White Gold: How the West Broke Taiwan's Camphor Monopoly

Camphor helped save the elephants and let Hollywood make their films. We do not hear much about it today but this fragrant substance used to be a critical ingredient in Western industrial production. And almost all of it came from Taiwan, then a Japanese colony.

The Taiwan camphor monopoly was immensely profitable for the Japanese government. But its toll on the environment and the Formosan natives was devastating.

And Japan’s grip on this critical industrial substance alarmed the western powers and caused them to scramble for an alternative.

It was not until the synthesis of a synthetic that the West broke the camphor tree monopoly. In this video we will look back at one of Taiwan’s bygone industries.

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Видео White Gold: How the West Broke Taiwan's Camphor Monopoly канала Asianometry