Why the fentanyl crisis is rooted in the Opium Wars 

United States President Donald Trump has threatened to impose an additional 10% tariff on goods coming from China in response to the illegal import into the US of fentanyl.

The opioid has become the latest battleground in an ongoing trade war between the world’s two largest economies. China is currently the primary source of the precursor chemicals needed to manufacture fentanyl.

Beijing and Washington have taken steps to tighten the transfer of these chemicals. 

But the illegal fentanyl pipeline has switched from direct export into the US to Mexico, where fentanyl is manufactured and then smuggled across the border.

While synthetic opioids such as fentanyl are a relatively new class of drugs, opium has a long destructive history in trade wars and warfare.

Economic problem

It began with the First Opium War between 1839 to 1842. In the first half of the 19th century, the British government faced an economic problem. Imports of tea, porcelain and silk from China had created a large trade imbalance.

One product that the British could access in large quantities was opium grown in territories under their colonial control. The British response to address the trade imbalance was to flood the Chinese market with opium. 

By the 1830s, millions of Chinese citizens were addicted to the drug.

In response to the crisis, the Chinese emperor sent an official, Lin Tse-hsu, to Canton, or modern-day Guangzhou, in 1839 to stem the flow of opium. The plan was to destroy the stockpiles of the drug housed by British opium merchants.

Outraged by this action, the merchants claimed that the Chinese crackdown contravened the principles of free trade and demanded compensation for the destroyed opium. 

They successfully lobbied the British government for a military response.

The British forces inflicted a series of military defeats on the Chinese until 1842 when the war finally ended with the Treaty of Nanking. 

Five Chinese ports were opened to British traders, heavy reparations were imposed for the destroyed opium stockpiles, and Hong Kong was handed over as a permanent British base.

Further hostilities broke out in the Second Opium War between 1856 and 1858 when combined British and French forces again inflicted military defeats on China and demanded further concessions on trade.

Opium products had an ambiguous status throughout the 19th century. 

Potentially fatal

Laudanum, for instance, was a mixture of opium, alcohol and spices and was available as medicine for pain relief and coughs. But it was also recognized as potentially addictive and fatal if taken in large amounts. 

Laudanum bottles contained both recommended dosages and a warning that it was poison. Fast forward to today, and opioids still have an ambiguous identity as an analgesic and addictive psychoactive substance. 

Aggressive marketing by pharmaceutical companies that downplayed or even denied the potential for addiction has created an opioid crisis. It has led to millions in the US, Canada and elsewhere becoming addicted.

Opioids such as OxyContin were effective in treating pain but have also led to addiction. In 2016, synthetic opioids such as fentanyl surpassed both opioids and heroin as the leading cause of overdose and deaths.

China was initially reluctant to take measures to help the US deal with the crisis, and the threat of tariffs does not make Beijing any more likely to want to help. 

The Opium Wars signaled the start of what is referred to as the “century of humiliation” in China, a period when the country was colonized and dictated to by foreign powers.

Trump’s rhetoric on tariffs is reminiscent of that period.

It is unlikely to make the Chinese government more co-operative on drug trafficking and other issues. This suggests that nothing has been learned about the importance of international co-operation in tackling crises of addiction since the Opium Wars.

The relationship between China and the West has changed significantly since the 19th century, and in many ways, the roles are reversed in this opioid outbreak.

But rather than threatening a trade war that raises historical memories of previous conflicts, negotiation would work much better.

Model deal

Former US President Joe Biden was able to reach an agreement through talks that may reduce the amount of fentanyl entering the country. 

This deal provides a model of how to use compromise rather than threats to combat the international export of fentanyl.

Martin Danahay is a Professor of English Language and Literature at Brock University in Ontario, Canada.

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

The views and opinions expressed in this article are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the official policy of China Factor.