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

economist.com

131–140 of 140 posts

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

#131

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Another example is the opium poppy used as a symbol of Remembrance Day. It's a silly coincidence and was chosen because of the poem "in Flanders Fields". Never mind that a third of the population in some areas of India was literally starved to death to grow that exact, or what it did to China, or how it was the foundation of the British empire.

The field poppy ( Papaver rhoeas ), not the opium poppy ( Papaver somniferum ), is used as a symbol on Remembrance Day.

You beat me to it: The red poppy is not the white poppy.

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

#132
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?…

It isn't a fallacy. Opium can potentially be one of the most beneficial medicine that one can introduce in this diet. Those who misuse it seem to draw most of the attention, so outsiders are often unaware of the overwhelming benefits. I know people who buy opium and are extremely grateful to their suppliers, who are providing them with a plant that has in some case rescued them from their incapacity to sleep well or feel joy or, or has regulated their pulse to prevent heart attacks, or has allowed them to survive poisoning, or has liberated them from unstable digestion problems.

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

#133

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is the official narrative that is being sold to the people and being thought at school. The opium wars are a very big part of Chinese history and current culture I don’t know who do you know In China but a few elites educated in the West are not a good sample. Look at the average inner city population in tier 1-3 cities, look at the recent changes in the attitude towards foreigners in China this is definitely an…

Hardly a big anecdote but I went to China once and asked the tour guide if Chinese people hated the British because of the opium wars. She just laughed, the idea seemed ridiculous to her. She said a lot of Chinese still resent or hate the Japanese because of the invasion during WW2.

Are you British?

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

#134

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"Came out of Yale" means one year running a magazine for the Yale associated school in China? As for the Western support, I can't begin to guess what you mean. My complete shot in the dark is some Western capitalists tried to make money in China, as they already have a history of being fine with the death of Chinese people to make money.

Western governments leak military technology to China all the time. Clinton was accused of giving them nuclear secrets. Israel has definitely given them technology. Regarding Maos time at Yale, you can read more about that here - http://www.mygen.com/users/ufo/Mao_was_a_Yale_Man.html

Your claim was they helped Mao during Mao's reign of terror. Clinton being born in 46 and Israel being founded in 47 does make that impossible for me to have guessed.

That source for Mao seems to be nearly exclusively drawing from seemingly unrelated dead third party sources. One of them is the Church of the Subgenius, a parody religion. And the only real link I can find them stating is that they were both in one of the most populous cities of China.

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

#135

I am surprised that the article makes no mention of the many Chinese action movies made that are set in the time period of the Opium Wars and that make explicit reference to it. Given that the film is made in China and received state support, it is not an accident. By the way the story of Baghdadi Jew, David Sassoon and his rise in prominence as a result of profiting from the Opium War is quite interesting in itself.

I love foreign films. Any reasonably high brow recommendations?

Not during the opium wars period but I love a movie called To Live. It's about a family's struggles with adjusting for the insanity of the cultural revolution. Lots of dark humor and I was super impressed by the scope of it. The familys world comes crashing down multiple times as the civil war breaks out and the revolution really kicks off. The movie, director and lead actress got banned from making movies for a few years too so you know it's good.

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

#136
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 had exactly the same thought and you have said it very well.

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

#137

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Western governments leak military technology to China all the time. Clinton was accused of giving them nuclear secrets. Israel has definitely given them technology. Regarding Maos time at Yale, you can read more about that here - http://www.mygen.com/users/ufo/Mao_was_a_Yale_Man.html

Your claim was they helped Mao during Mao's reign of terror. Clinton being born in 46 and Israel being founded in 47 does make that impossible for me to have guessed. That source for Mao seems to be nearly exclusively drawing from seemingly unrelated dead third party sources. One of them is the Church of the Subgenius, a parody religion. And the only real link I can find them stating is that they were both in one of…

I didn't say that Clinton helped Mao. I said he helped China by selling them nuclear secrets. Subgenius was also founded and membered by some extremely intelligent folks so, so invoking them as just a parody religion doesn't do a whole lot for me.

There is actually a mountain of evidence if you care to look. Without even looking at specific peoples actions or associations I know what is going on because of history and because of how obvious it is. There's always a group trying to rule the world. Heck Britain almost did it with fucking medieval technology!

China was definitely not built up solely from within. There are powerful non-Chinese globalists and banksters with strangleholds over many industries at work here. I mean, do you think Chinese farmers are putting this technological tyrannical monster of a government together? The Chinese people aren't doing this to themselves. They are loving it right now though because it's like 1950's USA there and people are getting relatively rich.

ADDENDUM: Anyway, these are not fun ideas to have rattling around in your head. I suggest not looking into it at all because there is absolutely nothing that you could possibly do about it if there's any truth here. The big take away that I got from my investigation is basically this: Live like there is no tomorrow and make sure you're doing what you want to be doing every day. Enjoy as much as possible! Let go of whatever bullshit that you can, because life is short.

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

#138

Earlier quoted context omitted.

http://www.esquire.com/news-politics/a12775932/sackler-famil... This family is at the top of the opiate pyramid.

It's amazing how these greedy people destroyed millions of lives and they get to live the life of luxury. Sell weed and you are a felon. Peddle addictive opiates to the masses and destroy countless families, you get to be a billionaire.

Drugs have been weaponised in the West. Both 'legal' and 'illegal' forms.

Drugs are one of the principle means of social control used by the power elite to keep society malleable and repressed - truly. Both illegal - and legal - drugs have their covert uses in this regard.

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

#139

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.

German still suffer under the 'war shock' that has reverberated through their culture for at least 3 generations.

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

#140

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The plot here is fairly simple and you can see it happening every day. China is the model for a new world government that will be implemented after the USA is wiped off the map. "Made in China" is the type of curse that the elite globalists who run things like to give people. Care to elaborate? Especially the "China is the model" part.

That’s the conclusion that I’ve reached. There are many rich and powerful men on record saying that they are working towards such a thing. I’m assuming this is the implementation.

Could you be a bit more generous with the details?

Sources? Links?

If these are anecdotes, what exactly did they say or mean?

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