China and Western Technology in the Late Eighteenth Century
Author(s)
Waley-Cohen, Joann
Abstract
Joanna Waley-Cohen tells us that the seeming indifference of Chinese leaders to Western technology and society in the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries was not, as Westerners liked to believe, another proof of Chinese ingrained xenophobia and hostility to “progress.” She draws on Chinese and Western sources to show that the Chinese were very interested in the West and its technology. Their studied indifference was a pose dictated by domestic political needs and a desire for independence in foreign relations. For reasons of their own, Western governments were not willing to credit evidence of Chinese interest that cut against Western stereotypes, an attitude that Waley-Cohen regards as characteristic of relations between China and the West.
