Commissioner Lin implored for the Opium trade to be halted because Opium harmed Chinese society as a whole by reducing their productivity level as a result of addiction an escalating mortality rates. Official diplomatic ties between England and China commenced in 1793 when Lord McCartney led a British delegation to China in order to converse with the Chinese emperor. The result of that meeting was an increase in commercial trade, although commercial relations between the two countries soured when the British replaced paying in monetary currency with payment in kind, most notably, in opium. The Chinese Empire under the Continue reading...