Although the Chinese had used opium as a medicine, there was no widespread addiction before the British arrived.

Many Chinese saw opium as a poison introduced by foreign enemies.

The British seizure of Hongkong was an aspect of one of the most ugly crimes of the British Empire: the takeover and destruction of India, and the use of India to flood China with opium.

Confucianism strongly condemned the use of drugs like opium.

The East India Company established a monopoly over the production of opium, shortly after taking over Bengal.

Were you to read the British press today, you would learn that the British Empire never forgets its defeats.