绅士的慈悲还是利益的追逐?——中英鸦片贸易终结过程的研究

Gentry Benevolence or Pursuit of Self-interest:The End of the Sino-British Opium Trade

十八、十九世纪英国主导下的鸦片贸易给中国经济和社会造成了灾难性的影响,而英国商人及英属印度殖民政府却从鸦片贸易中获得了丰厚的利润。但是1907年英国却主动向清政府提议并达成了减少印度鸦片出口直至最终禁绝的《禁烟条件》。本文详细分析了鸦片贸易各方在十九世纪末二十世纪初经济、政治和社会结构的变动情况,认为英国国内产业升级带动对外贸易的转型,其国内新兴工业资本家力图扩大对华工业品输出,是导致英国主动停止鸦片贸易的根本原因。这不是绅士的慈悲,而是利益的追逐。

In the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, the opium trade between British India and China brought tremendous disasters to Chinese economy and society, while earning British government and businessmen huge profits. In 1907, however, British government proposed, and two countries agreed, to reduce and eventually terminate opium exports to China. This article examines the changes in the economic, political and social structures of Britain, India and China in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. The author finds that the structural changes in British domestic industry led to similar changes in foreign trade. The aim of British industrial capitalists to expand their exports to China was the fundamental reason that British government curtailed opium exports to China.