Manchester China Institute

This event is part of a new Chinese Culture Lecture Series organised by the Manchester China Institute and Manchester Museum.

Dr. Sunny Xin Liu and Professor of Public History and broadcaster, Michael Wood will unite for this intimate discussion about Dr. Liu's latest book, "Anglo-Chinese Encounters Before the Opium War, A Tale Of Two Empires Over Two Centuries" (Routledge, 2022).

Starting with Queen Elizabeth I’s letter to the Ming Emperor Wanli and ending with the letter from Lord Palmerston to the Minister of China just before the Opium War, this talk narrates the fascinating encounters between the two historic empires and explores the long journey from cultural diplomacy to gunboat diplomacy.

In this special event at the Historic Reading Room of the John Rylands Research Institute and Library, the speakers will adopt a novel ‘mirror’ approach by pairing and comparing people, texts, gifts, commodities, artworks, architecture, ideologies, operating systems and world views of the two empires. While interweaving the most known diplomatic efforts at the official level with the much unknown intellectual interactions at the people-to-people level, this approach allows an analysis of how the two empires created frameworks for understanding “Self and Other” from both Sino-centric and Anglo-centric points of departure, telling stories that have been understudied in the grand narratives, and reflecting on their implications on today’s bilateral relations.

The event also marks the opening of the new China Culture Gallery at the Manchester Museum, where various narratives on historical Anglo-Chinese encounters will also be exhibited.

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About the Speakers

Xin Liu graduated with two BA degrees from China Foreign Affairs University in Beijing and a MBA in Change Management from the University of Central Lancashire in 2002. She received her PhD in China’s Cultural Diplomacy at the same university, where she has been teaching as a Senior Lecturer in the School of Humanities, Language and Global Studies since 2008. Her research interest lies in the multidisciplinary area covering public diplomacy, cultural studies, media and communication, and China’s relations with the West. Apart from nine translated books, Dr Liu’s major publications include multiple research papers in top-rated journals such as Journal of Contemporary China, Asia Studies Review, and two monographs: China’s Cultural Diplomacy: A Great Leap Outward? (Routledge, 2019), and Anglo-Chinese Encounters Before the Opium War, A Tale of Two Empires Over Two Centuries (Routledge, 2022). She is now working on her new book provisionally titled A Historical Tempest in a Teapot, the Story of Cha and China.

Michael Wood is an English historian, broadcaster, and Professor of Public History at the University of Manchester. From exploring international history with undergraduates to being a patron of the Manchester Histories Festival, leading historical field trips and giving public lectures, Prof Wood has become an emblematic figure at the University of Manchester. Outside academia, he has presented numerous well-known television documentary series from the late 1970s to the present day. Prof Wood has also written a number of books on English and Chinese history, including The Story of England, The Story of China, In Search of the Dark Ages, The Domesday Quest, and In Search of Shakespeare.