GREAT Britain waged two opium-related wars on China in the 19th century. It was a century in which China went through fragmentation. Back then it was ruled by the weak Qing dynasty, governed by local commissioners, but economically controlled by Western nations.
Europeans (later joined by China’s eastern neighbour Japan) had gained exclusive rights and control over China’s resources and trade. The external trade of China was allowed only through Canton. The western nations, who traded for Chinese goods such as tea, porcelain and silk, had set up their factories around Canton to carry out commercial operations. The exchange of Chinese goods that passed through inland networks was handled by Chinese merchant princes.
The balance of trade was highly in favour of China, which received considerations for its goods in the form of silver. European traders tried to find a way to reverse the trade deficit. And the far-sightedness of the colonial minds schemed to introduce into the Chinese society a consumable item, which they could cheaply and abundantly supply — an item, the consumption and taste of which could be gradually developed and so ingrained that the consumers could not abandon its use. That item was opium.
Not until the end of the 18th century were there any historical accounts of en masse opium smoking in China. The stuff had, however, been used for medicinal purposes towards the end of the 15th century in China. By 1700AD, the Dutch, the political and commercial rivals of the British on Indian turf, had started exporting shipments of Indian opium to China and to the islands of South East Asia. They also introduced the practice of smoking opium tobacco pipes.
Much of the poppy from which opium is extracted had been grown in India. The English and Dutch had opium-extracting factories in the city of Patna in Bihar, which produced so much opium that it served all the regions of Hindustan.
The gradual British control of the Indian economy and taking over of suzerainty of the Indian states from the fledgling Moghul rule enabled the British through the East India Company to gain monopoly of the opium trade. So much so that they forbade the sale of this commodity to local outlets and their European rivals. Karl Marx mentions this situation in his book Das Kapital: “The English East India Company obtained besides the political rule in India, the exclusive monopoly of tea trade as well as of Chinese trade in general and transportation of goods to and from Europe. The monopolies over salt, betel, opium and other commodities were inexhaustible sources of wealth.”
The transition of opium from one having medicinal use to a product of daily doses of intoxication by the Chinese people led to a national addiction within the century. This use had its debilitating effects on the bodies and minds of a huge cross section of the nation. Not only had they turned into a sleeping society, their economy and all-round progress had also become stagnant.
By 1767, the British East India Company’s import of opium into China had reached 2,000 chests per year (a chest contained 150 pounds of opium by weight) and it rose to a staggering 17,000 chests by 1835 peaking to 30,000 by the year 1840. In short, it was worth millions of pound sterling bringing huge profits to Her Majesty’s government and the operating merchants. But for the Chinese populace indulgence in smoking opium was the cause of endemic slumber.
In 1839, the Qing emperor ordered the cessation of hostile trading activity in opium. He named Lin Tse-hsu, the Commissioner of Canton, to lead a campaign against opium. Lin seized 2,000 chests of opium and threw them into the sea or had them burnt. This enraged the British merchant community at Canton who demanded that Great Britain retaliate against Chinese incursion on their freedom of opium trade. And retaliate it did. The governor general of India, Lord Auckland, sent a number of naval boats to Hong Kong to protect the opium-carrying merchant ships. This was the beginning of the first opium war, which should be termed the first drug war. The British armies fighting as mercenaries of the Cantonese monopolists attacked cities around Canton and blockaded the ports.
The Chinese junks sent by the emperor were no match for the British gunboats as was the Chinese army already put to a slumber through years of opium infusion. The war waged in the Chinese countryside caused untold deaths. The invading armies destroyed, plundered and looted their way along the southern coast of China. The Chinese government had to yield. Negotiations to end the war led to the Treaty of Bog. But the treaty failed when the Chinese refused to pay the compensation for the opium it had destroyed at Canton. The British then seized Amoy, Tinghai, Chunhai, and Ningpo. After the loss of still so many thousands Chinese citizens, the first opium war ultimately ended with the Treaty of Nanking signed on August 19, 1842.
The terms of this unequal treaty forced the Chinese government to pay $15 million to the British merchants of Canton and to open five ports to English trade. Hong Kong was also ceded to the British. Legalization of opium trade was also acceded to. After the terms of the Nanking Treaty were exposed, the French and Americans got similar rights in 1844 as the British had acquired. These treaties restricted the rights of the Chinese to rule in their own country.
The British and French again defeated China in the second opium war in 1856. By the terms of the Treaty of Tientsin (1858), the Chinese further opened new ports to European trade and allowed the foreigners to travel inland. The Christians gained rights to preach, spread the religion and to own property. The USA and Russia were not far behind in gaining a similar right to trade. The vastly expanded opium trade was worth 20 million pound sterling in 1864 alone. From 58,000 of chests of opium imported by trade monopolists in 1860, the import level reached 100,000 by 1880.
This trade brought millions pound sterling in profit to opium traders, the biggest amongst them being The Sasoons, the descendants of Saleh Sasoon — the Court Jew (the banker and treasurer) of Ahmet Pasha, once the governor of Baghdad during the Ottoman days.
