Convenient lies and inconvenient truths: Commissioner Lin Zexu and western perceptions of Qing China (1793–1860)

Abstract

Historiographical narratives of world history have frequently portrayed China’s long-standing global engagement as culminating abruptly in 1839, when the Qing imperial commissioner Lin Zexu (1795–1850) confiscated and destroyed British opium. In these traditional accounts, Lin’s actions are often characterised as insular or misguided, while China’s defeat in the Opium War is framed as a decisive rupture marking the triumph of European modernity. This article challenges such teleological interpretations by situating the conflict within the contested political, moral and economic debates of the nineteenth century. British discourse from the period reveals deep ambivalence toward the war, while Qing officials widely viewed Lin’s policies as largely principled and reformist. By reexamining the global ramifications of Britain’s illicit opium trade, this study reassesses prevailing historiography and foregrounds China’s continued agency within the interconnected processes of nineteenth-century global history.