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This article investigates British attitudes towards Qing China as a consequence of their early encounters from the Macartney embassy to the opium crisis. Examining this medium-term time span, to which previous scholarship has paid inadequate attention, shows the continuity and change in these attitudes through different historical contexts. With its focus on war-related discussions, this article reveals how the idea of war against the Chinese empire was developed and debated on the basis of these changing ideas. The First Anglo-Chinese War, to a great extent, could not have developed into the form and scale it did without these developments. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

The Amherst embassy has a long-standing reputation as a diplomatic failure in Britain’s early relations with China. This analysis concentrates on a greatly overlooked aspect of the Amherst mission—the controversy within the embassy’s leadership about whether to perform kowtow before the Jiaqing emperor. George Thomas Staunton, basing his arguments on some “local inside knowledge,” successfully prevailed on Amherst to refuse to kowtow. This decision directly resulted in the rejection of the embassy from Beijing. To explain this unpleasant outcome, both sides of the controversy downplayed the importance of their decision and, instead, constructed a capricious image of the Chinese emperor, which helped to lay the foundations for the deterioration of Sino–British relations in the run up to the Opium War. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

A literary criticism is presented of several 19th century works by Romantic English authors, including the book "China, in a Series of Views, Displaying the Scenery, Architecture, and Social Habits, of That Ancient Empire. Drawn, From Original and Authentic Sketches, by Thomas Allom. With Historical and Descriptive Notices by G.N. Wright," by George Newenham Wright and the essays "The Opium and the China Question,” and "Hints Towards an Appreciation of the Coming War in China,” by Thomas De Quincey. Particular focus is given to the depiction of British attitudes towards China, including in regard to Great Britain's relations with China and the 1840-1842 Opium Wars.

The world's wealthiest nations have expended vast blood and treasure in tracking and capturing traffickers, dealers and consumers of narcotics, as well as destroying crops and confiscating shipments. Yet the global trade in illicit drugs is thriving, with no apparent change in the level of consumption despite decades of prohibition. This Adelphi argues that the present enforcement regime is not only failing to win the ‘War on Drugs’; it is also igniting and prolonging that conflict on the streets of producer and transit countries, where the supply chain has become interwoven with state institutions and cartels have become embroiled in violence against their rivals and with security forces. What can be done to secure the worst affected regions and states, such as Latin America and Afghanistan? By examining the destabilising effects of prohibition, as well as alternative approaches such as that adopted by the authorities in Portugal, this book shows how progress may be made by treating consumption as a health-care issue rather than a criminal matter, thereby freeing states to tackle the cartels and traffickers who hold their communities to ransom. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Prior to the Opium War the Italian missionaries in Shanxi were dependent on the local Chinese population both for their safety and their funding. This meant that only missionaries who were willing to conform to Chinese customs could succeed and thus it was impossible to implement the rulings against various Chinese customs made by the papacy in the eighteenth century. The treaties that followed the war greatly reduced the penalties on missionaries discovered in the interior and made it possible for French charitable funding to reach them. Once the missionaries were no longer dependent on the Chinese but on sponsors in Europe those with much more hostile attitudes to Chinese customs were able to enforce them, leading to a century of alienation and hostility between them and the Chinese Catholics. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article presents a photographic album of China in 1860 by Felice Beato which is particularly a documentation of wars. As the camera became popular, photographers slowly took the place of the graphic artists and painters who accompanied military and diplomatic missions. The camera could reproduce reality in minute detail and unlimited number of prints were possible from each negative. One of the most talented and active photographers during this time was Felice Beato. After Beato traveled to various countries to document war, he traveled on to China to photograph the progress on the Second Opium War of which 66 of these photographs were acquired by the Australian National Gallery.

The article focuses on Catholicism in Gansu Sheng, China. Foreign missionaries brought Catholicism into Gansu after the Opium Wars. It was the product of imperialist aggression. After its spread, many parishes were established and large numbers of churches built. Up to the time of Liberation, Catholicism was in the hands of the imperialists. In the early period after Liberation, the imperialists were expelled through the patriotic and anti-imperialist three self's, self-government, self-support, and self-propagation, reform movement. In Gansu today, it remains an influential religion. In the early period after Liberation, Catholicism in Gansu was divided among the three dioceses of Lanzhou, Tianshui, and Pingliang with Lanzhou as the head diocese. Up until the time of Liberation, Catholicism in Gansu had always been in the hands of the imperialists. After Liberation, imperialist elements entrenched in the Catholic Church, not reconciled to their defeat, continued to be hostile to and carried out disruptive activities against the people's revolution.