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Document Details : Title: Les Arméniens et la Chine Author(s): BOISSON, Patricia Journal: Revue des Études Arméniennes Volume: 42 Date: 2023-2024 Pages: 163-184 DOI: 10.2143/REA.42.0.3293643 Abstract : The presence of Armenians in Asia, and particularly in China, goes back a long way. The first documents to mention the words Armenia and Armenian date from the 13th century — a map entitled kangnido and a medical treatise, the Huihui Yaofang. It was probably during the Pax Mongolica that Armenians and Armenia came into contact with the Chinese world. Small communities are mentioned in the works of Western and Arab travellers, as well as in the correspondence of the Franciscans, who speak of the Armenians as their greatest financial supporters. From the fifteenth century to the eighteenth, Armenians continued to roam China and, from the second half of the seventeenth century, they became active and powerful traders throughout Asia; several of them settled in Hong Kong, including Xač‘ik Połos Astuacatrian, alias Sir Paul Chater (1846-1926), one of Hong Kong’s most influential men. But while Armenians have been present in China since the 13th century, the country is mentioned as early as the 7th century in Armenian historiography. All the sources — admittedly tenuous, not to say derisory — show that the first contacts between Armenians and China date back at least to the Middle Ages. |
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