By launching its fleet against the Chinese junks in 1889, the British Empire declared one of the first wars motivated solely by economic interests. Deploring a trade balance largely in deficit with China, the United Kingdom wants to sell him its stocks of opium by force. Faced with resistance from the Qing Empire, the British went on the offensive in the name of free trade, whose pacificating virtues they were convinced of. Since this exemplary history of ambiguous relations between states, from cooperation to fierce competition, trade wars have been repeated, increasingly sophisticated but not always less bloody. The advent of the industrial revolution, liberalism and then globalization have multiplied the sources of conflict.