Abstract

The encounter of Late Qing China with modern international Law witnesses the attempt of the Western powers to force open Imperial China with material power backed by the language of law. By conducting close textual analysis of selected translated words or expressions in the international law-related texts during the intercourse with western powers, this paper intends to reflect on the language characteristics of the terms and expressions deployed in these contexts, and provides a linguistic perspective on how the Chinese were imposed with legal concepts and institutions familiar to Europe and America, how contemporary Chinese elites, experiencing suffering from aggression and oppression, influenced by the introduction of international law, repositioned their epistemology and mindset when China was forced into a different world system, how the translators overcome the language barriers, intellectual challenges and responded to political, legal, cultural, ideological gap. The linguistic characteristics bears profound implications for the historical encounter of Late Qing China and international law.