the greatest failure of the modern racist is to ignore how vast the yellow mans hatred runs for the white man
For real thought, I find most of even my fellow white history autists that eastern history is at best glanced at and at worst derided and ignored
So Im going to give you the quick and dirty of something im sure you heard referenced many times but probably dont know much about, The first opium war, yes there was more than one.
So a big part of history is understanding the context the "story" in question being told has, the first opium war is taking placing FOLLOWING the loss of absurd amount of revenue via the loss of the north American colony so whats a world hegemony to do when influx of cash goes down?
if you said long term decisions for short term profit, ding ding ding
ALSO ALSO, huge point so important im going to make it much bigger, the UK, the worlds largest most powerful empire, was running a trade DEFICIT with china cause of their tea consumption, im not joking one little bit. But they just could not find anything they Chinese wanted in trade other than silver or gold as they made everything the Brtish made but better (in their eyes)
So tbf more context is understanding the British KNEW they were going to only be able to make up the loss of value of north America via SOMETHING with China. so they send a whole gift delegation complete with clocks and a whole ass carriage and other baubles. But you have to understand China at this point had invented gunpowder, the compass and so much more, all the stuff the British brought seemed liked genuine junk/baubles to them ON TOP OF THAT, the Chinese though it was a tribute delegation but the British were coming to show off stuff to make the idea of trade between the 2 seem like a valuable proposition.
It was a fucking mess, this is all without even mentioning the whole cultural debacle they had where the lead British delegate refused to genuflect to the emperor and made everything just tense as fuck(vastly oversimplifying all this but not making any parts up or exaggerating)
So Plan B, shout out to Extra History for the graphics, plz refrence them for good intros to the topic
So if you remember that British own India, poppys grow well in India, and poppys make... well more than poppyseed muffins lets say
So even though Fentantly, shit I mean Opium was illegal in CHina, they set up in Mexico, SHIT, my bad guys, little drunky poo, I meant India, they set up in india right on the border and
and say
then badaboom badabing the cartels handle the rest
So are the parallels getting more obvious? there is so much more history to dig into here I know im already running the risk of being accused of szhizoranting but I PROMISE understanding this history is so critical to understanding the modern chinese mentality as well as current geopolitical realitys
The result of the first Opium war, a war largley won by how absurdly addicted the whole of the Chinese army was to opium did the UK get Hong Kong, an island where british traders could trade UNDER BRITISH LAW as it was now considered British soil, a decision we see echo into today.
Chat did this hit or am I just going to be accused of shizoranting, IMO the next war might very well be called the Fentanyl war for the same reasons.
