There has been a trend in recent years, in economic conversations, to refer to 'BRIC' opportunities. BRIC, which stands for Brazil, Russia, India and China, is another way of saying 'look at all the markets that will open up for us to exploit', as well as the potential threats to US global economic hegemony. Goldman Sachs has a great paper on the ramifications of the rise of the BRICs here.
About a year ago, I read a very interesting book on the history of tea (being an avowed Teaist), Tea: Addiction, Exploitation, and Empire by Roy Moxham, which spend a considerable amount of time on how the English and Dutch exploited their territories in India, Sri Lanka, and China for the Opium and Tea trade. My wife recently read me excerpts from Empress Orchid by Anchee Min, which spent some time on how the British diplomatic efforts within China to make sure that they would continue to buy their opiates. Not only that, but when the Chinese tried to resist the opiate trade from the British, the Brits pummeled their opposition brutally, then made the Chinese pay them reparations for their resistance.
I stumbled upon this item in my inbox this morning showing the historic percent of GDP of China and India versus the United States. We tend to think of China and India as just now being rising powers, but history shows us otherwise.
What I want to hunt down is, during the same period, what the British and Dutch percent of GDP was. Since the majority of profits from the legal opium trade at the time went to the East India Company, it should be reflected in the data, right?
Addition: Here is another interesting graphic on GDP stats, with countries represented as US States. I dont know exactly how this maps to size/contribution, but it's a cute graphic nonetheless.
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