Britain’s Second Embassy to China

Britain’s Second Embassy to China
Author :
Publisher : ANU Press
Total Pages : 404
Release :
ISBN-10 : 9781760464097
ISBN-13 : 1760464090
Rating : 4/5 (090 Downloads)

Book Synopsis Britain’s Second Embassy to China by : Caroline Stevenson

Download or read book Britain’s Second Embassy to China written by Caroline Stevenson and published by ANU Press. This book was released on 2021-02-01 with total page 404 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Lord Amherst’s diplomatic mission to the Qing Court in 1816 was the second British embassy to China. The first led by Lord Macartney in 1793 had failed to achieve its goals. It was thought that Amherst had better prospects of success, but the intense diplomatic encounter that greeted his arrival ended badly. Amherst never appeared before the Jiaqing emperor and his embassy was expelled from Peking on the day it arrived. Historians have blamed Amherst for this outcome, citing his over-reliance on the advice of his Second Commissioner, Sir George Thomas Staunton, not to kowtow before the emperor. Detailed analysis of British sources reveal that Amherst was well informed on the kowtow issue and made his own decision for which he took full responsibility. Success was always unlikely because of irreconcilable differences in approach. China’s conduct of foreign relations based on the tributary system required submission to the emperor, thus relegating all foreign emissaries and the rulers they represented to vassal status, whereas British diplomatic practice was centred on negotiation and Westphalian principles of equality between nations. The Amherst embassy’s failure revised British assessments of China and led some observers to believe that force, rather than diplomacy, might be required in future to achieve British goals. The Opium War of 1840 that followed set a precedent for foreign interference in China, resulting in a century of ‘humiliation’. This resonates today in President Xi Jinping’s call for ‘National Rejuvenation’ to restore China’s historic place at the centre of a new Sino-centric global order.


Britain’s Second Embassy to China Related Books

Britain’s Second Embassy to China
Language: en
Pages: 404
Authors: Caroline Stevenson
Categories: History
Type: BOOK - Published: 2021-02-01 - Publisher: ANU Press

DOWNLOAD EBOOK

Lord Amherst’s diplomatic mission to the Qing Court in 1816 was the second British embassy to China. The first led by Lord Macartney in 1793 had failed to ach
An Authentic Account of an Embassy from the King of Great Britain to the Emperor of China
Language: en
Pages: 570
Authors: Sir George Staunton
Categories: China
Type: BOOK - Published: 1797 - Publisher:

DOWNLOAD EBOOK

Writing China
Language: en
Pages: 205
Authors: Peter J. Kitson
Categories: History
Type: BOOK - Published: 2016 - Publisher: Boydell & Brewer

DOWNLOAD EBOOK

New essays on the cultural representations of the relationship between Britain and China in the nineteenth century, focusing on the Amherst diplomatic problem.
Creating the Opium War
Language: en
Pages: 235
Authors: Hao Gao
Categories: History
Type: BOOK - Published: 2019-12-20 - Publisher: Manchester University Press

DOWNLOAD EBOOK

Creating the Opium War examines British imperial attitudes towards China during their early encounters from the Macartney embassy to the outbreak of the Opium W
The Perils of Interpreting
Language: en
Pages: 360
Authors: Henrietta Harrison
Categories: Biography & Autobiography
Type: BOOK - Published: 2023-11-07 - Publisher: Princeton University Press

DOWNLOAD EBOOK

A fascinating history of China’s relations with the West—told through the lives of two eighteenth-century translators The 1793 British embassy to China, whi