The Burlingame Mission

FAIN: FT-55268-07

Stephen R. Platt
University of Massachusetts, Amherst (Amherst, MA 01003-9242)

A reconsideration of the nature and purpose of the Burlingame Mission of 1868, China's first embassy to the Western powers, most notable for securing a controversial treaty guaranteeing free immigration for the Chinese to America. I believe that the mission’s original purpose bore little resemblance to its actual outcome, and by looking into both the motives of the Chinese government in sending it, and the reception it found in the United States, I can provide an unconventional perspective on American attitudes towards China at the time, as well as how Chinese elites viewed their place in an emerging international world.