An Assessment of Responsibility
By Brian Hammer, People’s News Agency
The two Opium Wars between China and Britain in the mid 1800's powers effectively ended Chinese sovereignty and began its slide into subservience to Western and then Japanese powers. One of the instruments used to undermine Chinese sovereignty was the addictive drug opium. Using Murphey’s East Asia: A New History as the starting point, this paper will analyze the nature and extent of the opium trade with a view to assessing final responsibility for it and thus make the relation between commerce, colonization, and drug use more accessible.
Continue reading The China Drug Trade.
