Xin Liu is a Senior Lecturer and Chair of the China Research Center at the University of Central Lancashire. She received her PhD and MBA from the same university. Her other monograph, China's Cultural Diplomacy: A Great Leap Outward?, was published by Routledge in 2020.

0. Introduction: 1583-1840, from cultural diplomacy to gunboat diplomacy, 1. Where the tale of the two empires began, 2. The Tributary System and the first Anglo-British encounters, 3. The earliest Chinese travellers to the Far West, 4. Chinoiserie vs. Euroiserie: Mutual reflections of material culture and perception gaps, 5. When the lion meets the dragon: Lost in translation or beyond translation?, 6. The Amherst Embassy to China, an insurmountable generation gap between the two empires, 7. From the Tea War to the Opium War, 8. Conclusion: The two great reversals - Historical implications on the modern-day interactions between a post-Brexit UK and a globalising China

Anglo-Chinese Encounters Before the Opium War: A Tale of Two Empires Over Two Centuries studies the fascinating encounters between the two historic empires from Queen Elizabeth I's first letter to the Ming Emperor Wanli in 1583, to Lord Palmerston's letter to the Minister of China in 1840.