The row over The Wall Street Journal’s “Sick Man of Asia” headline was the latest in what Beijing has bemoaned as the West’s sustained smearing of China’s character. But the long Chinese history of indifference towards the outside world is partly to blame for these mischaracterisations. With the exception of Admiral Zheng He’s short-lived maritime expeditions during the Ming dynasty, imperial China rarely ventured beyond its borders. The Middle Kingdom, however, was not devoid of foreign…