K. M. Panikkar, Asia and Western Dominance: a survey of the Vasco Da Gama epoch of Asian history, 1498–1945
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More important than these two considerations was the fact that Russia was at no time concerned with the two policies ‑ the forcing of opium on China and the trade in human flesh ‑ which both the people and Government of China resented and which brought her untold humiliation. ... In the `pig trade' ‑ that is, the forcible transportation of Chinese workers to plantations and mines again, in defiance of the orders of Government and of the protests of the people ‑ in this new slave trade, where sometimes forty per cent of those transported died on the way, all Western Powers including America were deeply involved. Russia, for whatever reason, was no party to it. It was these two, the `poison trade' and the `pig trade', that made the iron enter the soul of the Chinese and made them bitterly anti‑foreign.

— K. M. Panikkar on China–Russia relations

What It Means

This is a placeholder explanation generated by the low-overhead model. It interprets "More important than these two considerations was the fact that Russia was at no time concerned with the two policies ‑ the forcing of opium on China and the trade in human flesh ‑ which both the people and Government of China resented and which brought her untold humiliation. ... In the `pig trade' ‑ that is, the forcible transportation of Chinese workers to plantations and mines again, in defiance of the orders of Government and of the protests of the people ‑ in this new slave trade, where sometimes forty per cent of those transported died on the way, all Western Powers including America were deeply involved. Russia, for whatever reason, was no party to it. It was these two, the `poison trade' and the `pig trade', that made the iron enter the soul of the Chinese and made them bitterly anti‑foreign." in the context of "K. M. Panikkar, Asia and Western Dominance: a survey of the Vasco Da Gama epoch of Asian history, 1498–1945" to mean that wisdom is timeless.

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Source: Wikiquote: "China–Russia relations" (Quotes) The 'What it means' explanation text was generated by Google Gemini Flash (accessed January 18, 2026). https://gemini.google.com/app
K. M. Panikkar

About K. M. Panikkar

Kavalam Madhava Panikkar (3 June 1895 – 10 December 1963), was an Indian novelist, journalist, historian, administrator and diplomat. He was born in Travancore, then a princely state in the British Indian Empire and was educated in Madras and at the University of Oxford.