Many reading this blog
will be familiar with the history
of that shifty thing, The British Empire,
including the so called 'Opium Wars' (1839-42)
where China wanted to sell Britain tea, silk
and porcelain in exchange for silver,
but, via colonised India, the British wanted to pay
China in smuggled opium, which had been
a ready and open market for a very long time.
Such habits have not gone away,
indeed in the era of synthetic drugs
new temptations towards addiction
and death are being refined every day.
But they now come more from a strong China
to a weak UK much more than they did 185 years ago
and the British press has trouble keeping track of it all.
No comments:
Post a Comment