[Splendour]

Thinking more about Chinese isolationism, I went digging.

Under the topic Isolationism in Wikipedia:

Isolationism by country

[edit] China
This short section requires expansion.

After the Zheng He voyages in the 15th century, the foreign policy of the Ming Dynasty in China became increasingly isolationist. The Qing Dynasty that came after the Ming often continued the later Ming Dynasty's isolationist policies. Around the 1500's China began isolationism. One reason China decided on this was to keep out as much foreign influence on religious beliefs as possible, especially from European traders who came into China with Christian missionaries. The first missionary said to have an impact on Chinese religious beliefs was an Italian Jesuit called Matteo Ricci. Many of the educated Chinese opposed this Christianity introduced by missionaries, but Ricci's scientific knowledge gained him prestige in these circles, first introducing the concepts of trigonometry, and predicting an eclipse of the sun more accurately than Chinese astronomers of the day.

My next thought was: Didn't they consider the Emperor a God in China. We did have Hirohito in Japan and they had "emperor worship" there didn't they as late as the 20th century?

So wikipedia report the following about the Imperial Cult:

An Imperial cult is a kind of religion in which an Emperor, or a dynasty of emperors (or rulers of another title), are worshiped as demigods or deities. "Cult" here is used to mean "worship," not in the modern pejorative sense. The cult may be one of personality in the case of a newly arisen Euhemerus figure or one of national identity (e.g. Ethiopia or Japan) or supranational identity in the case of a multi-ethnic state (e.g. China, Rome).

Another excerpt:

[edit] Ancient China
Main article: Chinese sovereign
In ancient China, an emperor was considered the Son of Heaven. The scion and representative of heaven on earth, he was the ruler of all under heaven, the bearer of the Mandate of Heaven, his commands considered sacred edicts. A number of legendary figures preceding the proper imperial age of China also hold the honorific title of emperor, such as the Yellow Emperor and the Jade Emperor.

I am speculating that maybe maybe the missionaries were kept out because the rulers of China feared a threat to their sovereignty. In Europe they used to call the concept by which kings ruled as "The Divine Right of Kings".