International Sociology

http://iss.sagepub.com Chinese Encounters with Other Civilizations

Cho-Yun Hsu International Sociology 2001; 16; 438 DOI: 10.1177/026858001016003012 The online version of this article can be found at: http://iss.sagepub.com/cgi/content/abstract/16/3/438

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Chinese Encounters with Other Civilizations

Cho-YunHsu
Academia Sinica, University of Pittsburgh and Duke University

abstract: This article is a comparison of two cases of introducing foreign faiths in China. One case is that of Buddhism being brought from Central Asia and then directly from India. This Indian faith was adopted by commoners and then gradually accepted by the elite throughout a period of three centuries. The scholasticism developed in the Confucian orthodoxy created an intellectual vacuum for Buddhism to fill. It took Buddhism a full 1000 years to be sinicized as finally Zen-Buddhism and Pure-land become popular in China. Another case is that of the Catholic missionary activities in the Ming-Ching (Ming-Qing) period. The Jesuits made efforts to convert Chinese intellectual and members of the ruling class to accept Christianity. They adopted Chinese vocabularies to explain Christianity to the Chinese. The great Controversy of Rituals in the 17th century between the Ching court and the Catholic Church caused restriction of missionary activities in China. In the Ming period, Confucianism of the Wang Yan-ming school was in full strength and Catholics did not have an intellectual vacancy to exploit. keywords: Buddhism .. Chinese intellectuals .. commoners .. Confucian orthodoxy .. foreign faiths .. Jesuits .. missionary activities

Introduction
In Chinese history, there were at least two cases in which foreign influences brought to Chinese culture had such a great impact that the host culture was fundamentally changed. One of these cases was the introduction of Buddhism into China, while another was the intrusion of western culture into China in recent centuries. Between these two cases
International Sociology" September 2001 .. Vol 16(3): 438-454 SAGE (London, Thousand Oaks, CA and New Delhi) [0268-5809(200109)16:3;438-454;018954]

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from the SAGE Social Science Collections. All Rights Reserved.

Hsu Chinese Encounters with Other Civilizations was the brief encounter of Chinese cultures with Catholic Christianity in the 16th century. Until the arrival of modern western culture, the Catholic Church made little lasting impression on the host culture. Investigation of this particular case, nevertheless, can help us make a comparison with the processes of the other two cultural confrontations - that is the transplantation of Buddhism in the medieval era and the more recent arrival of western culture - and the interactions thereof. There is not sufficient space nor do the details of these historical cases warrant narration here. In this article the major issues to be investigated are: the susceptibility to foreign cultures by the Chinese at the specific time in social milieux; the interpretation of foreign cultures in order to integrate the new elements into the host culture; and the delineation of the cultural assembly processes.

Chinese Cultures in the Han Period before Buddhism

The political unification of the entirety of China into the Qin and Han dynasties in the last decade of the third century BCE created not only a gigantic empire in East Asia but also laid the ground for a cultural unification that caused regional subcultures to merge into a universal civilization, with Confucianism occupying the leading role. This cultural unification required the incorporation of the contending schools of thought prevalent during the era of multi-state and multicultural competition. Out of this Confucian predominance, especially in the second century BCE, eventually emerged a complicated ideology, emphasizing interaction of human and cosmic systems, culminating in the thought of Dong Zhongshu, the great synthesizer in the mid-second century BCE. Such a system of thought was a mechanistic, multilayered system that maintained a dynamic equilibrium between its human, biological, environmental and cosmic levels. Any changes occurring in one level would initiate a chain of subsequent reactions everywhere else. Thus, in this system, the cosmic order was a predictable one comparable to the concept of natural law. However, an important characteristic of the Dong synthesis is that human will and human behaviors have an impact on the cosmic order. In addition, learned persons, among whom the greatest is the Confucian Sage, once in command of a significant cognitive knowledge, could foresee the future chain reaction brought about by any initial changes (Loewe, 1994: 121-41). Interpretation of human conduct in history as well as phenomena such as movements of celestial bodies, seasonal changes and changes in the biological world, were all organized into the overall Han cosmology. The
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Han synthesis also absorbed the previously local and regional faiths (for example, various forms of nature worship, ancestor worship, totemism, animism, shamanism) and organized them into a single metaphysical system marked with the Yin-Yang dynamic dualism as well as the cyclical revolution of the five agencies (fire, wood, water, metal and earth). Much of Han metaphysics still survives in today/s traditional Chinese medicine and astrology/astronomy. The synthesis was so powerful and all embracing that these various schools of thought were incorporated into one coherent system. The climax of this system of thought was reached by the first century BCE. In the first century CE, that voluminous apocalyptic document attributed to the sage Confucius or some messages allegedly derived from ancient classics surfaced here and there among the intellectuals as if all changes in state and society could be predicted from deciphering the predictable cosmic order. Confucius himself was depicted as an omniscient sage and an uncrowned sovereign equipped with wisdom and unsurpassed intelligence. Such phenomena brought the organization of Confucian orthodoxy close to prognosticism or even a religion that contained a cosmic theology and a sacred figure. This religion would have also included the Confucian scholars as clergy. For several generations, Confucian scholars interpreted the Mandate of Heaven, through which Han imperial authority was legitimized/ as nothing other than revelation of the orderly cosmic mechanism. Under this mechanism, imperial authority would be subject to judgment by scholars who had the intellectual power to evaluate the performance of the government. On a few occasions, Confucian scholars actually impeached the court because of a failure of governance, and in some cases, politicians took advantage of such criticisms to change their policies. An ambitious usurper named Wang Mang (reign 9-24 CE) eventually succeeded in seizing the throne by proclaiming that the Han mandate was at an end, just as the cosmic cycle determined. All of the contenders at this time, including the founding emperor of the late Han dynasty, utilized these revelation (or prognostic) materials to justify their own claims. The momentum toward a full-scale religion abated immediately after the Later Han dynasty stabilized during its second imperial reign. The new ruling house then prohibited interpretation of the apocalypse and persuaded scholars to 'purify' the classics by means of textual criticisms and annotations. Thereafter the Han intellectuals gradually ceased to engage in theological pursuits. After the first century CE, literati endeavors turned toward scholasticism and a rather dry and dull intellectual atmosphere prevailed. Confucian literati concerned themselves with the practice of this worldly ethics as presented in the classics. Little metaphysics was available as a spiritual fountain-head from which a Chinese

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Hsu Chinese Encounters with Other Civilizations religion could develop, while the local and communal faiths at the grassroots level of society remained too unsophisticated to provide the explanations needed to meet transcendental, ultimate concerns, such as life and death, fate and uncertainty, and so on (C. Y. Hsu, 1986: 312-17).

The Arrival of Buddhism

Buddhism came into China just at the time when the Chinese people faced an intellectual vacuum. Buddhism, which was a reform against the then corrupted Brahminism in the days of Shakamuni (Siddhartha Gautama, c. 563-483 BCE), already flourished in Central Asia. At the time Han China opened the silk route to penetrate the wide, western region, traders, as well as soldiers and diplomats, traveled between oasis cities and the Chinese western frontier. They might have encountered Buddhists of the Mayahana sect, which had developed in Central Asia, and which deviated somewhat from early Indian teachings. Busy traffic along the silk route should have brought Buddhism to China proper sooner, just as Central Asian animals and plants were already present in China in the second and first centuries BCE. However, in Chinese literary records, early reliable mentions of Buddhism are not found until the first century CEo The earliest archaeological evidence of Buddhist icons is dated not earlier than first century CE (Yu/ 1980: 68-77). Nevertheless, the Han dynastic history recorded that, by the mid-first century CE, an imperial prince named Liu Ying, who was enfeoffed in southeastern China, practiced Buddhist activities in his vassal state. The reigning emperor, at that time, praised him for upholding Daoism as well as Buddhism. By the end of the second century CE, a local leader in the east, not far away from Liu Ying's place, sponsored a Buddhist temple that attracted several tens of thousands of Buddhist converts. Buddhist pamphlets were compiled in Chinese at the end of the first century CE, while a missionary from Parthia translated the Indian texts in the second century CE (Zurcher, 1959: 22-6). The spread of new faith was not achieved in a short period of time. This spread may have undergone a long period of development since the opening of the silk route. Then why at this particular time did Buddhism surface so conspicuously? It may not be a mere coincidence that, during this period of development, China experienced a prolonged period of social and economic crisis. In the late first century eE, natural disasters such as famine and epidemics were aggravated by poor governance. Social injustice due to uneven distribution of wealth and a widening gap between social strata polarized society. Large impoverished populations had to leave home to find new homes in the southern frontier provinces. Thus, dislocation must have caused anxiety and hardship and people
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began to question the fairness of the world. Such crises were recorded eloquently in the essays of social critics (Balazs, 1964). As Confucian scholasticism failed to provide answers to transcendental concerns (such as the meaning of life and death, justice in society, phenomenon and reality, and so forth), people demanded alternatives. Daoism, which contended with Confucianism even as recently as the second century BCE, during the early reigns of the Han dynasty, made a return to the intellectual scene. Not only did the Daoist classics, the Laozi and the Zhuangzi receive enormous attention among intellectuals of the third century CE, but also a Confucian classic, the Book of Changes, was also reinterpreted in the Daoist context (Demieville, 1986: 826-8). It should be noticed that the social critiques of the second century CE, especially Wang Chong, Wang Fu, Cui Shih and Zhongchang Tung, always examined issues basically within a Confucian framework based on secular and social concerns, rather than on inquiries into the metaphysical premise of values (Demieville, 1986: 780-96). It should also be noted that the Daoist revival remained a counter-reaction to Confucian scholasticism. In either of these two camps, there was not even a slight indication that Buddhism had received the attention of the Han intellectuals. The early Buddhist work of literature, the Sutra in Forty-Two Articles, for instance, which is traditionally dated to 67 CE, is a Chinese elementary manual on Buddhist principles rather than a bona fide translation of Indian sutra (Zurcher, 1959: 29-30). Judging from the style of the fragments that survive, one can ascertain it was not a work of elegant literary Chinese used by the Han intellectuals. Therefore, it seems early Buddhist activities up to the second century CE probably remained those among people of the peripheries, either geographically or socially. It would take some time to attract the attention of the literati of the Han social mainstream. In the latter half of the second century CE, Buddhist activities received the attention of the upper level of Han society. For example, a renowned scholar named Xiang Kai, in his memorial to the Han court, linked the Buddhist teachings together with Daoist principles as if they were associated (Zurcher, 1959: 36-8). Such a change should perhaps be attributed to enthusiastic efforts of missionaries from Central Asia, who translated the Buddhist sutra into Chinese. The rapid expansion of Buddhism in China is indeed a phenomenon that was not unrelated to the frequent visitation of famine and epidemics of that time. Buddhist translations of the Han period are often rendered in Daoist terminology, a borrowing known in literature as ge yi (i.e. to scrutinize the meaning). Although there were virtually no counterparts of Buddhist concepts in the dominant Confucianism, Daoist concepts bore a considerable degree of similarity with those in Buddhism. Any direct 442
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Hsu Chinese Encounters with Other Civilizations borrowing of terminology would inevitably distort the meaning in the original Buddhist context (Demieville, 1986: 825, 841-2). Nevertheless, by means of the ge yi practice, Buddhism crossed the language barrier and Chinese intellectuals were drawn to an appreciation of Buddhism. A great boost in the promotion of Buddhism in China appeared during the period of southern and northern dynasties (317-589 CE) as China was divided by invasion of alien tribal peoples from beyond the Great Wall. Several rulers of northern states, who also claimed the imperial throne of China, were patrons of Buddhism. The contenders allegedly proclaimed that Buddhism was introduced from a foreign land into China just as they themselves were of foreign origins. For example, a ruler of Xiongnu origin once said, 'Why should a barbarian not welcome a barbarian deity, Le. the Buddha?'. Even in the south, where Chinese dynasties were established, the ruling households advanced, for the most part, from military backgrounds. These former soldiers did not feel an affinity for Confucianism, which was still upheld as orthodoxy by the officers who dominated the intellectual communities. One of the southern emperors, Wu of Liang (reigned 502-44 CE), was such a devoted Buddhist that under his patronage numerous Buddhist temples were built with the generous support of donors (Demieville, 1986: 846-8). Again, the Buddhist patrons who helped the growth of Buddhism in China were foreign rulers and warlords, men of the peripheries of Chinese culture.

Chinese Resistance and Adaptation

The wide spread of Buddhism in China inevitably encountered resistance from Chinese intellectuals, whose Confucian positive worldview hardly corresponded to the Buddhist ideationism. One of the major battles between the Confucians and the Buddhists concerned the concept of reincarnation. In Buddhism, one's soul would be reanimated in another life after this life had ended. The soul, or spirit, not the transitory physical body, is the real self. This concept had been repeatedly questioned by Chinese scholars, to whom the spirited self and the physical self were not separate entities. A heated debate took place in 504 CE as a renowned scholar Fan Chen (405-515 CE) wrote an essay on the issue that one's spirit (or soul) was to be finally extinguished when one died. He also refuted the concept that retribution could happen life after life to determine one's faith in each of the reincarnated lives. He asserted that fate was no more than a series of accidentally occurring events. Fan Chen's statement was widely circulated among the intellectuals at the very time that Emperor Wu of Liang
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was patronizing Buddhism as the state religion. The Buddhist emperor provoked fellow converts to rebut Fan's arguments. These essays were included in a major collection of Buddhist essays that survived the early medieval era (Hong Ming Chi, n.d.: Vols 9-10). Another issue disputed by Chinese and Buddhist scholars was the chain of causalities of retribution. In the Ancient Chinese kinship tradition, descendants bore the consequences for the conduct of ancestors in a manner similar to inheritance of material assets such as estate or property. The Buddhists, however, believed retribution for one's deeds would be carried forth into subsequent reincarnations. In addition, the Confucian emphasis on filial piety as a cardinal virtue of Confucian ethics was contradicted by the Buddhist monks' practice of deserting home and denying family linkage. The Buddhist argument was defended by Sun Cho (320-77 CE) in his essay 'Explanation of the Truth' (Yu dao lun) (Hong Ming Chi, n.d.: Vol. 3) After the medieval era, Chinese Buddhists gradually reached a compromise on karma transmission by having both individual reincarnation and retribution along kinship lineages. For instance, reward or punishment for one's deeds could be revealed by rebirth into another life or visited on the family line through the lives of a person's descendants. Likewise, monks and nuns who deserted their families were deemed to have joined the new family of the clergy and members of the same monastery or nunnery adopted kinship nomenclature, such as uncle, aunt, brother, sister, cousin and so on for their relations. Another issue the Chinese monks needed to face was their status in a secular state. The Indian Brahmin stood so high on the social ladder that the secular ruler could not regard them as subjects. Buddhist monks in China first took the same attitude, claiming that they were not subordinate to state authority and therefore would not bow down or kowtow before the Chinese emperor (Hong Ming Chi, n.d.: Vol. 12). Nevertheless, in China, the imperial emperor's authority was paramount. A decree was issued in 462 CE that Buddhist monks refusing to address the court properly would be executed (Guang Hong Ming Chi, n.d.: Vol. 6; Demieville, 1986: 853-4). From that point forward, Buddhist clergy obeyed the secular authority like any imperial subject. In addition, monks had to register at the Ministry of Interior Affairs and a certificate of priesthood was also issued to ordained monks by the same office. Thus, the Buddhists were subjugated to political authority.

Chinese Responses
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Hsu Chinese Encounters with Other Civilizations organIzIng an indigenous faith, Daoism. The Daoism (Taoism) then implies both a school of thought in Ancient China and a religion that emerged in the end of second century CEo The whole history of Daoism is too complicated to be included in this article. However, two issues are highlighted here. One important issue is that the early Buddhism borrowed much from ancient Daoist terminology to render Buddhist concepts, a practice known as ge yi, which is mentioned earlier. Another issue was that early Daoist sects were organized by leaders of a mass rebellion at the end of the Han dynasty. Daoism was first a secret religion based upon a tradition of sorcery and shamanism that could be traced to China's remote past. From Buddhism, however, the Daoist borrowed many ritual methods, such as using candlelight, incense-burning and chanting. Daoist priests also organized their clergy in the same manner as Buddhist monasteries; the only difference was that Daoist priests did not renounce their family linkages. Gradually, especially at the popular levels, both faiths, Buddhism and Daoism, which were easily confused, fused into what can be called a Chinese folk faith, still popular among Chinese today (Maspero, 1981: 1-74, 263-98, 431-554; Demieville, 1986: 818-46, 860-71; Zurcher, 1980: 84-147). From the tenth century CE on, Chan Buddhism (Zen Buddhism) evolved into one of the dominant sects in China and later spread to Japan becoming that country's most important form of Buddhism. It is worth noting that Chan Buddhism is essentially a Chinese product which can trace its roots to Mencian Confucianism no less than Buddhism. Meanwhile, the revival of a new form of Confucianism after the 11th century CE known as neo-Confucianism, which absorbed some Daoist elements, can be appreciated as a synthesis of metaphysics and ethics in a fundamental reorganization of Confucianism to respond to the Buddhist challenge. In summary, almost 1000 years was required for the Chinese to receive Buddhism, to respond to its challenge and to reshape Chinese mentalities at both the intellectual and the popular levels. The course of this development is full of rejection, adaptation and revision. The influence of Buddhism on Chinese culture is profound indeed.

The First Efforts to Introduce Christianity into China

Nestorian Christianity was brought to China as early as the seventh century CE via trade roots through Central Asia. A stone stele erected in 635 CE recorded these activities in the capital of the Tang Empire. However, Christianity did not take deep root in China. Meanwhile, Nestorians did not represent the Christian mainstream of the Mediterranean world.

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The first serious effort at introducing western Christianity and European culture into China took place in the period of between the 16th and 17th centuries CEo The missionary activities of the Jesuits brought to China not only Christianity, but also a significant proportion of the science and technology developed in Europe (1. C. Y. Hsu, 2000: 97-106). Christian missionaries, including the Jesuits, arrived in the Asia Pacific region as adjuncts to other European activities of ocean exploration and of trade. The most important figure who opened the door to China is Matteo Ricci. Matteo Ricci entered China in 1581 after having learned Chinese in Macao. From the beginning, he dressed himself as a Buddhist monk and he also followed the Buddhist manner as part of his strategy to spread Christianity in south China. Very soon, however, he realized that the mainstream Chinese intellectuals were Confucian scholars. He therefore changed his approach by adopting the Confucian manner and utilizing Confucian vocabulary as a medium for introducing Christianity. His erudition and scholarship won the trust and friendship of Confucian scholars. Among the top level Chinese intellectuals of this period, some of the very best, such as Xu Guang Chi (David Hsu) and Li Zicao (Leo Li) were early Christian converts. These learned Chinese intellectuals were responsible for translating several western scientific works into Chinese. In much the same way as Buddhist monks who borrowed Chinese terminology during the early medieval era, Matteo Ricci borrowed Chinese terminology to render Christian theology to a foreign faithfuL For instance, Matteo Ricci, on one hand, utilized the Chinese word Shangdi (which means supreme deity above) and Tian (which means Heaven) to render the Christian concept of God. He also created a word Tianzhu (Heavenly Lord) to solely translate the concept of 'Our Lord in Heaven'. In his essay to summarize the principles of Christianity, Matteo Ricci freely quoted verses on Shangdi from Chinese classics: the Book of Odes, the Book of Documents and the Book of Changes. Ricci quoted these classics to explain that the concept of a judging god could be found in Confucianism (Ricci, 1985; Dunne, 1962). Matteo Ricci, under the papal prohibition of rendering a translation of the Bible from Latin, only could present Catholicism to the Chinese in the form of essays. In his Chinese work, he depicted God as a fair judge resembling imperial authority. 'Love' is mentioned as closely related to something of the nature of Grace with Providence. The notion of Trinity was hardly touched in his Chinese essays. His ontological concerns were basically expressed in a system of Ming neo-Confucianism. 1 Moreover, the Jesuits allowed the Chinese to practice rites honoring ancestors by offering food, burning incense and kowtowing to the ancestral tablets or portraits of ancestors. Catholic priests of the Franciscan and
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Hsu Chinese Encounters with Other Civilizations Dominican orders, who also entered China as missionaries, interpreted these rituals as rites of ancestor worship. The rivalry between Catholic orders finally aroused the controversy of rites in the early reigns of the Manchu emperors of the Qing dynasty (which replaced the Ming in 1664). In 1720/ a papal decree was dispatched to missionaries in China that the terms of 'Heaven' and Shangdi should not be used to render the concept of God, and that a Catholic should not participate in rituals which were held in Confucian shrines and any ancestral hall of lineage. As a response to such a decree, Emperor Kangxi and his son, Emperor Yungzheng, also decreed a cessation of missionary activities in China. The Jesuits were most actively engaged with upper level Chinese in learned circles. This contact probably explains their heavy reliance on the most influential system of 17th-century China, Confucianism. The Dominican and Franciscans, conversely, were associated with traders and businessmen in southern China, especially Macao. The different interpretations of Catholicism to Chinese audiences should be attributed to this disparity of association.

The Jesuits' Contribution to Scholarship

After the great controversy over rites, a few Jesuits still stayed in China. New replacements were continuously dispatched from Europe from time to time. The momentum of introducing western culture to China, however, was diminished. The priests then stationed in China were regarded as scientists and technicians who served the imperial court in a variety of functions, such as making maps and calendars, observing astronomical phenomena, repairing clocks, manufacturing fine arms and so on. These tasks, which were conducted by several generations of Jesuits, appeared pale in comparison to the great contributions made by their predecessor Matteo Ricci. Ricci and other Jesuits of the early generations informed Chinese intellectuals of a whole array of western knowledge including: mathematics, physics, chemistry, astronomy, cartography and philosophy. It ought to be pointed out, however, that Jesuit scholars, due to the restrictions of their Catholic faith, did not bring to China the most advanced western learning of their time. For instance, the astronomy of Copernicus and Galileo was not introduced to China. Also, the time of the most active engagement between the Jesuits and the Chinese was prior to the great breakthroughs of western intellectual and scientific traditions, which occurred mainly during the era of Enlightenment. It was not until after this period that modern western culture and sciences underwent rapid development (Bennett, 1969). Timing, indeed, is an important factor in the making of watershed historical events. 447
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Through the hands of these Jesuits, who periodically sent letters to Europe, Chinese thought, arts and technology were introduced to the West. It is believed that stimulation coming from China provided some of the momentum for the Enlightenment in Europe. Just to name a few well-known cases, an image of oriental rationalism inspired Voltaire and others to rethink their own cultural heritage. Sinophiles in the visual arts channeled western artists in new directions. The benefits of the cultural encounters between Chinese and the West were mutual (Lach, 1965-78). When compared to the introduction of Buddhism into China, the introduction of western culture into China by the Jesuits is rather an aborted effort. Nevertheless, the time-span of the introduction to western culture provided by the Jesuits lasted only approximately two centuries, while the development of Buddhism in China, from its inception in the first century to the full growth of Chinese Buddhism, such as the maturation of Zen sects and Pure-land sects in the 11th century, is a story that is stretched over a millennium. The Jesuits adopted a strategy of penetration into Chinese intellectual circles, which gave them an early entrance into the upper strata of Chinese society. In the late 17th century, the population of Catholic converts was estimated to reach more than 100,000. These converts including learned scholars, courtiers and members of the imperial household, were elite groups, while the Dominican converts were mainly people who were related to foreign trade in southern seaports, and at the periphery of society. These two groups of converts of a new foreign faith were separated by a wide social and geographical gulf, allowing little momentum to sustain a continuation of the spread and deepening of Catholic influence. Returning to the issue of intellectual susceptibility, China during the 17th and 18th centuries was in an extremely adverse political condition. A despotic Ming government preoccupied with internal competition simply could not manage the many natural and human disasters that befell the country. The Qing conquest of China in the late 17th century was accomplished through bloody wars and massacres. Then foreign wars were fought beyond the borders of China in addition to forceful seizure of Chinese property by the Manchus. All aggravated the hardship of the lives of the ordinary subjects (Spence and Wills, 1979). These conditions were no less grave than conditions during the last centuries of the Han dynasty when Buddhism became a viable faith in China. The surge to seek comfort from religion should have provided China with a good reason to accept a profound faith. Yet, it is again a matter of timing that determined the course of history. The late Ming period happened to have witnessed the successful synthesis of the major teachings (namely Confucianism, religious Daoism and sinified Buddhism), in neo-Confucianism, Neo-Daoism (such as the Quanzhen sect)

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Hsu Chinese Encounters with Other Civilizations and fully matured Zen Buddhism, respectively. Each of these schools absorbed elements of the other two so they provided people with rich resources to comfort suffering people, allowing them to face daily hardships. Therefore, there was little space for Catholic Christianity to develop. Therefore, the introduction of Catholic Christianity into China was an aborted effort, and because of the failure of Catholicism, the introduction of western culture also appears to have been a passing phenomenon because this particular endeavor has never taken root.

Introducing Christianity in Modern Times

In the 19th century, westerners again knocked on the door of China. This time, they came with gunboats as well as the Bible. The first Protestant missionary who came to China was Robert Morrison, a British priest who arrived in south China in 1807. The early Chinese converts were petty businessmen in areas near Macao and Canton, sea ports where western ships anchored for trade. Leaflets on Christianity in China were distributed by converts to Chinese people in the street. A Chinese translation of the Bible into English by Morrison and his colleagues was also circulated. Little impact was evident among the Chinese intellectuals. The Protestants obviously adopted a strategy very different from the Jesuits by working among the ordinary people, who received only limited exposure to Confucian education. The rather poor vernacular style of Chinese used in the missionary leaflets was evidence of the fact that the Chinese intellectuals were not involved in Protestant Christian missions. In the 19th century, China had just passed her peak of economic prosperity. A long period of profitable overseas trade was gradually reduced to deficiency due to the British injection of opium onto the Chinese market. Good governance under the early part of the Qing dynasty was not sustained and corruption spread widely. Peasant uprisings and natural calamities created hardship for ordinary citizens. The poor southern populations, especially the Hakka, who were on the peripheries of society, were ready to accept religious comfort. One Hakka of Cantonese origin, Hong Xiuguan, was one of those who received the Christian pamphlets on the street and was impressed by the message of salvation as well as the promise of delivery from suffering. Hong eventually gathered thousands of fellow converts to organize a revolt in the name of the Heavenly Kingdom of Peace. Hong and his uprising developed meteorically and swelled into a revolution that swept through a good portion of southern and southeastern China for 15 years (1850-64). A theocracy was established in the name of Christianity. However, Hong's interpretation was by no means that of Protestant Christianity. It was rather a combination of Chinese folk millennialism in a cloak of Christianity. 449
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Hong even claimed that he himself was the second son of God, the younger brother of Jesus. Hong's utopia, the Heavenly Kingdom of Peace, was depicted as a gigantic proto-socialist community. This movement can hardly be called an implantation of western Christianity in China. At best, it is a local response inspired by the faith (1. C. Y. Hsu, 2000: 225f.). Contemporary with Hong's uprising is the Opium War of 1840 and the subsequent decades of encroachment of western powers upon China by means of gunboat diplomacy. China was forced to yield much of her territory as well as her sovereignty under the pressure of the superior weaponry of the western powers (Wakeman, 1966). Alongside the western gunboats were the Christian missionaries, who took advantage of the privileges granted the western powers to establish churches in inland provinces of China. The number of converts were not very many. By the end of 19th century, the Chinese Christian population barely reached 1 million and by the mid-20th century, it had reached about 4 million, including both the Catholics and the Protestants. Their relationship with the non-Christian Chinese was not coherent at all. First, they had to give up the Chinese practice of offering food and burning incense to the ancestors because the Christian church regarded such rituals as ancestor worship. The Christians, therefore, alienated themselves from their own neighbors. Second, the Chinese were irritated when they witnessed Chinese Christian converts being protected by foreigners who lived above the Chinese law and customs. The anti-foreign mentality made it difficult for the Chinese to accept Christianity. The situation reached a climax with the Boxer Uprising of 1905. Massive numbers of angry peasants rose up to purge their country of Chinese Christians and missionaries. The armies of the allied West as well as the Japanese army invaded China and demanded huge sums in compensation from China. This particular event, of course, simply deepened Chinese anti-foreign and anti-Christian sentiment (Cohen, 1963, 1997; Esherick, 1987).

Introducing Western Culture into China in Modern Times

The introduction of Christianity into China cannot be regarded as a success. However, China, through contacts with the West, was greatly influenced by western civilization. Politically, after the Qing dynasty was overthrown by revolutionaries led by Sun Yatsen, in 1911, a republic was founded to transplant a democracy in China. The course of Chinese democratization is a long and rugged one, which, after three bloody political revolutions in 1911, 1928 and 1949, is yet to be fulfilled. The peasantbased Chinese Communist regime is anything but a democracy. All three 450
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Hsu Chinese Encounters with Other Civilizations revolutions, nevertheless, were mainly purported to follow models of western political ideology (1. C. Y. Hsu, 2000: 482-92, 541-78, 621-70). Economically, China slowly rebuilt her economy over the last one-anda-half centuries. Then the indigenous domestic economic system was strangled by the pressure of the modern industrialist economy through which the West and the Japanese exploited the Chinese market. Today, both mainland China and Taiwan have made good progress toward integrating their economies into an emergent global economy. This process of transformation is not an easy one. Be it capitalism or socialism, the mode of production as well as the institutions utilized by China to build a modern economy were totally borrowed from the West (I. C. Y. Hsu, 2000: 565-77, 652-8, 753-5, 803-15, 904-15, 950-9). All of the political and economic changes were based on changes in the cultural sphere. Western concepts of democracy, republic, communism, individualism, capitalism, etc. were introduced to China by students who were either educated in schools first founded by missionaries, or by students who returned from foreign lands where they were culturally westernized. During the 19th century, western culture was massively imported by publication of translated western works, first by missionaries and then by their associates in the treaty-ports such as Shanghai. Later on, Chinese intellectuals promoted a movement of learning from the West. Some of them even urged a full-scale westernization of China. The most impressive landmark of cultural reform was the movement of 4 May 1919 and after, led by young intellectuals returning from the West. They successfully reformed the Chinese literary language and devoted themselves to the transplantation of western values, including liberalism, into China (1. C. Y. Hsu, 2000: 493-513). It needs to be noted that the May Fourth movement, as well as its early predecessor (that is, the continual effort to reshape Chinese culture), took place in front of a similar backdrop. China was suffering from foreign encroachment in all aspects - economically, militarily, as well as politically - and China was virtually on the edge of losing its independence as a sovereign state. Frustration and anger led to a feeling of urgency, which motivated the urge to modernize (that is, to westernize in the name of being culturally enlightened and reformed). Both the Nationalist Party and the Communist Party were products of this sense of urgency and a case of trauma common to a great majority of Chinese people. Political radicalization actually is a polemical contradiction against democracy and the liberalism which Hu Shih advocated. Ironically, therefore, the May Fourth movement had such a Siamese twin. Another irony is the phenomenon of cultural alienation which modern Chinese intellectuals faced. They received their western education abroad 451
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or in schools in westernized coastal cities. The urban cultural environment had grown distinctively apart from the more traditionally minded rural China. These urban intellectuals, who never returned to rural inland, therefore, were an alienated intelligentsia who lost touch with their country-cousins (Schwarcz, 1986; Wang, 1966). Therefore, the cultural transformation in modern China had reached a dilemma. Cultural alienation coated the coastal-/urban-based Nationalist regime at Nanking, which was not able to reach the mass population of rural China, who were instead mobilized by Mao Tsetung who founded a highly radicalized Communist state. Repeated purges and continual radicalization of Mao's rule finally culminated in the unprecedented destructive chaos which, ironically, was named the Great Proletariat Cultural Revolution. The revolution lasted from 1962 until Mao's death in 1976 and the downfall of the radical group, the Gang of Four, led by his widow. China today, long after this decade of catastrophe, has yet to recover from the legacy of Mao's fanatical radicalism (I. C. Y. Hsu, 2000: 689-703).

Conclusion
The introduction of Buddhism was a historical phenomenon in which the transplantation of a religion from one culture to a totally different culture took place. The process of assimilation of this Indian religion and its transformation into a Chinese faith took over 1000 years. The long story of the development of Buddhism into China should include the initial stage of Chinese susceptibility, the borrowing of indigenous Chinese concepts as conducive for the transmission of the faith and the participation of Chinese intellectuals in the revision and interpretation as well as the support of the general population at all levels of society. The abortive effort of the introduction of the Catholic faith was a consequence of limited participation of a small number of intellectuals, while the general population was unaware of the arrival of a new faith. The patronage of the converts provided the Jesuits with certain advantages in their attempts to stay in China but it also restricted their service to the work of court technician. Their contribution to the introduction of western sciences and technologies to China was too confined and the audience too small to leave much of an impression. The Great Rites Controversy was a case of political interference on both sides. The introduction of western culture into China in the 19th century was not just the arrival of Christianity. It was the result of a large-scale western expansion, economically, politically, as well as culturally. The magnitude is far greater than in the case of the introduction of Buddhism; however, the timing is also an important variable because the vitality of Chinese

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Hsu Chinese Encounters with Other Civilizations culture was just about exhausted at the time of introduction, while the momentum of western culture was at its zenith. China has already experienced the difficulties of accepting foreign cultural influences; the process of adaptation is still incomplete.

Note
1. I am indebted to Professor Anthony Yu of the University of Chicago for his learned opinion given to me in conversation 19 March 2000.

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Biographical Note: Cho-Yun Hsu was professor of history and sociology at the University of Pittsburgh and is now Professor Emeritus there. In 2000 he received an Honorary Doctorate in the Humanities from the Hong Kong University of Science and Technology.

Address: 3P01 Forbes Hall, Department of History, University of Pittsburgh, Pittsburgh, PA 15260, USA. [email: cyhsu+@pitt.edu]

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