When Britain’s characteristic greed encountered China’s handsome holdings of tea, both polities acted predictably. Britain coveted China’s tea and China safeguarded its treasure, but the multi-faceted nature of that struggle was no less byzantine than why Britons eat toast sandwiches (seriously search up “toast sandwich,” it’s the strangest thing you’ll see this week). To the ill-versed in Chinese history, the variables constituting the strife for proprietorship of tea include, but are not limited to, indentured servitude, addiction, imperialism, opium, and tea. It isn’t easy correlating these points to make a coherent diagram, but here’s my take:
Imperialism, tea, opium, addiction, and indentured servitude. Britain’s conquest of the world eventually led it to China, who possessed tea in bountiful quantities which enraptured the British. Subsequent to failed negotiations, Britain resorted to furtive methods at acquiring tea, via cultivation and distribution of opium in China. The opium was cultivated in India, China’s southern neighbor, enabling efficient mobilization of the product. This opium degenerated Chinese society, yet succeeded in garnering Britain the requisite capital to defray tea from its victim. Britain then discovered tea in Assam, India, yet it was dismissed as an inferior ilk relative to Chinese tea. Britain had not dispatched enough of its populace to its colonies, so Britons in India cultivating tea/opium relied on “coolies” or indentured servants imported from China. Chinese addicts were undesirable workers as they were incapacitated by their opium use, thus increasing demand for Indian laborers. The components of the first sentence are all connected in sequence: that is, causality beginning with imperialism and ending with indentured servitude constitutes the network.
These are merely the facts of the matter, but they induce some compelling questions: would Britons have supported the tea trade had they known of its iniquity? Was indentured servitude, as realized by the British in India, a reincarnation of slavery? Would China have evaded its ordeal with opium if it enabled trade of tea with Britain? I have little doubt that there’s no unequivocal answer to any of these questions, but perhaps any informed answer illuminates new dimensions of the period’s dynamics.
