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INTRODUCTION
In 1689, representatives of the Russian tsar and the Qing emperor met at the small garrison town of Nerchinsk in eastern Siberia to negotiate a treaty defining the borders of the two empires and future commercial and diplomatic relations between them. The treaty produced by these negotiations was the first one signed by the Qing empire with a Western nation. Along with the later Kiakhta treaty of 1727, it defined relations between China and Russia until the middle of the nineteenth century. The Russians encroached on China, but later withdrew to nearly the same borders under a third treaty agreement. Chinese and Russian scholars have debated about who gained and who lost in the negotiations, but both sides generally agree that the two giant empires dealt with each other as equals. Even though they distrusted one another, and each knew little of the other's culture, they found a basis for mutual benefit through peaceful relations and avoided outright warfare.1
The Nerchinsk treaty stands out in world history as a remarkable victory for diplomatic cross-cultural interchange. Two expanding agrarian empires that had only very recently come into contact, and which had fought several battles over control of borders and border populations, avoided a major conflict by sign- ing a treaty designating the border between them and dividing their control over subject peoples. Even today, although the actual borders between the two countries are different, and independent Mongolia lies between them, China and Russia have accepted roughly the same principles of equality and border delimitation determined at Nerchinsk.
Just over one hundred years later, in 1793, Lord George Macartney arrived in Beijing to conduct negotiations for the British regarding trade relations with the Qing empire. After considerable discussion about the rituals of presenting tribute, and the presentation of gifts by both sides, Macartney left with benevolent words from the Qianlong emperor, but without a treaty ensuring equal and free trade. The British subsequently entered into a contentious relationship with China, leading to the Opium Wars of 1839-42 and 1856-60. British victories in these wars forced open Chinese ports for trade, but generated increasing resistance from Chinese officials and local people in those treaty ports. Chinese later attacked these and other nineteenth-century agreements as unequal treaties illegitimately...