Americans would eventually get to share most of the advantages of Britain’s forced opening of China’s ports without any of the violence

As for the American traders at Canton, in some ways they were the war’s greatest beneficiaries, for they would eventually get to share most of the advantages of Britain’s forced opening of China’s ports without any of the violence or the lasting stain on their national character.

S. R. Platt, Imperial Twilight (2018), 416