This is the first comprehensive study to analyse in detail the evolving political, economic and diplomatic relationship between China and Denmark since their first contact in 1674. The book is thoroughly researched and based on newly available source material in Chinese as well as in Western languages. It is an important contribution to the growing literature on China's relations with the West since the beginning of the modern period.

Non-Danes will be interested in how the singularly non-imperialistic Danish approach to China has shaped a relationship quite different from the patterns of domination and conflict that have characterized the relations between the Middle Kingdom and the traditional Great Powers of the West.