World Order by Henry Kissinger

Author:Henry Kissinger [Kissinger, Henry]
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi, azw3
ISBN: 9781594206146
Amazon: 1594206147
Publisher: Penguin Press HC, The
Published: 2014-09-23T16:00:00+00:00

Swaying the wide world, I have but one aim in view, namely, to maintain a perfect governance and to fulfil the duties of the State; strange and costly objects do not interest me. If I have commanded that the tribute offerings sent by you, O King, are to be accepted, this was solely in consideration for the spirit which prompted you to dispatch them from afar … As your Ambassador can see for himself, we possess all things.

After the defeat of Napoleon, as its mercantile expansion gathered pace, Britain attempted another overture, dispatching a second envoy with a similar proposal. Britain’s display of naval power during the Napoleonic Wars had done little to change China’s estimate of the desirability of diplomatic relations. When William Amherst, the envoy, declined to attend the kowtow ceremony, offering the excuse that his dress uniform had been delayed, his mission was dismissed, and any further attempt at diplomacy was explicitly discouraged. The Emperor dispatched a message to England’s Prince Regent, explaining that as “overlord of all under Heaven,” China could not be troubled to walk each barbarian envoy through the correct protocol. The imperial records would duly acknowledge that “thy kingdom far away across the oceans proffers its loyalty and yearns for civilization,” but (as a nineteenth-century Western missionary publication translated the edict):

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