The Second Opium War and the flow of information within the Qing Dynasty

This article examines how the Qing Dynasty government collected information about its enemies during the Second Opium War and how it kept its bureaucracy and the general public informed about military action and diplomatic negotiations. The manner in which the Qing government collected, shared and published information on foreign affairs during the War was a continuation of a modus operandi in play since the 1840s and eventually exposed the pitfalls that existed in the system during wartime.<br> Within the Qing government, information on foreign affairs, especially concerning Western countries, was generally treated as confidential and was shared only between the central government and the officials directly involved, in the form of confidential memorials (mizou 密奏) and secret edicts (tingji 廷寄). This apparatus hindered the discovery of false information, as shown by the fact that for a year after the outbreak of the Arrow Incident until the fall of Guangzhou, the central government was continuously misled by disinformation from Ye Mingchen 葉名琛, the Imperial Commissioner and Viceroy of Guangdong and Guangxi (Lianguang Zongdu 両広総督).<br> Regarding the Treaty of Tientsin=Tianjin, the central government neither publicly disclosed the progress of the negotiations nor the conclusion of the treaty, nor did it provide any detailed information to officials outside the center. Meanwhile, fragmentary information, including some that was uncorroborated, spread through unofficial channels, causing confusion and anxiety within the Qing bureaucracy.<br> The policy of not promulgating foreign policy in the form of Open-Channel Edicts (minfashangyu 明発上諭) and not publishing memorials related to Western countries in the Peking Gazette (Dibao 邸報) was tantamount to denying the presence of Westerners in China, which caused dissatisfaction on the part of the British. The dissemination of the full text of the Treaty of Tianjin to the Chinese people and coordinating troop withdrawals with the publication of the Treaty were measures taken by the British to force the Qing government to go public with its information, as well as publicly recognize the British presence.<br> On the other hand, the information published in the British press became a valuable Qing government source of intelligence throughout the War, as the military information that appeared in the newspapers was discovered to be accurate, leading to the collection and analysis of English-language newspaper articles becoming a regular task for bureaucrats involved in foreign affairs. Consequently, the idea that information concerning foreign affairs could be made public gradually spread among Qing the Dynasty’s bureaucrats and intellectuals.