Alliances grounded in historical traditions

“The wealth of China is used to profit the barbarians… By what right do they then in return use the poisonous drug to injure the Chinese people?… Since it is not permitted to do harm in your own country, then even less should you let it be passed on to the harm of other countries – how much less to China! Of all that China exports to foreign countries, there is not a single thing which is not beneficial to people…

Now we have set up regulations governing the Chinese people. He who sells opium shall receive the death penalty and he who smokes it also the death penalty… [I]n the new regulations, in regard to the barbarians who bring opium to China, the penalty is fixed at decapitation or strangulation. This is what is called getting rid of a harmful thing on behalf of mankind…”

—Letter from Lin Tse-hsu (Chinese official) to Queen Victoria of England, 1839

41. What motivated the British trade discussed by Lin Tse-hsu?

A. retaliation for overpriced goods like silk and tea

B. concern over the closure of Chinese markets to British textiles

C. fear that the Chinese market would be taken over by other European nations, as well as the United States

D. desire of merchants to use goods secured in India to improve their trade position in China
42. What was the British response to this request by the Chinese government?

A. The British instigated a war using free trade as the justification.

B. The British abandoned the opium trade in order to preserve access to Chinese markets.

C. The British negotiated a trade agreement that allowed limited opium trade in the port of Canton.

D. The British elected to leave the Chinese market entirely and turned their attention in India.
43. As a result of this disagreement with China, Great Britain ultimately received all of the following from China EXCEPT

A. control of Hong Kong.

B. reparations payments from China.

C. tax-free access to Chinese silk and tea.

D. permission for Christian missionaries to act freely in China.

44. What nineteenth century liberal idea about free trade was challenged by this disagreement with China?

A. Tariffs on trade were the best way to secure a nation’s economic interests.

B. Free trade led to peaceful relationships with other countries.

C. Opening foreign markets in East Asia would prove to be an impossible task for European nations.

D. Rising nations like the United States would not be able to challenge European trade interests in Asia.

“In the partition of the earth, as it has proceeded from the beginning of the fifteenth century up to our times, the German nation received nothing. All the remaining European culture-bearing peoples possess areas outside our continent where their languages take firm root and flourish… The German Reich, great in size and strength through its bloodily achieved unity, stands in the leading position among the continental European powers: her sons abroad must adapt themselves to nations which look upon us with either indifference or even hostility…This fact, so painful to national pride, also represents a great economic disadvantage for our Volk. Every year our Fatherland loses the capacity of approximately 200,000 Germans. The greatest amount of this capacity flows directly into the camp of our economic competitors and increases the strength of our rivals…The alleviation of this national grievance requires taking practical steps and strong action. In recognition of this point of view, a society has been organized in Berlin…to undertake on its own…carefully chosen colonization projects…”

—Carl Peters, A Manifesto for German Colonization, 1884

45. According to Carl Peters, what is the greatest disadvantage the German nation experienced because they had not developed a colonial empire?

A. Germans were immigrating to other European states because there were no German colonies to move to.

B. German economic power benefitted other states, rather than Germany, because they did not have any colonies they could economically develop.

C. German culture was being lost to other European nations because they had no colonies to spread their culture to.

D. Their ability to become a continental power was severely limited since they did not have any colonial interests outside of Europe.

46. How economically valuable were the places that Carl Peters and the Germans colonized?

A. Colonies like Tanganyika proved to be an enormous economic boon for the Germans.

B. Colonies in western Africa failed to have an economic impact, but the Germans benefitted from their colonies in east Africa.

C. While their African colonies were productive, German interests in Asia failed to produce economic benefits.

D. German colonies failed to provide much strategic or economic benefit for Germany.

A. He understood that their strategic position in future warfare was dependent on controlling critical colonies across the globe.

B. He wanted to improve their overall position in Europe and to redirect French attention away from Germany by shifting the focus to colonization.

C. He was fearful of the economic and political power that Britain held in their colonies and he recognized the need to create buffer zones around the world that limited British expansion.

D. He knew that the growing industrial power of the Russian Empire meant that Germany needed colonies that they could use for resources in the event that war broke out between Russia and Germany.
“It is with the peoples of Africa, then, that our inquiry is concerned. It is they who carry the ‘Black Man’s’ burden. They have not withered away before the white man’s occupation…The African has resisted, and persisted…What the white man has failed to do; what the mapping out of European political ‘spheres of influence’ has failed to do; what the maxim and the rifle; the slave gang, labor in the bowels of the earth have failed to do; what imported measles, smallpox and syphilis have failed to do; what even the oversea slave trade failed to do, the flower of modern capitalistic exploitation, assisted by modern engines of destruction, may yet succeed in accomplishing.

For from the evils of the latter, scientifically applied and enforced, there is not escape for the African… It kills not the body merely, but the soul. It breaks the spirit. It attacks the African at every turn, from every point of vantage. It wrecks his polity, uproots him from the land, invades his family life, destroys his natural pursuits and occupations, claims his whole time, enslaves him in his own home.”

—Edward D. Morel, The Black Man’s Burden, 1920

48. All of the following places carried The Black Man’s Burden as Morel described it except

A. Kenya.

B. South Africa.

C. Algeria.

D. Ethiopia.

A. Belgium Congo

B. Sudan

C. Libya

D. German Southwest Africa
50. Morel’s piece The Black Man’s Burden is a reference to Rudyard Kipling’s The White Man’s Burden. What is the fundamental difference between these two pieces?

A. Kipling believed that the African states would be able to keep their autonomy, while Morel recognized they would lose it.

B. Morel argued that economic imperialism was acceptable, as long as it did not involve conquest, while Kipling believed imperialism required both economic and political control.

C. Kipling generally defended imperialism, while Morel criticized it.

51. What specific benefit did the Europeans receive from the construction of the project shown in the painting above?

A. It gave the British direct control of the eastern portion of the Saharan desert.

B. It allowed for the construction of the Aswan dam, which provided power to the European colonies in Africa.

C. It opened a passage for European ships to travel directly between the Mediterranean Sea and the Indian Ocean.

D. It allowed the Europeans to establish control in the Palestinian region by cutting off contact with the Ottomans.

A. Ferdinand Lesseps

B. Victor Emmanuel II

C. Cecil Rhodes

D. Tsar Alexander III

“ARTICLE II.

His Majesty the Emperor of China agrees that British Subjects, with their families and establishments, shall be allowed to reside, for the purpose of carrying on their Mercantile pursuits, without molestation or restraint at the Cities and Towns of Canton, Amoy, Foochow-fu, Ningpo, and Shanghai…

ARTICLE III.

It being obviously necessary and desirable, that British Subjects should have some Port whereat they may careen and refit their Ships, when required, and keep Stores for that purpose, His Majesty the Emperor of China cedes to Her Majesty the Queen of Great Britain, etc., the Island of Hongkong, to be possessed in perpetuity… 

ARTICLE IV.

The Emperor of China agrees to pay the sum of Six Millions of Dollars as the value of Opium which was delivered up at Canton in the month of March 1839, as a Ransom for the lives of Her Britannic Majesty’s Superintendent and Subjects, who had been imprisoned and threatened with death by the Chinese High Officers.

ARTICLE V.

The Government of China having compelled the British Merchants trading at Canton to deal exclusively with certain Chinese Merchants…who had been licensed by the Chinese Government for that purpose, the Emperor of China agrees to abolish that practice in future at all Ports where British Merchants may reside, and to permit them to carry on their mercantile transactions with whatever persons they please…”

—The Treaty of Nanjing, 1842

53. What event resulted in the creation of this treaty in 1842?

A. competition in the Pacific due to the American opening of Japan to trade

B. the closing of Atlantic trade routes after American independence movements

C. the dethronement of the Chinese emperor which jeopardized British trade interests

D. British success against China in the Opium War
54. Which of the following was a provision of the Treaty of Nanking not included in the selection above?

A. trade with the United States was prohibited

B. local political officials gained seats in a newly formed legislature

C. China was opened to Christian missionaries

Africa, 1914