On these grounds, he praised the Opium Wars that had 'opened' China to British trade; 'no barriers ought to be put in the way even of the trade in poisons', he argued, it being up to each individual to restrain himself. The unequal and extraterritorial treaties imposed on China established a precursor for neoliberal forms of empire 'predicated on legally protected freedom of trade without formal territorial control'. In a different context, the challenge for the neoliberals was to conceptualise the institutional and legal conditions that would compel postcolonial states to offer their resources on the market's terms.

Jessica Whyte, The Morals of the Market, loc. 262