ABSTRACT
More than two centuries ago, in 1793, the British envoy Lord Macartney came to Beijing on a historic diplomatic mission to open an embassy in China for British merchants. This can now be seen as a defining moment in the modern civilizational encounter between China and the West. When Lord Macartney presented the Chinese emperor with a map of the world in which the “Middle Kingdom” appeared as only a small part of the globe, and not even in the middle, Emperor Ch’ien-lung found it ridiculous and unacceptable: the British map contradicted the long-held belief in the mind of the Chinese that China was the “Middle Kingdom” in terms of both vertical – between heaven and earth – and horizontal perspectives – between the civilized and the barbarians. However, in the late nineteenth century, China eventually fell from its perceived “middle” status into a periphery or fragile/failed state due to internal turmoil, a weak and corrupt government, a frail economy and foreign imperial invasions.
