[IllogicalLogic]

England, France and the US have vested interests in China not growing, atleast a very powerful minority do. Opening markets when these foreign actors very recently attacked your population is basically suicide.

Open markets require a certain level of development. Post-Xi (and his anti-corruption measures), this will be possible.

[TheAceOfHearts]

> England, France and the US have vested interests in China not growing, atleast a very powerful minority do.

I'll admit I don't know much about China, but this seems like a very board statement. Could you expand on it a bit? What powerful minority are you thinking of? Aren't they already growing? I mean, China has pretty much taken over a ton of manufacturing.

[gerdesj]

You are responding to "IllogicalLogic" who whitters on about England, France and the US!

I'd get my fake news elsewhere:

* England is just one part of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland

* Germany's economy is rather bigger than either the UK or FR - why not mention them?

[IllogicalLogic]

I generally use England interchangeably with Britian for Opium War related statements, because the main actors (and beneficiaries) at the end of the day were English, not Irish, not Australian, etc... down the list.

Germans werent huge Opium pushers at the time (compared to the English, French, and American). So score 1 for Germany, good decision on their part.

I would expect not having major part of your economy propped up by illcit trading has long term positive consequences, Germany is enjoying the fruits of that to some extent.

You can predict what people with ill-gotten gains do with their money (it's a different discussion but consider what corruption costs society/economy when looking at the 2nd and 3rd order effects of corrupt money).

[mr_toad]

> Opening markets when these foreign actors very recently attacked your population is basically suicide.

Opening markets in Europe immediately afte WW2 were a major contributor to preventing another European war.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Treaty_of_Paris_(1951)

[Nomentatus]

Well, yeah, defeat utterly then open markets, that would work.

[antidesitter]

> Opening markets when these foreign actors very recently attacked your population is basically suicide.

Do you have evidence to support this claim? You seem to be conflating these countries’ governments with their businesses.

Also, can you clarify what you mean by “attacked their population”?

[IllogicalLogic]

>"Also, can you clarify what you mean by “attacked their >population”?"

The opium epedemic and wars drove the Chinese economy into the ground.

British invasion and colonization of India pushed one of the top trading nations and #1 GDP (China & India competed to maintain #1 status for 2000 years) in the world into the ground.

[seanmcdirmid]

The decline of the Qing dynasty drove the economy into the ground even before the British started opium there. China loves to blame foreigners for all of their problems, but a lot of it was self inflicted.

[IllogicalLogic]

Your timeline is a little off. The Qing dynasty decline was partly to blame but be sure that almost 1/4 of Chinese young adults under the age 25 being addicted to illegal opium (thanks to western traders) didn't help. If you think that wasn't a contributing factor, it is being ahistorical.

US and Western Europe is facing this growing opioid issue today (during an economic decline), if we are not careful, we will see very clearly the effects (both socially and economically) of opioids poisoning the gene pool en masse.

[seanmcdirmid]

That is like blaming the Mongolians for the fall of the Song Dynasty? Symptomatic of a dynasty in decline? Yes. Causal of that decline? No.

[IllogicalLogic]

So western power invading and enslaving China's major trading partners and drugging their population had 0 negative economic effect?

It seems the history books you have been exposed to detail a narrative that economic/trade flow history (narrative independent) does not recognize...

[reaperducer]

The opium epedemic and wars drove the Chinese economy into the ground.

You mean the ones from the 1800's? Seriously?

[IllogicalLogic]

You need a history lesson (most Americans do)

The Coming War on China (2016) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-rTVwLNhojI

[IllogicalLogic]

Trump is actively setting trade/economic policy considering 18-19th century history (economic history more specifically).

Remember the Opium Wars and the families it made rich (most famous, Coolidge (descendants of Thomas Jefferson), Roosevelts (through the Delano family), Forbes (John Kerry's family), etc.. in the US). On the otherside of the pond, in 1890 (peak opium crisis), 30% of Britain's GDP was illegal opium smuggling to China.

https://www.thecrimson.com/article/2017/3/30/opium-at-harvar...

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Russell_%26_Company

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D0AJ59vqzzg

The seperator between government and companies isn't as big as you think when this much multi-generational wealth and political power is invloved.

Kind of funny that many don't know their own history (Roman history is tough...going through 300 years of US history is trivially easy but most still don't).

[mirimir]

Yes, there's lots of ugly in US history. It's been very effectively suppressed. Most Americans will think that you're some sort of conspiracy theorist :(

And by the way, US tobacco manufacturers also managed to addict most of Southeast Asia. I highly recommend Drugs and Rights by Douglas N. Husak (Rutgers, 1992).[0]

0) https://www.cambridge.org/core/books/drugs-and-rights/0C9669...

[IllogicalLogic]

Economic history has less incentive to lie and it's hard to retroactively change 100 years of accounting/trade history to maintain a fake national narrative.

Remember in international trade, atleast 3 seperate entities end up with copies of every transaction (buyer/seller/shipper).

It's why I consider it more trustworthy...

https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/business-history-rev...

[mirimir]

Thanks. Great paper.