China - Comparing Environmental Policies in 16 Countries - page 243

three hundred ships. In tonnage, the ships were several times bigger than
anything built in Europe at the time. Besides trade goods, the expeditions
brought back animals like zebras, giraffes, and ostriches, some dead and
some alive. Then a new emperor came to the throne and abruptly ordered
an end to the exploration.
Soon after the discovery of America, Portuguese and Spanish ships
ventured to Chinese ports by sea from Goa and Malacca or the Philippines.
Jorge Alvares landed in the Pearl River estuary in 1513. Being forbidden
from entering the cities, the Portuguese established a settlement at
Macao. After many decades, Jesuit missionaries, led by Matteo Ricci, were
permitted to come to Beijing, where they introduced western astronomy
and science. A few Jesuits served as advisors to the emperor but wider con-
tact was sparse. The Chinese considered themselves culturally and eco-
nomically superior, hence saw no benefits from contact and trade. Their
name for their country, Zhong Guo, is usually translated as the Middle
Kingdom, but perhaps better as the Central Kingdom because it consid-
ered itself to be the center of the world.
Population began to grow at about this time. Demographers estimate
that in the Han Dynasty in the year 2 AD the population was about
60 million and fluctuated at this level and lower until about 1600 AD.
It then began to grow greatly to about 430 million in the middle of the
19th century. In spite of wars, rebellions, floods, and bad government over
the next century, the population increased by another 100 million. 2 This
put severe pressure on the land.
By 1842 Chinese ability to keep out the Europeans was weakening.
By this time, the Portuguese were weaker as a world power, and the English
were much stronger. Trade was at a low volume because the Chinese did
not want European products, finding them inferior to their own manu-
facturers. Silver was the only commodity they would accept. Trade of any
sort was highly restricted. This changed in 1773 when the British began
to smuggle opium into China. The emperor had long proclaimed opium
illegal, but the British persisted. When in 1839 the Imperial government
tried to arrest British and other European traders in Guangzhou (Canton),
the Royal Navy attacked. The old-fashioned Chinese junks and cannons
were no match, and they were soon defeated. The Treaty of Nanjing of
1842 forced China to pay an indemnity, allowed the British to establish
trading facilities in four ports, and ceded Hong Kong Island. Two years
later France and the United States forced similar treaties on the Empire.
These are still referred to as the Unequal Treaties. In the Second Opium