'The inevitable steamboat'. Archibald John Little and steam navigation on the Yangtze river

In the second half of the nineteenth century the area surrounding the Yangtze river became increasingly crucial for Britons: they regarded it as their sphere of interest, firmly believed in its commercial potential, and thus strove to facilitate trade by introducing steam navigation beyond the Three Gorges. However, they encountered formidable obstacles, due to the nature of the river itself and to the opposition of Chinese authorities. Archibald John Little, a British merchant and author, played a prominent role in the opening of the Upper Yangtze to steamers, and discussed his project in print in order to gain the support of public opinion in Britain. Through a reading of his travelogue, Through the Yang-Tse Gorges, or Trade and Travel in Western China (1888), this paper explores the multi-layered significance that steam navigation on the Yangtze acquired for Britons: while it offered the chance to expand their economic power in the region, it was also a constant source of friction with Qing authorities, epitomising the difficulties that characterised the interaction between the two empires; for some, it also acquired the symbolic value of a challenge to demonstrate the superiority of Western technology and to force upon China a Western model of progress. Yet, the encounter with the river, which has been central to Chinese history and culture for two millennia, also complicated assumptions on the superiority of the West and its more ‘efficient’ management the environment; moreover, the opportunity to observe junkmen and trackers eroded received stereotypes about ‘the Chinese’, testifying to a degree of admiration and respect seldom voiced in this period. Crucially, Little’s account captured the overlapping of aesthetic, economic, and human considerations that characterised British discussions of the Yangtze, a unique environment which focalised, and partially reshaped, current views of China, its people and its nature.