Explanation: Demand for Chinese products was high, but the Chinese had no interest in European goods, preferring instead to be paid in silver. This created a huge demand for silver, driving mining efforts by the Spanish in the Americas. Because the Portuguese did not have the resources to maintain control of the Indian Ocean trade, their prestige and power declined (A). The British had important colonies in India, and the Japanese also took steps to restrict trade with foreigners (B). The Malacca Strait, though important, was never controlled by the British (D).
How did the Chinese restrict foreign trade during the era 1750–1900?
Explanation: European merchants were indeed closely monitored and their movements restricted to specific areas and cities. Likewise, their exchanges with Chinese people were limited. Both the Portuguese and the British (as well as the Dutch) traded with China (B). Products themselves were limited (C), but they did not carry extraordinary tariffs. Laws were intended only to confine and monitor foreign residents (D).
Why were the Chinese not interested in expanding trading rights with Great Britain?
Explanation: “We possess all things,” writes the Chinese emperor; therefore, anything that the British could produce held no interest for China. While not necessarily angry, the Chinese were very clear that barbarians (including the British) were not allowed to participate in the country’s foreign or domestic affairs (A). There was no agreement with the Dutch dealing with exclusive trading privileges with the Chinese. The Dutch followed the practice of working within established Asian trading systems (B). The Chinese pointed out in the letter that no foreigner, or barbarian, was allowed free access to economic, political, or cultural systems (D).
According to the passage, what was the Chinese reaction to the British goods?
Explanation: Qianlong, the Qing emperor, makes it clear that he has no use for Great Britain’s goods and that only through British submission to the Chinese throne and its stated wishes will there be peace and prosperity. The Chinese reaction to British goods is that while they are perhaps strange and ingenious, they are of no use to a country that has everything (A, B). Rather than perceiving the British manufactured goods as a bribe (C), the Chinese see them as a form of tribute.
What was the effect of Stalin’s agricultural policies on the Soviet peasants?
Explanation: The peasants under Stalin exerted resistance by destroying crops (and thus his positive data about crop production). Ultimately, collectivization led to repression and the outright slaughter of peasants and to famine. While there was some relocation of peasants during collectivization, they were not removed en masse to Georgia (A). Rather than seeing increased economic stability, the peasants lost what little economic stability they had had (C). The situation of the peasantry was negatively rather than positively affected by Stalin’s economic policies (D).
Which of Stalin’s policies are most responsible for the information on the chart?
Explanation: Collectivization, or Stalin’s plan to create state-run rather than individually held farms, constituted the economic and political planning at the heart of communism. New Economic Plans (B) refer to Lenin; Five-Year Plans (C) refer more to industry than to agriculture; and the Great Leap Forward (D) refers to Mao Zedong’s efforts in the late 1950s to recapture the rural, peasant base that had made his revolution possible.
