The Opium Wars Still Shape China’s View of the West • Hacker News Board

Re: The Opium Wars Still Shape China’s View of the West

#91

Post by cd9000 » Sat, Feb 03, 2018, 6:27 PM UTC

hokus wrote: post #68

The most significant to me is that all the death destruction and suffering was all to further enrich some 5ish rich dudes. It is significant because this aspect of the west has not changed at all. Just look how our historians are happy to attribute such acts to countries(!???) Until we start attributing invasions to the people who wanted them, those who organized them and those who profited from them this wont change…

>this aspect of the west

Since we're at it, can we stop this China vs West thingy, as if the world was binary, as if the only relevant comparison was between those two? I dunno what you mean by West, but you're probably thinking of anglo-saxon countries, in particular the UK and the USA. What you're talking about doesn't apply to other countries that would qualify as western (e.g. Greece, Slovenia, Portugal, maybe some parts of Latinamerica). Besides, most of the world isn't either China (or East Asia if you will) or the West (What's India, Bangladesh, Russia, Africa, etc?). Let's please just stop, the world has more shades than that :-)

Re: The Opium Wars Still Shape China’s View of the West

#92

Post by gregpilling » Sat, Feb 03, 2018, 6:28 PM UTC

fredley wrote: post #87

hokus wrote: post #68

The most significant to me is that all the death destruction and suffering was all to further enrich some 5ish rich dudes. It is significant because this aspect of the west has not changed at all. Just look how our historians are happy to attribute such acts to countries(!???) Until we start attributing invasions to the people who wanted them, those who organized them and those who profited from them this wont change…

I wonder how many rich dudes are at the top of the opiate pyramid in the US at the moment, profiting from the current crisis. It's not an attitude I've come across before—attributing these actions to individuals rather than nations. It's certainly an interesting one.

http://www.esquire.com/news-politics/a12775932/sackler-famil...

This family is at the top of the opiate pyramid.

Re: The Opium Wars Still Shape China’s View of the West

#93

Post by germanier » Sat, Feb 03, 2018, 6:33 PM UTC

ajmurmann wrote: post #61

realPubkey wrote: post #13

This reminds me of the articles saying that germans like to use cash because of the inflation 100y ago. It's just not true and likely being written by someone who has never asked a single german/chinese.

I'm German and hyperinflation is a very real fear of mine. Not even my parents actually experienced that and I've not lived in the country on a decade, but I've heard many stories about it growing up. Transgenerational trauma is a very real thing.

I understand the fear (and it's often cited as a reason) but how does cash help with that? If it comes to a hyperinflation it will be worthless – this is exactly what happened last time.

Re: The Opium Wars Still Shape China’s View of the West

#94

Post by vorg » Sat, Feb 03, 2018, 6:40 PM UTC

diego_moita wrote: post #67

Spooky23 wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I call it nationalist denial. Or deliberate ignorance. This type of nonsense is embedded in English accounts of the British Empire. Variants of the “white man’s burden” and the sacred principles of the market can be spun in all sorts of interesting ways. The most galling example of this that I’m familiar with is the Irish famine. Millions died of starvation in the midst of a record bumper crop for export. The British…

It bothers me that almost every nation in the world has a "big shame" but probably the only people that faces, admits and owns their "big shame" are the Germans. Belgium still keeps statues of King Leopold, Spain keeps statues of Cortez and Pisarro, Portugal of Vasco da Gama, the US is only now arguing about the statues for Confederate soldiers; Italy, Poland and France never did a real "mea culpa" on how they actual…

Yes, every nation in the world has a "big shame", but none of them really face it. They might play "good cop, bad cop" by dividing into several "nations", each with a different policy. Remember, "the Germans" comprise many "nations", i.e. Germany, Austria, and Switzerland. Germany was even 2 nations for half the 20th century, and Switzerland was virtually all German-speaking until 1815. Have the Switz Germans really faced up to financing the Nazis?

Or a nation might face up to a big shame as cover so they can nurture many "little shames", like modern Germany's treatment of its Turk residents.

Re: The Opium Wars Still Shape China’s View of the West

#95

Post by FooBarWidget » Sat, Feb 03, 2018, 6:57 PM UTC

DonaldFisk wrote: post #85

appleiigs wrote: post #64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Or... Hong Kong was given back only in 1997 which still in living memory.

Without asking its inhabitants whether that is what they wanted.

Why would that matter? Hong Kong was originally seceded to Britain without asking whether that was what the inhabitants wanted. Territory is a matter between states, not inhabitants.

Re: The Opium Wars Still Shape China’s View of the West

#96

Post by [deleted] » Sat, Feb 03, 2018, 7:01 PM UTC

[deleted]

Re: The Opium Wars Still Shape China’s View of the West

#97

Post by jk2323 » Sat, Feb 03, 2018, 7:02 PM UTC

China had accumulated a lot of the world silver reserves by selling tons silk and porcelain but buying basically nothing. Selling Opium to China "solved" this problem.

Today the have the idea of exporting everything to the world and buy nothing besides a few raw materials, creating a giant trade deficit. Let's see how it ends.

Re: The Opium Wars Still Shape China’s View of the West

#98

Post by dogma1138 » Sat, Feb 03, 2018, 7:10 PM UTC

TheCoelacanth wrote: post #83

dogma1138 wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A post scarcity society is likely to be inerently more libertarian than communist, true post scarcity does not need a centrally managed economy. Communism doesn’t simplify the human condition as much as it replaces it, the scary part of communism isn’t the economy but the eradication of the self in favor of a group identity.

Communism is not a centrally managed economy. It is an anarchistic form of society with no state. You might be confusing it with socialism which is what most states that are colloquially referred to as "Communist" really are. Socialism is supposed to be a short term form of government for transitioning to a communist society, but no real-world socialist state has made any significant progress at transitioning to comm…

Communism is certainly is a centrally manged state owned economic system.

Under communism there is no individual ownership and the state owns all of the means of production.

Re: The Opium Wars Still Shape China’s View of the West

#99

Post by eadmund » Sat, Feb 03, 2018, 7:19 PM UTC

mcguire wrote: post #55

" Then, in revenge for the torture and killing of a group of British negotiators by the Chinese,... " Wait, what? The Chinese weren't entirely the victims? (Just seems a little out of place, given the rest of the article.)

I did a quick Googling. Turns out that a bunch of them were civilians, one of them was a journalist and friend of the British commander. They were tied up, denied water and their mouths filled with dust, among other tortures.

Lord Elgin ordered the burning as vengeance for it.

Re: The Opium Wars Still Shape China’s View of the West

#100

Post by scythe » Sat, Feb 03, 2018, 7:23 PM UTC

ptx wrote: post #39

> Julia Lovell, a British historian, makes a similar point. In her book “The Opium War: Drugs, Dreams and the Making of China”, she says the move into opium by British traders was not, as claimed by many Chinese historians, a deliberate conspiracy to make narcotic slaves of the Chinese. “It was a greedy, pragmatic response to a decline in sales of other British imports,” she writes. Is there a name for this fallacy?…

>that has enormous and predictable negative effects for someone else and a comparatively tiny positive effect for themselves,

[italics mine] How much did the British know about the addictive effects of opium? This seems like a rather crucial part of the story. Several decades after the Opium War, opium became popular in Europe and led to various social maladies, which culminated in its ban and the initiation of the drug wars. It seems to me that if the British had really known how destructive opium is, they would have banned it at home during the war.

>The opium trade incurred intense enmity from the later British Prime Minister William Ewart Gladstone.[65] As a member of Parliament, Gladstone called it "most infamous and atrocious" referring to the opium trade between China and British India in particular.[66] Gladstone was fiercely against both of the Opium Wars Britain waged in China in the First Opium War initiated in 1840 and the Second Opium War initiated in 1857, denounced British violence against Chinese, and was ardently opposed to the British trade in opium to China.[67] Gladstone lambasted it as "Palmerston's Opium War" and said that he felt "in dread of the judgments of God upon England for our national iniquity towards China" in May 1840.[68] A famous speech was made by Gladstone in Parliament against the First Opium War.[69][70] Gladstone criticized it as "a war more unjust in its origin, a war more calculated in its progress to cover this country with permanent disgrace".[71] His hostility to opium stemmed from the effects of opium brought upon his sister Helen.[72] Due to the First Opium war brought on by Palmerston, there was initial reluctance to join the government of Peel on part of Gladstone before 1841.

It's easy in hindsight to suggest that the British should have listened to Mr. Gladstone, but who can say for themselves that they certainly would have, in a time and place when almost nobody knew anything about opium?