rose. When, however, Emperor Qianlong received the list of gifts the English offered in Chengde, he was incensed at McCartney s title in the Chinese version being translated as imperial envoy. He immediately issued an edict demanding that the title be changed to that of bearer of tribute, or payer of respect. The English made no objections. When Qing officials tactfully notified the English delegation that they should rehearse themselves with the kowtow, McCartney expressed no overt disagreement.
McCartney s way of dealing with the issue was, however, perfunctory. Upon presenting himself before the monarch, he simply refused to perform the required ritual of kneeling three times and touching the floor with his forehead. At Chengde, where the ceremony was to be held, the Qing Court and the McCartney mission wrangled over the protocol involved in greeting the emperor. Emperor Qianlong was furious. On the second day, the Emperor issued an edict to Qing officials in Peking reiterating that protocol be applied to foreign payers of tribute, and to decrease the standard of reception of the England mission. The Qingshigao (Draft History of the Qing Dynasty) mentions protocol flexibility in relation to the English mission s presenting of itself to the emperor: The Emperor issued an edict to the minister of protocol indicating that the protocol followed by the English ambassador McCartney when presenting himself to the monarch should be that followed by foreign dignitaries meeting the English sovereign. The Emperor Qianlong thus compromised over protocol, but not because of a change in his preferences, which the brevity of McCartney s stay precludes. It is clear from the Emperor Qianglong s attitude that this compromise was made under extremely undesirable circumstances. 37 lt; # justify gt; IV. Economical crisis (1909-1913)
At the end of the Ming dynasty, just before the Manchus overthrew the Ming and established the Qing dynasty, China s economy was in a period of expansion. New markets were being founded, and merchants were extending their businesses across provincial lines and even into the South China Sea. Chinese merchants were already active in Southeast Asia during this time, and, in fact, one of the arguments then made regarding the cessation of China s state-sponsored maritime expeditions to various places in the southern seas (such as the famed Ming Voyages ) was that these expeditions were no longer necessary. Chinese merchants themselves were going out to the South China Sea and were trading with these areas themselves, so there was no longer a need to have a tributary relationship with other states or city-states in this area. In certain instances the Qing state did balk at the movement of people into overseas commerce and tried to limit rice and metallic currency from moving out of the country, but the state simply did not have the capacity to stop trade completely. The circulation of goods went on with or without state approval. The economic growth so evident under the Ming dynasty continued under the Qing dynasty, up until the time of the Opium War in the 1840s. During this time China s domestic economy was a dynamic, commercializing economy, and in some small ways, even an industrializing economy. The Stereotype of an Anti-Merchant Qing State A common stereotype about late imperial China - one that is actually perpetuated in the study of practically every period in Chinese history - is that the Chinese government was anti-merchant. Common reasons given to support this assertion are: that Confucianism was anti-business and anti-merchant; that Confucian scholar-officials were at the top ranks of Chinese society; that state policy impaired economic activity by not supporting it in any constructive way; and that taxes were so heavy that they squeezed the life out of merchants and their businesses. But all these things are untrue.
The Qin dynasty, after unifying the territory later known as China raquo ;, took some contradictory measures to enhance the economical productivity of the empire. On the one side, money and weights and measures were standardized throughout all commanderies, leading to smoother transactions over longer distances. On the other side, the First Emperor and his successors ordered gigantic construction work in the Capital Xianyang and its surroundings as well as in other parts of the empire. The tomb of the First Emperor, the Epang Palace and the Great W all are the most famous examples. Higher taxes and intensive corv? E labour required from the peasants prevented the national economy from reposing after decades if not centuries of permanent warfare.
The economic policy of the Qin was compared by the early Han period writer Jia Yi with that of a wartime economy kept running even in peacetime. The exploitation of the peasantry finally lead to ...
