Contagious consumption: commodity debates over the eighteenth and nineteenth century China trade

In the late-eighteenth and early-nineteenth centuries, tea and opium were inextricably linked through what was known as the China trade. As significant stimulant commodities on the global market, they were extremely profitable and also capable of introducing foreign cultural behaviour and social effect into their respective foreign markets. British traders, merchants and consumers regarded the exchange and circulation of commodities between Britain, British India and China not only as a means of accumulating objects and wealth, but also as a possible source of contagion-a vector for the spread of cultural and indeed, economic pathologies. In Britain, Chinese tea imports fueled an economic conflict which revealed concerns about how trade practices could potentially influence and alter national culture. An interesting correlative argument appeared in a Chinese debate which emphasised the importation and consumption of opium, as well as the British influence that accompanied opium smuggling from British India into China. The social effects of commodity exchange-thing both exported and imported-became a contested issue within the British-India-China trade and certainly still resonate in today\u27s global economy