For those who don't know, the British were the opium dealers, the Chinese banned the opium and once confiscated it, and the result was the war in 1839:<p><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/First_Opium_War" rel="nofollow">https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/First_Opium_War</a><p>"The British East India Company began to auction opium grown on its plantations in India to independent foreign traders in exchange for silver. The opium was then transported to the China coast and sold to Chinese middlemen who retailed the drug inside China. This reverse flow of silver and the increasing numbers of opium addicts alarmed Chinese officials."<p>"In 1839, the Daoguang Emperor" "confiscated around 20,000 chests of opium." "The British government, although not officially denying China's right to control imports of the drug, objected to this unexpected seizure and used its naval and gunnery power to inflict a quick and decisive defeat."<p>Apparently, the argument for the war was, familiarly, that China "resisted to the free trade."<p>Of the opium, peddled by the Brits.
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