This article presents a critical analysis of representing China in the travelogue “A Voyage around the World on the Ship ‘Neva’” (1812) by Yuri Lisyansky. In contrast to earlier positivist interpretations, the study adopts an interdisciplinary approach, viewing the image of China as a narrative and ideological construct shaped within the framework of the author’s cultural self-consciousness. The aim of the article is to demonstrate how the discourse on China becomes a tool for Russia’s civilizational self-definition and a marker of its position within the East–West paradigm. Lisyansky’s travelogue signals a departure from Enlightenment romanticism in favor of a cultural critique discourse: China is portrayed not as an idealized “Eastern utopia”, but as a symbol of stagnation, opposed to the progressive West. In Lisyansky’s text, the image of China functions as an epistemological and civilizational marker, serving Russia’s efforts to position itself in the global cultural hierarchy. Particular attention is paid to the influence of British Orientalism, especially as mediated through the writings of the participants in the Macartney mission. By deconstructing exotic myths and empirically documenting cultural and social antinomies, Lisyansky constructs a new narrative, in which Chinese otherness becomes a mirror for Russia’s civilizational self-understanding at the beginning of the 19th century.