Trace the historic relationship between the British, China, and opium

Question

What will be an ideal response?

Answer 1

In the 19th century, Britain was eager for trade. The British people liked tea, but the British East India Company did not have sufficient trade income from China to balance payments for tea. Opium was the only product wanted by the Chinese that could balance the purchases of tea. Opium was illegal in China, but Britain was able to smuggle it in, eventually getting bold and shipping it right into the Canton harbor. In 1839, China confiscated and destroyed British opium cargo at the harbor.
Britain retaliated. In 1840, a British expedition attacked the poorly armed and organized Chinese forces. The emperor was forced to pay $6 million for the opium his officials had seized and $12 million as compensation for the war, and Hong Kong became a crown colony. Opium was not mentioned in the peace (surrender) treaty, but the trade resumed with new vigor. By the mid-1840s, in a remarkable reversal of the balance of trade, China had a significant opium debt (Latimer and Goldberg 1981). In the wake of the First Opium War, China was laid open to extensive missionary efforts by Protestant evangelicals, who, although they opposed the opium trade, viewed saving souls as their primary goal. Christianity, they believed, would save China from opium.
The Second Opium War began in 1856, when the balance of payments once again favored China. A minor incident between the British and Chinese governments was used as an excuse to force China into making further treaty concessions. This time, the foreign powers seeking to exploit a militarily weak China included the French, Russians, and the Americans. Canton was sacked, and a combined fleet of British and French warships sailed right up the Grand Canal to Peking and proceeded to sack and burn the imperial summer palace. The emperor was forced to indemnify the British in an amount more than enough to offset the balance of trade that had actually caused the war. A commission was appointed to legalize and regulate the opium trade. In the 1870s, the British opium monopoly in China was challenged by opium imported from Persia and cultivated in China itself. Because British colonial authorities were heavily dependent on a profitable opium trade, they increased the output of Indian opium. This caused a decline in prices, driving the competition out of business. This oversupply resulted in an increase in the amount of opium entering the United States for the Chinese population.