Word: opium
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Dates: during 1970-1979
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Since the Opium War with Britain in the 1840s, pride has not come easy for Chinese, but before England's appalling imperialist attack, China had thought themselves to be the center of the world, the self-sufficient Middle Kingdom. Chinese had looked on their relationships with outside powers as one-sided: They even resented the intrustion of foreign music into the Royal Court as an unnecessary outside influence...
...many as 5,000 men literally taken over the Burmese border town of Tachilek (pop. 10,000). There he had eight heroin factories and extensive warehousing facilities for independent operators. One narcotics agent who has studied Lo carefully told TIME'S Peter Simms: "You could take your opium to Lo and get a warehouse receipt that was as good in Tachilek as a First National City Bank draft is in New York. His chemists would analyze your opium, tell you the cost and give you an exact delivery date after processing. Anything you stored in his warehouse would never...
...last week, Lo was in a Thai prison, his factories and warehouses were leveled and at least 14 tons of his opium had been blown up by the Burmese. Now the war against the opium traffickers will focus more on Thailand...
There, remnants of Chiang Kai-shek's Kuomintang army, swelled by local recruits, have plied the opium trade ever since they gave up trying to harass the Chinese Communists 25 years ago. Last year, Bangkok and the U.S. paid the Kuomintang's two most powerful leaders, General Li Wen-huan and General Tuan Shi-wen, nearly $2,000,000 to get out of the opium traffic. Thai authorities believe that they have not yet ceased their trading. They will be the next targets of the crackdown...
Even the destruction of Li and Tuan's operations will not stop the supply of opium from the Triangle. Dozens of smaller traders wait to step in when big operators disappear. The Triangle's climate and altitude are perfect for the poppy-the cultivation of which provides thousands of villagers with a livelihood. One seasoned opium trader remarked: "In this business, there are not only millions of dollars at stake but thousands of people who have a vested interest in the system. You might as well try to plug up a sieve...