Why did Britain launch the Opium War instead of direct plunder?

All the above answers are wrong. /kloc-Britain's colonial policy after the 0/9th century is very obvious: limiting direct occupation and expanding trade as much as possible.

Speaking of looting, it is a means of nomadic people. The harvest of plunder is not as great as that of enslaving a country, but from the experience of British troops in other colonies, a small number of British troops can't do this. Moreover, temporary plunder is certainly not as big as the profit of trade, and it is not as long-lasting as the profit of trade. Imagine, do you want your opponent to make as much money as possible to buy your goods? Or is it good for you to turn them into slaves with nothing?

British immigrant colonies are not completely subordinate to Britain, and the most obvious relationship with Britain is trading partners. Non-immigrant colonies, such as Africa and India, brought the most important benefits to Britain, providing a broad market and raw material producing areas. However, from the experience of18th century and the first half of19th century, many preconditions are needed to control non-immigrant colonization. First, the other party is not centralized (Africa) or the central government is weak (such as India). Even so, management still needs to pay a high price. By the end of 19 and the beginning of the 20th century, Britain found that they needed to consider whether the benefits from the colonies could balance the costs.

For China, the government of China is not weak at all (though weak), and it is almost impossible for Britain to control the area and population of China. As I said above, it is unrealistic for them to even turn the Qing government into a puppet regime and implement pulling strings. In fact, it is doubtful whether the British have made these considerations, because economy and trade have brought them great benefits. In fact, the British government can make endless profits just by helping businessmen to open up business routes in China. In addition, the profits from the newly discovered opium trade are extremely considerable.

Britain's behavior after the Opium War can be verified. They only wanted a small Hong Kong (even if it was necessary to occupy Hong Kong at that time, there was a great debate in Britain), but they didn't actually occupy other parts of China. All the concessions they made were for their trade.

Finally, it is worth discussing whether the British sell opium for other purposes besides considerable profits.