ASIA 2170 Lecture Notes - Lin Zexu, First Opium War, Biblioteca Europea Di Informazione E Cultura
Document Summary
Also known as the first anglo-chinese war time period: 1839-1842. British east india company and the qing dynasty of china. Beic declared war to force china to allow free trade, particularly in opium. Trades from china was profitable for the chinese and europeans merchants. Due to the qing dynasty"s trade restrictions (international trade was only allowed to take place in canton(guangzhou) (conducted by imperially sanctioned monopolies) Became unprofitable to trade in low-value manufactured consumer products that an. Average chinese could buy from the british (like the indians did) The sino-british trade became dominate by high-value luxury items: tea (from china to britain) and. Britain as the gold standard since 18th century. Had to purchase silver from continental europeans to supply silver to them. Looked for other ways to reverse the flow of silver out of the country and into china. A medicinal ingredient was documented during the ming dynasty. There were laws in place against the abuse of it.
