In Part I of this book, we have seen the confusion of imperialism; and in Parts II and III, its pretexts and personalities. Here we shall investigate how they were publicly dealt with in Britain, first in the press and later in parliamentary debates. In the course of doing so, we hope to explore further the origins of the Arrow War.

We shall also evaluate, inter alia, a dominant interpretation of the Arrow War –that which is prevalent in the People's Republic of China today. I refer to the view that the Arrow War, like the Opium War before it, was a determined and almost unanimous attempt on the part of the British imperialists to ‘conquer, enslave, plunder, and slaughter’ the Chinese people. Apparently, this interpretation stems from the writings of Karl Marx, who in turn formed that view on the basis of what he had read in the British press and heard during the parliamentary debates over the issue. At the time, Marx was a reporter for the New York Daily Tribune. He wrote fifteen articles on the Arrow War for that newspaper, which also featured a related piece by Friedrich Engels.2 Since 1949, Marx's influence has been such that the entire academic world in the People's Republic of China has changed its traditional title for the conflict from ‘Anglo-French Allied Forces’ to the ‘Second Opium War’, apparently because Marx coined the latter title in his articles.