Today we had our third class period, and it was about the history of China leading up to the P.R.C. This was a hugely depressing time period for China as it was basically ground under the boot heels of the British, French, Americans, and Japanese. The two most incredible stories from this lecture were about the First Opium War and China’s role in World War II.
The Opium War was caused by the British trying to remedy their trade deficit with China. For a long period of time, China had all the goods that Britain wanted and Britain had no goods that China wanted. But eventually Britain found something that it could trade with China and not have a deficit: opium. When the opium trade opened up, millions of Chinese grew addicted to the drug, eventually reaching 1 in 4 Chinese and enslaving them to the addiction. The leaders and bureaucrats of the Qing Dynasty realized what opium was doing to their populace and banned all opium trade and seizing all they could find. This led to a war with Great Britain that the British eventually won with no particular difficulty. Once the British won, they forced a trade agreement on China and continued to reap the benefits of trade while China suffered. Eventually the French, Americans, Russians, and Japanese made similar agreements and traded profitably with China.
These events would lead to the weakening of China throughout the 19th century and into the 20th century. During WWII, the Japanese slaughtered the Chinese by the thousands in a holocaust that was equal in brutality to the European one. Eventually the Chinese were liberated by United States forces and started what would become a struggle for the control of the nation between the Nationalists and the Communists.
These events left China one of the weakest nations on the plant during this time period, a sad time for a once great empire that was the birthplace of technological advancement and educational systems. What struck me personally was the wondering about how this happened, the Japanese had turned around relatively quickly after their period of foreign domination, why couldn’t China? I think it all goes back to the idiocy of the Marble Boat. The Qing emperors were out of touch with the world and with their population. They had no idea what hit them, what kind of damage it was doing, or how to go about fixing it. In my opinion, this poor leadership is the reason for their horrendous losses and the weakness of their nation.
After class we got ready for the next company visit to Tsinghua solar. I was excited about the company but I worried about how the presentation was going to be, especially language barriers. But all of my fears washed away when I found that our guide had not only an extremely extensive knowledge of his product, but spoke very good English as well. The products were fascinating and the lecture was extremely in depth on their design and function. The engineering benefits lied in its simplicity; they used solar energy to create thermal energy with an extremely high efficiency. I was also surprised to find that they produce solar water heaters as well as regular photovoltaic products. I was also surprised to see how much their products were used across Europe and China. Unfortunately for the United States, as a mostly energy independent nation (as far as heating our houses goes), energy costs are very low, which makes the purchase of a solar water heater not very smart in terms of saving money. However in China, where energy is expensive, a solar water heater can pay for itself in as little as one year. In Europe that time is about three or four years. But in the United States it takes more than ten years, rendering the product cost ineffective.
As much as it disappoints me to see that the solar water heaters won’t be coming to the United States for a while, I’m hopeful that they will eventually make their way over as government subsidies are applied and the price of energy goes up. Until then we’ll just have to make do without them.