British opium trade in China

E140347

aspect of British imperialism aspect of Sino-British relations historical event illicit drug trade opium trade

The British opium trade in China was a 19th-century system of illicit narcotics commerce, largely driven by British merchants and the East India Company, that flooded China with opium, destabilized its society and economy, and ultimately provoked the Opium Wars.

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All labels observed (1)

Label	Occurrences
British opium trade in China canonical	1

Statements (56)

Predicate	Object
instanceOf	aspect of British imperialism ⓘ aspect of Sino-British relations ⓘ historical event ⓘ illicit drug trade ⓘ opium trade ⓘ
beganBefore	Anglo-Chinese War ⓘ surface form: First Opium War
causeOf	Anglo-Chinese War ⓘ surface form: First Opium War corruption among Qing officials ⓘ economic destabilization in Qing China ⓘ escalation of Sino-British tensions ⓘ growth of coastal smuggling networks ⓘ silver outflow from China ⓘ social disruption in Qing China ⓘ widespread opium addiction in China ⓘ
consequence	expansion of Western influence in China ⓘ long-term trauma in Chinese national memory ⓘ opening of treaty ports in China ⓘ weakening of Qing sovereignty ⓘ
controlledBy	British East India Company ⓘ
economicMotivation	correction of British trade deficit with China ⓘ profit maximization for British merchants ⓘ revenue for British Indian administration ⓘ
keyActor	British East India Company ⓘ City of London merchants ⓘ surface form: British private merchants Chinese coastal merchants ⓘ Chinese smugglers ⓘ Indian opium producers ⓘ
legalStatusInBritishIndia	state-monopolized ⓘ
legalStatusInChina	illegal ⓘ
linkedTo	Canton System ⓘ Treaty of Nanking ⓘ surface form: Treaty of Nanjing unequal treaties ⓘ
mainCommodity	opium ⓘ
opposedBy	Chinese scholar-officials ⓘ Lin Zexu ⓘ Qing dynasty ⓘ surface form: Qing government
primaryExporter	United Kingdom ⓘ
primaryImporter	Qing dynasty ⓘ surface form: Qing China
productionBase	Bengal Presidency ⓘ Bombay Presidency ⓘ Malwa-Nimar region ⓘ surface form: Malwa region
regulatedBy	British colonial authorities in India ⓘ surface form: British colonial administration in India
relatedConflict	Anglo-Chinese War ⓘ surface form: First Opium War Opium Wars ⓘ surface form: Second Opium War
timePeriod	19th century ⓘ late 18th century ⓘ
tookPlaceIn	Bengal ⓘ Canton ⓘ India ⓘ Malwa ⓘ Pearl River Delta ⓘ Qing dynasty ⓘ surface form: Qing Empire South China Sea ⓘ
tradeMechanism	auction system in Calcutta ⓘ offshore receiving ships ⓘ smuggling ⓘ

How these facts were elicited

The pipeline generated the facts above by prompting gpt-5.1 with this entity's name + description and the instruction below.

Instruction

You are a knowledge base construction expert. Given a subject entity and a description of it, return factual statements that you know for the subject as a JSON list of dictionaries(triples), where keys must be "subject", "predicate" and "object". The number of facts may be very high, between 25 to 50 or more, for very popular subjects. For less popular subjects, the number of facts can be very low, like 5 or 10.

# Requirements
- If you don't know the subject at all, return an empty list.
- If the subject is not a named entity, return an empty list.
- Include at least one triple where predicate is "instanceOf".
- Do not get too wordy.
- Separate several objects into multiple triples with one object.

Input

Subject: British opium trade in China
Description of subject: The British opium trade in China was a 19th-century system of illicit narcotics commerce, largely driven by British merchants and the East India Company, that flooded China with opium, destabilized its society and economy, and ultimately provoked the Opium Wars.

Referenced by (1)

Full triples — surface form annotated when it differs from this entity's canonical label.

Opium Wars → hasCause → British opium trade in China ⓘ