Was China Fault For The Opium War

The Opium War took place from 1839 to 1842 between China and Britain. Several factors contributed to the start of the war, including conflicts over trading policies and other diplomatic relations related issues. No doubt that there are disagreements up until today about what is the proper interpretation of this significant war, just as there are for other historical events worldwide. One of the major controversy lay on the issue of whether China, during the Qing dynasty, was responsible or not for the Opium War to take place. In other words, did the war start simply because of Britain's ambition of taking advantage of China, or should China be found guilty as well? Some argue that China should not be considered as the country that was unfairly

First of all, it might not be British merchants’ fault that China developed a growing number of opium addicts. Chinese people are believed to be familier with opium before the war, and that it was a perfectly normal item of use and trade for centuries before. They claim that Chinese authorities are to be blamed for the irresistibly large amount of opium consumption by its civilians. Chinese senior officials who were in charge of the coastal protection became very wealthy from sheltering drug dealers and foreign traders. Several attempts were made by the emperor to ban opium, but no significant result was shown. Those scholars think that it was indeed the government’s fault for not successfully controlling the use of opium. What they are missing is, although opium appeared in China’s territory as early as the 1620s, it was mainly used for clinical purposes. It was not well-known among the large population. Scholars on the other side could argue that addiction to opium was never a significant issue during times before the British traders came. It was not until the 1790s did the Chinese government start to take notice of the serious abuse of this drug. Thus, the foreign traders should be find liable to some degree for the enormous consumption of opium in China, as well as the growing number of

The reason is, it was a time of disturbance in the Chinese empire in the 1820s and 1830s. “It would be normal at such times for some people to use opium to relieve stress, ...such a process could help to account for the startling rate of increase in opium sales,” Gelber said (3). They also support this point of view with the following statistics. In 1800-1801, around 4570 chests of opium were sold to China. In 1820-1821, the number is about the same: 4244 chests. However, by the time of 1830-1831, it suddenly increased to 18956 chests. And by 1838-1839, approximately 40200 chests were shipped to the coasts of China. Scholars use this as an evidence to show that British traders were not the one to blame for drug addicts in China, rather it is the stress and unsettlement experienced by civilians that had caused the abuse of opium. I find is type of argument rather absurd. And many other scholars do not agree for two reason. On one hand, it is very possible that when opium was first introduced to China, people were just experimenting it. People could later develop an addiction to it, and therefore increase the overall quantity of consumption. It is common for a abused substance to suddenly become popular in a country without the presence of social unrest. On the other hand, opium itself could be the reason for the upheaval that took part in China in the