China opium trade

Over the next 100 years, a struggle ensued between various European powers, including the Dutch, French, and British, over control of the opium trade. By 1715, it was clear that Britain had won when it secured the port of Canton, the only port through which opium could be sold to China. The disheartening and complex relationship between Britain and China involving opium will be explored in much greater detail later. 

However, supplying opium to millions of Chinese addicts was a profitable business, and it was under the control of British companies. In 1839, when China tried to ban the opium trade, Britain sent its navy and marines to force open the ports. In 1842, the Opium wars ended with China forced again to allow the drug to be sold. 

Britain signs an agreement with China to dismantle the opium trade. However, the profits made from its cultivation, manufacture, and sale were so enormous that no serious interruption was felt until World War II closed supply routes throughout Asia. 

By the time opium was banned by the U.S. Congress in 1905, the abuse of black market heroin had already taken hold. In 1910, Britain signed an agreement with China to dismantle the opium trade. But the profits made from its cultivation, manufacture, and sale were so enormous that no serious interruption would be felt until World War II closed supply routes throughout Asia. And although Bayer ended the manufacture of heroin for medicinal use in 1913, illicit importation and distribution networks in New York and San Francisco were already well established. 

The infamous Opium Wars between Great Britain and China in the mid-1800s did not solve the problem for the Chinese. The victorious British compelled the Chinese to make restitution for damages and to allow the opium trade. By that time, Chinese farmers were producing opium at home and opium smoking had spread widely. ... 

Britain s Opium War infrastructure — fostered an epidemic-scale increase in opium trafficking into China. By 1830-31, the number of chests of opium brought into China increased fourfold to 18,956 chests. In 1836, the figure exceeded 30,000 chests. In financial terms, trade figures made available by both the British and Chinese governments showed that between 1829-1840, a total of 7 million silver dollars entered China, while 56 million silver dollars were sucked out by the soaring opium trade. (4)... 

If anything, British profiteering from the opium trade jumped as the result of the reversion to a totally black-market production-distribution cycle. Ironically, the legalization of the opium trade into China forced upon the Emperor through the Opium Wars had cut into British profits on the drag. Legalization had brought with it the requirement that the British opium... 

A chest of opium in 1820 sold for 2,075 on arrival at the port of Canton. While this figure tended to drop marginally as the volume of traffic increased after 1830, any calculation of cash valuation of the opium trade into China establishes a figure that very nearly parallels "the present 100-200 billion (when appropriate calculations are made to account for differences in purchasing power of the dollar in ratio to total volume of world production) in annual "black" revenues. 

Only since Henry Kissinger s 1972 trip to China has the Chinese role in the world opium trade been out of the headlines. The American, European, Japanese, and Soviet authorities had long insisted that Peking was a major primary producer and exporter of opium and its derivatives, and the British, under extreme... 

The big move into Hong Kong transformed Red China from a mere producer of opium, into Britain s international partner in the distribution, and later the financing, of the opium trade in the Far East — if not elsewhere. (The Ctiao Chou Chinese arrested in a New York hotel room with a Philippine diplomat and seven pounds of heroin carried the business card of the local New York Ctiao Chou fraternal association.)... 

Keswick, of the hereditary drug-trading family that founded and still controls Jardine Matheson, also represented the RIIA and its sub-branch, the Institute for Pacific Relations, to the United States. (6) Sir John Henry is still Britain s number one man for China policy, Chairman of Britain s China Association, Vice-President of the Sino-British Trade Council, and a member of the Great Britain-China Committee. (His predecessor at the China Association from 1951-55 was John Kidston Swire, of the old opium-trading Swire family, who still sits on the London Committee of the HongShang.)... 

As documented by Marshall, Lord Keswick and the other controllers of the opium trade imposed the Green Gang dope merchants in power in China, making the production and distribution of opium the backbone of the Chinese economy. The consequences were predictable unparalleled genocide against the Chinese population. 

East India Company Chinese tea bullion for Bengali opium trade — led to China Opium Wars (1839-1842, 1856-1860) thence to Tai Ping rebellion (1850— 1864 20-100 million deaths from war associated famine)... 

Opium was addictive, and its addiction caused wars. Tobacco was introduced to China toward the end of the sixteenth century, and its use quickly became a habit. Once tobacco was banned by the Chinese in 1644, opium took its place as a recreational drug among the Chinese merchants, much of this being supplied by the British East India Company. Its export offset the cost of tea imports to Britain. Chinese attempts to stop the opium trade led to the Opium Wars of 1839-1842 and 1856, following which Hong Kong became a British Crown Colony until 1997. 

For the countries of Europe, opium was a critical product for trade with the countries of the Far East. The problem for the Europeans (a problem Americans eventually encountered as well) was that while they increasingly required goods from the Far East, such as tea and especially silk, countries like China were not equally interested in Western goods. But the Chinese were interested in opium, an interest that provided Europe with the leverage for effective trade. For Europeans, especially the British, this meant that they had to control the trade in places where opium could be grown, such as India. This need for control lead to the creation of Britain s infamous East India Company. 

The need for opium was not unique to China. Indeed, opium was more than a primary product of international trade it became an essential commodity in Europe as well. 

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