From The Opium Monopoly by Ellen N. La Motte, we learn how opium addiction became an epidemic in China. Although The Chinese knew about opium for more than a thousand years, it wasn’t until the Portuguese arrived in the 18th century that the Chinese used it as a drug by smoking it. Merchants from Britain, France, Portugal, America and other nations became the drug cartels that plagued China into the 20th century.
In 1729, the emperor issued the first anti-opium edict, but the supply of opium flooding China went from 220 chests in 1729 to 70,000 in 1858.
It is estimated that before 1950, as many as 20 million Chinese were drug addicts. To solve this problem, Mao had the People’s Liberation Army execute the drug dealers and forced millions of addicts into compulsory treatment in a twenty-four hour period. — How Maoist Revolution Wiped Out Drug Addiction in China
Opium growers, who did not want to comply, fled into the Golden Triangle Region of Southeast Asia where many of Chiang Kai-shek’s nationalist troops had gone to escape defeat. Those generals also did business with the CIA, and American soldiers in Vietnam became the new customers. It is estimated that at least 20% of the almost nine million American troops that served in Vietnam became addicted.
China remained free of drugs until Deng Xiaoping declared, “Getting Rich is Glorious” and opened China to world trade. In 2003, it was estimated that China had four million regular drug users—even with China’s strict laws concerning illegal drug use.
And in America, where human rights are king and fear of Communism by Capitalists is supreme, drug users and sellers often end up in prison costing taxpayers an average of $47,000 annually explaining why America has more people serving time in prisons than any other country on the planet; that price tag is more than $90-billion a year. Where are the protests and the accusations? Instead, the U.S. has a presidential candidate, a billionaire called Donald who wants to build the Great Wall of Trump between the United States and Mexico.
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Lloyd Lofthouse is the award-winning author of My Splendid Concubine [3rd edition]. When you love a Chinese woman, you marry her family and culture too. This is the unique love story Sir Robert Hart did not want the world to discover.
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Your readers pose some weak, conflicting, patsy-humanitarian ideology, along with erroneous, misleading crapola (liberal pansies). Any aid China has given Syrians is minimal. Here is a nation which is trying to control its Uighur Muslim terrorists and is using a big stick to quell dissent because Xi understands the dangers of Islamism which at its core is discrimination and retribution against infidels. The idea that blacks will become a big factor in China is as ludicrous as our Statue of Liberty saying “Let the poor, downtrodden, and weak” come to America. That is only true when natural resources seem limitless and a country needs additional labor for hard jobs. additionally, we can no longer afford (socially, culturally, or economically) to give other foreigners American citizenship or entry based on their hardship cases. Let China take them, although Xi Jinping is smart enough to give a huge “thumbs down” to most of them, especially those who are likely to become dissidents against their host country. Your readers include many refugees who in the last generation have fled China when it was an oppressive regime and who now are staunch advocates for relatives to enter America. Of course, that trailing sentiment will soon change as they also are impacted negatively by U.S. immigrants.
Regarding employment displacement in America by offshoring to China since 1990, even federal stats indicate a job loss of several million to offshoring to China. You need to update some of your stats which I follow closely. Middle-class Americans have been the most disaffected by our egregious trade policies that have hurt all Americans except the 10% and the corporations who have no national allegiances and will betray any host country for more money aka enhanced profits.
One writer mentioned China’s social security and tax systems which are still evolving and are insignificant in comparison to America’s well-developed systems, including our courts, legal system, business laws, stock markets, currency stability, you name it and China is a distant follower to our systems and those in Europe. I respect them for their incredible progress as a developing, authoritarian-socialist society which is attempting to control the ravages that America is experiencing from our corporate-capitalist-democracy. Again, I respect China for its progress, its nationalism, its controlled speech and freedoms (especially of religion), its crackdown on corruption, its pursuit and achievement of higher education, its attacks on patent laws which prevent entrepreneurialism and enterprise, and its respect and treatment for elders. In order for America to become stronger, united, disciplined, better-educated, and more egalitarian, we must first bring order into our society by closing all southern borders where the greatest problems of illegal entry emanate, and then deal with Canada as needed. BTW Lloyd, our factories going into Mexico need to be stopped completely until Mexico solves its profitable drug cartel business. Also, I’d like to see what percentage of China’s population is “black” since you make it sound as though they are on par with America’s 15-18% black population. When you or your readers, who are obviously intelligent, but biased by circumstances, equate China’s “openness” to America’s based on a limited number of immigrants into China, you do a disservice to truth. How many Cubans, Mexicans, Guatemalans, Congolese, et al enter China every year illegally? What happens to them when they are caught? Your statements are meaningless unless stated within the proper context that includes comparisons, percents, and numbers.
My opinions are not against any particular race, it is against anyone entering America illegally and without proper vetting. Regarding those here illegally, we need to deport them and allow them to apply legally, go through a full vetting process, set new standards for all citizens which include education, health, financial, and other requirements. One blogger made it sound like we are a global world and as such have no right to draw and enforce borders. My comment to them is that they should hang a sign on their door that everyone is welcome at any time into my home and receive free food, lodging, care, etc, after all, compassion begins at home. Lloyd, I am beginning to believe that you are a confused, illogical, super-liberal who will one day wake up and ask “Whatever happened to the prosperous America which once was the beacon for the world but is now a 3rd world banana republic? Why doesn’t our flag have any more stars and strips? What time will I go and stand in the food line today?” It is best to be thankful for what one has today rather than to wait until he loses what he once had.
Thank you for your opinion. I don’t agree with everything and I’m not going to go into detail on each item. The U.S. has a poor country to our south and historically when a wealthy, prosperous country is next door to a poor country, poor people willing to work hard to improve their lifestyles cross the borders. This was true of Spain during the colonial era. As gold and wealth flowed in from Spain’s global empire, many Spanish refused to do menial hard labor work and that created a flow of immigrants from North Africa. And what happened during the high point of Spain’s colonial empire era is repeating itself today.
On the other hand, China does not have easy access. To its west is the Himalayas. In the North are long stretches of arid deserts. In the South are fairly prosperous South East Asian countries where the people who live in poverty are not as desperate as the Mexicans obviously are to improve their lifestyles by coming to the US and doing the jobs many American citizens disdain. Throwing up Trump’s Great Wall will not stop them from coming. If by some miracle the wall actually stops them from going over or under it, they will just do what Asians have done for more than a century. They will pay high prices to be smuggled into the US through its West coast.
A Surge of Migrants At The Borer … Of Spain
http://www.npr.org/sections/parallels/2014/08/14/340289301/spain-forced-to-cope-with-surge-in-african-migrants
Do you know about the history of the Chinese Exclusion Act and the brutal barbarity that took place in the U.S. when Caucasian workers slaughtered Chinese workers that were willing to work longer hours for less? What you and Trump propose is nothing but racism.
The cost of sneaking into the United States is higher when the distances are further away.
Mexicans pay coyote fees of about $3000 – $4000. Illegal Asian immigrants pay much higher. Sometimes suggest fees of $75,000 for some illegal Chinese immigrants.
All Trump’s Wall will do is make it more expensive to be smuggled into the United States. It won’t stop poor illegal immigrants from coming. It will also up the risk of death. To risk death, many of these immigrants must be really desperate.
http://openborders.info/human-smuggling-fees/
I have known individuals who are in denial of reality before. They either ignore evidence that doesn’t support them or they ignore it while continuing to rant and vent their anger based on faulty logic.
Respecting my opinions is more important than whether you agree or disagree. Labeling me a racist is used by you as a pejorative term. I am anything but racist. Instead, I am a proud American who is educated, have worked a lifetime, well read on both sides of issues, and am mad as hell at how progressives have turned my nation into a quagmire of divided cultures, religious views, social discord, and the rape of America’s economy by banksters and corporations. The premise of my views isn’t based on holding onto old traditions, hurts, hardships and inequalities that happened 100 years ago, 200, or into the slavery days, however, you seem to be fixated on such irrelevancies when you present your arguments. I am well aware of how the Chinese were mistreated in industrial America, but that doesn’t exist today. If I took your views, I would be thinking of China as a backwards, commie nation with terrible governance, however, that is not the case at all. America once controlled 83% of all the world’s oil production and distribution, but that isn’t the case today. It once sold timber around the world, most industrial might was in America, our universities were the best, as was our innovation and economic foresight. Don’t forget how we led the world in technology. We could afford migrant workers then, but that isn’t the case anymore. America has also been the most generous country in the world, yet we are among the most hated because other people and countries want what we have and are willing to TAKE from us rather than use legal means.
Regarding a GREAT wall along our southern borders, are you saying that it won’t work because we fenced our property and installed “No Trespassing” signs as well as used advanced surveillance and security forces to intercept and interdict just because walls are expensive to erect and impossible to enforce? A wall works between the Gaza and IsraeliCountries all across Europe are erecting fences and walls to prevent refugees from entering their countries. If walls didn’t work, why would they build them? Also, if illegal migration weren’t hurting the European countries, why are they passing laws against them? My ethnic country, Denmark, has a socialist government and has the highest standard of living in the world, yet they won’t allow refugees to enter without tons of vetting and after studying the deleterious effects unrestricted immigration poses. They had their fill of Turks and Muslims coming to Denmark, straining the social systems, and living in enclaves without trying to assimilate. Does protecting limited resources for Danish citizens make them a racist nation?
Regarding Mexico paying for the GREAT wall, that can be done indirectly overnight by throwing tariffs on their exports to America. It should be done to any company who transfers our factories and technologies to other countries, including China, Japan, and South Korea.
Europe has been the poster child for your liberalism and is now showing the results of it by the backlash against government policies that hurt their individual countries. You mentioned Spain from 100’s of years ago (irrelevant). Today Spain has a huge unemployment rate, large debt to GDP, and is tired of Germany’s imposed austerity policies as the head of the EU. Greece was right to renege on its overwhelming debt and England would be foolish to remain in the EU economically. Angela Merkel will be voted out because of her liberal policies towards open borders, frightening to most Europeans. The EU is doomed, just a matter of time before everything unwinds and hostilities break out over there.
As I stated earlier, I’m not trying to change your soft, humanitarian egg-head because most liberals think they know more than their intellectual superiors; I just don’t want to be labeled as a racist by you for trying to make America great again FOR AMERICAN CITIZENS! Is that too hard for you to respect and accept? I do learn from your articles on China, however, you are way off base when you try to intellectualize to me or other intellectuals about my country’s policies.
You say you are “mad as hell at how progressives have turned my (meaning you see the US exclusively for people that think like you) nation into a quagmire of divided cultures, religious views, social discord, and the rape of America’s economy by banksters and corporations.”
With this kind of thinking, I cannot accept your claim that you are well read and have a rounded education. I think you are ignorant and biased and brainwashed.
The Progressive Movement had its start in 1900 when 40% of Americans lived in poverty and poor parents often sold one or more of their children into a form of slavery as young as age 7 where they worked 16 hour days for 6 or 7 days a week in coal mines, factories and even whore houses. Imagine a 7 year old working as a prostitute servicing old men for quarters.
The progressives fought for decades to pass the child labor laws that set those children free and sent those children to school instead of into slavery where they were fortunate to earn even pennies a day during their youth. In 1900, about 7% of Americans graduated from high school and 3% graduated from college. Today, thanks to those progressives, about 90% of Americans have earned a high school degree by the time they reach 25 and more than 40% have earned college degrees making the U.S. the 4th most educated country in the world.
Those progressives supported the growth of labor unions so workers would have a voice — a voice that is now threatened by autocratic oligarchs spending fortunes to get rid of the unions so workers have no voice and no one to stand up for them against the injustice caused by greed.
The progressive moment won women the right to vote but it took more than a century, but the progressive movement is still fighting to legally make woman equal to men in the workplace and in life.
The progressive movement did not spawn the anger and hate you spew. That was spawned by far right hate radio and media after President Reagan got rid of the Fairness Doctrine and gave birth to the likes of Rush Limbaugh and Fox News.
The progressives came from a long tradition of middle-class elites possessing a strong sense of social duty to the poor.
Where did that sense of social duty come from? The answer is the Christian Bible with 100 Bible Verses about Social Justice. For instance, Isaiah 1:17 “Learn to do good; seek justice, correct oppression, bring justice to the fatherless, plead the widow’s cause.” Another 100 Bible versus talks about greed. 1 Timothy 6:10 “For the love of money is a root of all kinds of evils. It is through this craving that some have wondered away from the faith and pierced themselves with many pangs.”
Who supported equal rights for monitories curing the Civil Rights era against a GOP conservative elite that wanted to keep whites above everyone else? It wasn’t the far right. It was the progressives. The hate and divisiveness came from the right and today it comes from Trump and Cruz and others who would cause Lincoln to turn in his grave for what they have done to his Republican Party that fought a long Civil War to free the slaves.
You are the perfect example of the product of far right hate media that was spawned by evil during the Reagan era.
In addition, this is not just your nation. It is our nation. And when I say our, I say every American citizen. That includes the progressives, the hate mongers on the far right and all the other factions and even all the Americans that never vote. If one faction takes control and cruses all the other factions, then America will only belong to that one faction.
For instance, Trump’s supports coming into power and then becoming the fascists and autocrats that would crush any voice or group that doesn’t agree with them. And Trump has made it clear he supports that.
The Founding Fathers wrote free speech into the Contusion so everyone would have a voice but it took a lot longer for everyone to have a vote. At one time, only white men that owned property were allowed to vote as long as they were not Jewish. At the birth of this country, that was about 10% of the population. Everyone else was locked out of the decision making. It took more than two centuries to change that and allow all men and women who are citizens to vote in elections.
You can take this to the bank. If Trump’s autocratic supporting fascist that think they own the United States and anyone that disagrees with them has no rights and that idiot wins the White House, there are still tens of millions of well-armed Americans that will resist losing their vote and their voice, and I am one of them. I will fight and die willingly to make sure that everyone who legally can vote today can vote in the future. I don’t care if they are a progressive or a far right conservative or a liberal or a moderate or a woman or man of any color. I will also support an end to Citizens United, more honest elections, a legally mandated livable income for all workers, and that one day the Equal Rights Amendment will become law.
The progressive movement had little to do with what you blame them for. Most if not all of what you hate was caused by the libertarian movement funded by the Koch brothers, neo-liberals (not the same as liberals), neo-conservatives (not the same as moderate conservatives) and fundamentalist born again foaming at the mouth Christians that want to rewrite the Constitution and turn the US into a religious state.
This is your last comment that I will approve for my site. You see, the Constitution only says the government can’t censor free speech. It doesn’t restrict the private sector and this is my Blog. After all autocratic, private sector, for profit corporations censor their employees all the time with the threat that you will lose your job if your mouth steps out of line.
Absolutely! America needs to become a more nationalistic country which enforces its borders and laws. The wall plus aerial surveillance and border troops need to stop all illegal crossings using deadly force when needed. This works for other countries who understand the implications of failure to rigidly apply the rule of law to protect their borders and soveriegnty. Only healthy, educated, contributors should be allowed entrance and a steep price should be charged for admission. America needs to “clean its house” and solve hardships and inequalities within its borders before it loses its ability to function as a united, strong, patriotic country backed by a strong defense. All countries have limited resources and must protect and conserve them for Legal Citizens. I applaud Xi Jinping for his strong authoritarian governance and his nationalistic beliefs. He is prudent when he controls religious sects which fragment a nation with discriminatory ideologies that are inconsistent with good governance. You asked me specifically about closed borders rather than about my response to your blog, which I do enjoy reading. Hopefully, I haven’t strayed from this topic.
India shoots anyone they catch crossing their border from Bangladesh. They shoots children, They shoot pregnant woman. They shoot teens. They shoot old men and women. It doesn’t matter. And they leave the bodies hanging on the barbed wire fence as a reminder. For some reason, the media in the U.S. has ignored this fact that hundreds of Bangladeshis if not thousands attempting to cross into India for whatever reason have been gunned down if caught crossing India’s border. That is really civilized isn’t it.
By the way, America must been enforcing its laws because the U.S. has locked more of its citizens in prisons than even China. The U.S. has the largest prison population in the world because of too many unfair laws. Is that really a good thing?
We are not India, and that may be India’s policy which I don’t care about. Nor do I car about how N Korea, Iran, and other countries handle their internal issues. What I care about is making America prosperous again for American citizens. I am not a global humanitarian, nor should America be held to a standard of helping all people of the world because we can’t afford to be the world’s solution to other countries citizens problems. That is simply an idealist fool’s dream. I am disappointed in your logic. Ask Anchee Minh if China would last long if they allowed every refugee and miscreant into their country. They show wisdom in keeping religious sects out. I don’t see them taking in any refugees from Somalia, Syria, Libya, or other African nations. Why don’t we follow their example of nationalism and policies that are for the betterment of China rather than being the world’s patsy?
Now you bring up our flawed prison policies, which are another subject altogether. Succinctly, I believe our prison system is atrocious, and our drug laws and rehabilitation efforts are deplorable, but we can’t solve those problems without first securing our borders.
Actually, China has an influx of immigrants and many of them are from Africa. Even President Obama’s fraternal half brother immigrated to China from Africa and lives there with his Chinese wife. China, because it is prosperous and still modernizing and growing, deliberately increasing the size of its middle class (something in reverse in the U.S. because of those who think like you) and supports its poor with socialist programs similar to SS and Medicare, it has also become a magnet for those who see opportunities.
From Forbes on “China’s Immigration Problem” http://www.forbes.com/forbes/2010/0719/opinions-china-immigration-illegal-aliens-heads-up.html
Here’s what I wrote about Obama’s brother: https://ilookchina.net/2013/01/01/a-us-presidents-half-brother-and-disneyland-in-china/
Then here’s what I wrote about China’s immigration problems: https://ilookchina.net/2010/11/07/china-considering-changes-to-immigration-laws/
China is not a totalitarian dictatorship. That ended when Mao died and China revised its Constitution and set term limits and a mandatory retirement age for everyone in the country, so it could never happen again. China is an authoritarian, one party republic that locks up 118 people per 100,000 population compared to 737 per 100,000 in the U.S., and you think the U.S. is too easy on crime — who is the fool? The U.S. is also much more violent than China, because China does not have the 2nd Amendment that we have in our Constitution in its Constitution.
The U.S. averages annually about 5 murders for every 100,000 people versus China’s 1 for every 100,000.
China has also been known to welcome refugees. For instance, during World War II, China was the only country to open its doors to Jews fleeing Europe and the Nazis until Japan invaded China in 1937 and China had other problems to deal with. Of course, the Jews didn’t offer the threat of terrorism so today, China is not housing refugees from Syria but India isn’t either for other reasons since India has fought several wars with Pakistan, a Muslim country and has had internal conflict between Hindus and Muslims that continues to this day.
Here is China’s position on the Syria Issue: http://bw.china-embassy.org/eng/xwdt/t1076201.htm “China has watched closely the humanitarian situation in Syria. We have provided humanitarian assistance to the Syrian people, including Syrian refugees in other countries, as our ability permits, and will continue to do so.”
How much has China contributed? http://thediplomat.com/2016/02/china-should-do-more-to-solve-to-syrian-refugee-crisis/
Not as much as the US but then China didn’t cause this problem in the Middle East. The U.S. and its allies in Europe did that. If you click the link to The Diplomat.com, you will discover that China also offers disaster relief and humanitarian aid to other countries besides Syria.
“During the Ebola crisis in 2014, China sent medical aid worth over $200 million as well as medical experts and even PLA medical staff. After last year’s earthquake in Nepal, Beijing pledged $500 million for reconstruction and medical aid and it recently offered help to Indonesia to cope with forest fires raging in Sumatra and Kalimantan. In addition, China has and is contributing troops to UN peacekeeping missions, for instance in Mali and South Sudan. However, another faction – which seems to be prevailing within China – argues that the United States and Europe caused much of the crisis in the Middle East, and should therefore take the responsibility and deal with the consequences.”
The United States cannot afford to isolate itself from the world stage, close its borders and build the wall Trump says he will build but not pay for. We all live on one planet and it’s called the Earth. Nine countries have nuclear weapons and if the U.S. isolates itself from the world that means one less player in the diplomatic field struggling to make sure those weapons are not used in a war. For instance, if nuclear war breaks out between India and Pakistan, the fallout will blow around the world and affect us at home in the U.S. That war would also impact not only the economy in the U.S. but the world causing unemployment and economic hardship. In 2015, the U.S. sold $21,451,900,000 in goods and services to India and if the U.S. lost that traded due to a war between Pakistan an India, that would translate to jobs lost in the U.S.
How many jobs? Goods exports supported an estimated 7.1 million jobs in the U.S. in 2015, an increase of 1 million jobs from 2009. You see, contrary to what many ignorant Americans think, the U.S. has the 2nd largest manufacturing sector in the world employing 12.33 million manufacturing workers in the Untied States and these jobs support an estimated 18.5 million other jobs in the U.S. or one is six private sector jobs. To educate yourself, you should click the following link and find out how vital U.S. trade with the world is and the health of that trade depends on a peaceful world unless you are the weapons industry in the U.S., an industry that thrives on war, hate and fear, and the U.S. has the largest weapons industry in the world. Even during the 2007-08 global financial crises, that industry continued to grow because enconomic hardship increases violence around the world.
http://www.nam.org/Newsroom/Top-20-Facts-About-Manufacturing/
War should always be a last resort, not the first choice as G. W. Bush did in Iraq when Iraq was not a threat to the United States and probably never would be. The only threat he posed was to his neighbors in the Middle East and all of their oil.
Global arms industry: West still dominant despite decline; sales surge in rest of the world.
“Companies based in the United States continue to dominate the Top 100, with a 54.4 per cent share of the total. US companies’ arms sales decreased by 4.1 per cent between 2013 and 2014, which is similar to the rate of decline seen in 2012–13. One company bucking the downward trend is Lockheed Martin, which has occupied the first position in the Top 100 since 2009. Its arms sales grew by 3.9 per cent in 2014 to $37.5 billion. Lockheed Martin’s lead over the second ranked company Boeing, which had total arms sales of $28.3 billion, increased by $4.4 billion in 2014.”
https://www.sipri.org/media/press-release/2015/global-arms-industry-west-still-dominant-despite-decline-sales-surge-rest-world-says-sipri
About securing the U.S. borders – How do you propose we do that when the length of the US border is much more than the 1,933 miles with Mexico. The international land and water border with Canada runs for 5,525 miles. The U.S. coastline runs for another 12,479 miles. Do you really think only building Trump’s Great Wall and making Mexico pay (as he boasts he will do by blackmailing them with the threat of forcing the US to close its factories in Mexico and stopping trade with Mexico) for it will stop smugglers from using the other 18,004 miles of border to provide illegal drugs to American customers who want those drugs regardless of the laws.
Do you have any idea what that would cost U.S. businesses and workers in the U.S. – to start a trade war with Mexico to force Mexico to pay for Trump’s Great Wall?
“Does he (Trump and the fools who swallow his crap) know there are 160 million Mexicans and Mexican-Americans? Does he know that Mexicans have bought trillions of dollars’ worth of goods and services from the United States in recent years? Does he know that millions of Americans go to work every day to work in trade with Mexico?”
Click the links and discover that Trump is an ignorant fool, a serial liar and a con man with a history of taking care of himself while others suffer because of it.
http://thehill.com/blogs/pundits-blog/presidential-campaign/247649-no-mr-trump-mexico-is-not-killing-us-on-trade
http://www.nytimes.com/2016/06/12/nyregion/donald-trump-atlantic-city.html?_r=0
http://www.politifact.com/personalities/donald-trump/
Hillary might be a crook and a liar too, but in comparison to Trump she is a shadow and an amateur.
Your article was interesting and good until the last sentence which is irrelevant and biased. How does building a wall along our Southern borders have anything to do with China, and why would building it be bad for America? It is my understanding the wall is more about curtailing illegal immigration into America, its primary reason, while decreasing drug trafficking may be an ancillary benefit. As an English teacher, you should recognize the difference between conflicting conclusions if you have one.
Are you saying that you think it is a good idea to build Trump’s Great Wall between Mexico and the United States?