Chapter Nineteen: Empires In Collision

"Ways of the World"

Chapter Nineteen: Empires In Collision

1750-1950

In this chapter I was able to fully immerse in it. Partly because I am fairly interested in the events that took place in the Asian culture. To make it clear I'm not particularly interested in actual Asian culture but I suppose more accurately how it all came to be. There empires and such really draw my attention. So I was pleased to see that the portrait on page 940 portrayed Lin Zexu "Confronting the Opium Trade". Something I have always found intriguing about the Chinese was how they handled the arising and mass distribution of opium. The correlation I prefer to draw/analyze is how in America some hoe we let cocaine, meth, crack, heroine, and other hard core drugs infiltrate or country with really no effective "cleansing" system one could say. Inevitably leading to the massive exponential growth and seeming popularity of each. Yet Lin Zexu when he picked up on the dangers of opium made some tough decisions to rid his empire of the dangerous and devastating drug. Lin's reasoning came from "moral appeals, reasoned argument, political pressure, and coercion..." Lin tried his hardest to avoid physical conflict. Lin in my opinion made tremendous efforts. For example he "emphasized the health hazards of the drug and demanded that everyone turn in their supply of opium and the pipes used to smoke it". I thought this in itself was genius. The one thing the majority of America is not doing or maybe doesn't realize is that drugs while they are considered "bad" are a health issue, however we as a country are failing to treat it as much and only enforce the criminal side of it. Think about it this way you can throw a user in jail for a few days and maybe even years for possession but once they come out they are going right back to what they know, right back to what their body and minds are telling them they need, right back to using. In turn with Lin making these demands "he had confiscated some 50,000 ponds of the drug together with over 70,000 pipes and arrested some 1,700 dealers." Lin did not stop there and traced the problem back to the source which was mainly the English during the time frame of Queen Victoria. he essentially stated that the empire supplies them with textiles that enhance their lifestyles so why are they importing and selling this drug that devastated his people. With that he made the decision to with hold from trading with them giving them the option to stop selling to his people and give p their supply with no compensation. After a few weeks of negotiation the "Europeans...turned over some 3 million pounds of raw opium to Lin Zexu. All of which he soiled and released into the ocean.