Knowledge Production and Britain's Expansion in China

This article looks into Britain's knowledge production about China and the Chinese in the nineteenth century, through a case study of how a narrative of the cruelty of Chinese punishment was constructed by publications and activities of two closely connected institutions, the Royal Asiatic Society and the British Consular Service. Concentrating on the period between the end of the First Opium War and the end of the Second Opium War, and looking into the post‐factum criticism, eye‐witness accounts and personal experience of the two institutions, it examines how ideas around the cruelty of Chinese punishment was constructed in relation to Britain's expansion in China, the change of sentiment towards judicial torture in Europe, and the social disorder in South China. Approaching Sino‐British encounters in the nineteenth century from a cultural perspective, this article provides a more comprehensive understanding of British knowledge production of China and the Chinese, and reveals a more complicated picture of Britain's expansion in China, shedding some light on Sino‐British encounters at that time

Art · China · Criminology · Criticism · Cruelty · Human rights · Literature · Narrative · New Culture Movement · Opium · Political science · Punishment (psychology · Sociology · Torture · Witness · Chinese history and philosophy · Colonialism, slavery, and trade · Global Maritime and Colonial Histories · History · Law · Psychology