Opium War Research Paper

INTRODUCTION
The British opium trade in China started the world’s very first drug war, in the 19th century. Known as the Opium War, many people also refer to it as the Anglo-Chinese War. Opium is a preparation made from the juice of poppy seedpods, and used to produce heroin. The drug was mainly produced in and shipped from the East Indies to China by British merchants. This addictive drug had gotten many Chinese badly hooked by the early 1800s.
In the 15th century, when opium was first introduced to China, it was used as medicine to treat diseases such as dysentery, cholera, as well as diarrhea. It was not until 1700 that the British introduced China to the process of mixing opium with tobacco so that it could be smoked. During the 18th
This time France joined the British in launching a punitive expedition inland after an initial British attack had been repelled by the Chinese. A combined Anglo-French military raid into China’s hinterland led to the signing of the 1858 Treaty of Tientsin. The Chinese imperial court refused to accept the onerous terms of this second “unequal treaty” until another joint Anglo-French expedition captured the capital Peking in 1860 and forced China’s total surrender. The Treaty of Tientsin allowed foreign embassies in Peking, a closed city at that time, opened eleven more coastal cities to foreign trading, and completely legitimized the opium trade. It also allowed westerners to travel in the Chinese interior, gave Christian missionaries the right to proselytize and hold property throughout China, and lowered even further import duties on British goods. In 1860 similarly imposed treaties were signed with France, the United States, and