What were the long term effects of the opium wars?
Some of what has been said above is true, however China was quite xenophobic before the Opium Wars, in fact it was their refusal to trade their goods in the case of the British and the USA this was mainly tea and silks for anything other than cash. In most systems of trade the general aim is to swap goods however china did not want any goods, (the benefit in part of being such an advanced and ancient civilisation- they felt they had all they needed). This unbalanced trading was leaving the rest of the world rather low on precious metals so to compensate they sold the one thing china craved but that its authorities because of the limits land and perhaps a moral stance, could not provide opium. This opium they sold for only cash and on this basis some modicum of balance was brought to the trade. The long term effect was eventually china was robbed of her tea monopoly when the british decided to grow tea in India- the place where previously lots of the opium had come from. The invasions m
