The Opium Wars
Forcing a drug trade at gunpoint
When China tried to stop the British opium trade, Britain and later France went to war to keep it flowing. Victory imposed unequal treaties, opened ports, and seized Hong Kong, beginning China's century of humiliation.
Damage
British force opened China to opium dumping and unequal treaties.
Lives lost
War and related mortality in the tens of thousands; addiction harm at massive scale
Value lost
Indemnities, treaty ports, and trade terms extracting Chinese surplus
Record Points
- Britain balanced its tea trade deficit by selling Indian opium into China, creating mass addiction.
- When Commissioner Lin destroyed confiscated opium in 1839, Britain went to war to defend the trade.
- The 1842 Treaty of Nanking ceded Hong Kong and opened treaty ports on British terms.
- The Second Opium War, joined by France, led to the sacking of the Old Summer Palace in 1860.
- The unequal treaties stripped Chinese tariff and legal sovereignty for the rest of the century.
Perpetrator(s)
Victims
China