The Sixtieth Canto continues with the theme of a cosmopolitan and worldly China, but from a first person perspective, as if by a Chinese official. Nonetheless, the language is very American colloquial. For example, the Dutch are described as ‘poifik tigurs‘ (“perfect tigers”).

Referencing the previous Canto, four Jesuit fathers are given credit for introducing Galileo to China (though that seems odd, since this is supposed to be the year 1693).

Ironically, the narrator ends by musing if China should not, in fact, begin to close itself off from the West.