From frontier policy to foreign policy : the question of India and the transformation of geopolitics in Qing China / Matthew W. Mosca.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Mosca, Matthew W.

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Geopolitics--China--History.

Geopolitics.

Geography--China--History.

Geography.

China--Foreign relations--1644-1912.

China.

India--History--British occupation, 1765-1947.

India.

China--History--Qing dynasty, 1644-1912.

China--Foreign relations--Great Britain.

Great Britain--Foreign relations--China.

Great Britain.

Physical Description:

1 online resource (409 p.)

Edition:

1st ed.

Place of Publication:

Stanford, Calif. : Stanford University Press, c2013.

Language Note:

English

Summary:

Between the mid-eighteenth and mid-nineteenth centuries, Qing rulers, officials, and scholars fused diverse, fragmented perceptions of foreign territory into one integrated worldview. In the same period, a single "foreign" policy emerged as an alternative to the many localized "frontier" policies hitherto pursued on the coast, in Xinjiang, and in Tibet. By unraveling Chinese, Manchu, and British sources to reveal the information networks used by the Qing empire to gather intelligence about its emerging rival, British India, this book explores China's altered understanding of its place in a global context. Far from being hobbled by a Sinocentric worldview, Qing China's officials and scholars paid close attention to foreign affairs. To meet the growing British threat, they adapted institutional practices and geopolitical assumptions to coordinate a response across their maritime and inland borderlands. In time, the new and more active response to Western imperialism built on this foundation reshaped not only China's diplomacy but also the internal relationship between Beijing and its frontiers.

Contents:

A wealth of Indias : India in Qing geographic practice, 1644-1755

The conquest of Xinjiang and the emergence of "Hindustan," 1756-1790

Mapping India : geographic agnosticism in a cartographic context

Discovering the "Pileng" : British India seen from Tibet, 1789-1800

British India and Qing strategic thought in the early nineteenth century

The discovery of British India on the Chinese coast, 1800-1837

The Opium War and the British Empire

Emergence of a foreign policy : Wei Yuan and the reinterpretation of India in Qing strategic thought.

Notes:

Description based upon print version of record.

Includes bibliographical references and index.

ISBN:

9780804785389

0804785384

OCLC:

823723907