From Early Encounters to the Rites Controversy (Chinese-Western Cultural Exchange in the Ming and Qing Dynasties)

Author: Zhang Guogang
Publisher:
Publishing Date: 2003-12-01
Features: Before the Age of Discovery, Chinese Confucian culture, as represented by East Asia, stood out among the world's civilizations, which included European Christian culture, South Asian Buddhist culture, and West Asian/North African Islamic culture. Among these, the latter three civilizations had relatively close political, religious, and linguistic ties, while Chinese civilization possessed a relatively unique cultural character in the global cultural landscape. Thus, the initial encounter between China and the West, triggered by the Age of Discovery, carried such a tumultuous historical significance. The controversy over the Chinese Rites revealed that the work of missionaries in East Asia was not about converting "heretics" or those still practicing animism or totem worship, but about confronting a highly developed ancient civilization that compelled Catholicism to engage in self-cultural reflection. Whether it was Matteo Ricci's conciliatory strategy, the Jesuits' decoding of Chinese classical texts, or the critiques from the anti-Jesuit faction, all reflected the identity crisis experienced by Western civilization in the face of the unique cultural charm of traditional China. The significance of this issue far exceeded the scope of the Chinese Rites (terminology and sacrificial issues).
We can take two examples. For instance, the Chinese language issue. Genesis 11 of the Bible states that when God created humans, they all spoke the same language. Later, people worked together to build a tower on the plain of Babylon (whose ruins are said to be near Baghdad, the capital of modern Iraq), to demonstrate human power. The tower reached the heavens and was called the Tower of Babel. God, realizing the terrifying power of humanity united, used his magic to scatter people across the world and make them speak different languages to prevent them from communicating. Genesis is one of the Torah, the earliest canonical scriptures of Judaism, generally believed to have been compiled from four different source texts around the 4th century BCE, about a century later than Herodotus's Histories. In fact, the story of the primordial language predates even the Bible. Herodotus mentioned an experiment by an ancient Egyptian pharaoh named Psammetico to find the primordial language. Psammetico, a pharaoh of late ancient Egypt, believed that if newborn babies were not influenced by the language of their contemporaries and spoke to each other, the language they spoke would be the one taught by God. Thus, the pharaoh ordered a pair of newborn twins to be separated from their mothers and raised by shepherds alone, with no one allowed to speak to the babies, under penalty of death. After two years, when the children were old enough to speak, the pharaoh ordered their food to be stopped, believing that hunger would force them to speak the primordial language. The observers reported to the pharaoh that the words the babies spoke resembled "bread" in Scottish. The pharaoh was delighted and declared Scottish the primordial language. In the 13th century, Holy Roman Emperor Frederick II also conducted a similar experiment, but the test subjects tragically died. In a world dominated by biblical knowledge, the search for the primordial language had long been a popular topic. For a long time after the 16th century, when Europeans encountered Chinese, questions about the origins of Chinese, whether it was the primordial language created by God, and whether it was a rational, logical, or philosophical language, were hotly debated among European intellectuals.
Another example is the Chinese historical chronology issue. From Juan de Paredes and Alvaro de Magalh?es to Jean-Baptiste du Halde and Joachim Bouvet, knowledge of Chinese chronology gradually spread to Europe. In the 17th century, the greatest puzzle for European scholars was that it was even older than the history in the Bible! Thus, controversy erupted over whether the ancient history of China contradicted biblical chronology. The ancient Chinese historical system introduced by the Jesuits to Europe caused an identity crisis in the Western religious and secular world, the impact of which was unimaginable. Some doubted it, others rejected it, while others accepted it. At that time, scholars courageously proposed the hypothesis of "pre-Adamite human language" based on the historical chronology of the Chinese nation. Of course, the main focus remained on reconciling the contradictions between ancient Chinese history and the biblical system. Some scholars used the Septuagint to discuss issues such as the "age of the world." The Septuagint could harmonize the historical chronology of the Chaldeans, Egyptians, and Chinese with the biblical timeline. Additionally, the moral philosophy of Confucius also sparked enthusiastic praise from Enlightenment figures like Leibniz and Voltaire in the rapidly changing European society of the 17th-18th centuries.
In summary, through three centuries (1500-1800) of cultural contact and exchange between China and Europe from the late Ming to the early Qing period, traditional China as a supplementary factor shook the Western world system represented by the Bible. Here, "traditional China" as an independent cultural entity participated in the construction of Western modern civilization. In later years, the Chinese factor gradually faded and even disappeared, but the imprint of the "initial encounter" remained deeply rooted, continuing to influence Western perceptions of China to this day. If we focus on the "transmission" aspect for now and temporarily ignore its consequences, then the cultural exchange between China and Europe in the 16th-18th centuries can be seen as a history of exchange primarily mediated by Jesuits in China, supplemented by other missionaries, merchants, and envoys. This period of Sino-Western interaction unfolded alongside Europe's global conquest, but it was also based on a relatively equal footing, without involving sovereignty or political interests. The image of European colonizers had not yet become clear along the Chinese coast. European merchant ships and warships sailed to China's shores, but unknown Western warships dared not rashly disturb China. At that time, Europeans, awed by China's long-standing reputation, sought peaceful trade with China and repeatedly sent missions to secure more trade benefits, but in most cases, they achieved little. The Chinese showed little interest in distant foreigners, merely guarding their own coastlines and a few ports for annual trade with European merchants and merchants from tributary states, watching them carry away shiploads of silk, tea, porcelain, and lacquerware with a somewhat condescending attitude. Chinese merchants and port officials, facing Europeans with entirely different languages, clothing, and appearances, were perhaps not much moved by curiosity beyond their routine duties. In contrast, European envoys to China were deeply fascinated by its landscapes, flora, fauna, customs, and traditions. During their journeys to and from the capital, they recorded many observations and comments, becoming a catalyst to rekindle the romantic feelings and boundless imagination of Europeans about China, following Marco Polo's travels. Even European travelers who had not visited China but had only explored its periphery eagerly presented their hearsay impressions of China to European readers, satisfying both their own curiosity and that of their fellow Europeans who had not yet set foot in the East.
Amplifying this were the shiploads of Chinese goods—porcelain, silk, lacquerware, tea—landing in Lisbon, Antwerp, Amsterdam, or London. They presented a dazzling, colorful, and vivid China that could be seen, touched, felt, and tasted. Thus, the beauty, wealth, and power of China had already deeply penetrated the hearts of Europeans by the 16th century, and it was rumored to be a culturally advanced nation. In the late 16th century, learned and respected Jesuits entered China and announced to their European colleagues that they could witness the true civilization and prosperity of China. On top of the image of a materially advanced China that dazzled the European masses, they introduced an image of a China with a high level of spiritual civilization that excited European intellectuals. The limitations of envoys and merchants were that they could not delve deeply into China or stay long-term, nor could they understand its language or appreciate its cultural artifacts. The Jesuits, however, overcame China's resistance to foreign cultures with their extraordinary creativity. By partially aligning Catholicism with Confucianism, they earned the respect and recognition of Chinese scholars. Through a certain tolerance of Chinese rituals and customs, they avoided being seen as opponents or disruptors of Chinese social order and law. Thus, in an era where foreigners were more wary than welcoming, they became the only foreign group permitted to move freely within China. This privilege, combined with their proactive efforts to learn Chinese and Chinese culture, not only brought them greater missionary success and influence in China than other religious orders but also made them pioneers in introducing Chinese culture to Europe, as well as introducing Western culture to China. They served as the primary medium for Sino-Western cultural exchange during the late Ming and early Qing periods.
However, the activities of the Jesuits were almost entirely shadowed by the controversy over the Chinese Rites. While their methods of adapting to Chinese culture brought them great glory, they also burdened them with the heavy weight of the controversy. As a result, this period of Sino-Western cultural exchange was deeply marked by the Rites Controversy. In fact, as the Rites Controversy was suppressed, this Sino-Western cultural exchange also stagnated. By 1775, when the decree dissolving the Jesuits reached Beijing, the face-to-face encounter between China and the West had come to an end. In October 1793, the last Jesuit in China, Jean-Fran?ois Gerbillon, died, symbolically closing the curtain on the Jesuit-led Sino-European exchange. Around the same time, the British envoy Lord Macartney visited China. Although it appeared to continue the thread of Sino-Western exchange in terms of timing, it was in fact the prelude to a new story of interaction with a fundamentally different nature.