Embassies and Illusions shows how peculiar circumstances in the early Ch'ing dynasty led to the application of the inherited routines of the tribute embassy to relations with Europeans. Chinese records of those embassies strengthened the illusion, persisting into the Opium War period, that the tribute system was relevant to the conduct of Sino-European relations.

From archival and printed sources in seven languages, John Wills traces the progress of four embassies—two Dutch, two Portuguese—to the court of K'ang-hsi. He constructs vivid pictures of the ambassadors and their staffs, their difficulties in their ports of arrival, the long journeys to Peking, the ceremonies at the courts, the gifts exchanged, the influence of Jesuits resident in Peking, and, of special interest, the young Emperor in the early years of his reign. Contexts of Ch'ing court and provincial politics and of Dutch and Portuguese relations with China are clearly described.

In 1662 the great sea-lord dynasty of the Cheng family expelled the Dutch from Taiwan, beginning a curious and little-known episode in cross-cultural diplomacy. China's new Manchu-Chinese Ch'ing dynasty and the greatest mercantile-colonial power of the seventeenth century negotiated with each other concerning conditions of trade and terms of military cooperation against their common enemy, the Cheng family. Conflicts between the two negotiating powers are seen as a great deal more than clashes between the Chinese tribute system of diplomacy and the Western "international system." The author's study suggests new perspectives on Chinese diplomatic tradition which may lead to a re-examination of foreign relations across cultural barriers.