Encyclopedia of India–China Cultural Contacts v1.c5.s3.t1: Opium Trade
Encyclopedia of India–China Cultural Contacts v1.c5.s3.t1
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Opium Trade
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The trade in opium was one of the main forms of commercial interaction between India and China in the 19th century CE. Conducted under conditions of British colonial domination of India, it had a major impact on the relations between China and Britain and between China and the West as a whole. It was the immediate cause of the two Opium Wars (1839-42 and 1858-60). It significantly affected the economic and social conditions in China, through its effects on trade flows and fiscal stability, and through the devastating effects of addiction to the drug among different strata of Chinese society. It also contributed to the breakdown of existing structures of trade and authority in China. At the same time, the opium trade also had a significant impact on the revenues of the British administration in India and on the economies of those Indian regions that were connected with the production of and trade in opium.
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The opium warehouse of the British East India Company in India
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Opium had been imported to China primarily by Arab and Turkish traders since the 7th and 8th centuries and was used mainly for medicinal purposes. The consumption of opium in China as a narcotic dates from early 18th century CE. In 1729, the Yongzheng emperor issued an imperial edict prohibiting the domestic sale and consumption of opium and later the import of opium was also specifically prohibited. Nevertheless, opium continued to be smuggled into China.
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The growth of the opium trade in the 18th century CE was directly linked with the interests of the British East India Company. After the battles of Plassey (1757) and Buxar (1764), the British East India Company gained control over large parts of eastern India. As part of its efforts to raise revenues, the Company organised the large-scale cultivation of opium in areas under its control. The Company was reluctant to carry contraband opium in its own ships to China, in order not to jeopardise its highly profitable trade with China. So, it auctioned the opium to private traders who smuggled it into China. The Company derived huge profits from the sale of opium in this manner. The sale of opium to China also served another purpose. In the course of the 18th century CE, the export of tea from China to Britain increased rapidly. The balance of trade became increasingly unfavourable to Britain as the market for British products in China did not expand much and consequently Chinese tea had to be paid for mainly with silver bullion. The problem became particularly acute for Britain after the passing of the Commutation Act in 1784 by the British Parliament, which, by drastically lowering the duty on tea, led to an exponential increase in tea imports. Initially, the British sought to make up for the trade deficit by exporting raw cotton from western India for which there was a market in China. This was the beginning of the so-called triangular trade between China, Britain and India. However, from the early decades of the 19th century CE and particularly after 1820, opium became the chief export to China from India.
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Initially, virtually all the opium sold in China from India was grown in Bengal and Bihar and was known as Bengal or Patna opium. However, from early 19th century CE, opium from the western part of India, known as Malwa opium, also began to find a market in China and eventually overtook Patna opium in sales. Unlike Patna opium, Malwa opium was not grown under the East India Company's supervision but by a large number of private cultivators. Malwa, being cheaper than Patna opium, had bigger sales and greatly expanded the market for the drug in China.
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An elaborate network of cultivators, brokers, shippers, agency houses and agents, closely linked with the East India Company and its officials, was involved in the shipping of opium from India to China. It has been estimated that opium revenues comprised about 17-20 per cent of the government revenues in India in the heyday of the trade. On the China coast, British, Indian, American and other traders colluded with local smugglers, officials and merchants to bypass the strict prohibitions on opium. British and other opium smugglers brought the opium to various secret locations up and down the China coast in order to expand their sales as much as possible. The highly addictive nature of the drug made it ever harder for the Chinese authorities to contain the trade.
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The adverse consequences of the opium trade for China were many. China's once favourable balance of trade began to reverse itself and silver began to flow out of the country in increasing quantities. This had a destabilising effect on the currency, causing particular hardship to cultivators whose tax payments had to be made in silver. The smuggling of opium on a large scale contributed to corruption and administrative breakdown in affected sectors. The effect of opium addiction on human productivity and on social life cannot be measured. The impact on the Chinese military forces amongst whom opium addiction spread rapidly was particularly alarming from the point of view of the imperial government. All this prompted the Jiaqing emperor and his high officials taking a firm decision to enforce the existing regulations and clamp down on the opium trade. To put this policy into effect, the emperor despatched the Imperial Commissioner Lin Zexu to Canton in 1839. As is well-known, Lin Zexu’s efforts to put an end to the opium trade were met with Britain’s decision to launch the naval attack on China, known as the First Opium War which resulted in China’s defeat. After the Second Opium War, the Qing government was compelled to legalise the opium trade in 1860.
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Chinese people smoking opium
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In spite of the legalisation of the opium trade, the Chinese government continued to try and place restrictions on the trade throughout the 19th century CE. Opium production within China itself also began to give competition to opium imports from the last decades of the 19th century CE. Eventually, an agreement was signed by the British envoy in China and the representative of the Chinese foreign ministry, the waiwubu on May 8, 1911, to end the export of opium to China by 1917. However, the uncertain political situation in China resulting from the "Revolution of 1911" affected sales of imported opium and brought a premature end to the opium trade. The trade came to an end finally with the cessation of all transactions at the Bombay Opium Warehouse at the close of 1913.
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(*Madhavi Thampi*)