The Opium Business: A History of Crime and Capitalism in Maritime China

The opium trade was a significant force in Chinese political economy, with opium money intertwined with local, national, and imperial finances. Peter Thilly narrates the lives and business operations of opium traffickers in southeast China, showing how they infiltrated, manipulated, and transformed the modernizing Chinese state. Opium traders established monopolies, became more bureaucratized and militarized, and used corruption, bribery, and direct collaboration with the state to expand their power. They mattered as shadowy architects of statecraft and China's evolution on the world stage.

Format: Paperback / softback
Length: 316 pages
Publication date: 18 October 2022
Publisher: Stanford University Press

The opium trade played a significant role in the Chinese political economy from its emergence in the 1830s to its peak in the 1930s. Opium money was intricately intertwined with local, national, and imperial finances, and the individuals involved in the trade were essential to Chinese society. In this book, Peter Thilly recounts the perilous lives and astute business dealings of opium traffickers in southeast China, placing them within the broader context of global capitalism. By tracing the evolution of the opium trade from clandestine offshore agreements in the 1830s to multi-million dollar prohibition bureau contracts in the 1930s, Thilly illustrates how the modernizing Chinese state was infiltrated, manipulated, and profoundly transformed by opium profiteers.

Opium merchants transported the drug by sea, over mountains, and up rivers, establishing monopolies over trade routes and territories and assembling opium armies to safeguard their businesses. Over time, these organizations became more bureaucratized and militarized, mirroring and eventually influencing, infiltrating, or supplanting the state. Despite the chaos of revolution, warlordism, and foreign invasion, opium traders diligently expanded their power through corruption, bribery, and direct collaboration with the state. Drug traders mattered not only in the seedy ways in which they have been portrayed but also crucially as shadowy architects of statecraft and China's evolution on the world stage.

Weight: 484g
Dimension: 153 x 228 x 24 (mm)
ISBN-13: 9781503634107