Word: opium
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...Beijing has declared war on Chen's world. Last week, authorities kicked off a nationwide crackdown against China's estimated 150,000 unlicensed Internet caf?s, comparing them to opium dens where young men slowly destroyed themselves a century ago. In mid-June, 25 people were killed when a pair of teens torched a Beijing cybercaf? that had refused them entry. It was the capital's deadliest fire in decades. The central government used the blaze as an excuse to order the closure of thousands of illegal Internet outlets over the next two months, threatening the owners with prosecution...
...many caf?s you try to close, new ones will always appear," he says. "The government should just accept that the Internet is here to stay." Then Chen gets back to interacting with his avatar, a 19th century warlord. And the name of Chen's online alter ego? "The Opium Smoker...
...combustible areas. The Thai-Burmese border is home to dozens of tribal groups whose conflicts, hatreds and alliances are so complex and layered as to be nearly unfathomable. Some want an independent state, others merely the independence to fund their wars against Rangoon or each other by trafficking heroin, opium and amphetamines. Both the Burmese and the Thais use these rebels as proxy warriors against each other. But army border units from the two sides are also known to cooperate to make money from illegal logging and mining. With so many vested interests and rival agendas, it's hard...
...What the East India Company did was to become a global narcotics cartel. To get the silver that paid for the Chinese caffeine fix, the company turned to dealing a far more sinister drug?opium. Company ships never brought opium into China, but its rich Bengal plantations fed the demand. Millions of Chinese would ultimately die as a result of addiction, and the trade set the stage for the Opium Wars in which China lost Hong Kong. This nasty bit of history is recounted near the very end of "Trading Places: The East India Company and Asia," a tantalizing...
...collection of artifacts and images of 234 years of Eastern trade?has raised hackles among British Chinese activists. A small but well-aimed campaign even convinced the library to tweak the exhibit's panel text to better reflect the dark side of the Company's activities in China. "The Opium Wars marked a turning point in history," says campaign organizer Steve Lau, who runs the Web site www.britishbornchinese.co.uk. "Chinese refer to the next century as the 'hundred years of shame.'" The library seems blindsided by the controversy: it hadn't actually ignored the East India Company's opium trade...