History of Opium War in China

Before the Opium war, China had a completely different relationship with the Western world. China had believed itself to be better than the other civilizations at that time. China also made little to no contact with the Western countries since natural and political barriers were in the way. It was not until the Western countries had seeked spices from China, did China confront the Western world. Although, trade had just opened up for China and the Western world during the early 16th century, China still continued to look down on certain foreigners. With the increase in trade between China and the Western countries, the unequal trade between them became very obvious.

China’s high supply of tea, Chinese silk, medicine and porcelain along the high demand from the Western countries, China’s trade was extremely well. These certain goods were expensive and the West paid China with silver. The increase in trade had seemed like it increased the economy of China, but in reality China had been in a silver and copper crisis. Silver was higher in value comparative to copper. But although silver was more worth than copper was, copper was still being produced more, this lead to the inflation of copper. The bad thing was that copper was the only thing used to pay taxes, so people ended up losing money. In order to the reach the silver tax quota, more copper was needed. Also during this time, there was an annual drain of silver, so people started to hoard and value their silver more, thus leaving more silver out of the circulation. Silver, while is being hoarded for its value, copper was still being produced at the same time. British’s trading company, the East India Company had been trading silver for China’s tea as its demand had increased in the West.

As these trades continued, this lead the East India Company into a huge debt. The unfair tariffs and taxes, along with the trading monopolies with the Chinese merchants made the situation more difficult as well. To try to resolve this conflict, a triangle trade was created, by having the cotton from India sold and then that money was used to buy the tea. However, even after this the East India Company was still in debt and the demand for silver was increasing. So thus, the East India Company resorted to opium for its trade. It was more important for the East India Company to pay for Chinese imports with other currencies than with this increasingly scarce silver. The British’s solution to this imbalance was for the East India Company to export larger volumes of opium that was grown at Bombay and at Patna in Bengal to China. Opium was used as both a poison and a medicine, thus it was seen as paradoxical. On one side, opium was a popular, legal and highly effective analgesic that worked to relieve the pain and treat dysentery.