First Opium War
Revisionist views

The public in Western countries had earlier condemned the British government for supporting the opium trade. 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." although this thesis is controversial 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." James Bradley states that "between 1814 and 1850, the opium trade sucked out 11 percent of China's money supply".
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