Trade War: 100 ปีแห่งความอัปยศ ที่จีนไม่มีวันลืม #จีน #อังกฤษ #ประวัติศาสตร์ #tradewar #เศรษฐกิจ

Summary

As the West grew strong on industrialisation and China and India weakened, the West was still running a trade deficit with China — and sold opium to close it.

The Qing banned the trade, lost both Opium Wars, and had to permit the import.

Siam was pressed into the Bowring Treaty on the same pattern, opening the opium trade it had previously prohibited.

Key points

1. 01

   The Opium Wars began as an accounting problem

   Not religion or ideology, but a deficit with no other available remedy.

2. 02

   China was the side that legislated against it

   The party forcing the market open was the one selling the narcotic, which inverts the free-trade story.

3. 03

   Siam went through the same pattern

   The Bowring Treaty is a lighter version of the same thing, which is why Thai readers should treat it as their own history.

4. 04

   The century of humiliation still drives Chinese policy

   What looks like distant history is the frame Beijing still uses to explain the world.