Qing Officials Misidentified Russian Envoys

The first diplomatic contacts between the Russian Tsar and the Chinese emperor in the 17th century were plagued by mutual ignorance and the lack of a common language. A Central Asian envoy in Russian service named Setkul Ablin traveled to Beijing in 1655, 1658, and 1668, but only on his third trip did the Manchu authorities apparently realize that these western visitors represented the same Russians who had been raiding and settling around the Amur River. Early relations were further complicated because Qing officials expected the Russians to follow a tributary diplomatic system that the Russians neither accepted nor fully understood. The language barrier eased only after Russia began sending Latin-speaking Westerners who could communicate through Jesuit missionaries in Beijing.

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