ABSTRACT
China’s defeat in the first Opium War led to its first faltering and largely unsuccessful efforts to adopt naval reforms. Focused for centuries mainly with defensive and largely passive coastal defense strategies, the Qing navy proved to be no match for a modern ocean-going fleet that combined speed, maneuver, and overwhelming firepower. China’s poor showing in the first naval encounter and those that followed resulted in Qing officials’ dawning realization that its largely defensive coastal navy was no match for the British blue-water navy, even in its own internal waters.
