Jottings from the Granite Studio

The restoration of the westerner-designed and westerner-demolished palace at Yuanmingyuan (sometimes known as the “Old Summer Palace”) is a topic that comes up every so often in the Chinese media and online community. This time around, it is due to reports that a replica is being built in Hengdian, Zhejiang.

“So much controversy and concern from the media and netizens over the project has been generated because of the unique historical messages behind the destroyed palace - if it were still there today, it would be the largest royal garden combining traditional Chinese buildings and Western-style structures. And, the way it was destroyed bears witness to the national humiliation and barbarity of the Western powers at the time.”

The short form is that the palace was destroyed in 1860 by the Anglo-French Expedition in the last of a series of conflicts that constituted the Second Opium War, also known as “The Arrow War.” To start though, we have to go back to the Opium War, Part I. Several treaties signed with foreign powers at the end of that war in 1842 called for renegotiations of treaty privileges within twelve years. Right on cue, twelve years later, the powers–led by Britain–began demanding talks to renegotiate. In the mid-1850s, however, the Qing Empire was in the midst of a massive internal rebellion and was really in no mood, nor position, to start haggling over anything with anyone, least of all with the increasingly aggressive and meddlesome imperialist powers.

The British felt though that all the Qing court needed was a little push. Such an opportunity presented itself on October 8, 1856, when Qing officials in Guangzhou seized The Arrow, a Chinese-owned ship with an entirely Chinese crew (but registered in the British colony of Hong Kong) that had been used for smuggling and piracy. Whether or not The Arrow was flying a British flag (a ruse commonly used by Chinese smugglers to ward off interference by Qing coastal patrols) is a point of continued debate. Nevertheless, using what was truly one of the most bogus pretexts for a war in the 19^th century (and that’s saying something, remember The Maine?), the British launched an attack against the city of Guangzhou in 1857. Not prepared to simultaneously fight both the Taiping and the British, the Qing sued for peace and signed the Treaty of Tianjin in 1858.

Here’s where it gets interesting.

The British insisted on traveling to Beijing via the port city of Tianjin to exchange the ratified treaties. The Qing court, reluctant to allow this honor despite the treaties just signed, hesitated. Meanwhile, Seng’gelinqin, a Mongol prince and one of the Qing Empire’s most talented commanders, rebuilt the fortifications around Tianjin, strengthening the forts at Dagu, and placing chains and iron spikes in the river between the port city and the capital. When the British arrived on June 24, 1859 and saw the obstacles in their way, they called for naval reinforcements and tried to force their way down river. Seng’gelinqin’s troops held firm though, and the British fleet suffered heavy casualties.

Emboldened by this success, the Qing court ordered the Mongol prince to hold fast at Dagu. British diplomats sent to negotiate the impasse were harassed and then imprisoned. On August 1, 1860, the aforementioned Anglo-French Expedition, under the command of Lord Elgin (the son of the Lord Elgin who carted off the eponymous marbles from the Parthenon earlier that century), landed north of Dagu and forced Seng’gelinqin back to Tongzhou. Seng’gelinqin was finally defeated at Baliqiao outside of Beijing on September 21. The very next day, the Xianfeng Emperor fled to his summer home of Chengde never to return (he died of pneumonia there while hanging out in the imperial hunting park and drinking with his buddies, all the while British and French soldiers were looting the capital.)

Lord Elgin contemplated several possible options including replacing the Manchus with a Chinese dynasty and/or setting torch to the Forbidden City, but cooler heads from the French and Russian delegations convinced him that such actions would result in the complete collapse of China into anarchy, to the detriment of foreign interests. Not wanting to involve Britain in a “you break it, you buy it” scenario less than three years after the Sepoy Mutiny in India, Elgin contented himself with burning the western-style pleasure palaces and gardens at Yuanmingyuan, designed a century earlier by the Jesuit painter Giuseppe Castiglione.

Personally, I think the ruins do serve as a useful reminder of the brutality of imperialism in the 19^th century. At the same time, if China wants to provide funds for restoration, it might wish to start with preserving what’s left of the historic architecture around the city starting with the hutongs and with sites such as the Forbidden City. Most of the rooms, palaces, and coutyards at the Palace Museum are shadows of their former selves and would benefit from systematic attempts to recreate—through furniture, objets d’art, and upkeep—the grandeur of the Qing dynasty prior to its long decline in the 19^th century.

In the case of the Hengdian replica, it’s tacky and commercial but anyone who has ever been to the National Ethnic Minorities Theme Park in Beijing can tell you that the exploitation of cultural heritage for a quick tourist buck is hardly news here. That said, the legacies of foreign aggression in China with memories of stone and rubble still dotting the Beijing landscape plus the influence of “Patriotic Education” on subsequent generations here in the PRC suggest that this is an issue that will be revisted again and again.
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Sources:

Immanuel Hsü, The Rise of Modern China. 6^th Edition. (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2000), 213-214.

Arthur Hummel, ed. Eminent Chinese of the Ch’ing Period, Volume II. (Washington: US Government Printing Office, 1944), p. 632-633.

Pictures:
Top right: The ruins at Yuanmingyuan, Beijing 2004
Middle left: Photograph of the Dagu Forts following the assault by the Anglo-French Expedition in 1860.
Bottom left: Picture of the Western-style palace at Yuanmingyuan as it looked in the 18th century.