He was a mem-ber of nearly everything-the revolutionary military committee, the political bureau of the Central Committee, the finance commission, the organization committee, the public health commission, and others.
It makes you wonder if the man ever slept. He has a wide range of committees and responsibilities that he was in which all seem like they would take up a fair amount of time.
He had been repeatedly pronounced dead by his enemies, only to return to the news columns a few days later, as active as ever
It makes you wonder if he had some body doubles out there or if this was intentional propaganda to make him more intriguing.
Apart from the stipulation of a $6 million payment as compensation f the opium destroyed in 1839, the narcotic was nowhere mentioned in tt treaty, nor was it discussed in the supplementary tariff treaty of 1843, whic fixed the rates for tea, silk, cotton, woolens, ivory, metals, and spirit
The British in this sound like the original cartel. Selling huge amounts of drugs under a veil of trade and then creating a strong list of demands when the Chinese did not allow them to do what they wanted.
THE FIRST CLASH WITH THE WEST I 157 er Majesty's Government cannot allow that, in a transaction between -eat Britain and China, the unreasonable practice of the Chinese should _-,ersede the reasonable practice of all the rest of mankind."13 ·.Vith these new instructions, Pottinger reached China in August 1841 to the situation even more volatile. There had been renewed fighting in countryside around Canton, much of it by aroused bands of Chinese .tia under local gentry leaders, and British troops had been killed and .mded. The British had responded by destroying the Bogue forts, sink--Chinese junks, razing part of the waterf
After staying out of foreign trade for so long, when they finally were involved in it the outcome was terrible. It does make me wonder if things would have turned out better if the Chinese were the ones out trading if that would have decreased the number of ships coming to them.
3 million pounds of raw opium.
That is a lot of opium. I wonder what kind of impact that had on the ecosystem when it was flushed into the river and sea.
miniature baojia units-pledged to guarantee that no one in the group would smoke
I wonder what the consequence would be if one member of the group was caught smoking? Would they all be punished?
of the opium trade pointed out that it would end the corruption and blac mailing of officials and bring in a steady revenue through tariffs. It woUt also allow domestically grown Chinese opium-believed to be of bette-quality than Indian opium and cheaper to market-gradually to squeez:: out that of the foreigners. Many officials, however, considered this vie pernicious. They argued that foreigners were cruel and greedy, and th · the Chinese did not need opium, domestic or foreign. They thought th-prohibitions made by Emperor Jiaqing, far from being abandoned, shoul be pursued with even greater rigor.
This reminds me of the current debates about legalizing marijuana in United States.
Consoo fund,"
It sounds like the overall system was ineffective, but the emergency fund kept things afloat for longer than it would have.
Usually they are due to one's own but this was not the case with me. I was fond of friendship, proud of U1 my word, and by nature frank and straightforward.
I've noticed this theme in the readings, but also in life in general. People seem to blame difficult situations on a person rather than on bad circumstances. There are many hard working people that don't get ahead and then people just assume they didn't work hard enough to move ahead in life.
Although other Chinese writers had toyed with such ideas before, no one had pursued them as vigorously as Li. and surely few Qing men could have read of the travails of the merchant Lin without at least a shudder of sympathy for their pain-racked female contemporaries:
Did it really take writers to point out how terrible these practices were for women? It makes me wonder how no one before these writings were questioning these practices.
Gong pointed to the development of a Chinese society in !lich those with large and small spoons began to attack each other, while -:.e ruler tried to appropriate the entire kettle. Not surprisingly, the kettle ften dried up or toppled over." Now the time had come once again to '.)()On things out fairly.
This analogy provides a good depiction of unequal distribution of wealth. If there are a large number of people who cannot survive the economic system then there is no safety for those on top either. It surprises me that more historical leaders haven't understood this.
Hong was promptly sentenced to death on a charge of "extreme indecorum."
This shows the strong continued values of obedience and not questioning even if there is widespread problems. The belief that speaking out about something automatically makes you an enemy seems to be something that has surfaced more in the current political climate of the US.
list of "over thirty" countries that Zheng He is said in his Mingshi biography to have visited has 36 names for 35 countries
This is an extensive list. It is still hard to believe that they began such elaborate trade routes and then isolated again.
These prohibitions had the effect of turning the already numerous (even if the numbers are difficult to estimate) Chinese maritime population into pirates and smugglers, since they could not be expected to give up their livelihood. Hence Zheng He found Palembang under the con-trol of a Chinese pirate fleet on his first voyage, and the Chinese
It's ironic that the prohibition of overseas trade led to the creation of pirates. It's an early example of making a decision based on one goal can result in unintended consequences.
Such an armada, appearing literally out of the blue before the capital of a small state in the Indian Ocean, must have been a terrifying apparition, one that in most cases allowed Zheng He to accom-plish the traditional goal of Chinese military science, that of subduing the enemy without fighting. The concept of the peaceful nature of Zheng He's voyages
Zheng He voyages are described as peaceful, but at the same time he also talks about how people would be terrified at the sign of his armada. I wonder how peaceful it can really be if everyone is intimidated into cooperating due to fear of retaliation by such as big armada.
heng He's fleets "could count on the co-operation of local rulers when they needed to careen, caulk, or even build, when far from home,"
It's interesting that through this travel that there was peaceful exploration with goods being brought back but that the fleets were then destroyed by other parties. The other text also read more like the navy dwindled while this text indicates that the ships were burnt and destroyed.