All About Opium with Carl Zha
Today, we have Carl Zha from the Silk and Steel Podcast joining us to discuss the Opium wars. Show Notes0:00:00 - 0:03:12 - Introductions0:03:14- 0:05:20 - Opium BeginningsOriginally, opium was ingested orally. However, ingesting it in large quantities lead to death because it stopped breathing. However, after Europeans colonized the New World, they brought back tobacco from the Americas. Particularly, the Spanish and the Portuguese, who brought it to the Philippines and Malaysia, both countries had a significant Chinese diaspora. Later, when the Dutch colonized Indonesia, they, too, brought tobacco. Now, Opium was mixed with tobacco and it could be smoked allowing for consumption in larger amounts without death.0:05:21- 0:07:08 - Damn British and OpiumOpium, itself, is not grown in china. It is grown outside of China and had to be imported. India grew Opium. In the Late 18th century when the British Colonized India, they forced the farmers in India to grow opium. Their policy of making Indian farmers grow Opium was responsible for many famines. The British East India Company (BEIC) would license the opium through their opium monopoly. They would sell the opium to individual traders who would carry them into China, because the British want plausible deniability. If someone every questioned them, they would say, “Oh, we are the venerable British East India company. We don't we don't actually believe in the opium trade.”0:07:08- 0:08:01 - Smoke and MirrorsThe BEIC ships the opium, but the individual parcels will be parceled out and sold to employees of BEIC. A famous opium smuggler is William Jardine, who started as a sergeant under the BEIC. As an employee of the BEIC, he got his own cargo space on their shops which was used to ship opium that he sold to China. 0:08:02- 0:09:48 - China’s Opium EpidemicOpium was illegal in China and soon the Chinese government realized they had a crisis. Initially, opium was a luxury good because it was not grown in China. However, the innovation of the BEIC flooded the market with cheap opium. Now, laborers could afford it. It blossomed into a full-blown opium crisis.0:09:49- 0:13:42 - Limits on Foreign TradeOriginally, foreign presence in China was curtailed. It was limited to a few port ciites and the British could only stay for 6 months before having to go to the island of Macau. The British weren’t happy that they could only conduct trade in the city of Canton. The British had to resort to selling opium because originally their product was not competitive. British had developed a taste for Chinese tea, and they needed silver to trade because China had gone into the Silver standard. 0:13:43 - 0:14:48 - The Magic FormulaSoon, the British hit the magic formula of selling drugs to the Chinese to drain China of it’s silver. The British ran a trade deficit with China prior to the massive operation of opium smuggling. According to some estimates, 50% of the silver mined in the South America is from the 18th and 19th century, ended up in China. The British just decided to sell drugs to drain the silver. 0:14:48 - 0:18:28 Enter AmericansDuring the founding of the United States, most of the New England old money was made in the opium fortune. There was Astor who has an area in Queens named after him: Astoria. Other families who made their fortune through the Opium Trade:* The Forbes Family whose descendant John Forbes Kerry was Secretary of State under Obama.* The Delano Family - FDR’s Grandfather.* HSBC bank During a famine in Guangzhau, American traders hid opium under bags of rice. All the Ivy league universities were also heavily invested in the opium trade. That’s how America was founded on: Drugs and Slaves.0:19:24 - 0:25:47 China Fights BackChinese officials tried to tackle the problem by banning opium. The first few bans were ineffective because the British had paid off many officials. In the 1830s, the sends his minister Lin Tse-Hsu’, who is known to be a very honest, upright official to Guangzhou, specifically put a stop to the opium trade. The British gave up the opium, but they were very indignant. William Jardine returns to London and buys up many newspapers and starts to agitate a media campaign against China in order to start a war. He hobnobs with UK politicians, especially Lord Palmerston, to urge for war with China. There was a lively debate in the British Parliament about morality of going to war with China over opium. But, in the end, they decide to wage war against China for Opium.0:25:47-0:32:12 The First Opium WarThe British sent their troops from India and landed in the port city of Guanzhou. The British had obtained Mysore rockets and their arsenal was significantly better than China’s. While Britain had industrialized, they did so by destroying more advanced industries in India. Britain decided to bombard the Chinese coast and went up to the mouth of the Yangzi river. they decided they're going to apply pressure by raiding other Chinese coastal towns. So the sale of the salt from the South China Sea and bombarding the Chinese coast totally. And if they go that went up to the mouth of Yangzi River near Shanghai. They took over some islands to create big their headquarter for opium smuggling. And more importantly, they threatened to cut off the north-south traffic at the Grand Canal. At that time, most of the Chinese shipping was along the coast under the Grand Canal to sail from Nanjing to Beijing. Beijing, in 1839, had a population of more than a billion. The plains around Beijing was dry and couldn’t feed the population. The British Navy blockaded the area around Nanjing, threatened to cut off the the rice shipment from from the south to Beijing to basically to starve the population. At this point, China capitulated. They paid large indemnity for the pleasure of being invaded and also recognized Hong Kong as a port.0:32:12 - 0:36:16 Treaty of Nanking * China Ceded Hong Kong in Perpetuity* Indemnity was paid to British ships* Opening up China for foreign exploitation.* Chinese law did not apply to British missionariesSoon, the french began negotiating with the British to allow a little colony in these areas. The city of Shanghai, British, France and even the US got their own concessions. The British and American concession eventually merged into the international Settlement of Shanghai. The colonialism was so bad that there needed to be a Chinatown in Shanghai. The Chinese were restricted to the Chinese city, where the Chinese law would continue to apply. But for the rest of European concessions, British, French, and American laws were applied. British imported Sikh police from British India to police the Shanghai concessions.0:36:16 -0:38:20 Modern Day Colony in OkinawaThis is eerily similar to Okinawa in modern day Japan. American soldiers can rape people in Okinawa. There is nothing that the Japanese government can do to them. The Japanese government is also a culprit because they don't want American soldiers on the Japanese mainland. So they stick them in Okinawa because, they never treated Okinawans at the same level as the Japanese citizens in Japan. Essentially Okinawa status is like it's a double colony of Japan and United States. 0:38:20 Century of HumiliationA Chinese person at this time was a second-class citizen in your own country. A very famous scene in a Bruce Lee film illustrates this:Some Western historians tried to disprove this as an urban myth. But, what they discovered was that there was that the sign actually said “This park is reserved for Europeans only, dogs not allowed.0:42:00 - 0:45:16 - Second Opium WarThe British were not very happy with the settlement for only $21 million. The opium was not fully legalized. So they waited for another opportunity to start another war. This opportunity came during the “Arrow Incident”. British authority had granted all the vessels registered in Hong Kong, British registration. So there was a cargo ship called Arrow… This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit historicly.substack.com/subscribe
