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Andrew S. Terrell - HIST 6393: Empire, War & Revolution!

Fall 2010

• Walker III, William O.. Opium and Foreign Policy: The Anglo-American Search for Order
in Asia, 1912-1954. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1991.

The United States and Great Britain have backed leaders in Asia who either would not, or

could not suppress drug trafficking. Walker asserts this was because opium trade was an aspect

of society and different cultures that allowed for regimes to maintain control and loyalty either

through sources of wealth or extortion labor systems. The opium trade, Walker believes, had its

own political economy. In the century before the regime change, the British dealt readily in the

opium trade. The British found it difficult from 1912 through WWII to balance between

morality and economic prominence when approaching the opium trade specifically in China after

the fall of the Qing dynasty to 1912.

Walker guides his readers through Chinese attempts to reform its policies toward opium

for much of the book. The reason for the focus on China is that it was the middle ground of the

Western powers and changing vantages of opium. Well into the 1930s, the Kuomintang

government found it difficult to reform financial institutions because warlord tribute was largely

funded by the opium trade itself. As Japan moved on China in this decade, the most readily

available source of revenue was, again, opium. The views of opium changed for the United

States from an issue over morality to questions over national security. Throughout WWII and

the years preceding it, the FDR administration was stuck having to deal with Japanese

aggression, British and French colonial intransigence, and Chinese leadership.

Walker’s many arguments focus on the morality issue of narcotics, defining national

interests and future attempts at establishing Western hegemony in Southeast Asia. On the

morality issues, Walker asserts efforts to end drug trafficking was doomed from its inception as

policy directives and the more recent war on drugs suffers from identical problems: an overstated
Andrew S. Terrell - HIST 6393: Empire, War & Revolution! Fall 2010

and counterintuitive assault on one of the oldest political economies in Asia, and the ignorance of

policy makers in Britain and the United States. As the title suggest, Walker believes opium

played a prominent role in foreign policies throughout the twentieth century. His evidence

defends this thesis and his arguments for orders in Asia. However, one has to wonder to what

real extent opium was part of conversations at the highest level for five decades, especially as the

Cold War emerged and the United States moved to a policy of containment at all costs-including

supporting opium hierarchy. Any prior attempts to stop drug trafficking before the outbreak of

the Cold War was for naught as the United States moved to supporting several regimes with

known opium financing.

One aspect that may be worth investigating is the extent to which Cold War Asian states

sought to control supply and demand of opium trafficking. Opium seemed to benefit few, but did

provide income and employment to many. Massive land reforms in the changing political

atmosphere of much of East and Southeast Asia after WWII must have had some ramifications

that unfortunately Walker did not address. Additionally, in more egalitarian systems, education

and modest social mobility for the lowest classes must have also had some effect on the cultural

dependencies of narcotics.

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