The "Evil Spectators?": Opium and Empire's Stakeholders in Twentieth-Century Southeast Asia.

This article examines the pro-opium forces that supported the legal opium trade and taxation under imperial rule in twentieth-century Southeast Asia, challenging dominant narratives that focus primarily on anti-opium activists and their moral crusades. It highlights the diverse and often ambivalent actors involved—including merchants, bankers, colonial officials, labor contractors, and Chinese mine owners—who were linked by economic interests, institutional precedents, and situational alliances rather than a unified pro-opium agenda. Through detailed case studies of opium commerce in British Malaya and French Indochina, the article reveals the complexity and persistence of imperial opium supply chains, as well as the social and economic entanglements that complicated efforts toward prohibition. By centering these pro-opium stakeholders, the article encourages a reevaluation of the imperial origins of global drug control regimes and underscores Southeast Asia’s critical role in the global history of drugs and international relations.