There was, in fact, huge demand. The delivery of British opium to China required a lot of help from Chinese merchants. Opium was legal in China and had been brought in from abroad for several hundred years by that point. Importation was banned in the 1700s after the Portuguese got into the business; but excluding foreigners did not actually exclude foreign opium, since Chinese merchants would bring it in and pass it off as Chinese-sourced opium.

none of those assertions provides any relevant rationale for huge pre-existing demand prior to the british desire to extract riches in exchange for drugs.

Demand for opium was on the upswing in China before the British entered the trade.

The British did not have a power to manufacture demand in China and in fact could not place personnel in China. British opium was smuggled into China by Chinese merchants.

again, all assertion, no rationale.

besides, the british didn't need to be in the interior of china en masse to induce demand.

I don't have a rationale for the increasing demand for opium in the 1700s -- I don't know why it was increasing -- but it is well documented.

Opium had existed for a long time and the demand for it existed. British merchants responded to market demand and smart business people realized the ability to grow it in India and places like that and then sell it in China.

Its not like England had this huge imperial stockpile of opium laying around that they went out to find a buyer for. The opium supply grew because there was demand.

The nature of drugs is that supply also induces some demand, but the idea that the British had some masterplan to get the China hooked on Opium is kind of conspiracy theory nonsense. Capitalism responds to market prices and the limits of the market regulations enforced on them.

Your comment makes it seem like "smart business people" should ignore Government bans on things even if the things are harmful as long as there is "demand" for them.

So is it OK to export to banned drugs in the UK if there is demand for them, or if demand arises?

I didn't make a point about the morality of what the merchants were doing. I was responding comment that made a false statement about some sort of British governmental stockpile of Opium that the clever British created the demand for in China. That is simply false, so I corrected it.

To be sure, I do think selling Opium is a moral thing to do, but my point is that this is not government policy, but merchants seeing a demand and responding to it. Only when China Imperial Government comes in and destroyed British stores, do this escalate to a national level conflict.

I think it was stupid for the Britain to start a war over it to be sure.

I think the brits are currently more concerned about chinese hedge funds: https://www.reuters.com/article/us-health-coronavirus-britai... "while Britain has prided itself on being an open economy with few restrictions on foreign ownership for decades, the basis for that model has been changed by the “rise in state capitalism with deep pockets”."

> “rise in state capitalism with deep pockets”."

I think that term was coined to describe the EIC.

I was going to say that any potential hostile takeovers by chinese hedge funds probably wouldn't involve anything as kinetically hostile as the EIC's presidency armies, but a little surfing turned up 先丰服务集团 (Frontier Services Group)...

What is the indian or chinese equivalent to "The Fox and the Crane"?