| Substance and Symbol explores how opium developed both as a commodity in the expanding global economy and as a cultural fetish that marked China and the Chinese. In the early 1800s the first Protestant missionaries arrived in China and established connections with British East India Company and American traders. As the Qing government made hesitant pronouncements against opium, many western companies considered profits from the trade grounds for its continuation, while the missionaries were caught between their financial relationship with the trading companies and the opium trade stigma. In the period before the first Opium War (1839--42), the problem of opium consumption simultaneously linked together and split apart the interests of the above groups. These problems justified the trade with and within China, and at the same time symbolized what was "wrong with China."; The dissertation illuminates links between global actors previously treated individually: British and American traders and missionaries, and Chinese officials and subjects who had everyday contact with Westerners. I reveal the interconnectedness and co-dependency of the above groups, as well as trace opium's role in representing China to the world. |
