Qing China's Perspectives on India before 1850: Some Approaches and Conclusions

The Center for Chinese studies presents a talk by Matthew Mosca on the Qing Empires relations with British India.

Matthew Mosca, CCS Postdoctoral Fellow

This talk will explore several important episodes in the Qing Empire’s relations with British India, beginning with the Qing-Gurkha wars of 1788-1792 and Lord Macartney’s embassy to China, and concluding with the first Opium War and its impact on Chinese strategic thought.  Particular attention will be paid to how Qing officials and scholars gathered information from informants on several frontiers, and tried to synthesize it into a coherent picture.  Evolving understandings of the identity and significance of the Pileng tribe will be used to consider how the case of India can provide new perspectives on Qing foreign relations and the empire’s internal cohesion.