The Chinese emperor had insisted that "the Celestial Empire is rich in material goods and lacks nothing. We do not require the wares of foreign barbarians to make up for any deficiency." This being so, the way the British found to solve the problem of the trade deficit was of course to sell the tremendously lucrative opium, despite the Celestial Empire's ban on the drug.
既然中國皇帝堅持「天朝物產豐盈，無所不有，原不藉外夷貨物以通有無」；解決貿易赤字的好辦法，當然是賣天朝所禁、一本萬利的鴉片了。