Aspects of this topic are discussed in the following places at Britannica.
In 1844 Wei published his best-known work, the Haiguo tuzhi (“Illustrated Gazetteer of the Countries Overseas”), on the geography and material conditions of foreign nations. Although handicapped by the ignorance and superstition with which the Chinese viewed the West, this work was the first to make use of translations from Western sources. Wei proposed that...
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