Future revolutions

Struggles for independence, some lasting decades (30 years in India) and costing many dead (the French army killed one million Algerians in the Algerian war for Independence (1954-62) were motivated by people's desire to run their countries themselves, without foreign rulers. Latent in this was an urge to assert their pre-colonial group-identity. This was symbolized by the pre-colonial names given to former colonies after independence, by a new anthem and a new national flag. The Vietnamese war for independence (1940-1975) was conducted first against the Japanese (1940 - 45), then against the French (1945-54) and finally against the USA and its South Vietnam ally (1955-75). The US dropped more bombs on Vietnam than all bombs it dropped in WW2 (including on Japan) killing more than 2M Vietnamese. US was defeated in '75. The US claimed it was fighting communist insurgency. "Domino Theory" arguments of Communist expansion were used to justify the "Cold" war. Philip Agee, a former CIA agent in Latin America who defected, told the London paper "Guardian": " It was a time in the 70s when the worst imaginable horrors were going on in Latin America. Argentina, Brazil, Chile, Uruguay, Paraguay, Guatemala, El Salvador were military dictatorships with death squads, all with the backing of the CIA and the US government." ("The Guardian" 10/1/2007) The same happened in South-East Asia. The Vietnamese fought for an independent, united, Vietnam. They did not threaten the USA.

In liberated colonies former colonizers found themselves surrounded by masses of hostile formerly colonized people who nourished justified grievances against them. The best known case is South Africa where the Boers, who emigrated from Holland in the 18^th century, persistently denied Black people the right to vote to Parliament. They passed anti-Black laws instituting strict racial segregation. This regime was known as "Apartheid". The Blacks organized themselves in the "African National Congress" (ANC) and fought under the slogan "One person - one vote".

One leader of this struggle, Nelson Mandela, was imprisoned from 1962 to 1990. In 1994 he became President of a non-racist South Africa. The following table summarizes the racial discrimination in South Africa:

In 1993, after 33 years of armed struggle against Apartheid, and international boycott of South Africa, the racist regime finally caved in. A draft constitution was published, guaranteeing freedom of speech and religion, access to adequate housing and numerous other benefits, and explicitly prohibiting discrimination on almost any ground. Finally, at midnight on 26–27 April 1994, the old flag was lowered, followed by the raising of the new rainbow flag and singing of the new anthem, "Nkosi Sikele Africa" ("God Bless Africa"). The election went off peacefully amidst a palpable feeling of goodwill throughout the country. The ANC won 62.7% of the vote, and Nelson Mandela became President of the new South Africa. The election decided also provincial governments, and the ANC won in all but two provinces. The racists captured most of the white and Colored vote and became the official opposition party. Since then, 27 April is celebrated as a public holiday in South Africa, known as Freedom Day. Contrary to expectations the transition from the racist regime to the democratic regime passed without serious bloodshed. Mandela forbade acts of revenge and set up a unique institution - the Truth and Reconciliation Committee.

The Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC) was a court-like body. Anybody who felt they had been a victim of violence could come forward and be heard at the TRC. Perpetrators of violence could also give testimony and request amnesty from prosecution. The hearings made international news and many sessions were broadcast on national television. The TRC was a crucial component of the transition to full and free democracy in South Africa and, despite some flaws, is generally - though not universally - regarded as successful. The peaceful transition from a racist colonial regime that brutally oppressed Africans for more than a century serves as an example that such a transition is possible. It is worth noting that the Black majority in South Africa did not set up a regime that discriminates against the White minority.

In 1979 a revolution overthrew the Iranian Shah and his regime. It was led by an 80-year old Islamic clergyman, Ayatollah Khomeini. This event, known as "The Islamic Revolution" took everybody by surprise. It was utterly unexpected. It lacked all customary causes of revolution - defeat at war, economic crisis, peasant rebellion, or disgruntled military. It produced great change at great speed. It overthrew a regime protected by a loyal modern army and security service. It replaced a secular monarchy by a theocracy. Secular laws were replaced by religious laws.

The outcome - an Islamic Republic under the guidance of the 80-year-old exiled clergyman - was supported by popular demonstrations in the capital Teheran. This dealt a resounding blow to many reforms, and to all established theories of history. All historical theories failed to predict - or explain - this revolution. Needless to add, no Marxist expected such a revolution a decade after lunar landings, TV, computers, heart transplants, and birth-control pills. Few realized that these inventions contributed to bringing about this revolution. This revolution was motivated by cultural frustration not by economic misery, therefore all Marxists failed to predict it, or to explain it after it occurred. Iran's former ruler, Shah Reza Pahlevi, came to power in 1941. He was determined to modernize Iran. Opposition to his rule came from two opposing sectors: the Left, and the Religious. The Left opposed his aggressive capitalism. The religious opposed his anti-Islamic policies. The clergy had influence on poorer Iranians who were the most religious, most traditional, and most alienated by modernization.

Ayatollah Khomeini first came to prominence in early 1963, leading opposition to the Shah and his reforms. The shah's reforms gave voting rights to women, allowed members of religious minorities to be elected to office, and introduced laws granting women legal equality in marital issues. This caused Khomeini to declare that the Shah "is destroying Islam in Iran".

Khomeini publicly denounced the Shah as a "wretched miserable man" and was arrested on June 5, 1963. This caused major riots throughout Iran with police shooting to quell it. Later police files admitted some 380 were killed. Khomeini was kept under house arrest for 8 months and released. He continued to agitate against the Shah on issues including Iran's close cooperation with Israel and especially the Shah's extending of diplomatic immunity to American military personnel. In 1964 Khomeini was sent into exile where he remained until the revolution.

Following the 1963 anti-western riots a period of calm followed. Those who see only events were convinced that the anti-western campaign was over, but those who see processes knew that cultural frustration of many Iranians was accumulating. Dissent was suppressed by the Savak, the Shah's secret service, but the movement for Islamic revival spread and began to undermine the Westernization that was the basis of the Shah's secular regime. Islamic thinkers fought back with ideas. Jala Al-e Ahmad's idea of Gharbzadegi (the plague of Western culture), Shariati's leftist interpretation of Islam, and Morteza Morahhari's popularized retellings of the Shi'a faith, all spread and gained listeners, readers, supporters. Khomeini developed and propagated his theory that Islam requires an Islamic government by wilayat al-faqih, i.e. rule by the leading Islamic jurists. In a series of lectures in early 1970, later published as a book, Khomeini argued that Islam requires obedience to religious law alone, and for this to occur Muslims must not only be guided and advised by Islamic jurists but ruled by them, i.e. the leading Islamic jurist or jurists must run the government.

The Islamic revolution in Iran was a result of cultural frustration. The Shah's campaign against Islam exacerbated the cultural frustration of Iranian Muslims but it was the flooding of society by modern Western products like TV, cars, computers, birth-control pills, Rock and Roll music, that created in many Iranians the feeling that their identity was eroding. This brings to mind Marx's comment in the Communist Manifesto that the Bourgeoisie and " the cheap prices of its commodities are the heavy artillery with which it batters down all Chinese Walls". However, it isn't just the prices but the commodities themselves that batter all traditional cultural identities. The Internet, TV, mobile phones, and birth-control pills, are not just 'commodities'. The birth-control pill is not just one more commodity like a shirt. Western commodities undermine traditional culture and taboos imposed on sexual relations by all religions. All religions insist on sex for procreation, denouncing sex for pleasure as a sin. Birth-control pills (1957) enabled women to enjoy sex without fear of pregnancy. Women enjoying sex for pleasure are an abomination in all religions. Youth everywhere loves the new sexual freedom. The clergy everywhere hates it. No wonder all traditional cultural identities (including Western ones) are eroding. Add to this the flood of Western films seen on TV everywhere, when most traditional cultures discriminate against women and denounce kissing in public as pornography. Youth ignoring traditional taboos threatens every 'Group Identity'. Traditionalists realize their cultures are losing their grip on the mind of their young. The great anthropologist Ruth Benedict described this in a short interview with an old Indian Chief in the USA : " A Chief of the 'Digger Indians' as the Californians call them, talked to me a great deal about the ways of his people in the old days. He was a Christian and a leader among his people … but when he talked of the Shamans who had transformed themselves into bears before his eyes in the bear dance his hands trembled and his voice broke with excitement. It was an incomparable thing the power his people had had in the old days. … One day, without transition, Ramon broke his descriptions of grinding mesquite and preparing acorn soup. "In the beginning", he said, "God gave every people a cup, a cup of clay, and from this cup they drank their life" … In the mind of this humble Indian this figure of speech was clear and full of meaning. "They all dipped in the water" he continued, "but their cups were different. Our cup is broken now. It has passed away." … He did not mean that there was any question of the extinction of his people. But he had in mind the loss of something that had equal value to that of loss of life itself, the whole fabric of his people's standards and beliefs. There were other cups of life left and they held perhaps the same water, but the loss was irreparable. It was no matter of tinkering with an addition here, lopping off something there. The modeling had been fundamental, it was somehow all of a piece. It had been their own". ("An anthropologist remembers" by Margaret Mead. Houghton Mifflin. .N.Y 1959, p. 38)

Actually, it had been their sense of "Us". Its loss is the loss of their (group) identity. The group, not the individuals, loses its uniqueness, and therefore ceases to exist.

Animals exist without being aware of existing. Socialized human beings are aware of existing. This awareness has two modes: 1) An individual mode, and 2) A group mode. Individuals are aware of being different from other individuals, from parents, brothers, sisters, friends. Group existence depends on the awareness of individuals that they belong to a particular group (a tribe, a nation, a faith, gender, a music band or a sports club) different from other groups. Awareness of identity is awareness of uniqueness. Group identity motivates politics. The British working class sense of "Us and Them" is an example. Without a sense of class-identity there is no class struggle, only economic struggle. Today the sense of "Us" is eroding in all cultural groups.

All cultural groups today undergo a process of erosion of their group-identity. Groups whose identities erode split into three: 1) Isolationists. 2) Assimilationists. 3) Adaptationists. Isolationists try to preserve traditional identity by efforts to isolate themselves from any change. Assimilationists give up their traditional identity and assimilate into the majority's identity. Adaptationists try to adapt the traditional identity to the new circumstances by accepting some change. This cannot preserve the former identity. Isolationists see change in traditional group-identity as its extinction, but today most young people seek change. Lack of change implies continuation of outdated cultural constraints. When group-identity changes isolationists feel attacked. They are indeed attacked, not physically but culturally. The attack is from within, not from outside. Isolationists become sects fixated on some "Eternal Truth". In today's world most young people seek change of music, morality, dress, and image. Blaming the "West" for generating cultural change is no cure. It is a rearguard Defence action. It doesn't slow down the process of cultural change. The Tsunami of Western products shows no sign of abating, with the Internet, mobile phones, and music MP pods as its latest artillery, the process of change in all cultures cannot be stopped. Conflicts between Isolationists and Adaptationists exist within every traditional culture. No act of revenge inflicted on Western culture by Isolationists will stop the Tsunami of Western products flooding all cultures. No acts of despair like destroying the World Trade Centre in New York on September 11, 2001 will stop the process of change in all civilizations. Despite all efforts by supporters of the veil those who reject the veil will prevail. Eroding group-identities cannot be preserved, protected, isolated, or resurrected. The only viable alternative is to replace the outdated cultural identity by a new group-identity. This is no easy task but there is no other way. Attempts to provide political solutions to cultural problems are doomed to failure. Cultural problems require cultural solutions.

In the last quarter of the 20^th Century imperialism has transformed itself. Instead of using military force US prefers economic means of cheap - even free - grain (relieving the US of its surpluses) to feed many countries who thus become dependent on the US for grain. IMF and World Bank loans now force most former colonies to work for repaying interest and loans. This retains imperialism in a benign disguise.

13. POLITICS OF POISONING

As soon as the steam engine changed production methods, industrial by-products began to pollute the soil, the water, and the air. Today the air we breathe, the water we drink, and almost everything we eat contains chemicals accumulating to quantities harmful to our health. One of the first to draw attention to industrial pollution and warn about its consequences was Marx's co-worker Friedrich Engels. Although he was a socialist advocating a state-owned economy his warnings were ignored by all state-owned economies. Some of whom became major polluters. During the 150 years since the industrial revolution industrial pollution has become a major health hazard to all living organisms everywhere on the planet.

Industrial pollution has become particularly acute in the second half of the 20^th Century. In 1962 American zoologist Rachel Carson published her book "Silent Spring" which launched the modern anti-pollution movement. The book was widely read and inspired public concern about pesticides affecting insects and birds. It brought about the ban of the pesticide DDT in 1972 in the United States.

Carson proposed a biotic approach to pest control as an alternative to DDT, arguing that DDT had been found to cause thinner egg shells and result in birds' reproductive problems and death. She accused the chemical industry of spreading disinformation about DDT and public officials of accepting industry’s claims uncritically. Her claim highlighted the lethal combination of two accomplices 1) Directors of industry and 2) State officials. Both provide motives and means to by-pass public concern about pollution. In 1971 an international environmental organization called "Greenpeace" was founded in Vancouver, Canada. Most people at that time viewed its activities as esoteric but as the American anthropologist Margaret Mead said:" Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed, citizens, can change the world. Indeed, it's the only thing that ever has.” "Greenpeace" gained credibility for its campaigns to stop nuclear bomb testing, pollution, and hunting causing extinction of many species. Later the focus of "Greenpeace" turned to other environmental issues, like sea-bottom trawling, global warming, forest destruction, nuclear waste, and genetic engineering. "Greenpeace" now has national and regional offices in 45 countries worldwide.

In 1985 Greenpeace organized a protest against France's nuclear bomb testing at Moruroa atoll in the Pacific Ocean. This prompted the French government to sink the Greenpeace ship "Rainbow Warrior", in Auckland, New Zealand, in 1985.

The Warrior had sailed from the North Pacific where it assisted the evacuation of the inhabitants of Rongelap Atoll in the Marshall Islands, who suffered health damage from radioactive fallout from American nuclear testing during the 1950s and 1960s. Greenpeace planned to send a flotilla of vessels protesting against imminent French nuclear bomb tests at Moruroa. On the evening of July 10 1985 French frogmen attached bombs to the hull of the ship. Rainbow Warrior sank, killing Greenpeace photographer Fernando Pereira. New Zealand police traced the bombing to Major Alain Mafart and Captain Dominique Prieure of the French Secret Service, posing as a Swiss honeymoon couple. New-Zealand police arrested them but attempts of New Zealand authorities to extradite their superiors from France, failed. The French government initially denied any involvement in the bombing, but pressure from French and international media forced it to admit, on September 22, that the French secret service carried out the bombing. Subsequent investigations revealed that Christine Cabon, a French secret service agent, infiltrated the Auckland office of Greenpeace New Zealand, posing as a volunteer, in order to gather information about Greenpeace’s plans. The fact that French nuclear weapons have no military purpose, not even as a "deterrent", compounds the absurdity of this crime. This episode shows how far governments will go to foil legitimate acts of protest by citizens

Today we suffer from air pollution, water pollution, soil pollution, radioactive contamination, noise pollution, and global warming caused by carbon fuel emissions. Pollution effects are no longer confined to local areas. They have become global. Problems of smog in major cities are compounded by global weather changes due to global warming and melting of the icecaps at the poles. The entire planet is continuously contaminated and poisoned by industrial waste. The Internet has much material on this and those concerned should consult it. Former US Vice-President Al Gore made an important film on global warming available on the Internet at http://movies.peekvid.com/s4055/. It reveals horrifying global hazards.

A recent case highlighting the political aspects of this issue is that of General Motors' electrical car EV1 (see "Who killed the electric car?" on the Internet). In 1989 research found that in Los-Angeles alone 25% of the people aged 16-25 suffer chronic lung diseases like cancer, coughing, asthma, etc. The State of California passed a law (1990) that by 1998 only car manufacturers offering 2% of their cars with Zero Poisonous Emission would be allowed to sell cars in California. To jump this hurdle GM built the EV1 (Electric Vehicle 1) car and also filed a suit in court demanding the repeal of this law. President Bush’s administration also filed a law suit to repeal this law. By 1996 GM had built 1100 EV1s and leased them to people in California for $250 - $500 per month. The EV1 is driven only by an electric motor powered by batteries and emits no gasses. It is silent, needs almost no maintenance, is cheap to manufacture and simple to use. There was considerable demand for this car. On 24/4/2003 GM won its case and the law was annulled. In 2005 GM called back all the EV1s. As these cars were leased on a non-renewable 3-year lease, they were all returned to GM despite the demand for more cars. By March 15, 2005 the last 78 in storage had been transferred to GM's desert "Proving Grounds" in Mesa, Arizona where they were crushed. GM even collected the specimen exhibited in a transport museum. Some light on the Federal law suit against California's Zero Emission law is shed by the fact that President Bush’s White House chief of staff Andrew H. Card Jr., who filed the lawsuit against California's zero-emission law, is a former GM lobbyist. Vice President Richard Cheney is a major shareholder in Halliburton Energy Services, a multinational oil-corporation based in Houston, Texas, and Condoleezza Rice, Bush's Secretary of State was a member of the Board of directors of Chevron Oil Corporation. Bush's fight against the Zero Emission law makes sense. Once again the lethal combination of BB economy and rule by representatives managed to sidestep citizens' struggles against pollution.

Oil-companies fearing reduced sales and car manufacturers fearing reduced profits (as electric cars use only an electrical motor and no 4-stroke engine or gear box) fought against the Zero Emission law. They used their influence on political representatives, and won. When electric cars become popular use of petrol will drop sharply so oil-companies do their best to postpone this development. Oil companies' response to global warming caused by burnt petrol is like tobacco growers and cigarette manufacturers' response to cancer caused by smoking. They demand freedom to sell profitable products despite all the damage they cause people and the planet.

Big business sacrificing peoples' health at the altar of profit is nothing new. The wars waged by Britain against China in the 19^th century for the right to sell opium freely in China are a clear and typical example. The following description is from the excellent Internet site of Ken Anderson on The British Empire.

Opium had long been grown in India but the British "East India Company" turned it into an immense industry.  No land in the provinces of India, Bihar and Benares could be sown with poppies without the company’s permission and not an ounce of opium could leave India without passing through the company’s control.

In 1821, the district of Sarun, in Bihar province, had between 5000 and 6500 acres of the poppies; by 1829 this had risen to 12,000 acres. At the company’s depot the opium was pressed into fist-sized cake, wrapped in a crust of dried poppy leaves and packed into wooden chests.  The average chest contained about 125 lbs. An opium addict was expected to consume 40 grains per day; one chest therefore represented a month’s supply for 8,000 addicts.  However it must be noted that addiction can come from twenty or even ten grains per day; at forty grains a day, an addict is in a very bad way.  It is estimated that there were between 10 and 12 million addicts in China by the 1840’s.  The East India Company strove to minimize addiction in India, directing its opium to China.  It wrote in 1817 to the governor in Bengal expressing hope that ’His measurers would tend to restrain the use of this pernicious drug”.  In that year the directors of the East India Company sold over 500,000 lbs of opium to Chinese smugglers.  The East India Co. treated India's growers as serfs.  In 1839 a grower was paid three and a half rupees (6 shillings) for a 29.5 oz of raw opium. A grower earned less than three pence a day during the harvest which rarely lasted more than a fortnight. A share-cropper with wife and three children might hope to earn 13 shillings as one years' income from growing opium. In 1837 it cost the company about £15 to produce a chest of opium on its own territory and bring it to Calcutta. There it was auctioned to exporters. Theoretically the company’s responsibility for the opium ended at Calcutta wharves. From 1800 to 1837 the company made average profits of 465% from its opium auctions in Calcutta.  

In 1830 a missionary in China noted the booming opium trade off Lintin Island: “the boats are seldom interfered with as the ‘free traders’ can afford to pay the mandarins much better for not fighting than the government will for doing their duty. The Chinese coast from Macao to Chusan is now the cruising ground of twenty opium ships.  In Macao besides several houses engaged in the sale of opium on a large scale, fifty or sixty smaller dealers distribute it as ‘catty’ or ‘cake’ and preparation of the drug for smoking gives employment to ten time more Chinese."

Because so many Cantonese were involved in the opium business, as middlemen, dealers, processors and smokers, the English traders enjoyed their support. In fact, Chinese sentiment in Canton did not turn against the English until 1841, when the hardships of war made themselves felt. Buying opium cancelled out China’s positive trade balance, paid for by tea. The drain on China’s silver reserves threatened inflation and caused friction between the envoys in London, Peking and Canton.

The English trade superintendent, Captain Charles Elliot, neither backed nor controlled the opium smugglers. His powers were vague, his ammunition blanks.  Lord Palmerston the British Foreign Secretary (later Prime Minister) instructed the first Canton superintendent Lord Napier in 1834, “It is not desirable that you should encourage such adventures as opium smuggling but neither have you any authority to interfere or protect them”. This waffling showed Britain's lack of policy.  The situation drifted, and a Peking official proposed legalizing the opium trade.  He argued that since the trade could not be stopped, it was better to admit the drug, tax it and stop the outflow of silver bullion, by making opium saleable only by barter; but the Emperor sacked the official expressing these views.  Eventually by way of a great show, a number of Chinese opium dealers were executed.  This did nothing to stop the drug piling up but did throw the Cantonese market into panic.  In 1838 the Viceroy got another imperial reprimand, and to exonerate himself he seized a few cases of opium and expelled two notorious traders; one was William Jardine, owner of Jardine Mathieson & Co. (who later founded Hong-Kong as an opium export outpost in China and used profits from opium to found the biggest Bank in Hong-Kong). Meanwhile Captain Elliot closed the warehouses and cleared the Canton River of opium ships. He assured the Chinese government there would be no more British intervention to help opium smugglers. He was wrong.

New Years' Day 1839 saw the arrival of memos from the ‘Vermilion pencil of the Celestial Throne’ of China proclaiming the death penalty for opium smoking. A new commissioner named Lin Tse-hsu, arrived in Canton in March 1839.  He had emerged from poverty to become one of the most powerful scholars and officials in imperial China.  He told the Canton traders what he was going to do and then did it.  This left the English, used to years of paper threats from Peking, flabbergasted. Lin was un-bribable. He spent his first week in Canton probing the opium trade and issuing orders to the Chinese. The English thought it was grossly peremptory but Lin explained that “imperial laws of the Manchu dynasty applied to barbarians equally as they did to the citizens of China”. "Barbarians" meant "Foreigners".

In response Palmerston prepared a war. On September 4th 1840 there was a skirmish between British and Chinese ships in the Canton estuary, which the Chinese claimed as a victory but in fact no one was hurt. On November 3rd, a more serious engagement took place off Chuenpi.  The Chinese lost a dozen of their ships.  

Lin briskly asked to be visited by Lancelot Dent of Dent & co., the biggest eastern trader after Jardine Mathieson. Four days passed and Dent did not enter Canton to see the commissioner. Lin began to assemble Chinese troops on the Canton river.  Dent still failed to appear.  Lin lost interest in Dent and decided the man he wanted was Elliot.  By the evening of the 24th when Elliot dropped anchor, Lin had surrounded the foreigners' compound with soldiers and the English were now imprisoned. No one could get in or out. The whole foreign community in Canton was hostage to opium.  Elliot, un-armed, (a fact which Lin did not believe) did the only thing he could and gave in.  He agreed to hand over the opium and committed the British government to compensate opium traders for their losses.  All opium in the Canton area - 20,283 chests - was now theoretically in Lin’s hands.  Lin now sent new demands to Elliot, who read them with horror. Her Majesty’s government must not only withdraw from the opium trade but stop making opium. Any vessel carrying opium in Chinese waters would be confiscated.

On June 21st a British Navy force appeared off Macao; 20 warships carried 4,000 troops. It anchored for a few days, then sailed away and the Chinese thought they had returned home. They were wrong. The British had sailed north to attack the port of Tinghai. The people there had no hint of British plans. They assumed the vessels were opium carriers and were pleased that the trade was coming to their town. Then the fleet opened fire. Nine minutes later the broadsides from 15 cruisers turned most of Tinghai into rubble. English troops landed and swept through the town.  The English occupied Chusan which, they had wanted all along.  The Chinese forces with their outdated weaponry and their ancient belief in their spiritual superiority stood no chance against the British forces. Soon Shanghai at the mouth of the Yangtse river fell to the British in June. The British then sailed into Nanking.  On August 29th 1842, The Treaty of Nanking was signed and the Opium War was over.

This war was a taste of what was to come after the British Expeditionary force arrived on June 21st 1840.  The Chinese had no idea of what they were facing and their contempt for foreigners ruined their strategic planning.  Chinese officers took the English musket as a sign of weakness.  The sight of a British steam-powered paddle-wheeler was so novel that the Chinese sailors were thunderstruck when they saw it.

 The treaty of Nanking imposed on the Chinese was weighted entirely to the British side. Its first and fundamental demand was for British "extra-territoriality" this meant that all British citizens would be subjected to British, not Chinese, law if they committed any crime on Chinese soil. The British would no longer have to pay tribute to the imperial administration in order to trade with China, and they gained five open ports for British trade: Canton, Shanghai, Foochow, Ningpo, and Amoy. No restrictions were placed on British trade, and, as a consequence, the opium trade more than doubled in the three decades following the Treaty of Nanking. The treaty established England as the "most favoured nation" trading with China; this granted to Britain any trading rights granted to other countries. Two years later, China was forced to sign similar treaties with France and the United States.
Lin Tse-hsü was disgraced and was sent to a remote appointment in Turkestan. In a series of letters he began to urge the imperial government to adopt Western technology, arms, and methods of warfare. He was the first to see that the war was won by technological superiority. His influence, however, dwindled to nothing, so his admonitions fell on deaf ears. It wasn't until a second Opium War with England that Chinese officials began to take seriously the adoption of Western technologies.

Even after the Treaty of Nanking, the British were incensed by what they felt were treaty violations. The Chinese were angered by mass emigration of Chinese nationals to America and the Caribbean to work in slave labour conditions. These conflicts turned into a war in 1856 that ended in 1860. A second set of treaties imposed on China further humiliated the imperial Chinese government. Most humiliating were the legalization of opium and the unrestricted propagation of Christianity in all regions of China (see: http://myweb.tiscali.co.uk/kenanderson/histemp/chinaopium.html).

The Opium wars cast doubts on the concept of "civilization". What is so civilized in forcibly imposing addiction on others for profit? When Gandhi was asked what he thought of "Western civilization" he replied: "It will be a good thing"

Selling opium and cigarettes is motivated by the quest for profits by BB economies. However, big government economies, seeking power rather than profits, are big polluters too, as can be seen from the table below. State officials managing industry do not behave differently from managers of private industries.

The two top curves show China and USA, the third - Russia. Both USA's BB and China's BG fail to introduce measures to reduce pollution because their politicians - like all politicians - are concerned more about their power than about citizens’ health. Their power, like that of industry managers depends on increasing production.

The only way to abolish this pattern of behaviour is by setting up a political system where all citizens - not politicians - decide all issues of society.

Facing the ominous pollution by emission of gases causing global warming, the UN started to convene conferences and formulate treaties committing UN member nations to reduce pollution, especially emission gases causing global warming.

The United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC or FCCC) is an international environmental treaty produced at the United Nations Conference on Environment and Development (UNCED), informally known as the "Earth Summit", held in Rio de Janeiro in 1992. The treaty aimed at reducing emissions of gases causing global warming (GHG). The treaty as originally framed set no limits on greenhouse gas emissions for individual nations and contained no enforcement provisions; it is therefore considered legally non-binding. It included provisions for updates (called "protocols") that would set mandatory emission limits. The principal update is the Kyoto Protocol, which is better known than the UNFCCC itself. It was opened for signature on May 9, 1992. It entered into force on March 21 1994. Its stated objective is "to achieve stabilization of greenhouse gas concentrations in the atmosphere at a low enough level to prevent dangerous anthropogenic interference with the climate system." Signatories are split into three groups:

• 
  Industrialized countries
  
• 
  Industrial countries which pay for costs of developing countries
  
• 
  Developing countries.
  

Industrial countries agreed to reduce their emissions (particularly carbon dioxide) to levels below their 1990 emissions levels. If they cannot do so, they must buy emission credits or invest in conservation.

Developing countries have no immediate restrictions under the UNFCCC. This serves three purposes:

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  It avoids restrictions on growth because pollution is strongly linked to industrial growth, and developing economies can potentially grow very fast.
  
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  It means that they cannot sell emissions credits to industrialized nations to permit those nations to over-pollute.
  
• 
  They get money and technologies from the developed countries.
  

Developing countries are not expected to implement their commitments under the Convention unless developed countries provide funding and technology, and this has lower priority than economic development and dealing with poverty

Some opponents of the Convention argue that the split between developed and developing countries is unfair, and that both developing countries and developed countries need to reduce their emissions. Some countries claim that their costs of following the Convention requirements impose a burden too big for their economy.

These were some of the reasons given by President George W. Bush of the United States for not forwarding the signed Kyoto Protocol to the United States Senate.

On September 8, 1992 President Bush (father of the President George W. Bush) gave the UNFCCC to the U.S. Senate for ratification, and the Foreign Relations Committee approved the treaty (Senate Exec. Report 102-55) October 1, 1992. The Senate ratified it on October 7 1992, with a two-thirds majority vote. President Bush signed the ratification on October 13, 1992, depositing it with U.N. Secretary General.

According to the UNFCCC, having received over 50 countries' ratification, it entered into force March 24, 1994. Since then signatories have been meeting annually in Conferences of the Parties (COP) to assess progress in dealing with climate change, and beginning in the mid-1990s, to negotiate the Kyoto Protocol to establish legally binding obligations for developed countries to reduce their greenhouse gas emissions.

The Kyoto Protocol to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change was adopted by COP-3 in December 1997 in Kyoto, Japan, after intensive negotiations. Most industrialized nations and some central European economies in transition agreed to legally binding reductions in greenhouse gas emissions of an average of 6 to 8% below 1990 levels between the years 2008-2012, defined as the first emissions budget period. The United States would be required to reduce its total emissions by an average of 7% below 1990 levels; however neither the Clinton administration nor the (later) Bush administration sent the protocol to Congress for ratification. The Bush administration explicitly rejected the protocol in 2001. The protocol was opened for signature December 11 1997 in Kyoto, Japan and entered into force February 16 2005.

US President George W. Bush has indicated that he does not intend to submit the treaty for ratification, not because he does not support the Kyoto principles, but because of the exemption granted to China (the world's second largest emitter of carbon dioxide). Bush also opposes the treaty because of the strain he believes the treaty would put on the economy; he emphasizes the uncertainties which he asserts are present in the climate change issue. Furthermore, the U.S. is concerned with broader exemptions of the treaty. For example, the U.S. does not support the split between Industrial countries and Developing countries.

Bush said of the treaty: "This is a challenge that requires a 100% effort; ours, and the rest of the world's. The world's second-largest emitter of greenhouse gases is the People's Republic of China. Yet, China was entirely exempted from the requirements of the Kyoto Protocol. India and Germany are among the top emitters. Yet, India was also exempt from Kyoto … America's unwillingness to embrace a flawed treaty should not be read by our friends and allies as any abdication of responsibility. To the contrary, my administration is committed to a leadership role on the issue of climate change … Our approach must be consistent with the long-term goal of stabilizing greenhouse gas concentrations in the atmosphere."

The atmosphere polluting gases (GHG) data tables contain estimates for: CO₂ - Carbon dioxide. CH₄ – Methane. N₂O - Nitrous oxide. PFCs - Perfluorocarbons HFCs – Hydrofluorocarbons. SF₆ - Sulphur hexafluoride.

The data contain the most recently submitted information, covering the period from 1990 to 2004, to the extent the data have been provided.