River of Smoke

In the second book in the Ibis series, Amitav Ghosh writes about the situation in China before the start of the opium war. Through the various characters, he writes about the English, American and Indian traders in Canton. He continues exploring the lives of the various people who cames from Ibis to China, Mauritius and other islands nearby.

This made me think about the opium war and the lessons we can learn from it.

Britian had trade deficits with China. To reduce the deficits, they started pushing opium. Chinese get addicted to opium and they lose valuable bullion.

Conscentious Chinese mandarins appeal to both the British merchants and the Queen. Their appeal is logical since British ban it in their country. So how can their morals justify selling it in China?

They also ban bringing opium to China. Then the traders started smuggling opium by selling it from the outer islands. These smugglers then bring it to China in fast crab boats. They bribed the local officials and still continued the business. A new official comes and threatens the chinese traders. They burn these fast crab boats and stop any opium from the outer islands. They quarantine all the foreign traders in Guangzhou till they turn in all their opium.

They don't harm any merchants but destroy the opium. This angers the companies who have lost their profits from the opium trade.

They force the British government to act and go to war against China.

Due to the powerful ships and military equipment, British win. They extract unequal treaties from China and addict the Chinese even further. All this so they can earn money without any regard to the damage done by Opium.

The lesson here is that if you're not powerful, people will walk over you. Even if countries talk a big game about values and morals, you cant trust them. They will not hesitate to use their power in an unfair situation.

This causes an arms race as each country wants to be in a more powerful position than the other.

It also tells about how Indian traders from Bombay also took part in the opium trade.

Before the opium war, Canton (present day Guangzhou) was the only port open for foreign trade.

The arguments from the British side for the war are also interesting. They argued that China was not allowing free trade. It is stopping their people from getting the things they wanted. The book also provides an interesting counter for that. It argued that the British used the free trade argument when it suited them but not always. As an example, the British set the rules for procurement of ships in a way that only British firms can meet. This caused Indian shipbuilders to lose their business.