Sublime

On the eve of the close encounter with the West, China’s distinctive political trajectory (still dominated by its symbiotic relationship with Inner Asia) propelled it not towards an all-powerful oriental despotism (imagined by Europeans) – which might have permitted drastic change in the face of external challenge – but instead still further toward

Barbara Tuchman, the Pulitzer Prize–winning author and historian, once observed that of all the peoples of the world from three thousand years ago, it is only the Jews who live in the same place, speak the same language, and practice the same religion.

in 1689 at Nerchinsk in south-eastern Siberia K’ang-hsi surrounded the Russian negotiators with a large army and forced them to renounce the whole vast area north of Manchuria – a defeat for Russian expansion that was not reversed until 1860.