Crisis as Opportunity: Lineage, State and Opium in Southern Fujian, 1832-1839

• In Event: Crisis and Intervention: Local Histories of State and Society in Qing China

Abstract

This paper reconstructs the opium import trade in coastal southern Fujian during the 1830s, and analyzes the consequences of this illegal trade for the state-society relationship. The Sino-British offshore network that rose up along the Fujian coast during this period was responsible for importing nearly half of China’s opium by the end of the decade, generating enormous wealth while also capturing the attention of powerful hardline anti-opium crusaders. According to men like Huang Juezi and the Daoguang Emperor, coastal Fujian was in a state of crisis. “Treacherous” opium brokers were exporting alarming quantities of silver, and more worrisome, facilitating new relationships between dangerous foreigners and a historically unruly coastal population. But from the perspective of Fujian’s powerful maritime lineages – the most important players in the drug trade – this “crisis” was experienced as a period of growth and opportunity. For them, collaboration with the British presented a chance to enrich the lineage and expand power in the local arena. This dissonance – the differences in how different groups understood the rise of the coastal opium trade – reveals new insights into how the Qing state coexisted with and negotiated with other sources of local power. Moreover, the story of the Fujian opium trade shows how illegal and seemingly anti-state enterprise actually depended on the cooperation of local state actors. The prevalence of corruption and state participation in the opium trade illustrate some of the complex local factors that structured experiences of crisis and intervention under the Qing.

Author

• Peter Dewitt Thilly, Colby College