Coffee, Tea, or Opium
In the nineteenth century, Chinese green tea became very popular among the British people. Chinese silk and spices were also in great demand. The Chinese, on the other hand, needed almost nothing the west had to offer and the only things they would take in trade, other than Spanish silver dollars, was woolen and cotton cloth. This created an imbalance of trade, especially bad for the European nations. England and other Western nations changed the balance of their trade by using opium as a means of payment, welcomed in China by many merchants in lieu of currency, in spite of the Imperial Chinese prohibition on opium. During the early 1800's opium addiction reached an all time high in China, and by 1838 thirty-five thousan
To try to stop the trade, he wrote to the Queen of England, Queen Victoria, and tried to reason with her for help with the opium import problem. As a result, China was forced to accept unequal treaties and the occupation of the Chinese territory of Hong Kong by Britain. In 1839 Lin Zexu, China's commissioner for foreign trade, was given the assignment to stop the import of opium to China. A powerful government using an addictive substance to corner financial gain, with no regard for the victims or for human life, all of which could have been avoided had Queen Victoria listened to reason instead of greed by the British merchants. America, England, and many other Western nations are now the ones trying to stop severe additions and drug imports into their countries, but the drug trade seems to be growing in masses by the day despite the famous campaign "Just say no". Thereby causing the Chinese people to be subjected to humiliation for one and a half centuries (around one hundred and fifty years). The city of Hong Kong was held as a British territory from that time until 1997. Lin Zexu, seized and destroyed some twenty thousand chests of opium. d, one hundred and fifty pound chests of opium entered China. The Opium War, which broke out around 1839, was by nature a war of aggression inflicted upon China by the British people. The British retaliated violently, soundly defeating the unprepared Chinese, and in 1842 forcing them to sign the Treaty of Nanking which required the Chinese to pay twenty-one million dollars in reparations, the opening of five ports to British trade, and surrendering Hong Kong to Queen Victoria. Lion Zexu was disgraced instead of praised for his peaceful efforts and was forced to supervise irrigation projects and repairs of dikes for the last few years of his life. He studied what he considered the "barbarian" culture of Europe looking for clues to their behavior. Alas, he had no luck and the Qing government, after a decade of unsuccessful anti-opium campaigns, enacted drastic laws against the opium trade.
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Acceptance Essays
