1. British Imperialism in China

2. China in the Decline Through the 1700s, China flourishes under the Qing dynasty. China is at the center of the world economy as Europeans and Americans seek Chinese goods China had a growing problem, literally, their population was growing too fast which negatively effects the food supply and makes it harder to govern. This made the government weaker and led to the Taiping Rebellion

3. British Imperialism The Chinese have a large country with many resources so Europe was having a difficult time finding something the Chinese wanted to trade. The British would do almost anything to make money at the time so they started selling the Chinese the drug, Opium, which is very addictive. This led to China trying to ban the sale of Opium which led to the Opium Wars with the British

4. Spheres of Influence The Chinese would lose the Opium War to the British and their advanced military technology This forced the Chinese to trade, gave the British control of several Chinese ports including Hong Kong and forced the Chinese to pay the British billions of dollars in today’s money China is said to be “carved up like a melon” by foreign powers competing for “spheres of influence” on Chinese soil.