Rethinking the Legitimacy of British Botanizing in Late Qing China (1840–1912)
Lu D.
18 February 2026Cambridge University Press
Journal of British Studies
2026#65
British bioprospecting in the last decades of imperial China was propelled not merely by natural history and commerce, but significantly by China’s evolving foreign relations under international treaties. This article unravels the legal dimension of British naturalists’ collecting activities in late Qing China, challenging indiscriminate associations of their presence with imperialist or illicit plunder of natural resources. While the Sino-British treaties did not explicitly address plant collecting, they authorized British naturalists, as travelers, to move from Guangzhou to treaty ports and subsequently, under passports, into the interior. In practice, their expeditions encompassed both licit travel and illicit transgressions; and plant collecting was either officially acquiesced to or incorporated into the general regulation of travel for pleasure, coupled with lax inspection of plant outflow. From 1863, initially under British influence, Qing authorities even legalized international trade in tea seeds and plants, thus diminishing their control of a species economically vital to China. However, an international legal consensus on sovereign resource rights remained absent. The evolving legal environment for the botanical connection between the British Empire and late Qing China preceded the integration of natural resources into the agenda of international law, nuancing understanding of the politics of nature.
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Department of History, Philosophy and Religious Studies, Nazarbayev University, Astana, Kazakhstan
Department of History
10 лет помогаем публиковать статьи Международный издатель
Книга Публикация научной статьи Волощук 2026 Book Publication of a scientific article 2026