Lin Zexu: Beyond the Humen Opium Destruction
This episode follows Lin Zexu’s cast of mind as the first “to open his eyes to the world,” and the long resonance that crossed borders. It begins with his work compiling and translating the Gazeta de Macau e Timor, and follows the thread to Wei Yuan’s Illustrated Treatise on the Maritime Kingdoms, shaped by Lin’s efforts and later carried to Japan, where it helped inspire the Meiji Restoration. The story then moves through the careers of Zuo Zongtang, Shen Baozhen, and Yan Fu, linking the self-strengthening movement to the creation of a modern navy.
It closes in the present with Hong Kong’s return and the carrier Shandong’s visit, answering the century-long quest for strength embodied by Lin Zexu, and affirming the great passage of the Chinese nation, from travail to renewal, from endurance to resurgence.
