The Most Powerful Empire In The World

Went To War

Not Once

Twice

To Protect Its Right To Sell A Drug To A Nation That Did Not Want It

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OKAY BACK FROM THE OPIUM WARS ⚔️

By The Early 1800s, Britain Had A Problem

The British Public Was Obsessed With Chinese Tea

Chinese Silk

Chinese Porcelain

China Was Not Especially Interested In Anything Britain Made In Return

The Official Trade Policy Of The Qing Dynasty Was Simple

We Have Everything We Need

Pay In Silver

Britain Was Hemorrhaging Silver Across The Trade Route

The East India Company, Which Controlled British Trade In Asia

Needed A Different Arrangement

They Found One In A Poppy Field In Bengal

Britain Controlled Large Portions Of India Through The East India Company

India Grew Opium In Quantities That The Domestic Market Could Not Absorb

The Solution Assembled Itself

Indian Opium Was Smuggled Into China Through A Network Of Licensed Traders And Private Merchants

The Qing Government Had Banned Opium Importation

The East India Company Technically Did Not Import It Directly

They Simply Grew It

Sold It To Private Traders At Auction In Calcutta, And Allowed Those Traders To Handle The Rest

The Legal Distance Was Convenient

The Effect Was Not

By The 1830s, Tens Of Millions Of Chinese Citizens Were Addicted

The Silver That Had Been Flowing Into China To Pay For Tea And Silk Was Now Flowing Out To Pay For Opium

The Trade Deficit Britain Had Spent Decades Worrying About Had Reversed Entirely

In 1839, The Qing Emperor Appointed A Commissioner Named Lin Zexu To End The Opium Trade

Lin Confiscated Over 1,400 Tons Of British Opium From Warehouses In Canton

He Had It Destroyed

He Also Wrote A Letter To Queen Victoria

It Was Measured And Direct

He Asked Her, As One Sovereign To Another, Whether She Would Tolerate A Foreign Power Deliberately Addicting Her Citizens For Profit

The Letter Was Either Never Read Or Never Answered

Britain Sent Warships Instead

The First Opium War Began In 1839

China's Military Was Not Equipped For Modern Naval Combat

The War Ended In 1842

The Treaty Of Nanking Forced China To Open Five Major Ports To British Trade

Pay Britain A Significant Financial Indemnity

Legalize The Opium Trade In The Opened Ports

Cede Hong Kong To The British Crown

China Continued Resisting Where It Could

In 1856, A Dispute Over A Vessel Called The Arrow Was Used As A Pretext For A Second Conflict

The Second Opium War Involved Both Britain And France

China Lost Again

The 1858 Treaty Of Tianjin Forced Full Legalization Of The Opium Trade Across China

An Empire That Had Tried Twice To Protect Its Population From A Foreign Drug Had Twice Been Militarily Defeated For The Attempt

The Most Powerful Nation On Earth Had Gone To War Not For Territory

Not For Religion

Not For Survival

For Market Access To A Drug

This Is Not Ancient History In The Way That Phrase Usually Means

The Logic That Made It Acceptable Then Is Worth Understanding

The Argument Was Never That Opium Was Safe

The Argument Was That The Profit Justified The Policy

That The Market Had A Right To Operate

That Interference With Trade Was An Act Of Aggression

That Logic Did Not Die In 1860

It Simply Changed Clothes