Three centuries after the Mongol-era historian Rashid al-Din (1247–1318) wrote his influential account of China, an émigré Christian convert from Islam translated Matteo Ricci's book on China into Persian in Mughal Delhi. In doing so, he provided a remarkably detailed depiction of the rulers, religions, and regulations of the Ming empire that greatly updated, and superseded, Rashid al-Din's celebrated account. Nonetheless, by the very virtue of its triangulated origins—between China, Europe, and India; between Chinese, Latin, and Persian—this was a fraught endeavour. For Chinese cultural traditions had to be rendered into Islamicate Persian terms that were approximate equivalents for Latin Christian terms which themselves inevitably misrepresented Confucian terms that in turn provided biased depictions of Buddhist and Daoist beliefs. By looking at two moments of the transmission of Ricci into Persian—in the early modern era of manuscripts and amid the colonial ascent of Indian print—this article uses translation as a lens through which to observe both the reach and limits of the cross-cultural connections that have captivated global historians in recent decades.

This article analyzes the instrumentalization of “China” in contacts between the Ming and Qing dynasties and Siam-Ayutthaya. It focuses both on the state-to-state relations and those between various members of the Siamese and the imperial societies. “China” and “Chinese-ness” stood for forms of ascribed identity within the Sinocentric world, for a form of social distinction, and for one of many identities assumed in the games of political loyalty. For the Ming and Qing empires, inclusion of a foreign land within “China” was conducted through the ritual and administrative fictions that situated Ayutthaya within a hierarchy vis-à-vis the imperial capital. Beyond the state's discourses, participation in a vaguely defined Chinese culture were means of building social networks within the merchant and official communities in Ayutthaya. For the junkmen that connected Ayutthaya and South China, multiple Chinese identities were instrumentalized and inflected according to the needs and necessities of the moment.

The Ming Empire entertained relations with countries all across Asia and beyond. To deal with these many different polities, Ming China relied on a range of foreign policy instruments, among them the granting of special trading rights, the dissemination of cultural objects, and the use of military threats. This article puts the spotlight on the diversity of these foreign policy means. Building on the literature, it takes as its purview all relations that the Ming Empire entertained with foreign polities, exploring the many means that the Ming employed to further their interests. It does so by classifying the instruments into four categories—economic, diplomatic, cultural, and military—showing that the Ming made full use of instruments belonging to each of them.