The Opium War

Essay Prompt:

"The Opium War was not about Opium. It was either about the clash of two cultures, or about Britain's desire to expand the trade. It might have been fought over any substance, even molasses or rice."

      By 1804 China's purchase of opium had exceeded her ability to sell native products such as tea. This trade imbalance led to a net outflow of silver specie, which destabilized the national economy. This damaging economic aspect of the opium trade was not contingent upon the identity of the trade item itself; any other luxury good in great enough demand might have caused the same economic pressures. For example, the same problem - a net silver outflow instigated by an unequal balance of trade - had occurred in Britain twenty years previously. At this time Britain was consuming over 15 million pounds of Chinese tea per year. Britain had few manufactured goods which China wanted, so the bulk of payments for the tea were of necessity in silver. This outflow of bullion jeopardized the stability of the British economy, just as the loss of bullion due to the opium trade would threaten China in the early 1800's. By this example we see that an alternative product to opium, namely tea, could cause the same harmful economic processes - trade deficit and loss of silver supply - to occur. The economic crises instigated in China by the opium trade were therefore not due to the identity of the product being marketed.
      The Opium War was the physical manifestation of Britain's frustrations about China's restrictions on foreign trade. The British merchants resented the very limited territorial access and the short temporal period allowed for trading which were enforced by the Chinese government. In this sense, British merchants focused more on the desire to conduct trade according to their own wishes than on the desire to market any specific product. The issue debated between British and Chinese forces was whether the British merchants would be allowed to trade as they saw fit or limited to trading in a manner of which the Chinese government approved. The fact that one of the trade goods whose method of circulation was being determined by force was opium was of lesser importance to both parties: the Treaty of Nanjing, which concluded the first Opium War in 1842 , opened a series of additional ports to British residence and trade, which allowed the British better access to trade routes irrespective of the identity of the goods they wished to market.

      However, the moral controversy of the trade processes disputed in the opium war was increased dramatically by the identity of the product involved. Although the earlier creation of a national demand for tea in Britain led to the same economic problems later experienced by China, it did not affect the population in the socially negative manner which the creation of a national demand for opium in China did. Britain's continued trade in opium led to the virtual incapacitation of whole sectors of the population of China. The systematic physical endangerment of the citizens of another nation constitutes warfare; Britain's most potent weapon against China was opium. A trade product lacking the narcotic properties of opium, although capable of rendering the same economic effect, would not have created the internal social catastrophe which opium instigated.