In the eyes of the traditional Western powers, the Qianlong Emperor's reception of the "British envoy" Macartney was often equated with the blind arrogance and isolation of the rulers of China's feudal society represented by the Qianlong Emperor. Today, China has re-emerged, the nation has been rejuvenated, and Britain has declined, and great changes unprecedented in a century are gradually emerging; we cannot be blindly arrogant and down-to-earth in our efforts to achieve socialist modernization, nor can we admire foreign countries, we should objectively and fairly evaluate the Qianlong Emperor, especially his measures and behaviors in dealing with "British envoy Macartney."
First of all, Macartney should put the British envoy in quotation marks, because he can hardly represent the supreme ruler of Britain, George III, he actually represents British Prime Minister William Pitt Jr. and the British East India Company. Because George III was in an intermittent psychotic state at that time, he was overwhelmed. Generally, after the "Glorious Revolution", the product of the compromise between the British bourgeoisie and the new aristocracy, the emperor had to abide by the capitalist system of constitutional monarchy, honestly sitting on the more symbolic emperor, but George III was different, taking advantage of the contradiction between the British Whigs and Tories to hold a large amount of real power, surpassing parliament, the industrial revolution brought progress in human productivity, and the victory in the Seven Years' War also won the French colonies of Canada and parts of India. But the good times did not last long, and the victory in the American Revolutionary War seriously stimulated George III, and in the late Qianlong period, the British monarch went crazy several times, including during Macartney's envoy to China. During this period, politically William Pitt Jr.'s parliament once again surpassed the monarch and consolidated the rule of the capitalist constitutional monarchy; Economically, the East Indies were rich and wealthy, and on behalf of the United Kingdom, they contributed £13,124 to fund the Macartney mission.
Second, Macartney's gift to China was a hard civilization, and the Qianlong Emperor had seen and partly not seen, and the splendor of China's prosperous era and the relative advancement of Britain made it impossible for the Qianlong Emperor to worship or submit to Britain. It took Macartney a year to travel from Putsmouth, England, to Beijing, China, sending clocks, telescopes, globes, muskets (given to China by the Netherlands and Italy) that the great man of China had seen, as well as products of the industrial revolution such as steam engines, cotton spinning machines, looms, and model trains, as well as models of warships, repeating pistols, rifles and other threatening weapons. The Qianlong Emperor gave Britain soft civilization, deep things unique to Chinese culture, such as jade ruyi, porcelain, tea, silk, etc. The Qianlong Emperor also asked Niuhu Lu about his knowledge of the sun, moon, and earth and the steam engine watts, but fundamentally he believed that China's economic and social system and Chinese spiritual civilization were superior to Britain's in the long run. When he received Macartney, he said: You have what Britain has, and we also have it in China; What you don't have in Britain, we also have in China, which is the embodiment of this concept.
Finally, from the perspective of the new era, the Qianlong Emperor's attitude towards Macartney is soft and rigid, which has positive significance. The purpose of Britain's coming to China was to open up a new market for capitalism and a new supply of raw materials, which belonged to the primitive accumulation in the initial stage, and the way adopted was to show the rise of Britain, open several trade ports in foreign countries (such as asking the Qianlong Emperor to make commercial ports in China for Britain Tianjin, Zhoushan, Ningbo, and Guangzhou), cede a small island (at that time Britain was interested in Zhoushan, not in Hong Kong), and engage in tax-free privileges in one place (such as Guangdong in China), Then gradually wait for the country to weaken before starting a war and turning it into its own colony or semi-colony (such as India, Burma, and China during the Daoguang Xianfeng period); One is that in view of the brilliance brought about by the victory of the American War of Independence and the French Revolution, the great Napoleon and Britain for hegemony, and the brilliance brought to China by Qianlong Wenzhi (such as Siku Quanshu and Liuxia Jiangnan) martial arts (such as internal conquest of large and small Jinchuan, big and small and zhuo, and foreign conquest of Burma and Nepal Gurkha), so that Britain temporarily contacts China in a peaceful way; Another is to test and spy on China, be China's informant, find China's weaknesses, and prepare for attacking China (for example, this time Macartney learned that China selectively closed itself, and Western advanced technology weapons were used by upper-class rulers, and were not extended to the military and civilians; Some people in China are disunited, engage in infighting, love to watch and have a poor sense of social responsibility). The Qianlong Emperor, who created the prosperous era, could not have known nothing about the West or even Britain, nor could he have the Western water laws of the Old Summer Palace and piles of Western tributes, even if his continuation of the "Great Qing Dynasty" has detailed descriptions of France and the United States. Contemporary British and American historians say it is likely that the Qianlong Emperor saw through the British intentions and even learned through secret channels the real purpose behind Britain's covert support for the economic privileges of the Gurkha of Nepal to invade Tibet in China and the Macartney mission to visit China. The Qianlong Emperor welcomed the British with a prosperous ceremony, and also threatened the British with an army unsheathed by a sword and a three-kneeling and nine-knock salute (the Qing History Manuscript and Mazarni's relatives say that Macartney knelt three times and nine kowtows to the Qianlong Emperor, rather than kneeling on one leg to the Qianlong Emperor as Mazarny himself reported, and the French great Napoleon and the Russian strongman Tsar Catherine II believed that one great power to another power had to observe local etiquette, both affirmed that the Chinese emperor's request for the British Macartney to kneel three kneeling and nine bows was reasonable). A detail: Helong who is good-looking, cultured, can diplomacy, understands finances, and is good at figuring out the intentions of leaders (not the Helong in the TV series "Prime Minister Liu Luoguo" can only sneak around and be corrupt) explained to the Qianlong Emperor that British trade was allowed to use the difference to earn British money to increase China's money, but the Qianlong Emperor obviously had his own opinions, at that time, under his leadership, China ranked first in the world's economic output, Britain was subject to the United States and France, and capitalism was still in the stage of fighting, restoration and repeated reversion with the feudal revolution, Capitalism had not yet achieved a complete victory over feudalism, and the Qianlong Emperor was completely confident, proud and self-reliant in his comprehensive rejection of the Macartney Mission's "commerce," "island secession," and "privilege tax exemption," and politely and civilly expelled the British, which seemed reasonable, advantageous, and restrained. The Qianlong Emperor did not get carried away, and as soon as the British left, he ordered the coastal officials and troops to maintain a state of defense and alert, and put the British on high alert.
As for Mazarni's statement that "China is like a vulnerable ship, if there is no wise helmsman, if the incompetent person is at the helm, it will be destroyed", although there is a sense of discouragement, invective, and exaggeration, but since the Opium War in the Daoguang period and the second opium war in the Xianfeng period, modern China has indeed lagged behind and been beaten, the rulers are not as capable as the ancestor Qianlong Emperor, and the fortunes of the whole China are also in a time of temporary humiliation.
Ma Canny's statement that "the common people in southern China have dishes, and they will rob British things when they see them", I think it is purely to smear the Qianlong Emperor and China's prosperous era, and there is no formal history to rely on, I don't believe it!