Embassies and Illusions

This study shows how peculiar circumstances in the early Ch'ing led to the application of inherited routines of the tribute embassy to relations with the Europeans. Chinese records of these embassies strengthened the illusion, persisting into the Opium War period, that the tribute system was relevant to the conduct of Sino-European relations. From archival and printed sources in seven languages, John Wills traces the progress of four embassies to the court of K'ang-hsi in the seventeenth century.