After thousands of years of feudalism and * * * society in China, the broad masses of people were confined to limited land and lived a self-sufficient and closed life. By the end of the Qing Dynasty, this closed backwardness and * * * * became more prominent. When the world is developing, especially after the rapid development of European economy in recent hundreds of years, advanced technology and modern civilization have not only brought progress to the European people, but also brought them more. The gap between China and the world, especially Europe, is even greater. Although western countries used opium and artillery as uncivilized means when they opened the closed door of China, the closed door of China needs to be opened after all, and external forces can promote this process to a certain extent.

(2) Promoting the development of commerce in China.

Treaty of nanking stipulated five trading ports, and Guangzhou, Xiamen, Shanghai, Ningbo and Fuzhou became trading ports one after another. The opening of markets and ports in the five cities promoted the commercial development of the five cities at that time. Guangzhou, the old commercial center, and Shanghai, the new commercial center, are the most prosperous, followed by some big businessmen in China, such as Wu and Yang Fang in Guangzhou. Although some businessmen were attached to foreigners, they were, after all, businessmen with modern business sense in the early days of China, and they promoted the commercial development of China at that time.

(3) Brought modern European civilization and technology.

With the gradual opening of China, some foreign civilizations and technologies, especially some foreign progressive and open democratic ideas and free ideas, began to appear in Chinese mainland. For example, Wei Yuan, a famous thinker at that time, also studied the process of the Opium War and put forward several principles in foreign relations. The first is to "listen to the preliminary agreement of foreign countries in the exchange market and hold opium as the exchange market", which allows legal trade and opposes opium trade. The second is "learning from foreigners to control foreigners." Although Wei Yuan refers to "the skill of foreigners", he mainly refers to guns. These thoughts of Wei Yuan and others became the pioneers of China intellectuals who proposed "learning from the West" earlier at that time. From then on, some advanced western technologies and new products began to enter China one after another, and China people began to understand the western world gradually.

In a word, the Opium War was the starting point for China to be enslaved by foreign capitalism, which transformed China from a feudal society into a semi-colonial and semi-feudal society and marked the beginning of modern China history. However, the Opium War also forcibly opened the door of China's closure, and China's long-term policy of closing the country to the outside world was broken. A group of advanced China people began to look at the world with their eyes wide open, and a new trend of thought emerged to explore western knowledge and learn western military technology to resist foreign aggression. So in a sense, the Opium War also promoted the disintegration of ancient feudalism and China to a certain extent.