Liu Xin. Anglo-Chinese Encounters Before the Opium War: A Tale of Two Empires Over Two Centuries

New York: Routledge, 2022. — 355 p.Anglo-Chinese Encounters Before the Opium War: A Tale of Two Empires Over Two Centuries studies the fascinating encounters between the two historic empires from Queen Elizabeth I’s first letter to the Ming Emperor Wanli in 1583, to Lord Palmerston’s letter to the Minister of China in 1840.
Starting with Queen Elizabeth I’s letter to the Chinese Emperor and ending with the letter from Lord Palmerston to the Minister of China just before the Opium War, this book explores the long journey in between from cultural diplomacy to gunboat diplomacy. It interweaves the most known diplomatic efforts at the official level with the much unknown intellectual interactions at the people-to-people level, from missionaries to scholars, from merchants to travelers and from artists to scientists. This book adopts a novel "mirror" approach by pairing and comparing people, texts, commodities, artworks, architecture, ideologies, operating systems and world views of the two empires. Using letters, gifts and traded goods as fulcrums, and by adopting these unique lenses, it puts China into the world history narratives to contextualise Anglo-Chinese relations, thus providing a fresh analysis of the surviving evidence. Xin Liu casts a new light on understanding the Sino-centric and Anglo-centric world views in driving the complex relations between the two empires, and the reversals of power shifts that are still unfolding today.
The book is not intended for specialists in history, but a general audience wishing to learn more about China’s historical engagement with the world.Illustrations
Acknowledgements
Introduction: 1583-1840, from cultural diplomacy to gunboat diplomacy
The old tale and a new narrative
Structure of the book
NotesWhere the tale of the two empires began
Once upon a time, a British monarch wrote a letter to a Chinese emperor
The incomprehensible letters
European sceptre vs. Chinese dragon
NotesThe Tributary System and the first Anglo-Chinese encounters
The Tributary System and its implications on China's foreign relations
Ming China: Seen, presented and influenced by Westerners
The Sino-speak vocabulary of outsiders and foreigners
Exchange ideas, goods or fire?
NotesThe earliest Chinese travellers to the Far West
Shen Fuzong and Thomas Hyde: The first exchanges of a learned nature
Loum Kiqua and William Hickey: The first taste of Chinese music and Chinese food
Tan Che-Qua and William Chambers: The first Chinese artistic legacy that can still be seen in the UK today
Huang Yadong and William Jones: The first English letter exchanged between the two peoples
The first Chinese travellers who wrote about Europe and Britain
NotesChinoiserie vs. Euroiserie: Mutual reflections of material culture and perception gaps
The seemingly Yin-Yang flow between the two empires in material culture
China's Yuanming Yuan and Britain's Kew Garden and Brighton Palace
The British perception of Qing China and the perception gap to the real Qing
The Chinese perception of the British Empire and the perception gap to the real British
NotesWhen the lion meets the dragon: Lost in translation or beyond translation?
Tributary System Vs. Westphalian System: Mission impossible for the Macartney Embassy to China
Gift or tribute: Two words, two worlds
To kowtow or not to kowtow, that is the question
Letters, letters
Change of the mutual perceptions between the two empires
NotesThe Amherst Embassy to China, an insurmountable generation gap between the two empires
The negative assets from the Macartney Embassy
To kowtow or not to kowtow, was this still the question?
The Minion culture in the Qing court
Redrawing Self and Other: New knowledge produced by the Amherst Embassy
NotesFrom the Tea War to the Opium War
The story of tea and opium
The rhetoric war and trade war
The opium debates
Falling into the Thucydides Trap?
Postscript
NotesConclusion: The two great reversals - Historical implications on the modern-day interactions between a post-Brexit UK and a globalising China
NotesQueen Elizabeth I's 1583 letter to the Ming Emperor Wanli, discussed in Chapter 1
Original Sixteenth Century Text
Translation into modern English
Notes
Translation into Chinese
Queen Elizabeth I's 1596 letter to the Ming Emperor Wanli, discussed in Chapter 1
Original Sixteenth Century Text
Translation into modern English
Notes
Translation into Chinese
Queen Elizabeth I's 1602 letter to the Ming Emperor Wanli, discussed in Chapter 1
The original Mediaeval English text
Source: Lancashire Archives
Translation into modern English provided by the Lancashire Achieves is included in Chapter 1
Translation into Chinese
King George III's letter to the Qianlong Emperor, 1792, discussed in Chapter 5
English original
The Qianlong Emperor's Letter to King George III, 1793, discussed in Chapter 5
English translation version 1
English translation version 2
The Qianlong Emperor's last letter to King George III, 1796, discussed in Chapter 5
English translation
The Jiaqing Emperor's Imperial Mandate to the King of England, 1816, discussed in Chapter 6
English translation
The Jiaqing Emperor's Imperial Decree issued following the departure of the Amhurst Embassy, 1816, discussed in Chapter 6
English translation
Lin Zexu's letter to Queen Victoria, 1839, discussed in Chapter 7
English Translation version 1
Appendix 10. Letter from Lord Palmerston to the Minister of the Emperor of China, 1840, discussed in Chapter 7
English Original