Two British Invasions of Macao (1802 and 1808)

March 16, 2:30pm - 4:00pm
Mānoa Campus, Sakamaki A201 Add to Calendar

Professor Wensheng Wang (UHM, History) will present "Before the Opium War: Two British Invasions of Macao (1802 and 1808) and Their Impact on Sino-British Relations," as the next session of the History Workshop series, "War and Society."

Like many other empires, Qing China experienced a series of crises at the turn of the 19th century. This presentation focuses on one of such upheavals: the south China piracy (1790s-1810) and how it accelerated Western involvement in Qing politics and economy. To take advantage of the chaotic situations resulting from the Great Wars in Europe (1792 -1815) and the simultaneous upsurge in maritime violence across the South China Sea, Britain made two fruitless attempts to occupy Macao, a Portuguese settlement near Canton, in 1802 and 1808. The two Macao expeditions marked a turning point that helped the British reformulate their grand strategy in China. They also heightened the Qing court’s concerns about British naval ambitions, thus facilitating a larger reorientation away from Inner Asia toward the southeast coast. Both events, along with Lord Macartney’s diplomatic mission (1793) and the full-scale Opium War (1839-1842), mark the key conjunctures in the “interactive emergence” of British power in China.


Event Sponsor
History, Mānoa Campus

More Information
Suzanna Reiss and Matt Romaniello, 956-7407, histwork@hawaii.edu

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