The first British embassy to China, under Lord Macartney, took place almost two centuries ago. The voyage took one year and although the ambassador managed to gain an audience with the Ch'ien Lung Emperor, the two sides fell out over the question of kowtow.
At the end of July this year, a leading report in The Independent covered the trip of Francis Maude, a British Foreign Office minister, to Peking as follows--"Ordinarily the kowtow consists of three kneelings and nine prostrations. In its modern version, as dictated by the Prime Minister, Li Peng, the supplicant also gets a slap in the face."
In the last few days of July, despite the European Community agreement on sanctions against mainland China, Maude considered his high-level visit to Peking to be an ice-breaking and peace-making mission. The next day Maude announced happily that there was a new atmosphere of mutual understanding over the issue of British passports for Hong Kong people, while Peking issued an unexpected statement saying that the Communists would absolutely refuse to recognise the "worthless bits of paper."
After the Peking statement went on to strongly deny Britain the right to protect even its own citizens under normal diplomatic practice, it was no wonder that "a slap in the face" appeared on the front pages of all the British broadsheets. The Times columnist Bernard Levin, having tried to fathom the reasoning behind the kowtowing of the British government without success, could only conclude that Mrs. Thatcher is a Chinese spy whose real name is That Cher.
Maude's kowtowing was most unlike the dogmatism of his ancestor, but the level of negotiation on both sides was still about that of a chicken talking to a duck.
"The British government has always had problems dealing with China, basically because the knowledge of the British people concerning China is too shallow," says Professor Hugh Baker of London University's School of Oriental and African Studies (SOAS). How can this be in such an important place in European sinology, with its more than two centuries of contact and trade with China?
When Professor Timothy Barrett of the History Department at SOAS recently tried to trace the roots of the tradition of British sinology, he could only describe the results of his informal research as shocking and surprising. It seems that the British have never, in fact, seriously supported the study of China.
Next month we will talk to Professor Barrett about his revelations concerning the history of sinology in Britain. This month we interviewed Professor Baker about the Hong Kong situation and his efforts to make China better known to the British, as well as his own experiences as a British sinologist.
[Picture Caption]
This album given by "the Last Emperor" to his English tutor, Reginald Johnston, is kept in the strongroom of the SOAS library.
The present site of SOAS is conveniently close to the British Museum.
The present site of SOAS is conveniently close to the British Museum.
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