Drug-dealing is a recognized mode of effective asymmetric warfare as the
Opium Wars showed.
Britain saw the worst during the Dark Age, USA remained a colony of Britain for more than a century, China was virtually destroyed by Britain during the
Opium Wars, the French went through the tumult of a millennium during the French Revolution and were overrun in the Second World War completely.
There is a belief that if we cut ourselves off from foreigners on the other side of the channel we will resume some golden past, which never existed, and we will be able to trade with the rest of the world, who will of course welcome us with open arms, as they did during the Raj and our colonial exploits like the
Opium Wars with China.
I included a historical narrative on the
Opium Wars.
This book examines how and why opposition to the opium trade and subsequent drug trades began in individual countries and across Asia, Western Europe, and North America in the period between the
opium wars and the founding of the League of Nations after World War I, focusing on the transnational dynamics that fostered protests from one setting to another, the social connections that made the transmission of anti-opium critiques possible, and the reasons why states around the world adopted an agenda initially directed against them.
When necessary, the Empire would use force to retain this control such as in the
Opium Wars, fought on behalf of drug traffickers, when China was forced to continue accepting opium imports, much to the detriment of its population and economy.
In those years, China's weak coastal defences allowed catastrophic losses during the
Opium Wars, undermining 5,000 years of global prestige.
brutality instead of diplomacy QUICK HISTORY LESSON: The
Opium Wars occurred to force imperial China to open up trade and diplomatic relations with the West.
"From the palace on the plain I succeeded in getting several bronzes and enamel vases that will, I hope, some day find their way to [his home in the UK], as well as some very fine porcelain cups and saucers of the Emperors imperial pattern (yellow with green dragons) but they are so dreadfully brittle that I quite despair ever being able to get them home in their present condition" " Such treasures are in museums and private collections around the world, a fact much resented still bybrutality instead of diplomacy QUICK HISTORY LESSON: The
Opium Wars occurred to force imperial China to open up trade and diplomatic relations with the West.
Half a century later, China was defeated by Britain in the
Opium Wars, and started to rethink its place in the world.
'It's like the
Opium Wars in the 18th century [when China's Qing dynasty battled the opium trafficking of foreign traders, mostly British],' Ejercito said in a statement on Friday.
In De Quincey's responses to the
Opium wars, China emerged in a constellation of images.