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Title: The Chinese Opium Wars by Jack Beeching ISBN: 0-15-617094-9 Publisher: Harvest Books Pub. Date: 06 April, 1977 Format: Paperback Volumes: 1 List Price(USD): $19.00 |
Average Customer Rating: 5 (3 reviews)
Rating: 5
Summary: How the British plagued the Chinese with opium.
Comment: Oh the wonders of free trade. The Americans grow King Cotton with slaves. They then export it to Manchester to be made into textiles. These textiles are produced with child labor. These textiles are then exported to India, where they wipe out the local clothes trade. The Indians then discover a great crop that has great potential--opium. The only problem with opium is that it is addictive and eventually kills those using it. The British want products from China such as tea and silk. The Chinese desire no Western made goods, so the British introduce opium. The Chinese government under the detested Manchu rulers want no part of opium, so the British fight two wars to open China up to free trade, including opium. They seize an island and part of a peninsula to protect the merchant houses that deal in this drug. They name this Hong Kong. Other grim business includes the coolie trade (similar to slavery, but only for long periods of time), and the Chinese version of Christianity--the Taipings. The French and the Americans are also involved in the opium and coolie trade.
Beeching does a good job of detailing how the British and to a lesser extent the Americans were not always so noble in their dealings with Third World people. As detailed above, we exploited their economy, made off with millions of coolies, made others opium addicts, and burned one of their prized monuments--the Summer Palace (looting it in the process). The men that did this thought the Chinese were the barbarians. I think Beeching was fair to both sides. I liked his reference section in which he listed his sources, and then summarized what the opinion was--pro British, pro Chinese. An excellent work.
Rating: 5
Summary: An Early Embarrassment for Free Trade
Comment: This is a highly enjoyable history by Jack Beeching into an embarrassing episode from the 19th century that holds many lessons for today's world. The Opium Wars in China seem to have been forgotten by the West, especially by those who don't want to confront the more ignoble actions by European powers. By the early 1800's England had been exporting large quantities of opium into the Chinese black market. The Chinese emperor tried to outlaw opium because it was leading to large numbers of addicts and was destroying the social fabric of several cities. This was anathema to British merchants who were surely willing to overlook the horrific consequences of their trade in light of the handsome profits they were making. In fact, in Chapter 9 of this book a British official is quoted as saying, "Free trade is Jesus Christ, and Jesus Christ is free trade." England then went to war twice with China (with help from France, Russia, and the U.S.) to keep the opium market open. It was even official policy during these wars to force more opium into the Chinese interior and create millions more addicts, and to pressure the Chinese into legalizing the drug, all because free trade and profits were more important than the destruction of a sovereign society.
Beeching makes great use of historical analysis, and a bit of sarcastic humor, to describe these two opium wars and the surrounding historical context. He does a good job outlining the cultural misunderstandings that made things worse (both sides always called the other crude barbarians), and he does a fine job covering all sides of the story within the context of concurrent British and Chinese history. On the British side, the book does occasionally get bogged down in Parliamentary politics back in London, but on the Chinese side there is good coverage of native culture and an interesting foray into the Taiping rebellion.
The most useful outcome of this fascinating book is its lessons about free trade between Western and non-Western economies, which was even a troublesome issue back in the 19th century. In modern times, a common criticism of globalization is its destructive effect on foreign cultures. Any proponent of unrestricted free trade, before condemning such concerns as politically correct nonsense, would be wise to consider the old Opium Wars. The British and their western allies justified the ruination of a society by the profits it generated, and conveniently forgot any religious or political scruples about trading in illegal drugs. Meanwhile the East's distrust for the West was intensified and still remains to this day. One has to wonder if Columbia currently has that attitude about exporting drugs to the U.S. They're just practicing free trade and western capitalism, after all.
Rating: 5
Summary: The Very First Drug War
Comment: When Hong Kong was handed over by the British in 1997, some asked why the Chinese were showing such lack of gratitude for the 150 years of British rule. Had they read this book, they would understand. The seizure of Hong Kong was part of the "package" of concessions handed over at the end of the First Opium War, in which Britain struggled to free up the flow of opiates to the Celestial Empire. (Without creating a massive market of Chinese opium addicts, the British East India Company, the world's largest purchaser of Chinese tea, stood no chance of balancing its trade deficit with China.) Later, the 1857 "Arrow" incident (Chinese port officials firing on a Dutch pirate vessel flying the Union Jack) provided Britain and France with the necessary pretext to increase their concessions and burn the Imperial Summer Palace. Beeching covers both the military campaigns - tremendous bravery shown on both sides - and the political background to the dispute. His account of the debates in British Parliament are particularly classic, with Palmerston's government engaging in massive chicanery to keep the Lords from voting against the Second Opium War. Beeching knows his stuff, and he is equally scathing of Western avarice which drove these wars and the Chinese royal family's incompetence in failing to limit the damage.
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