Chinese state media on Tuesday slammed online games as “spiritual opium,” sending stocks of the country’s largest video game company tumbling. Economic Information Daily — a newspaper ...

He asserts that China was the world`s most powerful nation but was unable to stop drug smuggling or the use of opium among its people. He implies […] Skip to content.

Chinese state media has called video games “spiritual opium.” NurPhoto via Getty Images. But Epic’s troubles in China began long before this year’s gaming crackdown.

In 'Smoke and Ashes,' Amitav Ghosh draws comparisons between America's modern opioid crisis and the West's flooding of China with opium in the 18th century.

China was soundly defeated. Among other outcomes, it ceded the vast port city of Hong Kong to Britain at the end of the First Opium War. Hong Kong returned to China's dominion in 1997.

Dr. W. H. G. Aspland, General Secretary of the International Anti-Opium Association in Peking, says: “In two districts in South Fu-Kien the military authorities are planning to raise $15,000,000 ...

A key feature of China’s opium epidemic is that it was state-sponsored. In the early 19th century , British merchants wanted to sell Indian-grown opium in China, while Chinese officials ...

Consumption of opium in China skyrocketed, as did profits. The Daoguang Emperor became alarmed by the millions of drug addicts — and the flow of silver leaving China.

In the late 1830's, the Chinese decided to do something about it and ordered the destruction of all the opium held in British workhouses. There would be tragic consequences for China in the First ...