Backgammon in China

A precursor of backgammon, the game of 'nard', was known in China as early as 700 A.D. The local name for the game was Shan-liu (meaning double six). A reference can be found in the following book; Stewart Culin, 'Chinese Games with Dice and Dominoes', (Washington 1895), at page 80.

Nard closely resembled backgammon: ie race game played on the 'backgammon' board with 30 checkers whose movements were governed by chance from the throw of 2 die.

If one considers 'backgammon' to be a generic term encompassing the numerous variantions in rules, set up and movement (ie so it would include variants such as Russian Backgammon, Greek Backgammon etc) then its safe to say that backgammon was played in 19th century China.

However, if one defines 'backgammon' very narrowly as a specific variant with a distinct set of rules, (ie so as to preclude variants such as Russian Backgammon, Greek Backgammon etc) then the answer might be 'no', as more research is needed.