The Opium Wars weren’t just about drugs they were about power, profit, and empire. This video series breaks down how ...

China was soundly defeated. Among other outcomes, it ceded the vast port city of Hong Kong to Britain at the end of the First Opium War. Hong Kong returned to China's dominion in 1997.

A scene from 1842 during the first Opium War between China and Britain. Such battles more than 150 years ago were about control over trade, finance, and sovereignty — much like China’s ...

During the 19th century, opium was British India's most valued export and China its most lucrative market. So much so that in 1858 Britain went to war not to prevent drug trafficking, but to ...

The Opium Wars signalled the start of what is referred to as the “century of humiliation” in China, a period when the country ...

In 'Smoke and Ashes,' Amitav Ghosh draws comparisons between America's modern opioid crisis and the West's flooding of China with opium in the 18th century.

War on Drugs. Anti-Chinese Xenophobia Fueled America's First Drug War San Francisco's prohibitionists worried that opium dens were patronized by "young men and women of respectable parentage" as ...

The British responded by waging war on China, now known as the First Opium War. Because of Britain’s militarily superior ships and equipment, ...

Further hostilities broke out in the Second Opium War of 1856-58 when combined British and French forces again inflicted military defeats on China and demanded further concessions on trade.. Opium and ...

The Opium Wars signalled 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.