Opium came long before British

H. C. Tsui (South China Morning Post, January 13) was good enough to reply to my letter of December 31. Whilst it was a generally well-reasoned letter, I must take issue with two points.

Firstly, I did not attempt to exculpate the West from being partially responsible for the ills of the less technologically developed countries in the 19th century: I merely stated that it was not a true reflection of recorded history to place all the blame on the West. The Chinese Government of the 19th century was weak, corrupt and inefficient. Its officials, with some notable exceptions, connived in or tacitly allowed the continuation of the opium trade.

Thus China itself must take some of the blame for the evils of that trade being inflicted on its people.

Secondly, Mr Tsui writes that it is ''now accepted throughout the world that the West did systematically introduce (opium) to 'old' China''. Perhaps, but let us look at some historical sources.

Immanuel Hsu in his monumental work The Rise of Modern China, writes that the drug was first reported to have been brought into China by the Arabs or Turks in the eighth century.

It was primarily used as medicine at the time.

By 1620, however, the practice of smoking opium was taking place in Formosa and by 1660 was widespread in Fukkien and Kwantung provinces.

The taking of the drug had become such a serious problem by 1729 that the Emperor Chia Thing prohibited its consumption by imperial decree.

The decree had little effect. G.B. Endacott in his History of Hong Kong is largely in accord with Mr Hsu although he adds that the smoking of opium had been regarded as a ''serious national problem'' by the T'ang government as early as the 17th century.

This is corroborated by the Encyclopaedia Brittanica.

The importance of these dates is that the first of the several British delegations to Peking was not until 1792, led by Lord McCartney, more than 70 years after the seriousness of the opium problem had been recognised in China and well before the Britishstarted marketing the drug to any noticeable degree.

The lack of understanding on both sides common in these delegations has been, sadly, repeated in the current series of Sino-British talks.

The Americans incidentally had to rely on Turkish opium to retain their part of the trade, the British having long had a monopoly on Bengal opium, which was nearer at hand and cheaper.

I do not intend to go into the trade at length: Suffice to say its execution reflected little credit on any of those involved, from whatever side.

To conclude, opium had existed in China a long time before Westerners arrived and, even then, its abuse had become cause for national concern. What the British, and to a lesser extent others, did was to regularise the trade and expand it enormously, causing pain and misery to tens of thousands and huge profits for a few on both sides.

I am in complete accord with Mr Tsui when he suggests we should learn from history to ensure what happened in the past does not happen again, but we must be as clear as possible about what did actually happen and not be misled by historical ''revision''.

Manipulation of history for political purposes is pernicious in the extreme: its intention being to warp the perceptions and outlook of those exposed to it.

If we guard against this, perhaps we can get a little closer to Mr Tsui's admirable wish that we should learn to forgive and ensure future harmony.

WILLIAM GOW The Peak

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