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Are folks unaware of the history of westerners and trade in China, and how this kind of attitude could be interpreted by Chinese people not ignorant of their co
by AndyMcConachie 6y ago
Are folks unaware of the history of westerners and trade in China, and how this kind of attitude could be interpreted by Chinese people not ignorant of their country's history?
In the late 19th century Great Britain fought two Opium Wars to force China to open up its markets to British opium. The British were forcing Indian farmers to grow opium and then taking it to sell to China. They wanted access to Chinese silver, but China had little reason to give it to them. So Britain's answer was to get Chinese people addicted to opium and get the silver through trade of opium for silver.
The Qing dynasty, for obvious reasons, didn't like this idea and forbid the British from importing their opium. So the British fought two wars to force them to accept their imports.
The Economist magazine was established in the mid 19th century as a pro-slavery, pro-imperialist magazine. Their arguments during the lead up to both opium wars sound a lot like yours. I want to make people aware of this, because it's important we understand how that kind of argument sounds to many Chinese people less ignorant of Chinese history than most westerners.
- p49k 6y agoThat’s an interesting piece of history, but how is that relevant in any way to this situation? Not just the fact that modern Western civilization doesn’t resemble 19th century England, but everything about the reasons/motivation behind/specifics of this trade conflict are different.
- DubiousPusher 6y ago> Not just the fact that modern Western civilization doesn’t resemble 19th century England A lot more than you think.
- arcturus17 6y agoNot sure what The Economist or Colonialist Britain has to do in all this, but how are we to interpret that neither Google nor Facebook - nor pretty much any enterprise issuing from a liberal democracy - can operate freely in China? What do the people educated in Chinese history make of that?
- bitcurious 6y agoCan you imagine asking “have the French forgotten what Napoleon did to the Italians?” to explain the inner functions of the European Union? Modern Chinese geopolitics should not, and are not based on the events of two centuries ago. Any pretense of that nature is frankly condescending to the Chinese people.
- brandonmenc 6y ago> I want to make people aware of this [...] how this kind of attitude could be interpreted by Chinese people I hear this all the time from friends here in the US who think we are a horrible country and that we are only a superpower because we did a lot of terrible things to get there (which is true), so we deserve anything bad coming our way, and we should just step aside for China's ascendency because they're just using our colonial-era, upstart (ex: theft of intellectual property) playbook and if that upsets us we're hypocrites - the ultimate sin, apparently. To which I say: So. What. We need to be political realists, because China certainly is. Other considerations are simply irrelevant.