Fearing popular anger and repelled by the trade’s inhumanity, Chinese provincial officials wanted to stop kidnapping, fraud, and brutality in the coolie trade. But in order to regulate the trade, it had to be acknowledged as a fact, and this would contravene the imperial ban on emigration (never formally rescinded). The opportunity for official action came while the British and French were occupying the city of Guangzhou during the war of 1858–1860 (the “Second Opium War”).