This act has been described as the greatest act of cultural vandalism in modern history - and is likely one of the largest mass-scale thefts too. In this documentary we will explore why and how the Old Summer Palace was sacked, and will inspect some of the items that were looted. 

Concerning the deaths of the British hostages - At a personal level, I regret for the death of the diplomats. However, considering they were embarked on a mission to extract (my view) compensations for the opium wars, unjust wars to force open the gate of China to sell opium, they were accomplices of the evil. 

Let’s not put the cart before the horse to justify the looting. Everything should be understand in its overall context. In 2010, David Cameron made a visit to China. He was wearing a red poppy to honor Remembrance Day. It was tasteless because of the connotation the poppy has in China, especially with the British head of state visiting. 

He was asked to remove it, and refused. The least Cameron could have done was remove his poppy. The Opium Wars was injustice compounded on injustice. First the British coveted Chinese luxury goods, like tea and porcelain, for their own pleasure. Then in order to pay for these luxury goods, they smuggled in a highly addictive and destructive drug for the twofold effect of shirking their debt and ruining a generation of Chinese people. 

When the Qing government, like any proper government, tried to stop the poisoning of their own people, the British —ignoring all morals they praised so highly—used gunships to put a stranglehold on China in order to force ruinous “unequal treaties” on her, while doing it all in the name of “free trade.”