Harry Parkes (diplomat)

Biography

Early Arrival in China and Diplomatic Apprenticeship

Harry Smith Parkes was born in Birchills, near Walsall in Staffordshire, England. Orphaned in early childhood, he journeyed to Macau in 1841 at age thirteen to join his elder sister. Under the guidance of missionary-linguist Karl Gützlaff and interpreter John Robert Morrison, he acquired remarkable fluency in spoken Chinese and written bureaucratic prose. In 1842, during the First Opium War, he accompanied British Plenipotentiary Sir Henry Pottinger aboard the flagship HMS Cornwallis, witnessing the negotiations and formal signing of the historic Treaty of Nanking. Through subsequent service as consular interpreter in Canton, Shanghai, and Amoy, Parkes established a reputation for aggressive advocacy of British commercial privileges.

The Arrow Incident and Second Opium War

In 1856, serving as acting British Consul at Canton, Parkes found his opportunity to force open the city gates of Canton, a goal long thwarted by Governor-General Ye Mingchen. When Chinese water patrol officers boarded the Chinese-owned, Hong Kong-registered lorcha Arrow to arrest piracy suspects, Parkes claimed that the British ensign had been insulted, despite the ship's expired registration. Leveraging the incident with Governor Sir John Bowring, Parkes orchestrated the bombardment of Canton, triggering the Second Opium War. In 1858, British forces captured Canton, and Parkes formed an allied commission that administered the conquered metropolis for three years, exercising supreme administrative authority.

Capture at Tongzhou and Burning of the Summer Palace

In 1860, as British and French allied armies advanced toward Beijing under Lord Elgin and General Grant, Parkes was dispatched to Tongzhou to negotiate terms of capitulation with Prince Yi. Observing allied military movements during negotiations, Imperial Commissioner Prince Sengge Rinchen intercepted Parkes and his delegation, imprisoning them in the Board of Punishments in Beijing. Parkes endured intense interrogation and neck chains for three weeks before Prince Gong arranged his release. In direct retaliation for the death of several European captives, Lord Elgin commanded the deliberate burning of the Qing imperial Summer Palace (Yuanmingyuan) and coerced the ratification of the Convention of Peking.

Minister to Japan and Minister to China

From 1865 to 1883, Parkes served eighteen consecutive years as British Envoy Extraordinary and Minister Plenipotentiary to Japan. He adopted a forward-looking policy, siding with the imperial court and western samurai clans over the declining Tokugawa Shogunate, thereby facilitating the Meiji Restoration and the modernization of Japanese legal and infrastructural systems. In 1883, he was transferred back to Beijing as British Minister to China and concurrently to Korea, negotiating the Sino-Korean trade conventions and dealing with French colonial expansion in Tonkin. Overcome by exhaustion and malarial fever, he died at the British Legation in Beijing on March 21, 1885, at the age of fifty-seven.

Major Activities

Instigating the Second Opium War

Through intentional escalation of the Arrow Incident in 1856, Parkes provided the British Empire with the casus belli to shatter the Canton trade system and force western diplomatic representation into Beijing.

Diplomatic Architects of Japan's Meiji Modernization

During his eighteen-year tenure in Tokyo, Parkes championed commercial treaties, railways, mints, and western institutions, serving as the most influential foreign diplomat in Bakumatsu and Meiji Japan.

Personal Relations

• British Sovereigns / Superiors: Queen Victoria, Sir Henry Pottinger, Lord Elgin, Sir John Bowring.
• Qing Chinese Counterparts: Ye Mingchen, Prince Sengge Rinchen, Prince Gong (Yixin), Li Hongzhang.
• Diplomatic Colleagues: Thomas Wade, Ernest Satow.

Historical Assessment

• Lord Elgin: Commended Parkes as an exceptionally courageous and knowledgeable diplomat, possessing the sharpest instincts on East Asian affairs.
• Li Hongzhang: Observed that Parkes was the most aggressive, obstinate, and formidable European diplomat with whom China had to negotiate.
• Jiang Tingfu: Noted in his History of Modern China that Parkes embodied the aggressive gunboat diplomacy of Victorian Britain, profoundly influencing early modern Chinese history.