[deerpig]

Not simply that the West bought more. China refused to accept anything except silver and gold in payment for their Tea. There is only so much silver and gold so they looked for something else they could trade for and found that there was a demand for Opium. Of course this isn't mentioned much when you read about the period when you are in China.

When living in Hong Kong in the years running up to the handover in 97 the Chinese government used the Opium Wars as an excuse to accuse the British of all sorts of bizzare things during the negotiations. My favorite was calling the governor Chris Patten the "son of a running dog" which has a bit more bite in Chinese. A lot of the knashing of teeth on the Chinese side of the table was repeatedly justified by the dastardly deeds of the British in the Opium Wars to a country that was then still under the rule of an Emperor, which later turned into a corrupt republic and then overthrown again by the Communists and now seems to have been overthrown by the combined forces of Louis Vuitton, Rolex and Channel.