By now, everyone knows China plays the long game. While Westerners obsess over the next election cycle, Chinese leaders map out five-year plans like dynastic lords plotting for generations. But waiting centuries to exact revenge for the Opium Wars by peddling fentanyl across America? That shows the patience of a stone Buddha — and a level of slow-burn vengeance that’s cold, even for Beijing.
To be fair, China’s target might seem slightly misplaced. After all, it was Britain that spearheaded those wars in the 19th century to keep peddling opium to a collapsing Qing dynasty. But Britain wasn’t alone. The United States, France, and even Russia had a stake in cracking open China’s lucrative markets for tea, silk, and porcelain.
A series of so-called “treaties” gave them access to Chinese ports — but trade wasn’t enough. Consider how Latin American cartels today ignore official trade in favor of smuggling cocaine to Americans. Likewise, Britain and its allies found it far more profitable to peddle opium to the Chinese. And when China resisted, its trading partners cried betrayal of free trade — and declared war.
Now the tables have turned.
The Trump administration managed rare and commendable success in slowing the flow of undocumented immigrants across US borders. But fentanyl is proving far more elusive than human cargo. Smaller than cocaine, easier to produce, and far deadlier, it glides past surveillance tech and border troops like vapor through a sieve.
As always, the suppliers plead innocence. South American cartels claim they’re just meeting American demand. China says it’s merely exporting “precursors” — chemicals, not the finished product — and insists it bears no responsibility for what others do with them.
Only now, it’s Chinese fentanyl killing Americans — not British opium killing Chinese. But, unlike Britain back then, China doesn’t have to launch wars to keep peddling its drug. Meanwhile, fentanyl isn’t the only product China’s pushing. Because TikTok is even more insidious—and might prove more dangerous when all is said and done.
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