Conflict over the Opium Trade

Abstract

Chapter 3 considered under what conditions British firms in China were able to persuade Chinese merchants to cooperate in their economic activities, thereby enabling them to develop their own commercial network. However, this reading cannot account for the genuine historical character of the Sino–British commercial conflicts in Shanghai during the 1880s. This is because British firms were not able to control the Chinese economy; instead, it was the Chinese merchants who did so in this period, as shown in Part I. It is therefore important to consider the Sino–British commercial conflicts from the Chinese merchants’ perspective. The most suitable example is the conflict which took place between 1885 and 1887 over imposing the Lijin tax on imported Indian opium stored within the Shanghai foreign concession.