Details

Autor(en) / Beteiligte

• Lamb, Alistair

Titel

Tibet in Anglo-Chinese Relations: 1767–1842

Ist Teil von

• Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society, 1958, Vol.90 (1-2), p.26-43

Ort / Verlag

Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press

Erscheinungsjahr

1958

Quelle

Alma/SFX Local Collection

Beschreibungen/Notizen

• The Macartney Embassy failed to bring about a significant improvement in Anglo-Chinese relations; the correspondence of 1795–1796 was equally fruitless. The reasons for this failure lay rather in the nature of the Chinese conception of foreign relations than in any misunderstandings about the British role in the Himalayan crisis of 1788–1792. The Chinese Emperor could have no relations with foreign powers on terms of equality; to the Chinese foreign ambassadors were bearers of tribute, coming to Peking to recognize the supremacy of the Son of Heaven. On such terms no properly accredited embassy from the King of England to the Emperor of China could have had any result other than that achieved by Macartney. Only a mission of the type envisaged by Bogle and Hastings, opportunist and flexible, ready to sacrifice dignity to commercial advantage, stood any chance of success. Tibet and the Himalayas played little part in the failure of the first British Ambassador to China. But the reason why this should be so was not fully understood by the British at that time. The memory of a causal connection between the crisis of the Tibeto-Nepalese War and Lord Macartney's failure remained, and it was to affect subsequent British policy.