After the global shock wave caused by the Covid-19 pandemic, "Le Figaro" explores the complex relationships in history between China, fascinating and source of fantasies, and the West. From Marco Polo's trip to the court of the Grand Khan to the meeting between Mao and Nixon, through the opium war.
In the beginning was the time. The infinite time of celestial spaces punctuating the movement of the stars. The time of the calendar that the Emperor must master if he wants to keep the “mandate from heaven”. The time of the long journey, often without return, undertaken by the Jesuits to convert the Middle Empire. A third of these adventurers of God died before reaching the mysterious shores and the distant land ruled by the ruler and the bureaucracy of scholars from the Forbidden City. Already in the 13th century, the Venetian merchant Marco Polo went to Kubilai Khan to visit his court and open a trade route.
Read also: Marco Polo, discoverer of the wonders of China
Three centuries later, in 1601, the Jesuit
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