Tea, China and Opium: Winners and Losers

Today, the ubiquity of tea on a global spectrum has made it difficult to ever imagine
that its entire cultivation, at one point of time in history, originated from just one
country - China. As tea rapidly grew into a household necessity in England during the
18th and 19th century (Schirokauer et al., 2012), the import of tea within the British
Empire was inextricably and irrevocably linked with its opium trade, portraying it as
one of the two crops to which their interdependence yielded immense political and
economical ramifications.
Initially, tea did not begin as a necessity in England albeit it quickly became so
indispensable to the extent that Britain was importing nearly 15 million pounds of tea
annually (Schirokauer et al., 2012). As such, tea consumption had surged up to nearly
40,000% by the end of the 18th century (Pomeranz and Topik, 2006). As the
government imposed heavy import duty on tea to augment revenue at the opportune
moment, tea smuggling became rampant for profit as well as political protest
(Schivelbusch, 1992). The disinterest China government had in a cultural exchange
with the British resulted in severe restrictions placed on the foreign traders to only
Port Canton, and also the drastic escalation of import bills to which was all settled in
silver. With that, the limitations on the tea trade caused a massive trade imbalance, in
which British exports to China was equivalent to 10% of the cost of tea imported
(Schirokauer et al., 2012). This displayed an instant to where the Chinese Empire had
received the better end of the deal as compared to Europes foreign traders, in
particular Britain.
However, this consequently led to an international opium trade that began in the
1700s as a viable alternative to Britains struggle in its international trade (Pomeranz
and Topik, 2006). With opium easily obtained in their Indian colony, the British East
India Company exported the drug that began as a luxury for the elite, which
subsequently grew in popularity over twentyfold by the end of the 19th century
(Pomeranz and Topik, 2006). This in addition to the development of a cheaper blend
of opium more readily available for the Chinese masses resulted in a catastrophic
outcome for Chinas social and economical sector. The amount of silver utilized to
import opium in china flooded the market to the extent where it began to offset most
of Britains world-leading import bill, thus ultimately leading to their loss in tariff
autonomy and a considerable indemnity (Allingham, 2006). An estimate of 40 million
addicts by the 20th century in no doubt played a substantial role in Chinas devastating
blow in foreign aggression, domestic disorder and civil war (Pomeranz and Topik,
2006).
Henceforth, Britain transitioned to become a crucial supplier to the very country to
which it largely indebted to almost a century before (Perdue, 2010). The balance scale
had tipped to Britains half, and the imbalanced trade resulted in Britains large direct
economic surplus from China and India led Britain to become the Western
hemispheres primary economy figurehead. It is evident that opium played a pivotal
role in Britains revolutionary 19th century expansion of the global economy
(Pomeranz and Topik, 2006).