Concealing the empireHosne, Ana Carolina (Avtor) the AmericasZhifang waijiSpanish conquestMing ChinaQing literatiUnlike Catholic missions in Spanish and Portuguese America, the Jesuit mission in China had no colonial power on its side. Subjected to local authorities, the missionaries often avoided arousing suspicion with any behavior that could be understood as posing a threat. This situation could impact the information the missionaries transmitted on Chinese soil. Right from the beginning, they engaged in cartographic knowledge production to, among other purposes, prove that they were knowledgeable of parts of the world the Chinese knew little or nothing about, like the Americas. This article examines how the Jesuits dealt with the challenge of conveying information about this continent on Chinese soil, concealing the fact that it had been conquered by men from the same part of the world the missionaries came from, i.e. Ouluoba 歐羅巴. To this end, it particularly analyses the Zhifang waiji 職方外紀 (published in Hangzhou 1623), edited by Jesuit Giulio Aleni (1582–1649) and the literatus Yang Tingyun 楊挺筠 (1557–1627). This survey also ex­amines the reception of the information concerning the Americas by certain Chinese literati in the Qing period.20262026-10-29 15:27:08Članek v reviji190557sl