Macau Ricci Institute Public Forum: From Tribute to Treaties: How China Navigated Geopolitics and European Relations in the Westphalian Era
Date:
- Wednesday 14 May 2025
Venue:
- Multi-function Room (1F) in the Seminary Campus of University of St. Joseph
- 聖若瑟大學聖若瑟修院校區1樓多功能室
Cooperation Partner:
- University of St. Joseph
Online Platform:
Video Record:
Speaker
Manuel Perez-Garcia
Manuel Perez-Garcia is a Tenured Associate Professor at the Department of History, European Research Council (ERC) Starting Grant under the Horizon 2020 / EU Funding for Research & Innovation program to lead the GECEM project (Global Encounters between China and Europe, www.gecem.eu), which examines market integration between China and Europe.
He is the founder and director of the Global History Network in China (GHNC) (www.globalhistorynetwork.com). Previously, he was Associate Professor at Renmin University of China and Tsinghua University. He earned his PhD in 2011 from the European University Institute (Italy) and the Department of Economics at the University of California at Berkeley (USA). He has been a visiting scholar at University of Oxford, University of Cambridge, University of British Columbia, University of Tokyo, UNAM in Mexico, among others.
Introduction
This presentation examines the fraught diplomatic encounters between Britain and Qing China, revealing how irreconcilable visions of international order—one Eurocentric, the other Sinocentric—collided with escalating tension. Britain’s insistence on Westphalian norms, coupled with its growing commercial ambitions, clashed violently with China’s hierarchical worldview, exacerbating hostilities that would later erupt into the Opium Wars. By dissecting these failed negotiations, this research illuminates a critical turning point in global history: the moment when diplomacy gave way to coercion, peace in East Asia was broken, reshaping Sino-European relations and the balance of power for the century to come.
