Optium Wars

Essay about Opium wars

The first war
It was a conflictbetween the united kingdom of great Britain, Ireland and China in 1839 and 1842 because of UK wanted to export and commercialize the opium tochina, and as we know the opium is used for a long time as a psychoactive drug, for that reason china didn’t want to accept that kind of product in their territory, this incident promote the firstopium war.
The first Chinese anti-opium edict was issued in 1729, enacting severe penalties on the sale of opium and the opening of opium-smoking divans. Similar laws were enacted in 1796 and 1800, butopium importation continued to increase. British merchants brought opium from the British East India Company's factories in Patna and Benares, in the Bengal Presidency of British India, to the coastof China, where they sold for a good profit.
With the drain of silver and the growing number of the people becoming victims of the drug, the Daoguang Emperor demanded action. Officials at the court,who advocated legalization of the trade in order to tax it, were defeated by those who advocated suppression. In 1838, the Emperor sent Lin Zexu to Guangzhou, where he quickly arrested Chinese opiumdealers and summarily demanded that foreign firms turn over their stocks. When they refused, Lin stopped trade altogether and placed the foreign residents under virtual siege, eventually forcing themerchants to surrender their opium to be destroyed.

This conflict end because china army was weak and couldn’t fight against the UK army, so china has to surround to UK pretentions, the parts signthe nankinagreement , with this china yields the hongkong island to UK and accept open their economy to the international commerce, then in 1997 hongkong was given back to china government and actuallyis a special district.
Far from china gained something after this conflict I think that China lost their authority in their own territory and lost international power and policy position at...