Foreign policy of Peter the Great in the articles of Chinese historians of the 1980s and the 1990s

The topic of this article is relevant due to the growing interest in studying the history of contacts between China and the Russian state expressed by Russian and Chinese scholars over the last decades (especially after the Belt and Road Initiative was announced in 2013). Political activities of the first Russian Emperor Peter the Great (reigned 1682-1725), who contributed greatly to the formation and development of regular Sino-Russian relations in various fields, were a significant part of these contacts. The article investigates the issue of dialogue between states and civilizations, as well as the perception of nations by other nations - in this case, through reinterpreting historical facts. Both issues have increasingly attracted attention, especially with increasing globalization. The article also deals with one of the issues that can be raised while studying the image of Peter the Great in Chinese academic literature, namely, the evaluation of his activities in the field of Russia’s foreign policy. This issue has never been examined previously in Russia or abroad. The author reviews Chinese publications of the 1980s and the 1990s that investigate the foreign policy of Peter I in China in order to identify, classify and study research domains and specific issues connected with Peter’s diplomacy, which were of special concern to Chinese scholars. The author reveals how the foreign policy activities of Peter I were perceived and interpreted in China, and determines the possible sources for some of these interpretations and perceptions. The article intends to attract the researchers’ attention to the problems connected with Russia’s image in China and to throw some light on how the Chinese perceive such a prominent historical figure as Peter the Great.