ABSTRACT
De Quincey’s views on China were to become the cultural norm following an event in the second Opium War. Just when the stage burlesques of the Aladdin story were becoming as outlandish and mutated as the more bizarre flights of rococo chinoiserie, the vision of Cathay was desecrated. Western aggression stumbled upon a scene from the Arabian Nights and smashed it up. ‘John Bull in a Chinashop’ was a poignant image that left no doubt about the balance of power between the two countries, the event marking a critical turning point in Anglo-Chinese relations.1
