It has been creditably alleged that China is facilitating, if not masterminding, the opioid crisis in America. If so, the Maoists probably feel it justified as a case of historical tit for tat. In the 1800s China suffered through an opioid crisis of their own, exacerbated by the opium wars with Britain. Simply put, opium addiction was ravaging Chinese society, and the British Empire fought two wars to keep it that way.

For most of history China was the place to be. Up until the Renaissance, Europe was a stagnant backwater, fragmented and culturally stunted. The literary and technical heritage of the Greeks and Romans languished, locked away in scattered monasteries, safe but near-forgotten. China and the Islamic world were cultural and scientific utopias in comparison. In fact, the prosperity of the Middle East depended in large part on marketing the luxury goods of China (silk, tea, fine porcelain) to the West.

This situation carried on for so long that it may have baked a certain degree of arrogance and isolationism into the Chinese character. If so, it was, at the time, entirely warranted. China had much more to offer to the world than we had to offer in return. Why bother to engage with foreign devils when you’ve already got the best stuff right there at home? Over centuries, this imbalance resulted in a concentration of gold and silver within the borders of China, and a shortage everywhere else. Because gold and silver were the only things the rest of the world had which China wanted from them. All well and good if you’re Chinese, but ruinous if you’re not. Desperate for something other than precious metals that the Chinese would accept in trade, the British finally hit upon an answer: opium.

Opium changed everything. Finally, here was a trade good the West could sell to China. The British grew opium in India and traded it for tea, silk, and porcelain in China. Unfortunately, opium slowly started to destroy Chinese society. Tea, and coffee, have the effect of stimulating thinking and discourse. Opium addiction brings slumber and apathy. After a while, the Chinese authorities recognized the dangers and aggressively resisted the opium trade.

Irony loves to paint on the canvas of history. Items commonplace in China (silks, tea, printing, and gunpowder for fireworks) precipitated entirely different outcomes in Europe. Political fragmentation in Europe ensured that gunpowder was rapidly exploited as a wonderful new way to murder fellow Europeans and kickstart a technological arms race. The printing press allowed contagious spread of new ideas. The lure of enormous profits from eastern tea and spices incentivized the exploration of sea trade routes to bypass those Middle-Eastern middlemen. Columbus sailed west hoping to reach India and China and hit America instead, encouraging more sailing on across the Pacific Ocean. Bigger, faster, better ships were needed, carrying cannon to deal with pirates, and the ships of other European competitors.

When China sought to stop the opium trade, the British Empire intervened militarily to keep it going. Arguably, that western military superiority was a direct result of forcing Europeans to develop ways to come to China and get the trade goods they sought. Is that blaming the victim? Perhaps. Were the opium wars justified? No. But the past is a different place. The people who lived then had other priorities. We have the benefit of viewing the consequences of actions taken then, in the context of what’s happened since. It’s up to us to learn from past mistakes, assuming we can.

The opium wars made it impossible for China to ignore that they were no longer the center of things. There followed what the Chinese call “the hundred years of humiliation.” Did western greed cause this? Yes. But you might as well blame the fall of the Western Roman Empire solely on the barbarians, and the fall of Byzantium on the Moslems. The Visigoths did sack Rome in 410, and the Ottoman Turks took Constantinople in 1453. Neither of these upheavals could have occurred without long, painful rot and decline of both realms in preceding centuries. The rulers of Rome, Constantinople, and Imperial China all ignored what was best for the nation to prolong what was good for them personally.

The Chinese viewed the greedy, grasping westerners smuggling opium into their perfect land as barbarians. In some ways they were quite correct. Europeans didn’t respect Eastern culture, and didn’t particularly care what happened to the place as long as profits were made. To be fair, the concept of cultural appreciation would have baffled pretty much everyone in the world at that point in time. It wasn’t fashionable yet.

Centuries of smug isolation had convinced the Chinese of their inherent superiority. They didn’t need the rest of the globe, and it seemed a good idea to ignore the squabbling, squalid barbarians. History marched on, and things changed. Wrapped in splendid seclusion, the people who ran China concentrated on consolidated and safeguarding internal power. That type of behavior breeds arrogance, corruption, and inattention to reality. When the western merchants found their secret weapon, opium, they used the dysfunctional Chinese government to bribe and bully their way into the Chinese market. Military force wasn’t resorted to until the first Opium War in 1842. Cue the hundred years of humiliation.

The Chinese of today no doubt view the opioid crisis in America as poetic (and convenient) justice for past sins. However, two wrongs don’t make a right (Particularly since it was Imperial Britain, not the United States, that exploited opium against China). Besides, communists aren’t interested in justice, beyond using the word as a false label slapped on revenge and global hegemony. The world held out a hand to China a couple decades ago. “Come join the community of nations. We’ll help you.” China took that help, but never intended to join any community it wouldn’t dominate.

One aspect separates America in the early 21^st century from Rome, Constantinople, and Imperial China. The earlier empires were autocracies, systems which are prone to leadership focusing on remaining in charge at all costs. That’s fine when the leadership makes good decisions. Incompetent leaders, once ensconced upon the throne, keep doubling down on stupid until the barbarians come knocking at the gate. America is, at least technically, a democratic republic. If the rules are followed, our leadership must face periodic performance reviews called elections. This setup has, in the past, facilitated the peaceful change of government should incumbents not come up to snuff. That way deposed politicians can retire to a life of book tours and paid speeches, instead of dank concrete cells and a firing squad. So much more civilized.

The unconscionable number of Americans addicted to opioids, large as it is, is not our drug problem of greatest concern. Our elites have become addicted to power and position, and will sell anything or anyone to feed that habit. America’s citizens have become overly tolerant of big government. God help us. Washington elites have weaponized the bureaucracy to quash dissent, opened the borders to swell a dependent underclass, and very likely stole the 2020 election by faking a global pandemic. An undeclared opium war rages all about us. The first step upon the path out of this nightmare will be voting the addicts out of office by a margin so overwhelming that the next election simply cannot be stolen again. Then the hard work begins. The rot in Washington has been metastasizing for a hundred years. America needs to go to rehab to be free again.

Image: Picryl