Tracing the shores of empire: Imperial visuality on the Chinese coast in the late-Qing era

Abstract

This article investigates the connection between visuality, territoriality, and the production of geographical knowledge in the Qing empire during the latter half of the nineteenth century. I examine a series of incidents in which German and British surveying ships entered Chinese waters under the pretense of conducting hydrographic research, as well as the drawings, maps, and surveys that resulted from them. Whereas European diplomats argued that the ships were collecting information for the advancement of science and free market trade that would benefit all parties, Chinese officials perceived them as forms of military aggression and territorial encroachment. Drawing from the fields of visual culture, history of science, and colonial history, this article examines the processes through which images were created and the settings under which they operated to reveal the speculative nature of imperial visuality, especially as it was distributed across the shifting boundary between land and sea.