Reformer, intellectual, colonial governor, Sir John Bowring (1792–1872) was the archetype of the ambitious men who made Britain the leading global power in the 19th century. Born to a modest trading family, he showed an aptitude for languages which led him to literature, then to radical politics in the struggles for liberty in France, Spain and Greece. Taken up by the philosopher Jeremy Bentham, he became a figure in the literary world. But his emphasis was on action rather than theories. He became a high-profile advocate of free trade and a liberal foe of Karl Marx. As member of parliament he supported full suffrage and other radical causes. He modernized Britain’s public accounts, invented the florin as a first step to decimalization, and became an industrial entrepreneur. Losing his money in the 1848 slump, he took a job as consul in Canton, which led to the governorship of Hong Kong. As Britain’s plenipotentiary in East Asia he negotiated a key treaty with King Mongkut of Siam but also started a war with China. His term as Governor of Hong Kong (1854–59) was plagued with problems. But there as elsewhere he left a legacy of liberal ideas. Bowring’s impact was spread over so many fields that his name has been eclipsed by those with a narrower focus. This book brings his life and disparate achievements together, with a particular emphasis on his role in promoting free trade and his much criticized career in Asia. “John Bowring (1792–1872) was one of the most interesting and influential of Hong Kong’s Governors. The career of this polymath exemplified an understanding of the relationship between economic and political freedom. This scholarly and very readable biography, written by one of Asia’s most distinguished journalists, shows how free trade became part of Hong Kong’s DNA.” —Chris Patten, Governor of Hong Kong, 1992–97 “Biographers shun polymaths. As a linguistic genius, free-wheeling entrepreneur, hymnist, colonial governor, Oriental plenipotentiary and the champion of self-determination, freedom of conscience and, above all, free trade, Bowring has had to wait nearly 150 years for a comprehensive but candid account that does justice to his extraordinary range of achievements. That it comes from a kinsman with an equal breadth of vision is an added bonus.” —John Keay, author of China: A History and The Honourable Company: A History of the English East India Company “One hundred and forty years after his death, John Bowring finally has the biography his eventful and enterprising life deserves. From the pages of this fast-paced and well-written biography, Bowring emerges not as the heinous villain who tricked Britain into launching a nasty imperialist war against China in 1858, but as a multifaceted character dedicated to political reform, religious freedom, and above all free trade. Philip Bowring acknowledges that John Bowring was vain, prone to overhasty action, and lacking in judgment, but also that he lived his life by the ideas for which he stood, had an astonishing command of foreign languages, was a dedicated family man, and made an impact throughout East and Southeast Asia which is still felt in many ways today. This is a remarkable book on a remarkable life.” —Hans van de Ven, Professor of Modern Chinese History, Cambridge University

For a long time, the idea of China as a culture and society which was voluntarily secluding itself from the rest of the world was dominant. But, in reality, China has always been part of the world, just as the world has always sought to penetrate China. The relationship between China and the world was, in the past, sometimes smooth, and at other times it was difficult, but nevertheless the bond remained alive. This collection presents an analysis of China from a global perspective within a broad temporal and spatial spectrum. It reveals the early relations established between the Roman Empire and China, the dynamics developed with the countries of the Indian Ocean, Southeast Asia and Japan, and the gradual path of Europeans and Americans towards China. The book reviews the development of diplomatic relations, the signing of agreements and alliances, and the rise and resolution of conflicts. It also analyses the forging of economic relations, the establishment of commercial exchanges and the creation of companies, professional bodies and institutions of collaboration.

Nine essays discuss the first commercial encounters between a China on the verge of systemic social change and a United States struggling to assert itself globally as a distinct nation after the Revolutionary War, from the arrival in Canton of the first American ship in the 1870s, to the 1844 Treaty of Wangxia in Macao after the First Opium War, to Secretary of State John Hay's forging of the Open Door policy in 1899. Broad in scope, the essays are attuned to the activities of competing European traders, especially the British, in Canton, Macao, and the Pearl River Delta. Kendall Johnsonis director of the American Studies Program and associate professor at the University of Hong Kong.

While inquiries into early encounters between East Asia and the West have traditionally focused on successful interactions, this collection inquires into the many forms of failure, experienced on all sides, in the period before 1850. Countering a tendency in scholarship to overlook unsuccessful encounters, it starts from the assumption that failures can prove highly illuminating and provide valuable insights into both the specific shapes and limitations of East Asian and Western imaginations of the Other, as well as of the nature of East-West interaction. Interdisciplinary in outlook, this collection brings together the perspectives of sinology, Japanese and Korean studies, historical studies, literary studies, art history, religious studies, and performance studies. The subjects discussed are manifold and range from missionary accounts, travel reports, letters and trade documents to fictional texts as well as material objects (such as tea, chinaware, or nautical instruments) exchanged between East and West. In order to avoid a Eurocentric perspective, the collection balances approaches from the fields of English literature, Spanish studies, Neo-Latin studies, and art history with those of sinology, Japanese studies, and Korean studies. It includes an introduction mapping out the field of failures in early modern encounters between East Asia and Europe, as well as a theoretically minded essay on the lessons of failure and the ethics of cross-cultural understanding.

Reveals how the British Empire's governing men enforced their ideas of freedom, civilization and liberalism around the world.

During the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, the imperial powers—principally Britain, the United States, Russia, France, Germany and Japan—signed treaties with China to secure trading, residence and other rights in cities on the coast, along important rivers, and in remote places further inland. The largest of them—the great treaty ports of Shanghai and Tientsin—became modern cities of international importance, centres of cultural exchange and safe havens for Chinese who sought to subvert the Qing government. They are also lasting symbols of the uninvited and often violent incursions by foreign powers during China’s century of weakness. The extraterritorial privileges that underpinned the treaty ports were abolished in 1943—a time when much of the treaty port world was under Japanese occupation. China’s Foreign Places provides a historical account of the hundred or more major foreign settlements that appeared in China during the period 1840 to 1943. Most of the entries are about treaty ports, large and small, but the book also includes colonies, leased territories, resorts and illicit centres of trade. Information has been drawn from a wide range of sources and entries are arranged alphabetically with extensive illustrations and maps. China’s Foreign Places is both a unique work of reference, essential for scholars of this period and travellers to modern China. It is also a fascinating account of the people, institutions and businesses that inhabited China’s treaty port world.