The “Inner Kowtow Controversy” During the Amherst Embassy to China, 1816–1817
Gao, H
Date: 14 December 2016
Journal
Diplomacy and Statecraft
Publisher
Taylor & Francis (Routledge)
Publisher DOI
Abstract
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 ...
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.
History
Collections of Former Colleges
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