Portrait: AI-generated imagined likeness
Politician · Writer
A Qing Dynasty bureaucrat who led the crackdown on opium. Opium was confiscated and destroyed in Guangzhou, deepening the conflict with Britain. He is a central figure in understanding China on the eve of the Opium War. We can also see a conflict with imperialism.
View in catalogFuzhou
Birth
Guangzhou
Work
Ili
Exile
suppression of the opium trade
1839
Political event · Leader
First Opium War
1839–1842
War · Context
Map: Natural Earth (PD)
Born in Fujian, he passed the imperial examination and became a Qing dynasty bureaucrat. In China in the first half of the 19th century, the opium trade was a major problem, leading to an outflow of silver and social unrest.
As Minister of State, he went to Guangzhou and confiscated and destroyed the opium of foreign merchants. The strict no-smoking policy was an attempt to protect Qing sovereignty, but it led to a military conflict with Britain.
Lin Zexu is said to have complained of the injustice of the opium trade in a letter to Queen Victoria. The worldview of the Qing dynasty bureaucrats is reflected in the way they appealed by linking morality and international relations.
When you study Lin Zexu, you realize that the Opium War was not just a trade conflict, but a clash between sovereignty, drugs, silver leakage, and imperialism. You will be able to understand the starting point from which modern East Asia entered the unequal treaty system. It also provides clues to the Qing Dynasty's sense of crisis and logic of resistance.
