Question

In what way is the English opium trade hypocritical?

Answer 1

Answer:

The section titled “The Western Intrusion Into China” (Pages 199-205) gives a brief but detailed history of events leading up to the Opium War. At the end of this section, the authors remark that “we shall concern ourselves less with the merits of the issues over which the war eventually broken out than with the Chinese understanding of them and the effect on Chinese thinking of the events that followed” (200). Several primary documents follow, including LIN Zexu's “Letter to the English Ruler.”