What the Chinese Didn't Know About India

This is the period that the Chinese call one of their great periods of history. The Qing Empire had conquered China in the 17th century, and then their empire continues to expand outwards. It's also got the seeds of decline as is so often the case. There are actually underlying financial problems, but at this stage they're still not visible to anyone,. except for the people actually running the state's finances. On the other side we have the British, and obviously we've had the age of exploration, and this is the period of British expansion in India. But it's usually been thought of really differently as Britain trying to set up diplomatic relations with a country that hitherto did not have diplomatic