Chinese-American trade

American traders who have been visiting China since the Chinese opened the door to the US continue to meet their share of frustrations. The Chinese are only now allowing foreigners to deal with end-users of the products, but trade continues to be conducted "Chinese style"—that is, the Chinese reluctantly enter into long-term contracts—but there is still an absence of a conventional legal system in which to conduct trade. 

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. 

French Corsicans and Italian-American Mafiosi played a major role in funneling opium, grown in Turkey and Southeast Asia and processed as heroin in French underground labs, to America. Mexican and Chinese gangs were active in the drug trade in the Southwest and on the West Coast. Tons of heroin reached the United States and the demand increased to epidemic proportions..—... 

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... 

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