ABSTRACT
The first Western nations to come into contact with the Chinese were the Portuguese, the Dutch and the English. The Portuguese came to the Eastern seas with ideas derived from their Iberian background, ideas formed by the intolerance of the long struggle with the Moors. The Western powers approached China at the end of the seventeenth century with considerable caution; the Empire was vast, it appeared to be also strong, well governed and rich. Indo-China had been taken by France; Hong Kong by Britain. Russia had encroached in the far north of Manchuria, a territory which no Chinese then regarded as a real part of the Empire, but merely as a Manchu possession. The Nationalist movement of the late ‘twenties was motivated mainly by the resentment all educated Chinese felt against the Western nations and Japan. Russia was persona grata since the Revolution.
