Anglo-Chinese Encounters since 1800: War, Trade, Science and Governance

ISBN: 9780521534130 出版年：2003 页码：214 Gungwu Cambridge University Press

Chinese encounters with the British were more than merely those between two great powers. There was the larger canvas of the Empire and Commonwealth where the two peoples traded and interacted. In China, officials and merchants placed the British beside other enterprising foreign peoples who were equally intent on influencing developments there. There were also Chinese who encountered the British in personal ways, and individual British who ventured into a “vast unknown” with its deep history. Wang Gungwu’s book, based on lectures linking China and the Chinese with imperial Britain, examines the possibilities, as well as the limitations, attached to their encounters. It takes the story beyond the cliches of opium, fighting, and the diplomatic skills needed to fend off rivals and enemies, and probes some areas of more intimate encounters, not least the beginnings of a wider English-speaking future.