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作曲 : David Stefan Rovics |
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Let me tell you a tale, stir a hornet' s nest |
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Well remembered in the east, most forgotten in the west |
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lt was the 1830’ s and the industrial revolution |
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Was turning Europe into a land of wage slaves and air pollution |
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The history books tell us it was the era of free trade |
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And the entire world hungered for the products Europe made |
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Merchants plied their wares across the seven seas |
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And they brought back things like porcelain, silk and tea |
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Soon all the tea in China could barely keep the west awake |
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Such a thirst for Chinese products as could barely be slaked |
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They liked to drink their tea in cups of Chinese porcelain |
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And those who could afford it loved the silk upon their skin |
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But what made the merchants and the monarchs scream and cry and shout |
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They seemed to have little to offer that China couldn’ t live without |
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They didn’t want their muskets and they didn’t want their wool |
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Which left the British coffers empty and the Chinese coffers full |
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And they called it a "trade war” |
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They called it a trade war and l guess that could be so |
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They say it’ s not free trade if it's just a one-way flow |
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Because apparently free trade is when the west comes out ahead |
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That' s how it is in practice though that's never what is said |
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The fact of history they’ d have us sweep under the rug |
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The one thing they could sell in China was an addictive drug |
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lt had long been banned by Chinese law but the British didn’ t care |
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They packed the opium up in crates and they shipped it there |
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And they called it a "trade war” |
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It all came to a head in 1838 |
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When the soldiers of the emperor torched twenty thousand crates |
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lt took three days to burn it, and when the fires had gone out |
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The Chinese people would soon learn what "free trade" was all about |
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Navies came from Britain, France and the USA |
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In blood, land and silver they would make the Chinese pay |
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Cities levelled, thousands killed, the war was three years long |
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That s how they "opened” China, that'’ s how they got Hong Kong |
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And they called it a "trade war” |
