Background and context

In 1860 China repealed prohibitions (established in 1780 and 1796) on the import and consumption of opium; increasing foreign imports and stimulating domestic production (see, Dixon, 1922; Newman, 1995; Reins, 1991; Spence, 1990; Wakeman, 1977;

Windle, 2011) which, before 1860, had never exceeded 300 tons (Pietschmann et al., 2009). During the 1870s Yunnan Province was permitted to tax opium production to fund a counter-insurgency (Yongming, 1999); other provinces followed the Yunnanese example and de facto legalisation preceded the official repeal of the prohibition on production in 1880 (Brown, 1973; Yongming, 1999; Walker, 1991).

Thus, by the 1870s domestic opium was competing with foreign imports in terms of both quality and price (Agassiz, 1884; Reins, 1991; Windle, 2011). Between 1905-1907 China produced between six (Taylor, 1913) and eight times more than it imported (Newman, 1995); Sichuan alone produced four times that of India, China’s major foreign source (Hosie, 1911a). Almost all opium was consumed within China with a small amount exported to Indochina (FO, 1913k; Trocki, 1999).

Low prices and profuse availability increased consumption to exceptionally high levels. In 1890, an estimated 10 percent of the Chinese population smoked opium; this may have been as high as 60 to 80 percent in some areas (Spence, 1975) while as low as five percent in others (Newman, 1995). The Chinese delegate to the 1909 International Opium Commission declared that 6.3 percent of the population consumed opium.

Conversely, the 1906 Regulations Giving Effect to the Imperial Decree reported consumption rates of 30-40 percent (reproduced in FO, 1907).¹

Between 1887 and 1906, customs and internal transit taxes on opium contributed between five and seven percent of the national budget (Reins, 1991) and significantly

1 Trocki (1999) estimates that in the late-nineteenth-century China annually consumed 50,000mt of opium; 45,000mt more than the combined licit and illicit global consumption of the late-1990s.

This said, the majority of consumers took small quantities (Dikötter et al., 2004), with an estimated 2.5 percent of the population being considered as heavy or regular consumer (Newman, 1995).

more to many provincial governments (Jordan, 1908). Nonetheless, opium was increasingly perceived as a barrier to economic and military advancement. After China was defeated by Japan (where opium was prohibited) in 1894/95, a propaganda campaign was initiated to ‘deglamorise’ opium and shift the popular perception from an expression of wealth to one of poverty and destitution (Paulès, 2008:259, also Madancy, 2001, Walker, 1991; Yongming, 1999). Additionally, external barriers to prohibition were weakened when the British administered India - China’s primary source of foreign opium – began to soften its opposition to prohibition (Windle, 2011) and the US began lobbying for global controls (Brook and Wakabayashi, 2000).

4.2. Intervention (Imperial/Republican: 1906-1917)

In 1906, an Imperial Decree ordered the gradual suppression of production, distribution and consumption (FO, 1907; Scheltema, 1910). This was followed by the Regulations Giving Effect to the Imperial Decree which obliged provincial governors to: produce estimates of the area under cultivation; license and meticulously monitor farmers;

annually reduce the area, and number of farmers, by one-ninth; confiscate land used by unlicensed farmers. The Regulations provided rewards for governors which ended production prematurely (reproduced in FO, 1907). Two months later governors were ordered to halve the area under cultivation within two years (IAOA, 1924b). To reduce the economic shock land and transport taxes were increased (FO, 1911b; IAOA, 1922).

Once the ban was enforced, China negotiated (FO, 1908) the 1908 Anglo-Chinese Ten-Year Suppression Agreement, which obliged British administered India to reduce annually exports to China by ten percent and China to concurrent reductions in production. China agreed to allow British consulates to monitor progress (Dixon, 1922;

Scheltema, 1910). The subsequent Prohibition on Opium (1908, reproduced in Leech, 1908) ordered provincial governors to suppress production by 1915/16. The Anglo-Chinese Opium Agreement (1911) later stipulated that any province proving to a Joint British-Chinese Commission of Investigation (henceforth Joint Investigation) that they were ‘opium-free’² could prohibit the importation of Indian opium (see FO, 1915f).

In 1911, the Imperial regime was, however, removed and a Republic declared. While there was an initial resurgence during the revolutionary period (Central China Post, 1912), production remained below 1906 levels (Jordan, 1913b). Nonetheless, in 1912 the new President ordered all officials to renew suppression efforts, the prohibition was

2 An abridged term used by FO reports to denote ‘effectively suppressed the cultivation… of native opium’ (FO, 1915f:1).

reiterated by the second president of the Republic (Yuan Shikai) and supported by the majority of revolutionaries (Walker, 1991). The regime declared that stocks of opium accumulated during the Revolutionary period could be sold to state registered addicts;

the tax revenue from which funded eradication teams and the administration of treatment programmes (FO, 1912a). Joint Investigations continued (Cheng, 1913; FO, 1913d, 1913l; Grey, 1913) and FO accounts report that the regime initially surpassed

‘the rigors of the Manchu rulers’ (Dixon, 1922:2) and a:

... general survey of the whole evidence leads to the conclusion that with the exceptions of Kweichow…. the authorities throughout the Republic are making strenuous efforts (Jordan, 1913a:14).³

4.2.1. Development-Orientated Approaches

To motivate crop substitution, in 1911, the national Financial Commissioner relieved all farmers growing cereals of land tax for a year and a half; this stimulated some provinces to experiment with foreign cereals (Changsha Jih Pao, 1911). As no ‘serious attempt’

was, however, made to provide alternative incomes, many farmers were pushed deeper into poverty and provincial government budgets were depressed (IAOA, 1922:21). The lack of state support is exemplified by crop substitution being mentioned just 11 times in the 472 FO reports (written between 1907 and 1917) consulted (but not necessarily cited) by this author. One reports how a Sichuan district provided no support (FO, 1910c) whilst another recounts how, due to inactivity by the provincial government of Yunnan, a British diplomat introduced improved cotton from India (Rose, 1910).

Substitute crops were provided in four provinces (FO, 1908b, 1912c, 1913j, 1914e, 1914g; Rose, 1913; Turner, 1914; Wilkinson, 1910; see Wyman, 2000) and some farmers were compensated in Yunnan (FO, 1909).

Rose (1910:34) reported how the lack of alternatives and increasing impoverishment made prohibition unpopular with farmers, whilst the outflow of silver for illicitly imported opium made it unpopular with officials - especially in Yunnan Province which possessed few exportable commodities. Insightfully concluding that:

... the first sign of relaxation in …. attitude towards the opium question would assuredly be the signal for the poppy to spring up

3 Kweichow was the last provinces to come under Shikai’s rule (Central China Post, 1913).

throughout the miles of territory now lying fallow for want of capital and knowledge and suitable crops.

Many farmers planned for this time by storing opium seeds (Turner, 1914; Wandering Naturalist, 1922; Wyman, 2000).

4.2.2. Law enforcement approaches

Before and after the Revolution, forced eradication was administered by eradication teams or farmers were compelled to eradicate their own crops by the military (Hosie, 1912; FO, 1911a, 1913c, 1913e). For example, in Swatow, during village meetings (FO, 1915g) farmers’ were ordered to eradicate their own crops within five days or face military punishment (FO, 1913a; also FO, 1912a). One witness reported that:

... crops were uprooted and trampled on; men were beaten senseless by the roadside in the midst of their ruined fields; the job was done with a savage thoroughness which defies parallel (Wandering Naturalist, 1922:466).

From 1911, the official punishment for opium farming or if a government official refused to enforce the ban - mandated by the Financial Commissioner - was one to three years imprisonment and the confiscation of land (Changsha Jih Pao, 1911). In practice pre-and post-Revolution punishments, often enforced by the provincial military, for cultivation and/or resistance included: torture (FO, 1910b, 1913a); execution (Central China Post, 1912; FO, 1913h, 1914b, 1914d, 1914m; Giles, 1913; Hosie, 1910; Taylor, 1913, 1914); branding (FO, 1914n); caning (FO, 1909); public shaming (FO, 1910b;

1914n, 1915h); fines (SCSF, 1910); and the destruction of property (FO, 1913a, 1913e, 1917a; Turner, 1914) or entire villages (FO, 1910b).

In Fukien Province the Joint Investigation described a magistrate who: arrested and fined farmers; confiscated their land; burnt their houses; and executed any which

‘received these corrections with ill grace’ (Turner, 1914:n.p.; also FO, 1914d); another noted how ‘the sacrifice of lives and property’ was ‘no obstacle’ (FO, 1913g:2). At the extreme an entire village was massacred as a warning in Yunnan (FO, 1913f) whilst a

‘few hundred’ farmers were executed in Shensi (FO, 1917d:3).

Pre- and post-Revolution local gentry (FO, 1910b) or village leaders (FO, 1910c) were often punished – with imprisonment or execution (FO, 1913c, 1914f; Turner, 1914) - for not preventing cultivation within their sphere of influence while civil service

career advancement was depended on opium suppression (FO, 1910c; Leech, 1908;

Spence, 1990). After the Revolution lower officials were ‘severely’ punished (FO, 1915d:26) or ‘removed’ (FO, 1915h:164) for non-compliance, unsatisfactory results (FO, 1913b; 1917f), or corruption (Turner, 1914). Hence, fear of failure instilled a motivation to thoroughly enforce prohibition (SCSF, 1910). This may have extended to the wider population as there is evidence of farmers being executed for not informing authorities of production (FO, 1917d).

4.3. Success?

As can be expected from a state twice the size of Europe the campaign progressed unevenly across and within provinces (FO, 1910a, 1910b; Hosie, 1909; Wyman, 2000).

While conformity was slower in major producing provinces, they all eventually conceded to prohibition (FO, 1908). For example, the Chihli Governor-General provided a ten-year grace period in which a gradual reduction was advised (FO, 1908).

Nonetheless, by mid-1910 provincial leaders had succumbed to pressure and the ban was stringently enforced (SCSF, 1910).

While Chinese proclamations of national cessation of production in 1911 (Wandering Naturist, 1922) were premature many province had already been declared

‘opium-free’. In 1911, national production was estimated at 4,000mt which represents a 89 percent reduction from the 1906 peak of 35,353mt.

After a brief resurgence during the Revolutionary period, by 1913 half of all provinces had been declared ‘opium-free’ by Joint Investigation; the export of Indian opium unofficially ceased in 1913⁴ (FO, 1913g; Eisenlohr, 1934). While no quantitative data exists, by the end of 1917, all provinces had been declared ‘opium-free’ after a comprehensive investigation by a Joint British-Chinese Commission. Indian exports were officially discontinued (FPA, 1924; IAOA, 1924b). Illicit production recommenced in outlying provinces the following year (FPA, 1924).

Several British officials reported their suspicion that from 1915 prohibition was enforced in some areas purely for the benefit of the Joint Investigation (FO, 1915b, 1917b, 1915d, 1915h, 1917c, 1917e) or that suppression was limited by corruption (FO, 1914a, 1914e; 1915a, 1915b, 1915g).⁵ Furthermore, the British Joint Investigation for

4 To be partly replaced by illicitly imported Turkish and Persian opium (FO, 1914i).

5 In 1915 the central Government procured all existing stocks of imported opium to sell to aged smokers under a monopoly system (Walker, 2007). Under international and national pressure the stock was destroyed and the monopoly abandoned (Yongming, 1999), however, there are

Shensi Province reported that President Shikai had initially clandestinely facilitated and profited from production in the province to support his eventual ascension to the throne, before ruthlessly enforcing the ban (FO, 1917d; see also Yongming, 1999).

Figure 4: 1. China: Opium production (1836-1911)

0 5,000 10,000 15,000 20,000 25,000 30,000 35,000

1836 1879 1880 1896 1904 1906 1910 1911

Metric tonne

Source: adapted from, AOAI (1922); Pietschmann et al (2009); Newman (1995); Wyman (2000). Note: grey line represents 20mt outcome measurement of success. Missing values indicates missing data. Jordan (1908) estimates national production at 20,268mt for 1906.