ese for a period of time lived with the fresh scent of flowers and tea. As China internally decayed the citizens had nothing to compare it to for they had always been ahead of Europe in almost everything for so many centuries. After the thirteenth century Western civilization flourished. In Western Europe the governments encouraged industrial growth and individual commerce as a means of keeping ahead of the competition. With each distinct country competing with each other a variety of individual trades were created eventually sparking the Industrial Revolution. As a result of heavily trading around the world, each country became very wealthy, and as such their internal economies grew. In Great Britain without government suppression on individual companies they were able to build the most powerful navy in the world, and colonize in many different countries. As China was suffering from economic rot, they paid no attention to the world around them. They did not realize that the rest of the world was waiting to conquer China and divide the winnings. When Chinese officials refused to continue trading with the British they initiated the Opium Wars. The final result of the Opium War was almost devastating. They were forced to sign an unfair treaty with Britain. Under the treaty, the opium trade was legalized and the Guangzhou monopoly was ended as Xiamen, Ningbo, Fuzhou, and Shanghai was also opened to trade. The island of Hong Kong became a British base and Britain established the right to supervise and inspect a published tariff structure on China's trade. Finally, China, already reeling from trade imbalance, was compelled to pay a war indemnity of $21 million. China was very focused on keeping the Japanese and Portuguese pirates away from their shores. While they were distracted every other European country continued to build their armies at a rapid speed. With new technology, the Western world left China behind and continued to invent mor...
