Kneeling, or not kneeling, that's a question!
In the fifty-eighth year of the Qianlong Dynasty (1793 AD), the British emissary Ma Garni brought the most advanced products in the world at that time to China, and he hoped to give these things to Qianlong in the name of offering birthday gifts to Qianlong.
These things were telescopes, globes, weapons, etc., and he thought that Qianlong would be interested in these things in order to curry favor with Qianlong. After Ma Jiaerni saw Qianlong, he showed Qianlong these products one by one, but Qianlong wanted to sleep, and he was not interested in these things.
One of the questions that Qianlong was more concerned about was why didn't Macartney kneel? In Qianlong's view, the Qing Dynasty was the kingdom of heaven, while Britain was a small barbarian country, and the emissaries of a small country visited the emperor of the Heavenly Dynasty, did not perform rituals, did not bow down, and what a system.
Where Qianlong's face went, how unpleasant it was to pass it out. Qianlong was also very open-minded, and he took a step back, thinking that these small barbarian countries did not understand etiquette, so he asked people to talk to Macartney about how to perform the ceremony.
However, after Ma Garni listened, he still went his own way and was unwilling to bow down, which set Qianlong infuriated.
In Macartney's view, he was a British emissary, and there was no need to kneel to Qianlong, and the two were equal. Qianlong and Ma Jiaerni began to argue over etiquette, and eventually the two of them took a step back, and Ma Jiaerni gave Qianlong one knee.
After kneeling, Macartney proposed various trade matters to Qianlong, hoping that there would be commercial trade between China and Britain, but Qianlong refused. Qianlong thought that he had come to give gifts, but did not expect to come to talk about business, qianlong was very unhappy, so he asked Ma Jiaerni to leave China quickly.
Before Ma Garni's departure, Qianlong also issued a holy decree to the British king, which read: Daqing has everything, and you don't need your things, as long as you sincerely submit to Daqing, you will naturally reward you with things every year, so that you can eat and drink without worry.
Today, this holy decree is still preserved in the British Museum, and the content is really laughed off the teeth. Through this holy decree, we can see that the backwardness of Qianlong Thought and the Qing Dynasty have derailed from the world, and such a great Qing Dynasty will be completed sooner or later.
References: "Kiyoshi History", "Emperor Taisei 12", etc.