You forgot to mention WHY the opium trade happened. China was exporting tea, silk and porcelain like there is no tomorrow and at the same time had accumulated the majority of the world silver reserves since they did not want to buy anything, therefore chocking the world economy. Then the British said, wait, we have something that you want to buy!
China had been purchasing opium abroad from other countries for several centuries. The importation of opium was banned in the 1700s, but opium was still legal for sale in China. The effect was that foreigners were barred from participating in the business. Chinese merchants smuggled British opium into China and sold it as Chinese opium.
Chinese people definitely wanted British opium and Chinese merchants definitely wanted to sell it to them. If opium had been illegal, you might have a point; but it was legal for sale in China until 1799.
> Chinese people definitely wanted British opium and Chinese merchants definitely wanted to sell it to them.
As in the Americans want substances banned by their federal government, and Escobar and others definitely wanted to sell it to them?
Will that justify another country dumping those in America?
Opium is the obvious case.
China made opium trade and cultivation illegal in 1799.
So what? The fourty years after that still saw the British smuggle in opium against the wishes of the Chinese empire, eventually declaring war for the right to deal drugs.
That China had some opium use without British influence doesn't mean the British did not manufacture a demand for it. They massively reduced the price of an addictive substance, making it available to a whole new market.
That China had some opium use without British influence doesn't mean the British did not manufacture a demand for it.
We can't take it as given, without proof that the British did manufacture a demand for it. This is a form of "argument from ignorance". Lowering prices is not manufacturing demand. How could the British have manufactured demand, if they could not even enter China outside of Hong Kong?
We know that the British increased poppy cultivation and manufactured a monopoly on opium for the purpose of export to China. Without it, I don't see how the Chinese demand would grow at the level it did. I have no idea what "proof" would be, an alternate world without British interference?
>How could the British have manufactured demand, if they could not even enter China outside of Hong Kong?
Guessing you meant Canton here, by smuggling/buying off locals.
Having a monopoly on opium doesn't make people want more of it. Smuggling doesn't make more of it, either. What you're describing are both forms of taking control of supply, and don't speak to demand.
When one supplier takes control of supply, that doesn't generally lead to lower prices; but expanding production -- which the British did -- certainly can.
“China is a sleeping lion. Let her sleep, for when she wakes she will shake the world.”
He was trying to warn the Europeans to not destroy the good thing that they had going with China: Trade and Commerce.
Sadly, the British were too corrupt and greedy, and they had to destroy it.
Yes, of cause. I did not point it out explicit. I am also not surprised nor do I care that my post got downvoted.
"Useless to talk with someone where the hint of an idea is not sufficient" Gomez da Vila.
It is all pretty well explained in "The rise and fall of great powers" by Kennedy or "On China" by Kissinger.
I think it is mentioned in "On China" that, when they saw an army steam ship heading upwards a river in the war they realized, the west had something they should have bought: Technology and weapons.
The British did not have a power to manufacture demand in China and in fact could not place personnel in China. British opium was smuggled into China by Chinese merchants.
besides, the british didn't need to be in the interior of china en masse to induce demand.
Its not like England had this huge imperial stockpile of opium laying around that they went out to find a buyer for. The opium supply grew because there was demand.
The nature of drugs is that supply also induces some demand, but the idea that the British had some masterplan to get the China hooked on Opium is kind of conspiracy theory nonsense. Capitalism responds to market prices and the limits of the market regulations enforced on them.
So is it OK to export to banned drugs in the UK if there is demand for them, or if demand arises?
I think that term was coined to describe the EIC.
What is the indian or chinese equivalent to "The Fox and the Crane"?
To be sure, I do think selling Opium is a moral thing to do, but my point is that this is not government policy, but merchants seeing a demand and responding to it. Only when China Imperial Government comes in and destroyed British stores, do this escalate to a national level conflict.
I think it was stupid for the Britain to start a war over it to be sure.
LOL. You’ve gotta admit, that the British are total scumbags for thinking this.
How does this logic serve your moral goals? Hey, let’s get a bunch of Chinese peasants addicted to drugs, and then we will supply them that drug. Profit!
You’ve got to admit that the British has lost any moral standing for doing such things.
Easy steps:
1. Get foreigners addicted to drugs
2. Supply them with drugs, and make it legal to operate there.
3. Meanwhile, the drug is illegal in Britain.
4. Profit
"Prior to 1916, there were no restrictions on the possession and use of cocaine, opium and other psychoactive drugs in Britain; the Poisons and Pharmacy Act of 1908 stipulated only that pharmacists had to have been introduced to prospective buyers by someone known to them, and must record their names and addresses in a poisons register."
http://ww1centenary.oucs.ox.ac.uk/body-and-mind/drugs-and-do...
I don't think that British traders selling opium to Chinese buyers in the 1800s was inherently more deplorable than Canadians selling liquor to Americans during Prohibition. What was deplorable about the Opium Wars and the Prohibition era gangs was the use of violence. If it had just been the era of Opium Smuggling instead of the Opium Wars I wouldn't fault Britain's behavior. But Britain did, deplorably, use military force when Chinese authorities prohibited and confiscated imported opium. That was inexcusable.