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Real0ne -> RE: US military drops 'mother of all bombs (4/14/2017 1:37:30 AM)
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as usual with you people its always about pointing a finger at the wrong place so no one looks at your filthy asses.
The middle east is not the problem you are
THE OPIUM TRADE
Introduction
The Opium Wars of 1839 to 1842 and 1856 to 1860 marked a new stage in China’s relations with the West. China’s military defeats in these wars forced its rulers to sign treaties opening many ports to foreign trade. The restrictions imposed under the Canton system were abolished. Opium, despite imperial prohibitions, now became a regular item of trade. As opium flooded into China, its price dropped, local consumption increased rapidly, and the drug penetrated all levels of society. In the new treaty ports, foreign traders collaborated with a greater variety of Chinese merchants than under the Canton system, and they ventured deeply into the Chinese interior. Missionaries brought Christian teachings to villagers, protected by the diplomatic rights obtained under the treaties. Popular hostility to the new foreigners began to rise.
Not surprisingly, Chinese historians have regarded the two Opium Wars as unjust impositions of foreign power on the weakened Qing empire. In the 20th century, the Republic of China made strenuous efforts to abolish what it called “unequal treaties.” It succeeded in removing most of them in World War II, but this phase of foreign imperialism only ended completely with the reversion of Hong Kong to China in 1997. Conventional textbooks even date the beginning of modern Chinese history from the end of the first Opium War in 1842.
Although the wars, opium trade, and treaties did reflect superior Western military force, focusing only on Western impositions on China gives us too narrow a picture of this period. This was not only a time of Western and Chinese conflict over trade, but a time of great global transformation in which China played one important role. The traders in opium included Britain, the U.S., Turkey, India, and Southeast Asia as well as domestic Chinese merchants. The origins of opium consumption in China are very old, and its first real boom as an item of consumption began after tobacco was introduced from the New World in the 16th century and Chinese smokers took a fancy to mixing it with the drug.
The Qing court was not in principle hostile to useful trade. In 1689 and 1727, the court had negotiated treaties with Russia to exchange furs from Siberia for tea, and allowed the Russians to live in a foreigners’ guest house in Beijing. Qing merchants and officials also traded extensively with Central Eurasian merchants from Bukhara and the Kazakh nomads for vital supplies of wool, horses, and meat. The court knew well the value of the southern coastal trade as well, since revenues from the Canton trade went directly into the Imperial Household department.
The Opium Wars are rightly named: it was not trade per se but rather unrestricted drug trade by the Western powers, particularly Britain, that precipitated them. As the wars unfolded, however, it became clear that far more than opium was ultimately involved. The very nature of China’s hitherto aloof relationship with the world was profoundly challenged, and long decades of internal upheaval lay ahead.
https://ocw.mit.edu/ans7870/21f/21f.027/opium_wars_01/ow1_essay01.html
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