From frontier policy to foreign policy / Matthew W. Mosca

Between the mid-eighteenth and mid-nineteenth centuries, Qing rulers, officials, and scholars fused diverse, fragmented perceptions of foreign territory into one integrated worldview. In the same period, a single "foreign" policy emerged as an alternative to the many localized "frontier" policies hitherto pursued on the coast, in Xinjiang, and in Tibet. By unraveling Chinese, Manchu, and British sources to reveal the information networks used by the Qing empire to gather intelligence about its emerging rival, British India, this book explores China's altered understanding of its place in a global context. Far from being hobbled by a Sinocentric worldview, Qing China's officials and scholars paid close attention to foreign affairs. To meet the growing British threat, they adapted institutional practices and geopolitical assumptions to coordinate a response across their maritime and inland borderlands. In time, the new and more active response to Western imperialism built on this foundation reshaped not only China's diplomacy but also the internal relationship between Beijing and its frontiers. - OCLC Note

Includes bibliographical references (pages 367-387) and index.

A wealth of Indias : India in Qing geographic practice, 1644-1755 -- The conquest of Xinjiang and the emergence of "Hindustan," 1756-1790 -- Mapping India : geographic agnosticism in a cartographic context -- Discovering the "Pileng" : British India seen from Tibet, 1789-1800 -- British India and Qing strategic thought in the early nineteenth century -- The discovery of British India on the Chinese coast, 1800-1837 -- The Opium War and the British Empire -- Emergence of a foreign policy : Wei Yuan and the reinterpretation of India in Qing strategic thought.