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That’s largely a misconception, Chinese authorities seazing illegally smuggled opium did spark the first opium war, however France and Britain did not invade Ch

by wwtrv 5y ago

That’s largely a misconception, Chinese authorities seazing illegally smuggled opium did spark the first opium war, however France and Britain did not invade China so that they could force Chinese to buy their opium. They wanted to force China to open more ports for trade and to stop persecuting christian missionaries and Chinese christians (obviously mainly due to political reasons, christians functioned basically like a 5th column inside China and allowed European powers to justify their military interventions to their own citizens). The highly unequal treaties signed between Britain (and other European countries) after the war did not even require China to legalize opium and allow it to be freely imported (that would have been extremely hard to justify politically and the opium trade was not even a primary concern for the British government in the first place). China did legalize opium on their own during the second opium war basically as way to boost tax revenues (because of the Taiping rebellion the Manchu Qing government was near collapse) and Chinese domestic production soon surpassed the imports from British India.

oblio 5y ago
> force China to open more ports for trade of opium... This is a bit like that debate about Confederate states fighting for state rights. The right to own slaves. China didn't want to trade much except for silver and opium. The Chinese trade was emptying British coffers of silver so the British forced trade of one of the few things the Chinese were willing to trade in exchange for their highly sought out goods.
- wwtrv 5y ago
  > China didn't want to trade much except for silver and opium The Manchu Qing government wanted this, many Chinese considered them to be foreign oppressors not much better than the British and the French and were happy to trade with the Europeans (not only for opium). > of opium... Again, opium was only a part of it and it was not that important by the second Opium war. China was falling apart due to internal issues and European powers opportunistically used this to peel of parts of China and to expand their overseas markets (for all kinds of goods besides opium) further increasing internal instability. I’m not trying to exonerate the British or to downplay their imperialist policies but the ‘Opium wars’ were not merely about the opium trade, they weren’t even widely called that until much later. The modern popular perceptions of the wars is highly influenced by Chinnese civil war propaganda (from both sides) which portrays them as beginning of some western plot to destabilize and destroy China while it’s much more complicated than that.

by wwtrv 5y ago

oblio 5y ago

> force China to open more ports for trade of opium... This is a bit like that debate about Confederate states fighting for state rights. The right to own slaves. China didn't want to trade much except for silver and opium. The Chinese trade was emptying British coffers of silver so the British forced trade of one of the few things the Chinese were willing to trade in exchange for their highly sought out goods.

wwtrv 5y ago
> China didn't want to trade much except for silver and opium The Manchu Qing government wanted this, many Chinese considered them to be foreign oppressors not much better than the British and the French and were happy to trade with the Europeans (not only for opium). > of opium... Again, opium was only a part of it and it was not that important by the second Opium war. China was falling apart due to internal issues and European powers opportunistically used this to peel of parts of China and to expand their overseas markets (for all kinds of goods besides opium) further increasing internal instability. I’m not trying to exonerate the British or to downplay their imperialist policies but the ‘Opium wars’ were not merely about the opium trade, they weren’t even widely called that until much later. The modern popular perceptions of the wars is highly influenced by Chinnese civil war propaganda (from both sides) which portrays them as beginning of some western plot to destabilize and destroy China while it’s much more complicated than that.