Mimi Cheng is a cultural historian of the global nineteenth century with research interests in three overlapping areas: transnational visual culture between Europe and East Asia, comparative histories of cartography and the built environment, and the relationship between knowledge and imperialism. Her research has been supported by the American Council for Learned Societies, Social Science Research Council, German Historical Institute Washington, and the Forschungzentrum Gotha at the Universität Erfurt, among others. She is currently a fellow at the Newberry Library in Chicago and will join the Lise Meitner Group “Coded Objects” at the Kunsthistorisches Institut in Florenz—Max-Planck-Institut next spring.

Imperial Science and the Boundaries of Representation along the Chinese Coast in the Late-Qing Era

In 1860, the British Admiralty deployed three vessels on a secret mission to East Asia. Upon their approach to shore, the crew was tasked with drawing the shape of things that broke the horizon line. This act of observation posed a diplomatic problem, seeing as foreign ships were officially barred from entering most Chinese ports. Whereas European diplomats would argue that the men on board were collecting information to advance science and free market trade, Chinese officials perceived them as forms of unprovoked military aggression and territorial encroachment. These disagreements took place during a pivotal moment in Sino-western relations. China’s defeat in the second Opium War led to the establishment of additional treaty ports, as well as the right for foreign missionaries to travel throughout the empire. These clandestine missions, which continued into the 1880s, thus offer a glimpse into the connection between visibility, knowledge, and imperial enterprise in the late-Qing era.

Drawing from the fields of colonial history, visual studies, and the history of science, this paper challenges the empiricism of imperial science by examining the seam between seeing and knowing. It analyzes the form and function of a set of nautical charts, hydrographic survey drawings, and coastal views produced of China by both foreign and domestic entities. It also navigates the uncertain boundary between art and science. The legitimacy and necessity of the European surveying expedition hinged on the argument that what they produced was accurate, reliable, and reproducible. And yet, these images also have a rhetorical function. How, then, do these images persuade us that they are true? I argue that by paying close attention to the aesthetic form of these materials, we can begin to challenge the claim of epistemological superiority on the part of European imperial powers.