History of opium in China
By 1858 annual imports had risen to 70,000 chests (4,480 long tons (4,550 t)), approximately equivalent to one year's worth of the total global production of opium between 1995 and 2005.
[10] Later on, Song Dynasty (960–1279) poet and pharmacologist Su Dongpo recorded the use of opium as a medicinal herb: "Daoists often persuade you to drink the jisu water, but even a child can prepare the yingsu[A] soup.
"[11] Initially used by medical practitioners to control bodily fluid and preserve qi or vital force, during the Ming dynasty (1368–1644), the drug also functioned as an aphrodisiac or chunyao (春药) as Xu Boling records in his mid-fifteenth century Yingjing Juan: It is mainly used to treat masculinity, strengthen sperm, and regain vigour.
Since importation of opium into China was banned by Chinese law, the EIC established an indirect trading scheme relying partially on legal markets and also leveraging illicit ones.
The increase in popularity was a result of both social and economic shifts between the Ming and the Qing dynasties in which there was a boost in commercialization, consumerism, and urbanization of opium within the general public.
But for many, what started as recreation soon became a punishing addiction: many people who stopped ingesting opium suffered chills, nausea, and cramps, and sometimes died from withdrawal.
The Emperor sent the leader of the hard line faction, Special Imperial Commissioner Lin Zexu, to Canton, where he quickly arrested Chinese opium dealers and summarily demanded that foreign firms turn over their stocks with no compensation.
When they refused, Lin stopped trade altogether and placed the foreign residents under virtual siege in their factories, eventually forcing the merchants to surrender their opium.
[28] However, British authorities believed that the Chinese were responsible for payment and sent expeditionary forces from India, which defeated the Qing army and navy in a series of battles and brought China to the negotiating table.
[29] The 1842 Treaty of Nanking not only opened the way for further opium trade, but ceded the territory of Hong Kong, unilaterally fixed Chinese tariffs at a low rate, gave Britain most favored nation status and permitted them diplomatic representation.
At the same time British imperial finances came under further pressure from the expense of administering the burgeoning colonies of Hong Kong and Singapore in addition to India.
British authorities complained to the Governor-general of Liangguang, Ye Mingchen, that the seizure breached Article IX of the 1843 Treaty of the Bogue with regard to extraterritoriality.
[33] Although the new treaty did not expressly legalize opium, it opened a further five ports to trade and for the first time allowed foreign traders access to the vast hinterland of China beyond the coast.
Merchants found the substance useful as a substitute for cash, as it was readily accepted in the interior provinces such as Sichuan and Yunnan while the drug weighed less than the equivalent amount of copper.
One official complained that when people heard a government inspector was coming, they would merely pull up a few poppy stalks to spread by the side of the road to give the appearance of complying.
[42] When the Qing government launched new opium suppression campaigns after 1901, the opposition no longer came from the British, whose sales had suffered greatly from domestic competition in any case, but from Chinese farmers who would be wiped out by the loss of their most profitable crop-derivative.
[45] This was paired with a renewed anti-opium campaign, achieving sizable progress by 1909: opium consumption had been reduced by about one third in Manchuria, almost eliminated in Beijing and Shanxi; cultivation was curtailed in Shandong and Sichuan.
[46] The combination of foreign and domestic efforts proved largely successful, but the fall of the Qing government in 1911 effectively meant the end of the anti-opium campaign.
[47] In the northern provinces of Ningxia and Suiyuan in China, Chinese Muslim General Ma Fuxiang both prohibited and engaged in the opium trade.
[49] In 1923, an officer of the Bank of China from Baotou found out that Ma Fuxiang was assisting the drug trade in opium which helped finance his military expenses.
General Ma had been using the bank, a branch of the Government of China's exchequer, to arrange for silver currency to be transported to Baotou to use it to sponsor the trade.
The government first attempted to dissuade its citizens from using opium through social reform, then raised the official price, which discouraged a certain number of people, then sometimes shot the recidivists (strangely about one per county).
[52] During the Second Sino-Japanese War, to raise funds, the CCP in the Shaan-Gan-Ning Border Region cultivated and taxed opium (alias "特货", lit 'special good') production and dealing, selling to Japanese-occupied and Kuomintang provinces.
[7] According to Jonathan Marshall, Chongqing also regarded opium as a key commodity in the smuggling from KMT-controlled areas including Sichuan and Yunnan to the Japanese-occupied zone, revenues from which compensated urgent government expenditures and military costs during the Civil War.
To raise necessary funds, Chongqing also permitted Shanghai Green Gang leader Du Yuesheng, who possessed many connections within Japanese-controlled territory, to manage the opium smuggling business.
After its merger with the Wang Jingwei regime, government opium profiteering continued until 1944, when prohibition was implemented, though it never bore results due to the surrender of Japan and the coinciding fall of Chinese puppet states.
In February 1950, the Administrative Council of the Central People's Government issued a circular order for the "Prohibition of Opium" signed by Premier Zhou Enlai.
[57] Initially, the efforts towards curtailing opium consumption and production were sporadic and mostly ineffective due to the lack of resources available to the newly-formed government.
However, in 1952, the "Directive on Eradication of Drug Epidemic" was issued by the Central Committee of the Chinese Communist Party, and the campaign was reinvigorated with a new wave, this time more thoroughly planned, more severe in its measures and accompanied by mass mobilization.
The testimony of former addicts was important at all levels of this discussion, which took place in both the mass media and small community groups and rehabilitation centers.
