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144 Yeewan Koon Treaty of the Bogue supplemented the earlier Treaty of Nanjing and granted the British extraterritorial rights to complement the opening of five designated ports. However, it proved to be difficult to implement the terms in Guangzhou because the general populace resisted British entry. Discussions regarding the opening of Guangdong were delayed until 1847, by which time local militia groups led by local elites and scholars had rallied together against the British. There were fears that the British wanted to penetrate deeper into Guangdong’s hinterlands and capture the profitable inland routes of interregional trade connecting southeast China with the Yangtze regions. Finally, Qiying managed to negotiate a two-year grace period and promised to have Guangdong opened by April 1849. Between 1847 and 1849, Guangdong was a volatile region that saw xenophobic protests, local uprisings, and violent clashes. It was only with the daring tactics of Ye Mingchen (1807–59) that Guangdong was able to bluff its way out of another military showdown with the British. Meanwhile, the growing mistrust at the Imperial Court, fuelled by reports of the growing alienation of the local Guangdong populace and of violence among the local militia, made his strong overtures of friendliness an increasingly dangerous game. By 1850, the Daoguang Emperor had passed away and rumors of the new emperor’s diplomatic plans incited more local uprisings, especially in Guangxi, where the vision of a young man changed the course of history when he saw himself as the brother of Christ. The ensuing rebellion of the Taiping Army against the Manchu court would cost tens of millions of lives. By the mid-1850s, France and Britain had joined forces in the Second Opium War (1856–60), proceeding to the capital and looting the Summer Palace. It appears that in the end, Qiying’s strategy of coordinating appearances of intimacy with European trading powers had run its course and become ineffective. The Afterlife of Portrait Gifts In the wake of the First Opium War (1839–42), Cushing pursued opportunities for introducing into China methods of shipbuilding and innovative weaponry produced by US artillery manufacturers. He sent letters to Qiying outlining proposals that would have led to lucrative deals with US manufacturers , but there are no records of Qiying accepting Cushing’s proposals. Nonetheless, the United States’ attempts were not entirely futile. He had The Face of Diplomacy in Nineteenth-Century China 145 included in his diplomatic envoy a young engineer, John Peters, Jr., who stayed in China after Cushing’s departure, in part to collect Chinese artifacts for his father, John Peters, Sr., who was assembling a massive collection on China to exhibit in the United States. It was unlikely that Peters knew what and where to buy artworks, and he may have had help from Pan Shicheng, a rich and influential salt merchant in Guangzhou who built a warship with help from foreign friends, perhaps including Peters. One of the terms in the 1842 Treaty of Nanjing called for abolishing the Canton System and ending the Cohongs. However, this did not deter the Cohong merchants from becoming actively involved in the negotiations between the officials and being eager to reposition themselves in the new free trade market. Pan Shicheng was the cousin of one of the most powerful Cohong families, and he often acted as part of Qiying’s advisory team during the negotiations of treaties with France and the United States. Many of the negotiations and meetings that led to the treaty signings were held at the homes of Pan Shicheng and his coterie of merchant friends, including Howqua’s successor, Wu Shaorong. When Cushing returned home to the US, he gave his portrait of Qiying to John Peters, Sr., who had purchased a plot in Manhattan where he pursued plans to erect the large exhibition of China wares obtained through his son.30 When the building of a venue was delayed, the elder Peters rented a space for display in Boston, and the Boston Chinese Museum opened to the public in 1845. The opening was attended by curious thousands who consulted the handbook Guide to the Descriptive Catalogue of the Chinese Museum in the Marlboro Chapel, Boston (1845–47). The Boston Chinese Museum followed in the steps of Nathan Dunn’s successful exhibition, “Ten Thousand Chinese Things,” which had opened in 1838. Dunn’s and Peters’s exhibitions were both large-scale projects offering a form of theatrical showcase. In both exhibitions , real Chinese figures walked among the...

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