Encyclopedia of India–China Cultural Contacts v1.c5.s1.53

v1.c5.s1.53

The arrival of the European monopoly trading companies in the Asian waters was a new and significant feature of this period. Initially, these companies participated in the trade without altering its structure significantly. However, Dutch Batavia soon became an intermediate station in the trade between India and China. Western ships in the East Indies loaded up with spices and other goods which they carried to Guangzhou. From there, they carried porcelain and silk to Surat to exchange for cotton, sugar, gum and textiles, returning to Guangzhou with the monsoon winds. However, the rapid growth of the tea trade between China and Europe, and the establishment of the colonial power of the Western countries in India and other Asian countries, changed the nature of the trade between India and China substantially. From the last quarter of the 18th century CE, raw cotton from western India and opium from both Bengal and western India (Patna and Malwa opium) began to be exported to China in huge quantities to pay for the rapidly escalating import of tea into Britain from China. Whereas in 1765, the quantity of opium imported into China was less than 200 chests per year, and was mostly for medicinal use, by the turn of the 19th century, this figure had increased to 4,000 chests. In 1830-1834, it increased to 17,000 chests, and by the time of the outbreak of the First Opium War in 1839, it had reached a stupendous 40,000 chests per year. After the Second Opium War broke out in 1858, China was forced to sign a treaty with Britain legalising the import of opium. Opium imports from India continued to increase until 1884, when the quantity started to gradually decrease, because by this time China had also increased its cultivation of opium. On the eve of the First World War, the quantity of opium imported into China had decreased to below 4,000 chests.