The Macartney embassy
Britain asks China to open trade and is told it needs nothing.
- When
- Known to
- ± 1 year
- Era
- Early Modern, Holocene
George Macartney reaches Qianlong's court in 1793 seeking diplomatic representation and expanded trade, and refuses to perform the full kowtow. The emperor's reply states that the Celestial Empire possesses all things in abundance and has no use for foreign manufactures. The exchange is often read as Chinese complacency; it was also an accurate description of the trade balance, since Britain had little China wanted and was paying in silver. Opium would soon solve that problem.