Economic Imperialism

For centuries, India was the world’s leading supplier of finished cotton

textiles. By the late 18th century, the Industrial Revolution and a new source of cotton from America had allowed Britain to flood the market with inexpensive textiles, pushing independent Indian textile artisans out of business. By the late 19th century, India was producing only raw cotton for Britain, not cotton textiles. After Britain’s textile factories processed India’s cotton, the colonial government sold some of its factory-made or “finished” textiles back to the Indian subcontinent at inflated prices.

Another critical raw material for Britain was the drug opium. The poppies from which it is obtained grew easily on South Asia’s fertile lands, and selling it to the Chinese became very profitable for Britain. The Chinese, as Lin Zexu expressed in the letter to Queen Victoria, objected to the export of opium to their country, and the conflict resulted in the first Opium War. The Chinese paid a heavy price for their attempt to curtail the opium trade and ended up losing much trading independence.