Missionary Interpreters and Political Modernity in late Qing Imperial China

Missionary interpreters working in the first two British embassies to China, the
Macartney mission (1792–1794) and the Amherst mission (1816–1817), were viewed by China with much skepticism. For Chinese converts who provided linguistic mediation to the British in their diplomatic exchanges with the Chinese government, the “espionage” act of assisting foreigners with Chinese knowledge was condemned as treason by Qing China at the time. Likewise, western missionary interpreters recruited by the British embassies to mediate written and spoken exchanges with Qing China were considered a source of threat and danger to the Chinese government. Yet, missionary interpreters emerged in 18th and 19th century China as a new community that would not accept being treated meanly. This group of interpreters, typically educated in the west and not used to being unquestionably submissive, would talk back.

Based on examples taken from the two embassy accounts, this paper analyzes
how the non-conforming stance of these missionary interpreters confronted Qing China with the modern, and yet unwelcome, ideologies of equality between
independent states and fundamental respect for members of embassies to which
missionary interpreters belonged. This paper is significant in identifying these
trailblazing interpreters who were the budding representatives of a missionary
community that, in the next century, contributed as indispensible co-translators in late Qing China’s drive to learn from western science and technology publications.