Britain's trade deficit with China had turned …

Years: 1810 - 1810
Britain's trade deficit with China had turned into a surplus by 1804, leading to seven million silver dollars going to India between 1806 and 1809.

Meanwhile, Americans have entered the opium trade with less expensive but inferior Turkish opium and by 1810 have around ten percent of the trade in Canton. (Layton, Thomas N. (1997). The Voyage of the 'Frolic': New England Merchants and the Opium Trade. Stanford University Press.

In the same year the Qing Emperor issues a further imperial edict calling for a total ban on opium in China.

The decree has little effect.

The Qing government, far away in Beijing in the north of China, will be unable to halt opium smuggling in the southern provinces.

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