/u/DoctorEmperor,

The Chinese people were aware of the political reality of Europe when it came to rivalry between major maritime powers (Portugal, Spain, the English, and the Dutch); even as Imperial China feigned indifference to these foreign powers.

Imperial China's view

The most succinct description of Imperial China's interest in Europe is perhaps best described by Jonathan Spence: late Imperial China had a serene indifference to foreigners. To further expand on this, Imperial courtiers tended to lump all foreigners together, to the point that the Wanli Emperor called Jesuit missionaries huihui, the same term he applied to Uighur Muslims. So there was a strong sense of "us versus them" with little to no resolution in who are "them". There were some good reasons to this attitude, including their experience in dealing with the Portuguese and Spanish. To quote the great Matteo Ricci: The Chinese are very anti-foreigners, especially afraid of Christians, because they found they were surrounded by the Portuguese and Castilians whom [the Chinese] think are very militaristic.

But all that is not to say that the Chinese People were disinterested, nor that all Europeans had no access to the Imperial court. Jesuit missionaries in particular adapted through learning to speak and write Mandarin fluently, and to emphasize scientific knowledge as a means to gain access. Not that they forgone the religious aspect of their mission, as they were able to gain the conversion of several courtiers. Their reception in Imperial China changed during the period of transition from the Late Ming to the Early Qing. In particular, the Qing emphasized classic Confucianism and condemned the influence of other religions, including Christianity. I am not aware of any surviving work by courtiers that address the history nor contemporary situation of Europe. They tended to focus on the scientific and religious aspects.

But what about the Chinese people?

The period of the transition from Ming to Qing rule saw remarkable transformation in particular in the maritime frontier, and particularly apt in this context is the arrival of various European powers in the region: the Spanish, Portuguese, and the Dutch. There was also a significant shift of power, among others the Zheng dynasty -- of Zheng Zhilong and Zheng Chenggong (Koxinga) -- was able to build a maritime trade network with activities spanning the Philippines, Taiwan, coastal Guangzhou, and Nagasaki. Zheng Zhilong had contacts with the Catholic Spanish and Portuguese (he was baptised in Macao), and the Protestant Dutch. In the 1620s the Dutch suppressed Catholics from active participation in their burgeoning overseas trade and colonial ventures. Such that Gerritt de Witt, a recusant Dutch Catholic, excitedly disclosed to Salvador Diaz -- a captured Catholic Chinese mestizo -- his secret faith. The two was recorded to have had a close relationship, with de Witt teaching Diaz the religious realities of Europe in that time. Further, in 1622 the Dutch VOC attacked Macao, directly fighting the combination of Portuguese ships and Castilian troops from the Philippines. The Dutch then started to establish themselves in Taiwan. In this period, the first Dutch Protestant missionaries arrived in Taiwan, although their mission ended in failure and their personnel held prisoner in a work camp by Taiwanese natives.

In 1627, Chinese local officials were well aware of the conflict between various European powers and specifically approached the VOC for help in getting rid of pirates, instead of asking to collborate with the Portuguese whom they saw as rivals.

Finally, the VOC had by this time established an outpost in Batavia, with strong links to maritime Chinese in Fujian, so there was already extensive contact with a European power engaged in their own religious conflict in Europe.

So while Imperial China was perhaps indifferent to the foreigners and had their own internal concerns, the Chinese people were very much exposed to the European confessional conflict. So I disagree with /u/cthulgushrugged when it is asserted,

Let me just start right off by giving you the bluntest possible answer: China and the Chinese, in the 1600s gave exactly zero shits about Europe or its political goings on. They didn’t know, they didn’t care… they had far, FAR more pressing problems at the turn of the 17th century.

That may be true of Imperial China, but the reality is that the Chinese people were fragmented and there was significant contact between Europeans and Chinese who engaged in maritime activities. It is really too bad that the scholarship of the Chinese maritime communities in this era is only starting to be better known.

References

Want to know more? Gunn's History without Borders has a great overview, and for more details see Andrade's The Company's Chinese Pirates, Journal of World History, Vol. 15, No. 4 (Dec., 2004), pp. 415-444; Blussé's Dutch Protestant Missionaries as Protagonists of the Territorial Expansion of the VOC on Formosa, in Conversion, Competition, and Conflict, 1984; Blussé's In Strange Company: Chinese Settlers, Mestizo Women, and the Dutch in VOC Batavia, 1989.