandinavia.  In 1856-60, the English and French jointly made war on China, and destroyed the Summer Palace near Peking,[26] a building whose artistic value, on account of the treasures it contained, must have been about equal to that of Saint Mark’s in Venice and much greater than that of Rheims Cathedral.  This act did much to persuade the Chinese of the superiority of our civilization so they opened seven more ports and the river Yangtze, paid an indemnity and granted us more territory at Hong-Kong.  In 1870, the Chinese were rash enough to murder a British diplomat, so the remaining British diplomats demanded and obtained an indemnity, five more ports, and a fixed tariff for opium.  Next, the French took Annam and the British took Burma, both formerly under Chinese suzerainty.  Then came the war with Japan in 1894-5, leading to Japan’s complete victory and conquest of Korea.  Japan’s acquisitions would have been much greater but for the intervention of France, Germany and Russia, England holding aloof.  This was the beginning of our support of Japan, inspired by fear of Russia.  It also led to an alliance between China and Russia, as a reward for which Russia acquired all the important rights in Manchuria, which passed to Japan, partly after the Russo-Japanese war, and partly after the Bolshevik revolution.