The decline of the Qing dynasty drove the economy into the ground even before the British started opium there. China loves to blame foreigners for all of their problems, but a lot of it was self inflicted.
Your timeline is a little off. The Qing dynasty decline was partly to blame but be sure that almost 1/4 of Chinese young adults under the age 25 being addicted to illegal opium (thanks to western traders) didn't help. If you think that wasn't a contributing factor, it is being ahistorical.
US and Western Europe is facing this growing opioid issue today (during an economic decline), if we are not careful, we will see very clearly the effects (both socially and economically) of opioids poisoning the gene pool en masse.
No, it was symptomatic of a declining dynasty, it didn’t cause the decline in the first place. And even then, it wasn’t as comprehensive as you describe, the Japanese did way more damage to the Qing than the british did.
In 1905, Roosevelt signed a secret treaty with the Japanese on his Imperial Cruise, allowing them to expand into Korea and the rest of Asia.
I don't blame you for not knowing this history, most US historians are/were unaware. Even congress was unaware of the treaty until the documents were released many many years later (post nobel peace prize being handed out).
It's a big part of why most Americans believed Pearl Harbor was potentially a precursor to a Japanese invasion attempt... When it was actually just a slap for breaking a 4 decade long secret treaty that greenlit Japanese expansion (USA renegged on this treaty during the 2nd Sino-Japanese war).
