Upheaval: Turning Points for Nations in Crisis

by Jared Diamond

The background to Western pressure on Japan was Western pressure on China, which produced far more goods desired by the West than did Japan. European consumers especially wanted Chinese tea and silk, but the West produced little that China wanted in return, so Europeans had to make up that trade deficit by shipping silver to China. In order to reduce the hemorrhaging of their silver stocks, British traders got the bright idea of shipping cheap opium from India to sell to China at prices below those of existing Chinese sources. (No, that British opium policy is not an invented anti-Western slander: it really was true, and needs to be remembered when one wants to understand modern Chinese attitudes towards the West.) The Chinese government understandably responded by denouncing opium as a health hazard, banning its importation, and demanding that European smugglers surrender all the opium stored on their ships anchored off China’s coast. Britain objected to that Chinese response as an illegal restraint of trade. The result was the Opium War of 1839–1842 between Britain and China, the first serious test of military strength between China and the West.