This panel uses a transimperial (Hedinger and Née) framework to analyze the relationship between the British and Qing empires across distinct frontiers over the course of the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. The bilateral framing of the topic may seem to obviate the analytical purchase of “transimperial,” which draws attention to networks of multiple imperial formations and actors who operated at the interstices of empire. In fact, the papers illustrate that this relationship was never purely bilateral. Rather, it was conditioned by a diverse range of Qing, British, and other subjects acting on a complex range of localized interests that never neatly aligned with metropolitan concerns. Moreover, interactions with other imperial rivals, like Japan and Germany, and local polities shaped the Anglo-Qing relationship in different ways across these various “contact zones” (Pratt). Exploring this relationship across trans-Himalayan, littoral, and inland Chinese frontiers using disparate, multilingual archives underscores the fragmentary nature of this bilateral relationship. However, it also provides opportunities to observe how the inter-regional circulation of personnel and information shaped imperial agents’ negotiation of challenges that were simultaneously local and embedded in broader dynamics. Our papers pay particular attention to the development of strategies to, in turns, limit, harness, and stimulate commercial activity and assert jurisdictional claims over subjects. Rather than abandoning the bilateral framing of Anglo-Qing relations, we use a transimperial and multi-frontier framework to develop an understanding of this relationship rooted in these localities as opposed to London, Beijing, or the better-studied treaty ports.