Opium Regimes: China, Britain, and Japan, 1839-1952

by Timothy Brook, Bob Tadashi Wakabayashi (Editor)

Opium is more than just a drug extracted from poppies. Over the past two centuries it has been a palliative medicine, an addictive substance, a powerful mechanism for concentrating and transferring wealth and power between nations, and the anchor for a now vanished sociocultural world in and around China. Opium Regimes integrates the pioneering research of sixteen scholars to show that the opium trade was not purely a British operation but involved Chinese merchants, Chinese state agents, and Japanese imperialists as well. The book presents a coherent historical arc that moves from British imperialism in the nineteenth century, to Chinese capital formation and state making at the turn of the century, to Japanese imperialism through the 1930s and 1940s, and finally to the apparent resolution of China's opium problem in the early 1950s.

Together these essays show that the complex interweaving of commodity trading, addiction, and state intervention in opium's history refigured the historical face of East Asia more profoundly than any other commodity.

Genres: China, History, Japan

456 pages, Paperback

First published August 7, 2000

About the author

Timothy James Brook is a Canadian historian, sinologist, and writer specializing in the study of China (sinology). He holds the Republic of China Chair, Department of History, University of British Columbia.

His research interests include the social and cultural history of the Ming Dynasty in China; law and punishment in Imperial China; collaboration during Japan's wartime occupation of China, 1937–45 and war crimes trials in Asia; global history; and historiography.

Reviews

[J · Rating 5 out of 5]

This took me legitimately half a year because of how dry it was, but let me tell you it is a wealth of knowledge. The intersection of China and Japan around the opium trade was very thorough. I was mostly interested in the Japanese-centered essays, I was very intrigued about how China managed to stamp out the opium usage!

[Karl · Rating 3 out of 5]

A collection of essays about the spread, cultivation and general business of opium in China and East Asia. Worth it for the research!

[Cheri · Rating 3 out of 5]

Interesting book about the prevalence of opium use in Qing China and its commercial abuse conducted by almost everyone around Qing China to get a slice of that profit inside the country. Opium Regimes: China, Britain, and Japan, 1839-1952 is a collection of essays focusing on the political and economic history of Opium trade. The book doesn’t really look much into the horrifying effects of opium use on the Chinese population as it is concerned mainly with how foreign and local agents exploited the weak Qing bureaucracy to smuggle opium inside the country.

The British Empire, represented by the East India Company, depended entirely on the continuous sale of opium at the expense of the Chinese. Certainly, they were completely aware of opium exploitation’s effects since they enacted a law prohibiting opium entry into Britain. Imperial Japan was also a major player in exploiting an already vulnerable Chinese population by partaking in the smuggling of opium. Early Zaibatsu companies smuggled not just opium but added heroin and other drugs into it. Kokandi merchants exploited the weak Qing presence in Xinjiang and used that opportunity to export and sell opium into China's interior with the hope of invading China’s southern march (which they did, under Yakoob Beg). The colonies of British Hong Kong and Singapore were used as opium warehouses, receiving the produce from opium farms in India and Java before transporting them to China's interior.

“The British empire could not survive were it deprived of its most important source of capital, the substance that could turn any other commodity into silver. Thus followed the ‘‘Opium War’’ (1839–1842) in response to Lin’s tough measures against foreign opium suppliers.” ~Introduction, page 6.

“With their expansion to the Asian mainland, first to Korea and then to Manchuria, Japanese discovered the irresistible power of opium to accumulate capital. Imperial Japanese subjects were smuggling opium into China as early as the 1890s, but the nature and scale of their activities began to change decisively during the interwar period, when first the great zaibatsu corporations and then the imperial government itself smuggled not just opium but refined drugs (first morphine, then heroin).” ~Introduction, page 15.

“In effect, Kokand was controlling the entry of much of the opium grown in Central Asia and in the northern subcontinent for export eastward to China. The Qing response was constrained by distance, expense, and culture to the point that officials of the Daoguang emperor were reduced to pretending that the Kokandis were completely ignorant of Qing law. Aside from motives of profit, Kokand may have continued to export opium to China possibly in order to destabilize dynastic control of the Southern March, making it ripe for conquest.” ~Five: Opium in Xinjiang and Beyond, page 141-142.

Lingering Clouds by John L. Wimbush. Opium is an addictive narcotic drug, extracted from the seeds of the opium poppy.

This is an interesting read yet a bleak one for me. When profit is at the forefront of everyone’s mind, humanity can be exploited with impunity.