Spain in China: A “Dove” in the Midst of Imperial “Hawks” at the End of the Qing Dynasty

Abstract

This article explores the links between China and Spain since the establishment of formal diplomatic relations in 1864 until the fall of the Qing Dynasty in 1912. To this aim, the authors investigate documents kept by the Ministry of Qing Foreign Affairs at The First Historical Archives of China, in Beijing. Specifically, the authors examine 809 documents of diplomatic communications between the Qing central government and the Spanish institutions in Chinese, French, Spanish, and English. Based on these documents, a database was designed that allowed a full quantitative, diachronic, and thematic analysis of their content. Once the four main topics were defined (diplomatic agreements, protocol, economic and minority issues), each one was independently presented and analyzed. The chapter finds that Spain's relations with late Qing China were characterized by the search for mutual diplomatic support, but lacked an economic or strategic background to cement them. As the authors argue, the documents of the Waiwubu demonstrate how Spain was a friendly but irrelevant nation for the Chinese Qing administration.