The most significant to me is that all the death destruction and suffering was all to further enrich some 5ish rich dudes.<p>It is significant because this aspect of the west has not changed at all. Just look how our historians are happy to attribute such acts to countries(!???) Until we start attributing invasions to the people who wanted them, those who organized them and those who profited from them this wont change.<p>Its at best inaccurate to state Britain wanted the war, Britain organized it and Britain profited. At worst it is the very formula to keep at it.
I am surprised that the article makes no mention of the many Chinese action movies made that are set in the time period of the Opium Wars and that make explicit reference to it.<p>Given that the film is made in China and received state support, it is not an accident.<p>By the way the story of Baghdadi Jew, David Sassoon and his rise in prominence as a result of profiting from the Opium War is quite interesting in itself.
I don't understand the motivation of the article. Does the author try to justify the Opium War? Or to remind 1+ billion Chinese that the intepretation of history always subject to rulers' agenda, which is clearly stated in Chinese textbook? To show off his not-so-sharp observation to his readers? Or, to warn USA not to abandon the free trade principle?
But every country teaching their version of history.
Opium Wars is truly what change the Old China, force it open door which has long been closed.<p>The so-called Freedom was just bullshit, it only profits, that drive the war.<p>And I think the western world just never really understand the Chinese people's way of thinking, nor do they care.And that's how this article comes out.
This reminds me of the articles saying that germans like to use cash because of the inflation 100y ago. It's just not true and likely being written by someone who has never asked a single german/chinese.
Flowers in the Blood is an excellent read for anyone interested in this bit of history.
<a href="https://www.amazon.ca/Flowers-Blood-Story-Jeff-Goldberg/dp/1626365407/ref=sr_1_10?ie=UTF8&qid=1517671999&sr=8-10&keywords=flowers+blood" rel="nofollow">https://www.amazon.ca/Flowers-Blood-Story-Jeff-Goldberg/dp/1...</a>
> <i>Julia Lovell, a British historian, makes a similar point. In her book “The Opium War: Drugs, Dreams and the Making of China”, she says the move into opium by British traders was not, as claimed by many Chinese historians, a deliberate conspiracy to make narcotic slaves of the Chinese. “It was a greedy, pragmatic response to a decline in sales of other British imports,” she writes.</i><p>Is there a name for this fallacy? It seems to come up a lot. I.e., when someone takes an action that has enormous and predictable negative effects for someone else and a comparatively tiny positive effect for themselves, they then argue along the lines that "I was motivated by my gain, not by your loss (even though I knew it would result from my action), so you have no right to complain!"<p>In this case, it can be <i>both</i> a "deliberate conspiracy" and a "pragmatic response". They deliberately conspired to hurt the Chinese for profit, judging their suffering to be a less important consideration than their own profits.
"<i>Then, in revenge for the torture and killing of a group of British negotiators by the Chinese,...</i>"<p>Wait, what?<p>The Chinese weren't entirely the victims?<p>(Just seems a little out of place, given the rest of the article.)
Yet its the same problem today that prompted the Opium Wars as back then: The West buys more from China than China buys from The West.<p>Hopefully that colours the decisions made to rebalance the trade system.
In 2018's city of London, I can see small sliver laugh gas bottles frequently on the street, almost every day in my commuting - as Economist suggested, "by then, smoking the drug had come to be viewed not so much as a bad habit encouraged by the British."<p>Selectively telling the truth and always weirdly emphasis on Chinese government makes me feel sick after reading. I guess that's the reason I stopped its subscription long time ago.
China had accumulated a lot of the world silver reserves by selling tons silk and porcelain but buying basically nothing. Selling Opium to China "solved" this problem.<p>Today the have the idea of exporting everything to the world and buy nothing besides a few raw materials, creating a giant trade deficit. Let's see how it ends.
I think a more accurate headline would be "China's perception of the Opium Wars shape its view of the West." Why were the Opium Wars fought? One narrative says the Qing were trying to protect their population from the harms of addiction. But it is also true that the Qing were concerned about the outflow of silver, which was being used by Chinese merchants to buy opium, but which had also become the base currency of the Chinese economy in the mid-19th century. China was accumulating silver because it was selling more than it bought (sound familiar?), and opium was one commodity that found demand on the mainland.
It is not true. It's just that politicians need official reasons to do what they do. And it's a great thing to use historical reasons because nobody can really counter them. Not a single Chinese person I know thinks about Westerners as sources of the Opium Wars and therefore as enemies. The opinions move between "West is so rich, let's be more like them" and "We are nearly back to our old glory, now also learn some of our culture!"
History shapes culture who knew? America is still fighting the Civil War.<p>But the Chinese don't blame the West for the decline of China and the fall of the empire. They blame the old corrupt elite. When Deng Xiaoping went abroad in the 80s he did his damnedest to appear cultured and in control.
It's really sad how little we are taught about the opium wars. It is easily the most important war in the last 500 years. The wealth that was taken from china as a result of the opium wars provided capital to britain and the US to fund our industrial revolution. It altered the course of history.<p>One of the largest banks in the world ( HSBC ) was created in hong kong to launder opium money from china. FDR's grandfather was Warren Delano, one of the largest opium dealers in china. The opium money is what funded our institution building in the 1800s. The universities, museums, hospitals, etc were built with money from our opium dealers in china.<p><a href="http://www.wbur.org/commonhealth/2017/07/31/opium-boston-history" rel="nofollow">http://www.wbur.org/commonhealth/2017/07/31/opium-boston-his...</a><p>It is odd how much time we spend on ww1 and ww2 when neither war altered the balance of power. The opium wars ended the "faux parity" that existed between china and the west and it catapulted the anglosphere to the top.<p>We live in an anglo world ( formerly british led but now US led ) because of the opium wars.
China history is a warning sign against centralism and the ability of humanity to get stuck in loops, economic and culturally - where it from a ruling partys point of view doesn't make sense to do anything to escape the loop.<p>Impressive is that china at least kept- enforced by the layout of the country, a centralized state. At least it did not decay as much as the middle east or africa - after reaching peak people.
If you disagree, I'd love to hear what you know about it! Did Mao not come out of Yale? Did he not have help from non-Chinese during his reign of terror? What part do you think I got wrong? The conclusion?<p>Do you think "China" just shot up out of nowhere over the past 70 years because they had cheap labor? No. Their power could not have been created without the help of western nations. The most prolific mass murderer in the world, Mao Zedong, came out of Yale. Once he came to power, he had all sorts of help from non-Chinese.<p>The plot here is fairly simple and you can see it happening every day. China is the model for a new world government that will be implemented after the USA is wiped off the map. "Made in China" is the type of curse that the elite globalists who run things like to give people. They've been telling people what's going to happen for a long time and once it does happen, the people will get exactly what they paid for.