Sino-British Opium War

Well I never said that communism reached its peak when China became communist. I said it became a force in the world when China became communist. That's quite the opposite. Yeah before that, the battle between communist vs capitalist, democratic vs totalitarian was contained in Europe. When China fell, that's when the paranoia over the "Domino Theory" all started. Maybe the Europeans have a different view but in the US, they say the Cold War was about the entire world being the chess board between the US and the Soviet Union. Who's siding with who. The Cold War was pretty much hot in the Thrid World. In hindsight you can argue that communism didn't have any success during the Cold War. But you certainly couldn't tell that from the American perspective at the time. Again in my first post here I said that in the rest of the world outside Europe, it wasn't that they believed in communism. It was just the only alternative to Western colonial rule. So the Cold War in regards to communism in the Third World wasn't about ideology. It was just about kicking the West out of their country. Nobody else was there to help Third World countries to do that. Also I said before that the Cold War in the rest of the world was more about controlling the resources than about ideology. Because who ever controlled the resources of the world controlled the world. So it didn't matter who won the battle in Europe. Whoever lost the rest of the world, lost the war. Just like today control over resources is power in the world. Yeah maybe the Soviets got a little nervous about there new partner China. The Chinese after the communist takeover were throwing money and supplies around the Third World not just because of communism. There were many cases in Africa where China handed out money and arms just so people can kick the West out of their countries. Again that's why a lot more hate from the West was directed towards China than the leaders of communism, the Soviets.

And the majority that have heard of it believe the version the British tell which is that they saw how the Chinese were using such an ugly substance to the point of addiction that out of the goodness of their heart they tried to stop it from being used. To where the Chinese who love their opium started a war with the British to save their right to use it. The story the British tell is a grand historic heroic tale of their humanity and concern for their fellow human beings. It's a wonder why the vast majority have never heard about their deed.

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Well I don't know about the British but in EVERY American textbook, historical work, and class I've ever seen/been in they tell the following version: The British needed to sell opium to China to balance the trade deficit; when the Chinese tried to halt the importation of the product the British invaded to protect the, "rights of free British traders."

The Opium War was definitely not a positive thing, but the fact remains that the Qing was a backwards, decaying state that would have been forced out of isolation and to meet the demands of a modernizing world regardless of whether the Opium War occurred or not. Even if the Western powers left China alone for the entire nineteenth century the Japanese would have eventually moved in.

'Opium financed British rule in India'

Leading Indian writer Amitav Ghosh's critically acclaimed new novel Sea of Poppies is set during a time when opium trade out of India was flourishing during British rule.

The novel spans three continents and close to two centuries and is the first in a planned historical trilogy set in the 19th century.

Ghosh, a trained anthropologist and historian with a doctorate from Oxford University, spoke to the BBC's Soutik Biswas on the colonial opium trade.

Sea of Poppies is a historical novel. Is it the fact that the British were the world's biggest opium suppliers two centuries ago that led you into this story?

I should correct you. It was not two centuries ago. Under the British Raj, an enormous amount of opium was being exported out of India until the 1920s.

And no, the opium story was not really the trigger for the novel. What basically interested me when I started this book were the lives of the Indian indentured workers, especially those who left India from the Bihar region.

But once I started researching into it, it was kind of inescapable - all the roads led back to opium. The indentured emigration [out of India] really started in the 1830s and that was [around the time of] the peak of the opium traffic. That decade culminated in the opium wars against China.

Also all the indentured workers at that time came from all the opium growing regions in the Benares and Ghazipur areas. So there was such an overlap there was no escaping opium.

When and how did you end up researching and learning more about the British opium trade out of India?

I was looking into it as I began writing the book about five years ago. Like most Indians, I had very little idea about opium.

I had no idea that India was the largest opium exporter for centuries. I had no idea that opium was essentially the commodity which financed the British Raj in India.

It is not a coincidence that 20 years after the opium trade stopped, the Raj more or less packed up its bags and left. India was not a paying proposition any longer.

What did you discover in the course of your research? How big was the trade?

Opium steadily accounted for about 17-20% of Indian revenues. If you think in those terms, [the fact that] one single commodity accounted for such an enormous part of your economy is unbelievable, extraordinary.

In fact the revenues don't account for entire profits generated [out of opium trade] -there was shipping, there were so many ancillary industries around opium.

How and when did opium exports out of India to China begin?

The idea of exporting opium to China started with Warren Hastings (the first governor general of British India) in 1780.

The situation was eerily similar to [what is happening] today. There was a huge balance of payments problem in relation to China. China was exporting enormous amounts, but wasn't interested in importing any European goods. That was when Hastings came up with idea that the only way of balancing trade was to export opium to China.

In the 1780s he sent the first shipment of opium to China. It was a small shipment and they could hardly get rid of it. There wasn't much demand. [But], within 10 years, demand for opium increased by factors of magnitude. It was incredible - within a period of 10-30 years how much the opium trade spread and increased.

In the period that Hastings started exporting opium in the 1780s until about 1809-1810, most of the opium in India was grown in the Bengal presidency (in eastern India).

After that the Malwa region in western India began growing opium. Finally twice as much opium was growing in western India and there was a huge export from that region. What do you think the major princely states lived off?

What kind of human devastation did opium growing wreak on the Indians?

I can't say I have an accurate picture. Whether it was devastation or not we don't know. There is so little we know [about this aspect].

Some reformers were trying to stop the opium trade and we know from their petitions and letters that there was fair amount of resistance. There seem to have been a lot of difficulties for peasants - they were switching to an agricultural monoculture, and that was causing problems.

With so much poppy being grown, didn't local people get addicted to it?

It happened. One of the curious things I was not aware of was that there are many different ways of consuming opium. One of the ways was to eat it in a bowl. This was somehow the commonest way of taking opium in India - either eating it or dissolving it in water.

East of India and eastwards through China there was a different way of consuming it which was by smoking it. That was very much more addictive.

It was not traditionally the case that people smoked opium in India. Opium also was a part of social life - it was offered during certain ceremonies. So it was a very complex picture.

If there was any direct damage to India, it lay in the disruption of the agricultural timetable. But the damage that was done to China was incalculable.

Both Indian and British history appear to have glossed over this part of colonial rule.

Absolutely. Opium was the fundamental undergirding of our economy for centuries. It is strange that [even] for someone like me who studied history and knew a fair amount about Indian history, I was completely unaware of it.

Why do you think that happened?

I think the reason is some sort of whitewashing of the past.

On the Indian side, there is a sort of shame, I suppose. Also, just a general unawareness. I mean how many people are aware that the Ghazipur opium factory [in India] continues to be one of the single largest opium producers in the world? It is without a doubt the largest legitimate opium factory in the world.

Don't you find it ironic that the tables have turned in a sense with Afghanistan becoming the world's biggest opium producer with most of it sold in the affluent West?

It is strange. But it's an irony in which no one can take any comfort. Opium is a destructive thing for anyone, anywhere.

And it remains a potent driver of economies, at least in a place like Afghanistan..

And, before that in Burma.

Sea of Poppies appears to be a scathing critique of British colonialism. Do you think colonialism has had a pretty easy ride in India and there is not enough examination of the extent of how it affected the country adversely?

It's such an ironic thing. Before the British came, India was one of the world's great economies. For 200 years India dwindled and dwindled into almost nothing. Fifty years after they left we have finally begun to reclaim our place in the world.

All the empirical facts show you that British rule was a disaster for India. Before the British came 25% of the world trade originated in India. By the time they left it was less than 1%.

Lot of Indians believe that the British built institutions, the police, bureaucracy.

I don't know what people think about when they say such things.

When they talk about [the British building] modern institutions it amazes me.

Was there no police force in India before the British came? Of course there was. There were darogas (policemen), there were chowkis (police stations). In fact the British took the word chowki and put it into English. So to say such things is absurd.

FriedRiceNSpice said:

Well I don't know about the British but in EVERY American textbook, historical work, and class I've ever seen/been in they tell the following version: The British needed to sell opium to China to balance the trade deficit; when the Chinese tried to halt the importation of the product the British invaded to protect the, "rights of free British traders."

The Opium War was definitely not a positive thing, but the fact remains that the Qing was a backwards, decaying state that would have been forced out of isolation and to meet the demands of a modernizing world regardless of whether the Opium War occurred or not. Even if the Western powers left China alone for the entire nineteenth century the Japanese would have eventually moved in.

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Yes that's another version. But talk to people that have heard of the Opium War and they'll tell you the version I mentioned. I remember watching an American Old West TV show Western. The story was about the Chinese being exploited by the Triads addicting the workers to opium. And of course the protagonists heroes of the show were out to stop the opium trade because it was evil. And one of the characters was hesitant because he said smoking opium was a part of the Chinese culture and they shouldn't interfere. And I believe I've seen a few other TV Westerns play on that theme too but you never see any Westerner involved in the trade except maybe smoking opium themselves. The misinformation is out there.

As for the Qing being be backward... yes but not my point. Remember the Japanese were like they were because of gunboat diplomacy. They chose to be Western in every much of the way they can. And because of that they believed they deserved to be equal partners with Western colonial powers. So when the West refused to accept them as an equal partner in the club, that's when they started to take what they thought was rightfully theirs. So if there were no Opium War that surrendered China to colonial powers, history might have played out differently since the Japanese part of that was too also a result of Western colonalism.

It's sort of like making the argument that WWII and the Holocaust was good for the Jews because in the end they got their homeland back. Before that they were seen as a nuisance throughout Europe. Who's going to dare to make that argument? But its all right to spin the Opium War, one of the great crimes in hstory never to be told. The opium trade lead to a lot of evil against the Chinese not just forcing them into addiction so the British and other Western powers can make a fortune. The British also used opium to ruin other countries. They shipped opium on Chinese merchant ships throughout Southeast Asia where when the native population finally got wind of the evil of opium, to deflect attention away from themselves, the British pointed to the Chinese merchant ships. This is the root of why countries like Indonesia and Malaysia have histories of pogroms and massacres against the Chinese all the way into the Cold War.

Japan would have modernized regardless of what happened to China. It was the Americans, not the British that forced Japan to open its doors. The Japanese were more pragmatic than the Chinese at the time and recognized Western superiority and choose to adopt the aspects of Western civilization that would most benefit them. And Japan has sought to conquer mainland Asia long before the British even started the Opium trade.

Yes the Opium war was evil, but just as much as it was the fault of the British for perpetrating it, it was the fault of the Qing for letting it happen, as is the Qing's refusal to reform and modernize even after the Opium War. For God's sake, the Qing still supported uprisings armed only with fists and staves at the turn of the century. The Opium War was just the first of a long series of humiliations that China faced at the hands of the West/Japan.

American, British, Germans, French... all colonial powers. Like I said when they were carving up China for themselves, Japan saw they were being left out after volunteering to be Westernized. I don't know how Japan was going to modernize without the West helping them. Gunboat diplomacy was about Japan becoming Westernized either through violence or by "choice." If they chose resistance, Japan probably wouldn't be in a condition to threaten anyone since the colonial powers would be "occupying" most of Japan's time. In my opinion the Opium War and all that resulted from it was worse than what the Qing or what the Japanese did. The West didn't do any favors for China. Like I said before, it's like neocons saying slavery was the best thing to ever happen to African-Americans because their standard of living is superior to Africans today. I don't see the Opium War being the lesser of two evils... the other being the failure of the Qing. The Opium War has a longer more epic legacy.

AssassinsMace said:

The West didn't do any favors for China. Like I said before, it's like neocons saying slavery was the best thing to ever happen to African-Americans because their standard of living is superior to Africans today. I don't see the Opium War being the lesser of two evils... the other being the failure of the Qing. The Opium War has a longer more epic legacy.

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I'd say this is an apt analogy - essentially, while there can be unexpectedly positive developments to come out of something bad, it's a long way from there to believing that the initial evil is thus justified.

Obviously, you try to make the best of any situation, and if it's something good out of something bad, then so much the better. But of course, ideally the bad thing didn't have to happen in the first place.

Colonial powers did bad things to everyone, they destroyed Africa and put Asians into poverty and divided up the middleast.

But the difference is that we Asians are hard working people and have long history of good friendship and thats why Asian countrys today wake up and realise and make good economy. China, Thailand, Vietnam, Malaysia, South Korea, Taiwan, Hong Kong, Singapore etc etc

Unfortunately African and Middleast countrys have not realised that yet and are still under the colonial mind set.

I think China should remember this and keep killing the western economys through thier massive trillion dollar trade machine which is puttin western countrys out of business for good! We just went through bad times from 16-19th century but now we are back.

asif iqbal said:

Colonial powers did bad things to everyone, they destroyed Africa and put Asians into poverty and divided up the middleast.

But the difference is that we Asians are hard working people and have long history of good friendship and thats why Asian countrys today wake up and realise and make good economy. China, Thailand, Vietnam, Malaysia, South Korea, Taiwan, Hong Kong, Singapore etc etc

Unfortunately African and Middleast countrys have not realised that yet and are still under the colonial mind set.

I think China should remember this and keep killing the western economys through thier massive trillion dollar trade machine which is puttin western countrys out of business for good! We just went through bad times from 16-19th century but now we are back.

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... I would say that there doesn't seem to be a good reason to intentionally try and kill other countries.

Once a hooligan, always a hooligan! First they forced opium down the Chinese people's throat, then they destroyed our country and stole our artifacts. Now they don't want to return those artifacts but auction them off for cause to make them look like they are the good guys.

Saint Laurent Qing Art Sale Spurs China Legal Threat (Update1)

By Le-Min Lim

Jan. 21 (Bloomberg) -- A planned Paris sale of two Qing Dynasty bronzes from the late French designer Yves Saint Laurent’s art collection is raising the ire of patriots in China who say they may sue auction house Christie’s International.

Liu Yang, who heads 67 volunteer lawyers, said the group is preparing a lawsuit to block the February sale of two animal-head sculptures -- a rabbit and a rat. They are among 700 works in the Yves Saint Laurent and Pierre Berge Collection expected to raise as much as 300 million euros ($389 million), according to a Christie’s statement from September. The proceeds will help set up a foundation for AIDS research.

“For each and every item in this collection there is a clear legal title,” Christie’s said in a statement e-mailed today in response to inquiries from Bloomberg News. “We strictly adhere to any and all local and international laws.”

Any lawsuit would be filed in the French courts, Liu said. The lawyers seek to block the sale first and ultimately to repatriate the items. The auction will be held at the Grand Palais.

The 1995 United Nations Unidroit Convention limits claims on stolen cultural artifacts to within 50 years of their theft.

All the bronze heads are among 12 zodiac animals from a water-clock fountain in Yuanmingyuan, or the Imperial Summer Palace. The palace was set ablaze and its treasures plundered and scattered by British and French troops in October 1860.

Sale of a tiger head from the same fountain in 2000 by Christie’s rival Sotheby’s sparked protests in Hong Kong initiated by the city’s lawmakers. The horse head was offered by Sotheby’s in September 2007, privately bought by Macau billionaire Stanley Ho for $8.9 million and donated to China.

Boar, Monkey, Ox

In 2003, Ho bought the fountain’s boar head at a private sale and donated it to Beijing’s Poly Museum, an arm of the People’s Liberation Army. Poly Museum also has the monkey and ox. Whereabouts of the others are unknown.

“These items belong to China and should return to us,” said Liu, in a phone interview. “Prices of these items have soared beyond the reach of civilians and governments.”

The State Administration of Cultural Heritage declined to comment. In a November interview that ran on Xinhua News Service’s Web Site, Cultural Heritage Administration’s head of museums, Song Xinchao, said the sale of the two bronze heads violates international laws and China firmly opposes the auction.

China will try to repatriate lost treasures “through legal channels,” Song had said, without giving details.

Opium War

More than 1 million pieces of top-grade Chinese relics are scattered in more than 200 museums in 47 nations, according to a 2003 article by state-run Xinhua News. Looting was at its worst in the century after the first Opium War (1839-1842), when British, Russians and other foreign troops annexed parts of China.

The chances of repatriating items lost during foreign countries invasion of China are “a long, complicated legal process,” said He Shuzhong, founder of Beijing Cultural Heritage Protection Center, a nongovernment organization. He is also an official at the Cultural Heritage Administration.

“We could spend our time and energy pursuing these lost relics, with little promise of return,” He said in a telephone interview. “Or we could move forward and focus on protecting the treasures we still have.”

To contact the writer on the story: Le-Min Lim in Hong Kong at [email protected]