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.

Translations of the Peking gazette online / compiled by Dr. Lane J. Harris, Furman University.

Includes bibliography of source materials of the translations.

A database of previously-published English translations of official edicts and memorials from nineteenth century China's Qing dynasty, spanning from the Macartney Mission in 1793 to the abdication of the last emperor in 1912. The Peking Gazette provides insight into the Manchu state and its subjects as they grappled with imperial decline, re-engaged with the wider world, and began mapping the path to China's contemporary rise. Contains the voices of Manchu emperors, Han officials, gentry leaders, and peasant spokesmen as they discussed and debated the most important political, social, and cultural movements, trends, and events of their day, and provides insight into the policies and attitudes of the emperors, the ideas and perspectives of the officials, and the mentality and worldviews of the Han, Mongol, Manchu, Muslim, and Tibetan subjects of the Great Qing Empire.

Go to: Translations of the Peking gazette online

Go to: Peking Gazette Information Page