Thank you for the link. The book indeed looks very interesting, though I must point out a potentially misleading detail:
> After the wreck of the U.S.S. Rover in 1867 ... the Chinese disclaimed accountability for the slaughter of the crew ... on the grounds that "the Americans were not murdered in Chinese territory ..."
The phrase "the Chinese disclaimed accountability" suggests the Qing government made a public statement. But that interpretation comes from the US Consul in Xiamen who was quoting correspondence with the governor-general.[1] That official was soon to be corrected by the Qing's foreign minister on this very point.[2] Also the fuller contexts from [1] and [2] make clear that the Chinese side's main point is about jurisdiction. Articles 11 and 13 of the Treaty oblige Qing only to punish offenses against Americans occurring "within the jurisdiction of the emperor, either on shore or at sea," and Qing did not consider the local tribes under their jurisdiction. Which is not a wholly unreasonable stance seeing as it is analogous to how neither India nor the US had any desire to pursue legal action or punitive measures against the Sentinalese for the murder of John Chau.
[1] 'In a correspondence with the U.S. Consul for Amoy, while he was conducting the negociations with the chief of the aborigines in 1867, for the adjustment of the Hover case, appears the following declaration, emanating from the governor of the Island himself: — "Articles 11 and 13 of the Treaty (between America and China) provide that within the jurisdiction of the EMPEROR, either on shore or at sea, any one who shall molest an American, shall be punished by the civil and military authorities to the best of their ability; but as, in the Rover case, the Americans were not murdered on Chinese territory or on Chinese seas, but in a region occupied by savage tribes, relief could not be asked for under the Treaty. Were it in our power to seize the murderers we would gladly do so, that the Chinese might keep friendly intercourse with foreigners. But the savage region does not come within the limit of our jurisdiction, &c., &c.,(t)"' (see p. 12 of https://ia903202.us.archive.org/17/items/IsAboriginalFormosa...)
[2] "In the spring of the seventh year (1868), Prince Gong, the Minister in charge of foreign affairs, wrote to the Governor of Fujian, stating that although the native tribes could not be punished by law, their land still belonged to China. Moreover, it was an important route for Western countries to travel to the South Seas. If it were still treated as a savage region, and if other countries harbored intentions of coveting it, claiming that people had abandoned it and they were taking it, and thus freely encroaching upon it, although the harm might not be immediate, it should still be planned for in advance." (https://ctext.org/wiki.pl?if=en&chapter=149754#:~:text=%E4%B...)