Art, Music, and Literature

Running Head : Opium Wars

The Opium Wars : Britain Invades China

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The Opium Wars : Britain Invades China

Opium teaches only one thing , which is that aside from physical suffering , there is nothing real ' In the 1800 's British was a juggernaut and China were self-conceited . China remained completely isolated from most of the world in every aspect including foreign trade which was limited to the city of Canton . Despite having rigid government regulations foreign trade gradually grew somewhere between the 18th and 19th century

. But as trade flourished the Western powers found themselves at an increasing trade deficit with China . This happened for the simple reason that China was a self sufficient economy and therefore had little or no interest in western goods . Finally in the year 1820 the west penetrated Chinese markets with one good they didn 't possess naturally , opium (Malraux , 1965

Between the years 1829 and 1855 smuggling of the drug opium expanded throughout China 's South Coast . At the dawn of 1820 9708 chests of opium were smuggled but within a decade grew to 35445 chests approximately 400 increase . At the dawn of 1830 opium was strongly associated with China . Approximate every man below the age of 40 consumed opium including majority of the army . All social classes were affected the upper class to the peasants . Somewhere about the late 1930 's there were 12 million addicts in China . Due to this high rate of smuggling the previously held trade deficit by the Western countries was now converted into a trade surplus . China was greatly set back . The economy was crippled by this plague . China on the other hand could not export enough silk and tea to reduce the increasing deficit . To combat this Chinese government had to start exporting their much valued silver by 1836 the Chinese government exported about 4 .5 million worth of silver . While by the year 1839 opium smokers spent about 100 million taels whereas the government revenue was only 40 million taels . This drained and weakened the Chinese economy (James , 1992

Such devastating conditions needed remedy and in 1838 Lin Tse-hsu was called upon to the Imperial Palace and assigned him to the eradication of opium in China . Lin accepted the assignment knowing he faced an uphill task . Opium addicts grew to abut 2 million and the concentration remained near the port city on Canton where foreigners smuggled huge amounts of opium . Although the use of opium had been banned since 1800 but black markets flourished and were difficult to curtail . One of his first moves was to take over naval forces and arrest all known opium dealers . He also set up treatment centers for addicts hoping to cure this ailment . Over the months he enforced laws and collected half a million pound of opium and destroyed it but the British still went out of their way to defy Chinese laws and went down the Canton port to a Portuguese controlled port of Macao . This...