British-Chinese relations also known as Sino-British relations, refers to the interstate relations between China and the United Kingdom.

Chronology

• 1685 Michael Shen Fu-Tsung visits Britain and meets James II.
• 1793 George Macartney, 1st Earl Macartney led the Macartney Embassy to Beijing
• 1839-42 First Opium War ended by the Treaty of Nanking, first of the unequal treaties
• 1856-60 Second Opium War
• 1858 - The Treaty of Tientsin signed by Lord Elgin
• 1868 - The Yangzhou riot
• 1900 - 1901 - The Boxer Rebellion
• 1901 - The Boxer Protocol

Between the UK and the Republic of China (1912 - , moved to Taipei in 1949)

• 1939-45 - Chinese and British fight side by side in World War II

Between the UK and the People's Republic of China (1950 - now)

• 1950 - Britain recognises the PRC as the government of China
• 1984 - Sino-British Joint Declaration
• 1997 - Return of Hong Kong to China

Britons in China

Statesmen

• Sir Robert Hart, 1st Baronet was an Anglo-Chinese statesman.
• George Ernest Morrison resident correspondent of The Times, London, at Peking in 1897, and political adviser to the President of China from 1912 to 1920.

Diplomats

• Sir Thomas Wade - first professor of Chinese at Cambridge University
• Herbert Giles - second professor of Chinese at Cambridge University
• Harry Parkes
• Sir Claude MacDonald
• Sir Ernest Satow served as Minister in China, 1900-06.
• John Newell Jordan followed Satow
• Sir Christopher Hum
• Augustus Raymond Margary

Merchants

• Lancelot Dent
• Keswick family
• William Jardine

Military

• Charles George Gordon

Missionaries

• Robert Morrison
• Hudson Taylor
• Cambridge Seven
• Eric Liddell
• Gladys Aylward

Academics

• Frederick W. Baller
• Joseph Needham
• Jonathan Spence

Chinese statesmen

• Li Hung Chang
• Chang Chih-tung

Notes

See also

• Anglo-Japanese relations
• Sino-French relations
• Foreign relations of imperial China
• China Policy Institute
• University of Nottingham Ningbo, China
• Foreign relations of the Republic of China (from 1911...)
• Foreign relations of the People's Republic of China (after 1949)
• Foreign relations of the Republic of China (...to today)
• British Chinese (Chinese people in the UK)

Further reading

• Pratt, JT. China and Britain (Collins, 1944).
• Gerson, JJ. Horatio Nelson Lay and Sino-British relations. (Harvard University Press, 1972)
• Ruxton, Ian (ed.), The Diaries of Sir Ernest Satow, British Envoy in Peking (1900-06) in two volumes, Lulu Press Inc., April 2006 ISBN 9781411688049 (Volume One); ISBN 9781411688056 (Volume Two)
• Winchester, Simon. The Man Who Loved China: The Fantastic Story of the Eccentric Scientist Who Unlocked the Mysteries of the Middle Kingdom. Harper (May 6, 2008). ISBN 9780060884598

External sources

• Erik Ringmar, Fury of the Europeans: Liberal Barbarism and the Destruction of the Emperor's Summer Palace
• Backgrounder: Sino-British Relations