October 8: Today is the anniversary of the Second Opium War, between 1856 and 1860.

Statue of Lin Zexu in New York City, United States. The trade of opium grew into a massive market for England. This resulted in millions of Chinese people becoming addicts.  The English demanded that the opium trade be legalized. Lin Ze-xu, an ambassador for the Emperor of China cut off all trades of opium to China, arresting anyone who sold the drug.

That execrable demonstration of imperialism led by Britain and supported by the United States and France, was the second embarrassment in the history of mankind.

Opium routes between British-controlled India and China.

The First Opium War between 1839 and 1842, declared by Britain to China, was the first historical embarrassment, because the Chinese refused to accept opium imposed by the British immoral Empire. Or they bought and consumed, or they were bound to!

The British forced the Chinese to buy opium produced in British India (the jewel in the British crown). The Treaty of Nanking ended the First World War, forcing the Chinese to buy opium.

The Treaty of Nanjing (Nanking) was imposed peace between Queen Victoria of Britain and the Emperor of China in the Qing Dynasty.

This would be the first so-called "Unequal Treaties" that the Chinese Emperor had to sign the with European powers during the rest of the nineteenth century.