Trade wasn't stopped except for brief periods, but the empire limited western traders to the southern port of Guangzhou (the "Canton system", using the former English name for the city), and in 1793 the emperor rejected a British request for the opening of more ports, famously declaring that "we possess all things. I set no value on objects strange or ingenious, and have no use for your country's manufactures."

Yet trade carried on, China's a healthy surplus of exports over imports yielding an annual inflow of 150 tons of silver in the latter half of the 18th century and provoking a more forceful British response in the 19th. Even then, Chinese demand remained low relative to the size of the domestic economy, imports reaching perhaps 4% of GDP at their imperial peak at the end of the dynasty. That was partly a result of consumer preference, both cultural and practical (farmers for instance choosing hard-wearing hand-woven clothing over less durable western fabrics), but mostly it was down to fundamental economic conditions unfavourable to a western-type surge in demand for manufactures, imported or local, for which the reasons go far deeper than international trade conditions: I offered some thoughts on that here.