Abstract: During the late 17^th century, “China” emerged in British theatrical literature in the wake of both the ever-widening China-West exchanges and the development of British theater. Taking the contemporary Chinese history as its subject matter, The Conquest of China by the Tartars broke away from the tradition of British heroic play in its androgynic creation of Amavanga, a valiant Chinese Heroine. In performing the demise of Chongzhen, the play activated the British people's collective memory of the execution of Charles I. Its denouement was a utopian rewriting that translated the Chinese history into British political and cultural resource. In Sacrifice, its author expanded Chinese geographical knowledge into name-implying prophecies and philosophical reflections on the rise and fall of the empire. Its discussion of social mobility on the basis of China's Four Inventions offered a dramatic interpretation of the Chinese rules for the imperial examination and evinced the British intelligentsia's attempt to compare and explore the power structures of both nations. The “Chinese Writing” about these two plays followed the trajectories of “reconstructing history” and “performing civilization” respectively and registered in-depth political self-reflections.

Key words: British plays, Chinese Writing, heroic play, The Conquest of China by the Tartars, The Sacrifice