Ep 49: Arrow War Part 4 - The Looting of the Summer Palace

In this episode we discuss the endgame of the Arrow war, and China's resulting loss of full sovereignty as the foreign powers take root in Beijing.

We also discuss the looting/burning of the summer palace, and how despite British claims, it had less to do with making a diplomatic statement, and more to do with avarice and greed.

From the Qing/Chinese perspective we discuss the unreasonable nature of British/French demands, but also their inability to resist those demands. This feeling of powerlessness will drive successive waves of Chinese reformers to build more and more militarily aggressive states, in an attempt to prevent foreign powers from repeating their humiliations.