The Macartney mission was a relative success, for communication between the West and China had been established, but the latter two missions were failures in term of establishing a friendly relationship between powers. The main objectives of the missions were to open the whole East to British trade, place relations with China on a regular basis, and the dissemination of Christianity, for which Qian-long however found it “utterly unreasonable”. More friction could be seen between the West and China with Amherst’s reluctance in conforming the kowtow ritual. Emperor Jaiqing viewed such act as an insult to the Middle Kingdom due to British pride and arrogance, and added that no more attempts need be made to send mission to Beijing. The Chinese emperor was further humiliated by Napier’s breaking of five important regulations: did not apply for permission to go to Guangzhou, had no customs permit to reside in the Guangzhou factory, sent his communication to the viceroy not as humble “petition” from an inferior to a superior but as a “letter” to an equal, the letter was in Chinese not in English, and he tried to get the letter delivered directly and not through the Cohong merchants.
It was a failure for the Qing in the long term for it aroused Western grievances in the Chinese system. Such view was supported by the historian Vohra, for he argued that incidents like the Emily incident although showed Westerners were willing to cope with such inferior treatment, they felt deeply humiliated, which gave rise to waging wars at a latter period (i.e. the Opium War).
The failure for the Chinese government to respond effectively was because of its construct that China was superior over all other powers. The Chinese ruler, “the Son of Heaven”, was considered the ruler of all humankind, all other “barbarian” rulers were mere local chieftains owing allegiance to Beijing. There could be no Western-style diplomatic relations. Countries wanting to have a good diplomatic relation with China had to send “tribute” mission that legitimized Chinese suzerainty.
Western demands for free trade was rejected by China’s refusal in having real negotiations and talks with the West. This was a failure for it led to inflation and the rapid outflow of silver, and its failure to respond effectively was due to China’s world view that it was superior.
With the Chinese government having no real tariffs or administration imposed upon Opium trade, historian Fairbanks argued that it was the main reason causing a net loss of silver. In fact, an outflow or “drain” of silver beginning sometime after 1821, and opium trade had been increasing after 1821 especially in the 1830’s. Chinese observers saw that silver was paid out for opium but did not see its subsequent return to pay for tea exports. Also, western traders were often kept ignorant of the tariff schedules and were often charged many times the official rates. These were all failures of Chinese government failing to meet the demands of Westerners in terms of trade, which in turn allowed corruption to flourish as there were no real control and administration over trade in the Canton.
Again, the reason to such Qing’s response was due to the Chinese construct that China was superior over any other countries, as agreed by the historians Loewe and Vohra. China was premised on the belief that it was the cultural center of the universe and that all non-Chinese were “uncivilized” barbarians. This belief was reflected in the Chinese name for their country, Zhongguo, which can be translated as “the Central Kingdom” or “The Middle Kingdom”. The Chinese government did not believe in trade, as they were confident that they were self-sufficient. In fact, “trade” for the Qing was means of benevolence to other countries for paying tribute to the Middle Kingdom. Since Asian states wanting to trade with China, they continued to pay regular tribute to Beijing. As a result, there was little reason for the Chinese to doubt their predominance in their world order. This is the main reason to the failure of the Qing government to respond effectively to Western demand for trade.
In conclusion, the reasons to the failure of the Qing government to respond effectively to Western demand for diplomatic relations and free trade between 1793-1839 was mainly due to China’s construct that it was superior over any other countries. If the Chinese had not been so self-absorbed and so intent on keeping their country as closed off as possible, they might have at least realized that the Guangzhou system of trade was collapsing and that if it did collapse, the tribute system would go down with it. China established the relationship between tribute and trade as an instrument for controlling the “barbarian”. The failure in responding effectively to Western demands due to Chinese construct was a failure, for not only it had exacerbated grievances of foreigners towards the Chinese system, it had also aggravated the devastating silver outflow and inflation problem in China. As a result, by 1839, the stage for the Opium War was already well set.