Opium and the beginnings of Chinese capitalism in Southeast Asia

Abstract

This paper deals with the relationship between opium revenue farming and the development of capitalist enterprises in Southeast Asia. It examines the role which opium played in the transformation of all Asian economies during the late eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. While few would argue that the unprecedented expansion of the opium trade by European traders had a major, usually destructive impact on Asian economic systems and political and social institutions, the long term results of opium in the Asian, particularly in the Southeast Asian economies is less well understood. Most specifically, the opium farming systems, which existed in, virtually every Southeast Asian state (as well as parts of China and India) were important adjuncts of capitalist development in the region.