Cherishing Men from Afar: Qing Guest Ritual and the Macartney Embassy of 1793In the late eighteenth century two expansive Eurasian empires met formally for the first time--the Manchu or Qing dynasty of China and the maritime empire of Great Britain. The occasion was the mission of Lord Macartney, sent by the British crown and sponsored by the East India Company, to the court of the Qianlong emperor. Cherishing Men from Afar looks at the initial confrontation between these two empires from a historical perspective informed by the insights of contemporary postcolonial criticism and cultural studies. The history of this encounter, like that of most colonial and imperial encounters, has traditionally been told from the Europeans' point of view. In this book, James L. Hevia consults Chinese sources--many previously untranslated--for a broader sense of what Qing court officials understood; and considers these documents in light of a sophisticated anthropological understanding of Qing ritual processes and expectations. He also reexamines the more familiar British accounts in the context of recent critiques of orientalism and work on the development of the bourgeois subject. Hevia's reading of these sources reveals the logics of two discrete imperial formations, not so much impaired by the cultural misunderstandings that have historically been attributed to their meeting, but animated by differing ideas about constructing relations of sovereignty and power. His examination of Chinese and English-language scholarly treatments of this event, both historical and contemporary, sheds new light on the place of the Macartney mission in the dynamics of colonial and imperial encounters. |
Contents
Introduction | 1 |
The Qing Empire Manchu | 29 |
Planning and Organizing the British Embassy | 57 |
The British Embassy in China | 84 |
Guest Ritual and Interdomainal Relations | 116 |
Greeting and Preparation | 134 |
Audience Instruction and Bestowal | 167 |
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Common terms and phrases
actions appears argued arrived bassy British ambassador British embassy British gifts Canton centering century ceremony Changlin Chinese claims Comprehensive Rites concern councillors cultural discourse domain DQTL English European evaluation example Fairbank foreign Fukang'an George Grand Council Guest Ritual GZCSL Heshen Hevia Hongli Hung Taiji imperial audience imperial instructions imperium indicated Inner Asia IOMC issue Khutukhtu king king's kneeling koutou lamas lesser lord letter Liang Kentang Liangguang Lord Macartney Ma Yu Macart Macartney embassy Macartney's Manchu Mañjuśrī memorial merchants Mongol Moreover nation Ningbo noted organized participants Peking peror political position practice present produced Qianlong emperor Qianlong reign Qing and British Qing court Qing dynasty Qing emperors Qing empire Qing imperial Qing officials Rehe relations relationship requests ritual process rulership September Songyun sources sovereign Staunton superior supreme lord Tianjin Tibetan Tibetan Buddhism tion trade translation tribute system West Ocean ZGCB Zhejiang Zhengrui ZPZZ