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.