Canton Trade System
The single-port arrangement that confined Western trade with China to Guangzhou from 1757 until the First Opium War.
Overview
Imperial edict confined European commerce to Guangzhou, Canton, where licensed Cohong merchants guaranteed foreign conduct and traders lived in riverside hongs through the autumn to spring season. Tea, silk and porcelain flowed out, silver in. When the British East India Company's silver drain became unsustainable, Bengal opium reversed the flow despite imperial prohibition. China's seizure of opium stocks in 1839 triggered the war, and the 1842 Treaty of Nanjing opened five ports and ceded Hong Kong. The system is remembered as the template for what later generations called unequal trade relations.
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