The Russian Empire and Guangzhou Trade: The Trading Design of Russia in the Seas of East Asia in the early 19th Century

The purpose of this paper is to consider the trading design of the Russian Empire in the Seas of East Asia in the early 19th century. After the treaty of Kyakhta in 1727, the Russian Empire and the Qing Dynasty maintained relations based on trade, and the trade in the only overland border town of Kyakhta increased year by year. At the end of the 18th century, however, Russia attempted to increase its profits from the trade. This request came to the fore when the Golovkin Embassy was dispatched to the Qing Dynasty by the Russian Empire in 1805‒06. Firstly, this paper illustrates the background to growing interest in Guangzhou trade, and how and why the Russian government dispatched the first Russian to circumnavigate the globe and the Golovkin Embassy at the same time. I then consider issues occurring related to the fur trade in Kyakhta by observation of Yu. A. Golovkin. Finally, it shows that analyzing the instruction given to Golovkin and the documents written by Russian government officials, the Russian government attempted to negotiate with the Qing for the rights to enter the Guangzhou Trade and the Amur River navigation rights, and Russia envisaged the establishment of trading routes that connected the three points, Guangzhou and the Jiangnan district (and Japan), the colonies in Kamchatka and Alaska, and central Siberia in the Seas of East Asia