Qing, Trade & Taiwan

Could Qing dynasty China have moved all foreign off the mainland to Taiwan. They could effectively move all foreign influence off the Taiwan allowing free trade there and let only Government ships bring in goods from there to certain mainland ports like Shanghai, Macau and Hong Kong; wouldn't that allow for greater control so when opium is realized to be detrimental and banned since only government ships bring stuff to the mainland the local Chinese traders for the most part wouldn't buy opium (granted there's the whole bribery & black market, but at least the opium would be curbed dramatically)
 
They barely controlled until late 1800s by that time european had there spheres and would go to war with the Qing
 

raharris1973

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they could have tried during the reign of the Kangxi Emperor. They controlled Taiwan only 1683 onward.

He would need to get a hankerin' to limit trading ports down to a minimum like the Japanese at Deshima.

The biggest obstacles would have been enforcement and unrest. Coastal communities, especially Guangzhou, would see their economic interests ruined and would become more restive as a result. Smuggling would be very expensive to crack down against.

Another complication is Macau. Would they force the Portuguese to relocate their forts and trading posts to Taiwan? There would have to be at least a small war to enforce that.
 
It's not clear what moving all trade to Taiwan would bring in terms of benefits to the Qing. Canton already has trading infrastructure and administrative control over said infrastructure.

I think the idea of 'foreign influence' being the main reason for Qing restrictions on trade is probably overstated. Like all autocratic countries, the Qing was of course worried about the impact of alternative power sources (most notably Christianity) popping up amongst the peasantry, but the fact that Canton existed (and that authorities were not too worried about the large non-Canton smuggling trade) meant that the Qing could certainly live with some level of foreign influence, especially on the merchant level.

The bigger reason for why Qing would want to restrict trade was probably a mercantilist policy that was aimed at maintaining the government's precious metal reserves. A more open policy during the Song, Yuan and early Ming caused China to have a severe balance-of-trade problem, and Ming over-exposure to American silver was an important part of what did the dynasty in during the crucial years of the 1630s-40s.

In this light, Qing policy was probably aimed at maximizing precious metal inflow as much as possible. To do that they would have to create an artificial monopoly over their home-produced goods and fleece foreign traders into trading silver for goods (a well-honed tactic throughout Chinese history). Obviously to do that, you must restrict foreign trade.

So seen in this light, whether trading occurred in Canton or Taiwan wouldn't have technically made much difference to the Qing Dynasty. Of course in reality Canton had all this infrastructure in place, while Taiwan was some sparsely-populated island that wasn't particularly defensible considering Qing's naval weakness, so moving trade there wouldn't have made much sense.
 
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