From around 1700 until the outbreak of the First Opium War in 1839, the encounter between China and the West was audible. This essay investigates the sound of the ship measuring ceremonies held at the Whampoa anchorage near Canton, in which musical and non-musical sonic expressions of sovereignty (for instance, ceremonial band music, canon salutes and gong-ringing) mixed together to form a soundscape of the global eighteenth century.