Comments by "Good Citizen" (@GoodCitizen-gm1tl) on "'Tariff blackmail': China vows 'necessary' countermeasures after new Trump tariff threat | DW News" video.

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  2. In fact, Britain's first want was the Chusan Island (Zhoushan today) instead of Hong Kong after the First Opium War. Zhoushan was a quite large island at the mouth of the Yangtze river, from which, Britain could easily steer its vessels deep into the Chinese hinterland for colonial purposes, therefore it was of great significance to the British with the intention of colonizing China. Hong Kong, meanwhile, was a remote moutainous area without anything meaningful there at that time and far from China's hinterland. However, the Qing dynasty denied at all costs the possibility of ceding Zhoushan to the British as the regions along the Yangtze river were the richest regions of all China contributing to the largest share of the Qing dynasty's tax revenues. The British envoy compromised and accepted Hong Kong unwillingly and when the news came back to London, the British govt was very angry and sacked the British envoy immediately. Unable to secure the grip over Zhoushan, all the colonial powers found Shanghai, the town sitting right at the mouth of the Yangtze, particularly important if they wanted to colonize China. So they all set up bases in Shanghai and from there their ships went deep into China from the Yangtze river to collect intelligences in preparation of fully colonizing China. However, this didn't occur as planned. As the encroachment of the West triggered the Boxer Rebellion movement and other similar movements across China, the colonial powers realized it was not feasible to conquer the Chinese people, who were already 400 million strong at that time, with such levels of resistances.
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