11. In the Name of Business – and the Right to Sell Drugs – an Anglo-French Army Committed a Great Act of Cultural Vandalism
After its victory outside Beijing, the Anglo-French army seized a vast imperial compound known as the Summer Palace. There, the soldiers plundered anything made of gold or silver, then indulged themselves in an orgy of destruction for the sheer fun of it. They crushed exquisite statues, smashed pricey objects of porcelain and jade, ripped precious paintings with their bayonets, and paraded in expensive and ornate silk robes from the imperial wardrobe for comic effect. Then they put the entire palace complex to the torch.
The destruction of the Summer Palace was one of the greatest acts of cultural vandalism of the past few centuries. As one British officer described it: “When we first entered the gardens they reminded one of those magic grounds described in fairy tales; we marched from them upon the 19th October, leaving them a dreary waste of ruined nothings“. Utterly defeated, the Chinese capitulated and signed a peace treaty in 1860 that granted all the invaders’ demands for business concessions. Said demands included the complete legalization of the opium trade within China’s borders.
