The remorseless undermining of Imperial China by the Western powers and the collapse of the Qing Dynasty in 1912 have too often led to an overstated condemnation of the Chinese government of the period as unvaryingly sterile, archaic, and corrupt. This first English translation of Hsieh Fucheng's diaries, however, gives a very different picture, in its portrayal of a progressive, thoughtful, and deeply perceptive senior official and his encounter...