Eastern Promises- Lured by rich trading prospects, from the 17th to the 19th centuries Britain attempted to cultivate relations with China

Lured by rich trading prospects, from the 17th to the 19th centuries Britain attempted to cultivate relations with China sometimes successfully, but often disastrously. Kerry Brown explores the troubled but ultimately vital links between two ambitious realms

- By Kerry Brown

China may feel like an exotic destination to many Britons – far distant and undeniably other, culturally and politically. Yet China’s influence permeates our daily lives. It was where we originally sourced tea, the first advert for which appeared in London as early as 1658. It was where the technology for making porcelain came from, inspiring the likes of Josiah Wedgwood and Josiah Spode. It was where a huge number of flowers now flourishing in our gardens were first found, collected by botanists and explorers from the 18th century onwards. And it has, of course, produced so much of the technology that today fills and powers our homes.

Often unappreciated and sometimes tucked out of sight, China’s contributions to British life today are nonetheless tangible – and largely positive. As these examples show, links between the two nations go back centuries. And, despite the fractious tone of the political relationship today, coloured by arguments about Hong Kong, human rights and espionage, much of that history involved people from both places discovering, appreciating and learning from each other.

The first English efforts to make formal contact with China came during the reign of Elizabeth I, who sent letters to the Chinese imperial court proposing trade.

“We are borne and made to have need one of another, and that we are bound to aide one another,” the queen wrote in one missive. None of her letters ever arrived, but China remained on the minds of English traders and merchants. And the East India Company, established in 1599–1600, made launching trade with the far east a key priority.

Planting ideas. Chinese workers tend a tea plantation in a mid-19th-century lithograph. Importing leaves from china was expensive –until Scottish botanist Robert Fortune introduced the plants to India

First contact