Editing First Opium War (section)

==Legacy==
[[File:Opium War Museum entrance.jpg|thumb|Entrance of the Opium War Museum in [[Humen Town]], Guangdong]]
[[File:British gold medal made out of Chinese silver (First Opium War).jpg|thumb|right|British gold medal, dually dated 1829 and March 1842, [[Royal Mint|London mint]]. Extracted out of the Chinese silver indemnity payments of the Treaty of Nanking]]

The opium trade faced intense enmity from later British Prime Minister [[William Ewart Gladstone]].<ref name="Lodwick2015">{{Cite book |last=Lodwick |first=Kathleen L. |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=DrAeBgAAQBAJ&q=William+Gladstone+opium&pg=PA86 |title=Crusaders Against Opium: Protestant Missionaries in China, 1874–1917 |year=2015 |publisher=University Press of Kentucky |isbn=978-0-8131-4968-4 |page=86}}</ref> As a member of Parliament, Gladstone called it "most infamous and atrocious" referring to the opium trade between China and British India in particular.<ref name="Chouvy2009">{{Cite book |last=Chouvy |first=Pierre-Arnaud |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=qGl4TN_qIsgC&q=William+Gladstone+opium&pg=PA9 |title=Opium: Uncovering the Politics of the Poppy |publisher=Harvard University Press |year=2009 |isbn=978-0-674-05134-8 |page=9}}</ref> Gladstone was fiercely against both of the [[Opium Wars]] Britain waged in China: the First Opium War initiated in 1840 and the [[Second Opium War]] initiated in 1857. He denounced British violence against the Chinese and was ardently opposed to the British trade in opium to China.<ref name="QuinaultWindscheffel2013">{{Cite book |last=Quinault |first=Roland|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=Hve4IOulDlwC&q=William+Gladstone+opium&pg=PT238 |title=William Gladstone: New Studies and Perspectives |last2=Clayton |first2=Ruth Windscheffel |last3=Swift |first3=Roger |year=2013 |publisher=Ashgate |isbn=978-1-4094-8327-4}}</ref> Gladstone lambasted it as "Palmerston's Opium War" and said in May 1840 that he felt "in dread of the judgments of God upon England for our national iniquity towards China".<ref name="Foxcroft2013">{{Cite book |last=Foxcroft |first=Louise |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=VPosEno3uNYC&q=William+Gladstone+opium&pg=PA66 |title=The Making of Addiction: The 'Use and Abuse' of Opium in Nineteenth-Century Britain |publisher=Ashgate |year=2013 |isbn=978-1-4094-7984-0 |page=66}}</ref> Gladstone made a famous speech in Parliament against the First Opium War, stating, "A war more unjust in its origin, a war more calculated to cover this country with disgrace, I do not know, and I have not read of."<ref name="HanesSanello2004">{{Cite book |last=Hanes |first=William Travis |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=jYmFAAAAQBAJ&q=William+Gladstone+opium&pg=PA78 |title=Opium Wars: The Addiction of One Empire and the Corruption of Another |last2=Sanello |first2=Frank |publisher=Sourcebooks |year=2004 |isbn=978-1-4022-0149-3 |pages=78, 88}}</ref><ref>Fay (2000) pp. 290</ref> His hostility to opium stemmed from the effects opium brought upon his sister Helen.<ref>{{Cite web |title=Isle of Wight Catholic History Society |url=https://iow-chs.org/island-people/helen-jane-gladstone-1814-80/ |website=iow-chs.org}}</ref><ref name="Isba2006">{{Cite book |last=Isba |first=Anne |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=gaxDs8_oz_QC&q=William+Gladstone+opium&pg=PA224 |title=Gladstone and Women |year=2006 |publisher=A&C Black |isbn=978-1-85285-471-3 |page=224}}</ref> Due to the First Opium war brought on by Palmerston, there was initial reluctance to join the government of Peel on part of Gladstone before 1841.<ref name="Bebbington1993">{{Cite book |last=Bebbington |first=David William |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=jEzV7PYYe5kC&q=William+Gladstone+opium&pg=PA108 |title=William Ewart Gladstone: Faith and Politics in Victorian Britain |publisher=William B. Eerdmans |year=1993 |isbn=978-0-8028-0152-4 |page=108}}</ref>

The war marked the start of what 20th century Chinese nationalists called the "[[century of humiliation]]". The ease with which the British forces defeated the numerically superior Chinese armies damaged the dynasty's prestige. The Treaty of Nanking was a step to opening the lucrative Chinese market to global commerce and the opium trade. The interpretation of the war, which was long the standard in the People's Republic of China, was summarised in 1976: The Opium War, "in which the Chinese people fought against British aggression, marked the beginning of modern Chinese history and the start of the Chinese people's bourgeois-democratic revolution against imperialism and feudalism."<ref name="Janin-1999">''The History of Modern China'' (Beijing, 1976) quoted in Janin, Hunt (1999). ''The India–China Opium Trade in the Nineteenth Century''. McFarland. p. 207. {{ISBN|0-7864-0715-8}}.</ref>

The Treaty of Nanking, the Supplementary Treaty of the Bogue, and two French and American agreements were all "unequal treaties" signed between 1842 and 1844. The terms of these treaties undermined China's traditional mechanisms of foreign relations and methods of controlled trade. Five ports were opened for trade, gunboats, and foreign residence: Guangzhou, Xiamen, Fuzhou, Ningbo, and Shanghai. Hong Kong was seized by the British to become a free and open port. Tariffs were abolished thus preventing the Chinese from raising future duties to protect domestic industries and extraterritorial practices exempted Westerners from Chinese law. This made them subject to their own civil and criminal laws of their home country. Most importantly, the opium problem was never addressed and after the treaty was signed opium addiction doubled. China was forced to pay 21 million silver [[tael]]s as an indemnity, which was used to pay compensation for the traders' opium destroyed by Commissioner Lin. A couple of years after the treaties were signed internal rebellion began to threaten foreign trade. Due to the Qing government's inability to control collection of taxes on imported goods, the British government convinced the Manchu court to allow Westerners to partake in government official affairs. By the 1850s the [[Chinese Maritime Customs Service]], one of the most important bureaucracies in the Manchu Government, was partially staffed and managed by Western Foreigners.<ref name="Sharpe" />{{page needed|date=September 2021}} In 1858, opium was legalised, and would remain a problem.<ref>Miron, Jeffrey A. and Feige, Chris. The Opium Wars: Opium Legalization and Opium Consumption in China. National Bureau of Economic Research, 2005.</ref>{{page needed|date=September 2021}}

Commissioner Lin, often referred to as "Lin the Clear Sky" for his moral probity,<ref>{{Cite encyclopedia |title=Lin Zexu |encyclopedia=Encyclopædia Britannica |url=https://www.britannica.com/oscar/print?articleId=48330&fullArticle=true&tocId=4212 |access-date=3 June 2016 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20080701002326/https://www.britannica.com/oscar/print?articleId=48330&fullArticle=true&tocId=4212 |archive-date=1 July 2008 |url-status=dead}}</ref> was made a scapegoat. He was blamed for ultimately failing to stem the tide of opium imports and usage as well as for provoking an unwinnable war through his rigidity and lack of understanding of the changing world.<ref>{{Cite web |last=Lee |first=Khoon Choy |year=2007 |title=Pioneers of Modern China: Understanding the Inscrutable Chinese: Chapter 1: Fujian Rén & Lin Ze Xu: The Fuzhou Hero Who Destroyed Opium |url=http://www.eastasianstudies.com/eastasian/5921_01.htm |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20141006202706/http://www.eastasianstudies.com/eastasian/5921_01.htm |archive-date=6 October 2014 |access-date=3 June 2016 |website=East Asian Studies}}</ref> Nevertheless, as the Chinese nation formed in the 20th century, Lin became viewed as a hero, and has been immortalised at various locations around China.<ref>{{Cite web |title=Monument to the People's Heroes |url=http://www.lonelyplanet.com/worldguide/china/beijing/sights/1000228991 |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20080922072522/http://www.lonelyplanet.com/worldguide/china/beijing/sights/1000228991 |archive-date=22 September 2008 |access-date=3 June 2016 |website=Lonely Planet}}</ref><ref>{{Cite web |title=Lin Zexu Memorial |url=http://www.chinaculture.org/gb/en_museum/2003-09/24/content_30174.htm |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160613173704/http://www.chinaculture.org/gb/en_museum/2003-09/24/content_30174.htm |archive-date=13 June 2016 |access-date=3 June 2016 |website=chinaculture.org}}</ref><ref>{{Cite web |title=Lin Zexu Memorial Museum Ola Macau Travel Guide |url=http://www.olamacauguide.com/lin-zexu-memorial-museum.html |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20061022111918/http://www.olamacauguide.com/lin-zexu-memorial-museum.html |archive-date=22 October 2006 |access-date=3 June 2016 |website=olamacauguide.com}}</ref>

The First Opium War both reflected and contributed to a further weakening of the Chinese state's power and legitimacy.<ref>{{Cite news |last=Schell |first=Orville |last2=John Delury |date=12 July 2013 |title=A Rising China Needs a New National Story |url=https://www.wsj.com/articles/SB10001424127887324425204578599633633456090 |access-date=14 July 2013 |work=Wall Street Journal}}</ref> Anti-Qing sentiment grew in the form of rebellions, such as the [[Taiping Rebellion]], a war lasting from 1850 to 1864 in which at least 20 million Chinese died. The decline of the Qing dynasty was beginning to be felt by much of the Chinese population.<ref name="Goldstone-2016" />{{page needed|date=September 2021}}

===Revisionist views===
The impact of the opium habit on the Chinese people, and the manner in which the British imposed their power to guarantee the profitable trade, have been staples of Chinese historiography ever since.<ref>Arthur Waley, ''The Opium War Through Chinese Eyes'' (London: Allen and Unwin, 1958)</ref>{{page needed|date=September 2021}}
The British historian [[Jasper Ridley (historian)|Jasper Ridley]] concluded:
{{blockquote|Conflict between China and Britain was inevitable. On the one side was a corrupt, decadent and caste-ridden despotism, with no desire or ability to wage war, which relied on custom much more than force for the enforcement of extreme privilege and discrimination, and which was blinded by a deep-rooted superiority complex into believing that they could assert their supremacy over Europeans without possessing military power. On the other side was the most economically advanced nation in the world, a nation of pushing, bustling traders, of self-help, free trade, and the pugnacious qualities of John Bull.<ref>Jasper Ridley, ''Lord Palmerston'' (1970) p. 249.</ref>}}
However, Ridley adds, opposition in Britain was intense:

{{blockquote|An entirely opposite British viewpoint was promoted by humanitarians and reformers such as the Chartists and religious nonconformists led by a young Gladstone. They argued that Palmerston (the foreign secretary) was only interested in the huge profits it would bring Britain, and was totally oblivious to the horrible moral evils of opium which the Chinese government was valiantly trying to stamp out.<ref>Ridley, 254–256.</ref><ref>May Caroline Chan, “Canton, 1857” ''Victorian Review'' (2010), 36#1 pp 31–35.</ref>}}

The American historian [[John K. Fairbank]] wrote:
{{blockquote|In demanding diplomatic equality and commercial opportunity, Britain represented all the Western states, which would sooner or later have demanded the same things if Britain had not. It was an accident of history that the dynamic British commercial interests in the China trade was centered not only on tea but also on opium. If the main Chinese demand had continued to be for Indian raw cotton, or at any rate if there had been no market for opium in late-Ch'ing China, as there had been none earlier, then there would have been no "opium war". Yet probably some kind of Sino-foreign war would have come, given the irresistible vigor of Western expansion and immovable inertia of Chinese institutions.<ref>John K. Fairbank, Edwin O. Reischauer and Albert M. Craig, ''A History of East Asian Civilization: Volume Two: East Asia the Modern transformation'' (1965) p. 136.</ref>}}

Some historians claim that Lord Palmerston, the British Foreign Secretary, initiated the Opium War to maintain the principle of free trade.<ref>Jasper Ridley, ''Lord Palmerston,'' (1970) p. 248</ref>
Professor Glenn Melancon, for example, argues that the issue in going to war was not opium but Britain's need to uphold its reputation, its honour and its commitment to global free trade. China was pressing Britain just when the British faced serious pressures in the Near East, on the Indian frontier and in Latin America. In the end, says Melancon, the government's need to maintain its honour in Britain and prestige abroad forced the decision to go to war.<ref name="Glenn Melancon 1840, pp 854-874">Glenn Melancon, "Honor in Opium? The British Declaration of War on China, 1839–1840," ''International History Review'' (1999) 21#4 pp. 854–874.</ref>{{page range too broad|date=September 2021}} Former American president [[John Quincy Adams]] commented that opium was "a mere incident to the dispute&nbsp;... the cause of the war is the [[kowtow]]—the arrogant and insupportable pretensions of China that she will hold commercial intercourse with the rest of mankind not upon terms of equal reciprocity, but upon the insulting and degrading forms of the relations between lord and vassal."<ref>{{Cite book |first=Julia |last=Lovell |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=CxOEDwAAQBAJ&pg=PP67 |title=The Opium War: Drugs, Dreams, and the Making of Modern China |publisher=Abrams |year=2015 |isbn=978-1468313239 |page=67}}</ref>

Ray Huang, in ''China: A Macro History'', provides a broader context for understanding the Opium War. He argues that the causes of the conflict cannot be solely reduced to economic factors or immediate diplomatic tensions. Huang emphasizes the deep structural issues within the Qing dynasty, including economic strain, bureaucratic inefficiencies, and social unrest. These issues weakened the Qing state's ability to respond effectively to both internal and external pressures. The mounting frustrations of Chinese officials and the social dislocations they faced played a significant role in pushing the government towards harsher policies against the opium trade[4].

The Australian historian Harry G. Gelber argues that opium played a role similar to the tea dumped into the harbour in the [[Boston Tea Party]] of 1773 leading to the [[American Revolutionary War]]. Gelber argues instead:
{{blockquote|The British went to war because of Chinese military threats to defenceless British civilians, including women and children; because China refused to negotiate on terms of diplomatic equality and because China refused to open more ports than Guangzhou to trade, not just with Britain but with everybody. The belief about British "guilt" came later, as part of China's long catalogue of alleged Western "exploitation and aggression".<ref>Harry G. Gelber, "China as 'Victim'? The Opium War That Wasn't" in ''Harvard University Center for European Studies, Working Paper Series #136'' (2019)  [https://ces.fas.harvard.edu/uploads/files/Working-Papers-Archives/CES_WP136.pdf online]</ref>}}

Western women were actually not legally permitted to enter Guangzhou although they were permitted to live in Macau.<ref>{{Cite book |last=Waley-Cohen |first=Joanna |title=The Sextants of Beijing: Global Currents in Chinese History |publisher=W. W. Norton |year=2000 |isbn=039324251X |page=99}}</ref>

The Qing government hampered foreign trade and through the Canton System concentrated trade in Guangzhou. That being said, the policy of concentrating trade to a single port was also used in Western countries such as Spain and Portugal. Western merchants could also trade freely and legally with Chinese merchants in Xiamen and Macao or when the trade was conducted through ports outside China such as Manila and Batavia.<ref>{{Cite book |last=Vries |first=Peer |title=State, Economy and the Great Divergence: Great Britain and China, 1680s–1850s |year=2015 |publisher=Bloomsbury |isbn=978-1472526403 |pages=353–354}}</ref> Furthermore, Macao was restricted to Portuguese traders, and Xiamen the Spanish, who rarely made use of this privilege.<ref>{{Cite book |last=Greenberg |first=Michael |title=British Trade and the Opening of China 1800-1842 |publisher=Cambridge University Press |year=1969 |page=47}}</ref>

The public in Western countries had earlier condemned the British government for supporting the opium trade.<ref name="Melancon-2003b" /> Opium was the most profitable single commodity trade of the 19th century. As Timothy Brook and Bob Wakabayashi write of opium, "The British Empire could not survive were it deprived of its most important source of capital, the substance that could turn any other commodity into silver."<ref>{{Cite book |last=Brook |first=Timothy |title=Opium Regimes: China, Britain, and Japan, 1839–1952 |last2=Wakabayashi |first2=Bob Tadashi |year=2000 |publisher=University of California Press |location=Berkeley |isbn=9780520220096 |page=6 |doi=10.1525/california/9780520220096.001.0001}}</ref><ref>{{Cite book |last=Wakeman |first=Frederic Jr. |chapter=The Canton Trade in the Opium War |series=The Cambridge History of China |volume=10 |title=Late Ch'ing, 1800–1911 |last2=Fairbank |first2=John K. |year=1978 |publisher=Cambridge University Press |location=New York |page=172}}</ref> although this thesis is controversial<ref>{{Cite journal |last=Klimburg |first=Alexander |year=2001 |title=Some Research Notes on Carl A. Trocki's Publication "Opium, Empire and the Global Political Economy" |journal=Bulletin of the School of Oriental and African Studies |volume=64 |issue=2 |pages=260–267 |doi=10.1017/S0041977X01000155 |jstor=3657672 |pmid=18546608 |s2cid=34708108}}</ref> Opium was the most common and the most profitable trade good and comprised 33–54% of all goods shipped from Bengal to the East between 1815 and 1818. Carl Trocki described "the British Empire east of Suez as of 1800 as essentially a drug cartel."<ref>{{Cite book |last=Trocki |first=Carl |title=Opium and Empire: Chinese Society in Colonial Singapore, 1800–1910 |year=2019 |publisher=Cornell University Press |isbn=978-1501746352 |pages=50–58}}</ref> James Bradley states that "between 1814 and 1850, the opium trade sucked out 11 percent of China's money supply".<ref>{{Cite book |last=Bradley |first=James |title=The Imperial Cruise, a Secret History of Empire and War |year=2009 |publisher=Little & Brown |isbn=978-0316049665 |chapter=Chapter 10 |pages=274–275 |url-access=registration |url=https://archive.org/details/imperialcruisese0000brad/page/274}}</ref>

Although shipping was regulated, the Qianlong emperor's administration was diligent in accommodating the requisites of Western merchants. It hired a growing body of Western assistants for the Customs Office to help manage its fellow countrymen. The order to stay in Macao during the winter was lifted; tax was exempted on food, drink, and basic supplies for Western merchants; and protections were granted to Westerners and their property.<ref>{{Cite thesis |last=Po |first=Chung-yam |title=Conceptualizing the Blue Frontier: The Great Qing and the Maritime World in the Long Eighteenth Century |date=28 June 2013 |publisher=Ruprecht-Karls-Universität Heidelberg |url=http://archiv.ub.uni-heidelberg.de/volltextserver/18877/1/PhD_Dissertation_CyPO.pdf |pages=203–204}}</ref> Qing laws prevented Chinese from pursuing foreigners through the courts. The prohibition mainly dated from the Qianlong Emperor's strong conviction that mistreatment of foreigners had been a major cause of the overthrow of several earlier dynasties.<ref>{{Cite book |last=Waley-Cohen |first=Joanna |title=The Sextants of Beijing: Global Currents in Chinese History |year=2000 |publisher=W. W. Norton |isbn=039324251X |location=New York; London |chapter=Chapter 4}}</ref>{{page needed|date=September 2021}}

The Qianlong Emperor granted Lord Macartney a golden sceptre, an important symbol of peace and wealth, but that was dismissed by the British, who were unaware of its symbolism. The Qianlong Emperor also dismissed the "lavish" presents that the British gave to facilitate diplomatic relations and concluded that they were no better than other European products. In 1806, Chinese officials compromised with the British on the murder of a Chinese man by British seamen, as Westerners refused to be punished under Chinese law, and local citizens vigorously protested for xenophobic reasons and because of perceived injustice. In 1816, the Jiaqing Emperor dismissed a British embassy for its refusal to kowtow, but he sent them an apologetic letter with gifts, which were later found in the Foreign Office, unread. The British ignored Chinese laws and warnings not to deploy military forces in Chinese waters. The British landed troops in Macao despite a Chinese and Portuguese agreement to bar foreign forces from Macao and then in the [[War of 1812]] attacked American ships deep in the inner harbour of Guangzhou (the Americans had previously robbed British ships in Chinese waters as well). Those, in combination with the British support to Nepal during [[Sino-Nepalese War|their invasion of Tibet]] and later [[Anglo-Nepalese War|British invasion of Nepal]] after it became a Chinese tributary state, led the Chinese authorities to become highly suspicious of British intentions.<ref>{{Cite book |last=Waley-Cohen |first=Joanna |title=The Sextants of Beijing: Global Currents in Chinese History |year=2000 |publisher=W. W. Norton |isbn=039324251X |pages=104, 126, 129–131, 136–137}}</ref> In 1834, when British naval vessels intruded into Chinese waters again, the Daoguang Emperor commented: "How laughable and deplorable is it that we cannot even repel two barbarian ships. Our military had decayed so much. No wonder the barbarians are looking down on us."<ref>{{Cite book |last=Sng |first=Tuan-Hwee |url=http://apebhconference.files.wordpress.com/2009/08/sng.pdf |title=Size and dynastic decline. The principal-agent problem in late imperial China, 1700–1850}}</ref>{{page needed|date=September 2021}}

===Question of inevitability===
Historians have often pondered whether the war could have been avoided.<ref>Glenn Paul Melancon, "Palmerston, Parliament and Peking: The Melbourne Ministry and the Opium Crisis, 1835–1840" (PhD LSU, 1994) pp. 222–239.</ref> One factor was that China rejected diplomatic relations with the British or anyone else, as seen in the rejection of the Macartney mission in 1793. As a result, diplomatic mechanisms for negotiation and resolution were missing.<ref>Spence, ''The Search for Modern China''  (1990) pp. 122–123.</ref> Michael Greenberg locates the inevitable cause in the momentum for more and more overseas trade in Britain's expanding modern economy.<ref>Michael Greenberg, ''British Trade and the Opening of China, 1800–1842'' (1951), p. 215.</ref> On the other hand, the economic forces inside Britain that were war hawks, Radicals in Parliament and northern merchants
and manufacturers, were a political minority and needed allies, especially Palmerston, before they could get their war.<ref>Peter J. Cain, and Anthony G. Hopkins. ''British Imperialism: Innovation and Expansion 1688–1914'' (1993) p. 40.</ref> In Parliament, the Melbourne government faced a host of complex international threats including the [[Chartism|Chartist]] riots at home, bothersome budget deficits, unrest in Ireland, rebellions in Canada and Jamaica, war in Afghanistan, and French threats to British business interests in Mexico and Argentina. The opposition demanded more aggressive answers, and it was Foreign Minister Palmerston who set up an easy war to solve the political crisis.<ref>Jasper Ridley, ''Lord Palmerston'' (1970) pp. 248–260.</ref> It was not economics, opium sales or expanding trade that caused the British to go to war, Melancon argues, but it was more a matter of upholding aristocratic standards of national honour sullied by Chinese insults.<ref>Glen Melancon,  "Honour in Opium? The British Declaration of War on China, 1839–1840." ''International History Review'' 21 (1999): 855–874 [https://www.jstor.org/stable/40109164 online].</ref>{{page range too broad|date=September 2021}}<ref>Glenn Melancon, ''Britain's China Policy and the Opium Crisis: Balancing Drugs, Violence and National Honour, 1833–1840'' (2003).</ref>{{page needed|date=September 2021}}

One historiographical problem is that the emphasis on the British causal factors tends to ignore the Chinese. The Manchu rulers were focused on internal unrest by Chinese elements and paid little attention to the minor issues happening in Guangzhou.<ref>Paul A. Cohen, ''Discovering History in China: American Writing on the Recent Chinese Past'' (1984), pp. 9–55, 97–147.</ref>{{page range too broad|date=September 2021}} The historian James
Polachek argues the reasons for trying to suppress the opium trade had to do with internal factionalism led by a purification-oriented group of literary scholars who paid no attention to the risk of international intervention by much more powerful military forces. Therefore, it was not a matter of inevitable conflict between contrasting worldviews.<ref>{{Cite book |last=Polachek |first=James M. |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=3-GILbpJUv0C&pg=PA74 |title=The Inner Opium War |publisher=Harvard University Asia Center |year=1992 |isbn=978-0674454460 |pages=73–76, 134–135}}</ref> Lin and the Daoguang Emperor, comments Spence, "seemed to have believed that the citizens of Guangzhou and the foreign traders there had simple, childlike natures that would respond to firm guidance and statements of moral principles set out in simple, clear terms." Neither considered the possibility that the British government would be committed to protecting the smugglers.{{sfn|Spence|1999|pp=152–158}} Polachek argues, based on records of court debate, that growing court awareness that opium addiction in the Guangdong military garrisons, caused by widespread collusion between British smugglers, Chinese smugglers and Chinese officials, had completely impaired their military effectiveness. That left the entire southern flank of the Qing exposed to military threats and was more important in generating opposition to the drug trade than economic reasons. Polachek shows that Lin Zexu and the hardliners (mistakenly) believed that by arresting drug abusers, confiscating the opium supplies and promising to allow the British to continue trading in other goods, they could persuade the British to give up the drug trade without a war.<ref>{{Cite book |last=Polachek |first=James M. |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=3-GILbpJUv0C&pg=PA74 |title=The Inner Opium War |publisher=Harvard University Asia Center |year=1992 |isbn=978-0674454460 |pages=109, 128–135}}</ref>