Western Civilization: The Opium Wars

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Table of Contents

Introduction
History
Conclusion
Works Cited

Introduction

The Opium Wars (Anglo-Chinese wars) were a conflict between Chinese and British governments caused by opium trade control and laws introduced by China against British India. At the beginning of the 20^th century, western interest in opium initially ignored the societal problems it would cause. The promise of economic gain largely defined the contours of Sino-Western relations concerning opium, especially with Great Britain (Hevia 307). A movement for reform, or opium control, began around 1900, emerging both from within and outside of China — although the domestic impetus proved to be indispensable for even modest reform.

History

The first opium war lasted from 1839-1842 and the second opium war lasted from 1856-1860. The British east India Company had a monopoly on opium trade in India. In 1773 the Governor-General of Bengal opposed this monopoly and tried to establish his own control of trade and imports. China banned and prohibited opium trade. The affinity of millions of Chinese for opium directly affected the security of foreign interests in China (Mancall 92). Opium not only defined the daily life in much of the country, but it also dramatically influenced the way in which many Chinese viewed their own society and partly defined how they reacted to the economic and missionary presence of foreigners in their land. By seeing the external world — whether at the national or international level — through a lens colored by opium smoke, some 20 percent of the Chinese people at any one time managed in a comprehensible way to exist within, if not understand, that alien world. the sources of conflict can be explained by the fact that “opium generated a high level of cash flow and thus created large pools of capital” (Trocki 207).

Two conflicts between British India and China resulted in China’s defeat and liberalization of opium trade. China’s culture was not restricted to the habit of smoking. Especially in the time of Yuan Shih-k’ai, a narcotics culture also developed in China. Access to morphine was easy; it came from Great Britain and the United States by way of Japan. By the time the British and the Americans were prepared to quit the morphine trade, Japanese, Koreans, and others were ready to fill the gap with a product produced locally. Beyond the wars themselves and the occasional piece on aspects of opium use in China, we know precious little about the role of opium in imperial politics, the broader commercial aspects of the trade, the relationship between the spread of commercial capitalism into Asia and the opium trade, and the many different efforts to eradicate or manage opium consumption” (Hevia 307). Even as the brief promise of Yuan Shih-k’ai’s presidency was fading, some Chinese and Japanese were locked in a struggle for the drug appetites of the Chinese people (Melby 72). At the end of the second opium war, China was forced to ratify the Treaty of Tientsin in 1860. According to this document, China legalized opium trade on its territory and granted privileges to British opium traders. There was no easy way to overcome the dilemmas created by a drug control strategy that has focused inordinately long on the issue of supply and deferred to dubious security concerns. In addition to giving greater attention to the problem of demand, a starting place would be to move toward cultural understanding (Melby 97).

Conclusion

As a result, opium wars and a defeat of China opened new opportunities for British companies and opium traders to sell opium to new consumers and import it. Western actions against opium in Asia in the first half of the twentieth century, disclose a pattern of misperception, willful or not, of the immensity of the task.

Works Cited

Hevia , J. L. Opium, Empire and Modern History. China Review International, 10, (2003): 307.

Mancall Mark. China at the Center. New York: The Free Press, 1984.

Melby John F. The Mandate of Heaven: Record of a Civil War: China, 1945-1949. Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1968.

Trocki, C. A. Opium and the Beginnings of Chinese Capitalism in Southeast Asia. Journal of Southeast Asian Studies, 33 (2002): 297.

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Western Civilization: The Opium Wars

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