The Chinese Gazette in European Sources from the Late Qianlong Period: The Case of the Siku Quanshu

Abstract

The publicly available government gazette (often called dibao 邸報) that was published in a variety of formats in imperial China has recently caught new academic interest both in China and in the West. While most of these studies focus on the Peking Gazette (jingbao 京報) in the (late) nineteenth century, information about the gazette for earlier times remains very scarce. To address this gap, the present study focuses on the gazette from the Qianlong period (1736–1795). It uses and describes both Chinese sources, specifically the tizou shijian 題奏事件, and European sources, especially the French translations of gazettes by Jean-Joseph-Marie Amiot (1718–1793). A case study of translated reports on the Siku quanshu 四庫全書 sent to Europe shows how the Chinese gazette became part of a remarkable and lively global information network.