19 Jan 2023 9:13 am
DeezerShoove » 18 Jan 2023, 6:02 pm » wrote: ↑ Opium War: The Conflict That Changed China Forever
The wars were fought to open China to foreign trade, including the selling of drugs.
by Sebastien Roblin
Key point: London instigated a war of aggression against China in order to force an inequal treaty. Seeing their success, other major imperial powers soon followed suit.
In 1839, England went to war with China because it was upset that Chinese officials had shut down its drug trafficking racket and confiscated its dope. Stating the historical record so plainly is shocking — but it’s true, and the consequences of that act are still being felt today. The Qing Dynasty, founded by Manchurian clans in 1644, expanded China’s borders to their farthest reach, conquering Tibet, Taiwan and the Uighur Empire.
However, the Qing then turned inward and isolationist, refusing to accept Western ambassadors because they were unwilling to proclaim the Qing Dynasty as supreme above their own heads of state.Foreigners — even on trade ships — were prohibited entry into Chinese territory. The exception to the rule was in Canton, the southeastern region centered on modern-day Guangdong Province, which adjoins Hong Kong and Macao. Foreigners were allowed to trade in the Thirteen Factories district in the city of Guangzhou, with payments made exclusively in silver. The British gave the East India Company a monopoly on trade with China, and soon ships based in colonial India were vigorously exchanging silver for tea and porcelain.
But the British had a limited supply of silver.
Opium War:
Starting in in the mid-1700s, the British began trading opium grown in India in exchange for silver from Chinese merchants.
Opium — an addictive drug that today is refined into heroin — was illegal in England, but was used in Chinese traditional medicine. However, recreational use was illegal and not widespread. That changed as the British began shipping in tons of the drug using a combination of commercial loopholes and outright smuggling to get around the ban.Chinese officials taking their own cut abetted the practice.
American ships carrying Turkish-grown opium joined in the narcotics bonanza in the early 1800s. Consumption of opium in China skyrocketed, as did profits. The Daoguang Emperor became alarmed by the millions of drug addicts — and the flow of silver leaving China. As is often the case, the actions of a stubborn idealist brought the conflict to a head.
In 1839 the newly appointed Imperial Commissioner Lin Zexu instituted laws banning opium throughout China. He arrested 1,700 dealers, and seized the crates of the drug already in Chinese harbors and even on ships at sea. He then had them all destroyed. That amounted to 2.6 million pounds of opium thrown into the ocean. Lin even wrote a poem apologizing to the sea gods for the pollution.
Angry British traders got the British government to promise compensation for the lost drugs, but the treasury couldn’t afford it. War would resolve the debt.But the first shots were fired when the Chinese objected to the British attacking one of their own merchant ships. (cont.)
Glad that you posted this.