Did the British do more damage to China or India?

Did the British detriment India or China more

  • India

    Votes: 89 70.6%
  • China

    Votes: 37 29.4%

  • Total voters
    126
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Personally, I think this thread has be me seriously derailed. People are attempting to explain why China/India actually didn't suffer from the British in an attempt to prove that India/China did suffer.

Let me say it now.

India suffered a lot (understatement of the year). China also suffered.

Because I'm fairly certain that we all know how much India suffered (do I even have to mention the famines), I'll talk about China and why China suffered a lot too.

China had been a prosperous empire before the British - the most prosperous in the world (not an exaggeration). They were getting silver from everywhere.

The British began using India to grow poppies and opium, ruining China for the next century. China became bankrupt to the point where they would not recover until the REVOLUTION. MORE THAN A CENTURY.

The effects of this bankruptcy were huge. China simply couldn't afford modernization after that. The Qing slipped into debt...which spiraled and became worse and worse.

Britain ruined China's opportunities for a whole century. Those famines China suffered from later? Cause they were bankrupt, so they kept increasing taxes. Boxer Rebellion? Happened because Britain almost literally controlled China.

Personally, I think this thread is kinda pointless. Yes, imperialism is bad - does it matter where it was worse at? It just means that we have to learn from the past and make sure imperialism doesn't return.

FINALLY: someone said that Britain didn't have a legal obligation to return Hong Kong, but they still did it anyways.

I have just one thing to say. Before making assertions like this, know the facts.

Britain stole Hong Kong from China during the first Opium War, and later took a LEASE on the New Territories for 99 years. I don't know about you, but you're supposed to RETURN LEASES after it's over. The problem is that Hong Kong can't survive without the New Territories, so...

If India has the right to take Goa back from Portugal by military force, when Portugal hadn't even stolen the land from a predecessor to India, I fail to see why the Chinese takeover of Hong Kong was not right.
 
To point out an error- India today is not a single state. Pakistan and Bangladesh are without a doubt historically "India" (with no religious meaning behind that) and yet separate states. India itself comes from Indus, which is in Pakistan. Because of the British India controls lands that have very little historical connection to being part of a larger Indian Empire (southern Dravidian areas), no ethnic/racial connection to the north either, and yet does NOT have the areas that have closer empirical connections only because they have a different religion. Dividing on religion seems to have been a "brilliant" British concept that has failed in each of the three cases I can think of right now- Ireland, Israel, and India. That's one of the last worst thing the British did to India

The British "divided on religion" where the religious minority asked them to (Northern Ireland, India), and/or where not doing so would have led to a massive bloodbath (India, Palestine). What do you think they should have done, ignored the requests of the minority and sat back while the majority slaughtered them? Kept on with direct control?

(no reason the "independent kingdoms" could not have been allowed to go on their own way without being forced to join India or Pakistan btw).

A few independent kingdoms tried this, and were forcibly annexed by the Republic of India. No doubt this was the fault of the British as well.
 
Personally, I think this thread has be me seriously derailed. People are attempting to explain why China/India actually didn't suffer from the British in an attempt to prove that India/China did suffer.

Let me say it now.

India suffered a lot (understatement of the year). China also suffered.

Because I'm fairly certain that we all know how much India suffered (do I even have to mention the famines), I'll talk about China and why China suffered a lot too.

China had been a prosperous empire before the British - the most prosperous in the world (not an exaggeration). They were getting silver from everywhere.

The British began using India to grow poppies and opium, ruining China for the next century. China became bankrupt to the point where they would not recover until the REVOLUTION. MORE THAN A CENTURY.

The effects of this bankruptcy were huge. China simply couldn't afford modernization after that. The Qing slipped into debt...which spiraled and became worse and worse.

The Chinese did have modernization for 35 years, until 1895 when Qing lose to Japan albeit having the better navy in terms of ships. And it achieved something, but its failure is never about not having the money, as far as I know.
 

guinazacity

Banned
The British "divided on religion" where the religious minority asked them to (Northern Ireland, India), and/or where not doing so would have led to a massive bloodbath (India, Palestine). What do you think they should have done, ignored the requests of the minority and sat back while the majority slaughtered them? Kept on with direct control?



A few independent kingdoms tried this, and were forcibly annexed by the Republic of India. No doubt this was the fault of the British as well.

As we know, there are no muslims in India anymore.

There are almost as many muslims in India than in Pakistan.

You are really eating the imperialist agenda up, even though there is no empire anymore.
 

GdwnsnHo

Banned
As we know, there are no muslims in India anymore.

There are almost as many muslims in India than in Pakistan.

You are really eating the imperialist agenda up, even though there is no empire anymore.

And you keep splashing around in your self-righteous revisionist indignation.

Nobody here has said that it was done well, but what was done was what was asked. Seriously, stop projecting and assuming people have an agenda - Fabius made about as impartial a statement as you could ask for. No paternalism, no claims that the Empire should have stayed, nothing that can actually be pointed at as an Imperialist sentiment, yet you accuse him of it. You've shown yourself to be intellectually bankrupt if all you can do is accuse people of following an agenda, rather than actually respond to what they've said.
 

Saphroneth

Banned
A potential clarifying question.


When we say "The British" do we mean:

1) The British Government's official policy.
2) The general actions of the British government. (Not the same thing.)
3) The actions of people who were British.
4) The things which happened while the British were nearby (for China) or ultimately in charge (for India).



The reason I ask is because they're all different things.
 

guinazacity

Banned
And you keep splashing around in your self-righteous revisionist indignation.

Nobody here has said that it was done well, but what was done was what was asked. Seriously, stop projecting and assuming people have an agenda - Fabius made about as impartial a statement as you could ask for. No paternalism, no claims that the Empire should have stayed, nothing that can actually be pointed at as an Imperialist sentiment, yet you accuse him of it. You've shown yourself to be intellectually bankrupt if all you can do is accuse people of following an agenda, rather than actually respond to what they've said.

Revisionist? Shut up, you're the ones defending a genocidal regime poorly masked as a democracy that was the british empire.

Jesus christ, you guys are some pieces of work.

Next thing calbear comes here and kicks me because poor britannia didn't do nothing wrong, poor colonel dyer was just caressing the folks at amritsar.
Yall really got the head that far up your asses? Okay then, i won't complain anymore about your shameless apologism.
 

LordKalvert

Banned
I voted India, since the only other country to deliver China even a fraction of the treatment Britain inflicted on her was Japan.

Which is why I'm having so much trouble with this question-

If it hadn't been for the Anglo-Japanese alliance, Japan would never have been able to inflict the damage on China she did so shouldn't we assign the damage Japan does to China to the British?
 

Saphroneth

Banned
Which is why I'm having so much trouble with this question-

If it hadn't been for the Anglo-Japanese alliance, Japan would never have been able to inflict the damage on China she did so shouldn't we assign the damage Japan does to China to the British?

I'm pretty sure that by that logic then most of what happened east of the Iron Curtain from 1945 on is America's fault. It spreads blame a little too widely.


Revisionist? Shut up, you're the ones defending a genocidal regime poorly masked as a democracy that was the british empire.

Define "genocidal regime".

Define "democracy".

The reason I ask for these definitions is that the British Empire was a democracy by definition - it was ruled by a representative assembly - and as far as I am aware genocide requires intent and systematism.
 
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GdwnsnHo

Banned
With regard to Wikipedia, whats wrong, or intellectually dishonest, about paraphrasing the summary of various works found on the site? So long as you both have access, and check, the citations, there isn't an issue.

I'll leave the rest till you've finished your response - I apologise for this, I was tired and cranky, and I was being unfair. There is nothing wrong with it.
 
I am not an apologist for the British Empire but I also feel no guilt over its actions.

I believe the British did what they did historically because they could.

India was divided and China was weak.

Both would have been victims of the colonial system whether or not it was Britain doing the victimising.

Racism was universally accepted at the time and I can't see that any other of the European powers would have behaved any better.

However I have voted for China as I can't think of anything positive that came out of Britain's actions there.
 
I am not an apologist for the British Empire but I also feel no guilt over its actions.

I believe the British did what they did historically because they could.

India was divided and China was weak.

Both would have been victims of the colonial system whether or not it was Britain doing the victimising.

Racism was universally accepted at the time and I can't see that any other of the European powers would have behaved any better.

However I have voted for China as I can't think of anything positive that came out of Britain's actions there.

I agree wholeheartedly, and those who say it was racism-motivated ignore history- Europe did just as wrong to Poland and they are as white as can be. Not to forget that northern Indians are genetically just as similar to a Polish person as a Russian is to a Portuguese, or a Greek to a Scotish.
 
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Revisionist? Shut up, you're the ones defending a genocidal regime poorly masked as a democracy that was the british empire.

You don't do yourself or your case any favours by this kind of hyperbole. Genocide implies an intentional mass murder of a racial group and while millions did die in famines in India whilst it was under British rule they weren't being deliberately starved to death by intent.

Much like the famine in Ireland it was misguided, poorly thought out or badly implemented policy that led to the death toll, it wasn't the actual objective of the British to kill multitudes despite how mustache-twirlingly evil you like to perceive them as.
 
India. The British actually directly ruled the place, so they have almost full responsibility for India's suffering that's not really the case for China. Not to mention things like the Partition or the current state of the two areas.

Though I agree with your first point, I must mention that the partition was forced upon the British by the Brotherhood - Congress split. Ideally, Britain would have preferred to hand over the reigns to a united India.
 
I would argue yes, but that's a different debate.

I won't deny that what the British did in India was bad, it was horrible. But Britian did more harm to the nation of China whereas the nation of India emerged from the UK.

Though what happened in India is worse then in China.…



I misinterpreted the question.

Actually who's to say that the Marathras couldn't have united India on their own?
 
I see a lot of people mentioning the famines here. But did you stop to consider the reasons why those famines occurred?

A large reason was that a lot of land was appropriated by the Company/Raj for the growth of cash crops for export and hence there was less land for growing food.
 

CalBear

Moderator
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I was going to ask everyone just to dial back here, but this is clearly political, at least using the accepted definition for what goes into Chat.

I can't move to Chat because of the Poll.

Locked.
 
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