Use the excerpt below and your knowledge of world history to answer the following questions. “We have heard that in your own country opium is prohibited with the utmost strictness and severity:---this is a strong proof that you know full well how hurtful opium is to humans. ... You ought not to have this harmful drug transferred to another country, and above all others, how much less to us! ... Has China ever sent you a noxious product from its soil? No. But the things that come from your country are only calculated to harm our country.”
- Qing government commissioner Lin Zexu to Queen Victoria of Great Britain, 1839

Source: Chinese Repository, Vol. 8 (February 1840), pp. 497-503; reprinted in William H. McNeil and Mitsuko Iriye, eds., Modern Asia and Africa, Readings in World History Vol. 9, (New York: Oxford University Press, 1971), pp. 111-118.

Based on your knowledge of world history and this excerpt, which of the following best describes a result of the Opium Wars between Great Britain and China in the early 19th century?

a
Because of its decisive victory, China was able to renegotiate a more equal trade agreement with Britain.
b
China lost her place as a major economic power because of the total destruction of her land in the war.
c
China and Britain were able to maintain an equal balance of trade for the remainder of the nineteenth century.
d
Due to unequal treaties, European imperial powers carved out spheres of influence in China.