East India Companies opium 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. 

It is hard to overemphasise the impact of the consumption of opium on China in the nineteenth century. Before this trade began, China was a proud, self-sufficient, technologically and scientifically advanced nation (some have claimed China was often 4-7 centuries in advance of the European nations in these respects). By the end of the nineteenth century China was weakened to the extent that it was hard to govern, impoverished and technologically surpassed by its neighbour Japan, North America and the European nations. The roots of its troubled history in the twentieth century could be said to lie in the soil of Bengal where the East India Company grew its opium. 

Who founded the Hongkong and Shanghai Corporation The same circle of merchant banking, trading, and shipping families — centered around the British monarchy — who opened the East India Company s opium trade as an instalment of British state policy during the previous century. 

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. 

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