Abstract: Jean Bap tistéDu Halde’s Description ? de l’em pire de la Chine et de la Tartarie chinoise ( Paris, 1735) was a major source on China for European1 Du Halde’s work included introductions of non-Han group s in the southwest China that emphasized a tense situation between non-Han group s and the central government, stressed the contemptuous attitudes of Han toward non-Han groups, and defined the non-Han regions as colonies of the Qing government1 The colonial nature of the southwest China was clearly delineated in the attached maps. These Jesuitmaps probably influenced both eighteenth-century and modern Western scholars’understandings of the Qing government1 This essay analyses reasons for these clearly different political conceptions of southwest China between Jesuits and Chinese, and suggests that Western scholars’colonial perspective may offer some valuable lessons for Chinese scholars’studying the formation of China as a nation.