Imagined Civilizations: China, the West, and Their First Encounter

7. Conclusions

Chapter 7 Conclusions PREVIOUS ACCOUNTS of the “first encounter” of “China” and “the West” concur for the most part in their retelling of the historical events. In these accounts, China during the Ming dynasty (1368–1644), and especially during the later years of the Ming, is often held to have been in a period of profound decline—political, economic, social, military, intellectual, and scientific. Practical affairs, and in particular statecraft and science, are held to have fallen into neglect during the Ming: Ming intellectuals, it is asserted, were either consumed with the desire to gain official posts through the rote memorization of neo-Confucian doctrines so as to pass the civil service examinations, or confounded by the introspective speculation of Wang Yangming’s , (1472–1529) Learning of the Mind (xin xue # ). Or they were simply deluded by what has been asserted to be vulgar Buddhist superstition. In these accounts, the Western Learning introduced by the Jesuits is held to have represented an alternative to traditional Chinese thought, one that was at the same time both new and radically different. Western Learning, these accounts assert, was recognized by a small group of concerned Chinese literati as offering solutions to the crises faced by the Ming dynasty. Working with the Jesuits, these literati translated European treatises on a broad range of subjects, including mathematics, astronomy, logic, agriculture, and military technologies, as well as Christian philosophy, morality, and the etiquette of friendship. Xu Guangqi, the most famous among the Chinese who collaborated with the Jesuits, is often asserted to have been the greatest scientist of the period. But more than that too. These accounts assert that he dared speak openly of Chinese decline. He recognized the superiority of Western mathematics, science, technology , and agricultural techniques. Remaining above factional political fights, and at great political risk, he challenged the entrenched Ming bureaucracy, which was unconcerned with practical measures and motivated only by self-interest, to the detriment of the dynasty. Previous accounts describe how Xu strove to reform the erroneous Chinese calendar by promoting Western astronomy, how he defended the empire against the northern invaders and Japanese pirates by employing Western cannons and military techniques, and how he combatted famine by introducing Western agricultural technologies. Xu, it is claimed, dared question 257 258 7 Conclusions the orthodox clichés cherished by careerist neo-Confucians, exposed Buddhist superstitions through logical critiques, and advocated practical statecraft against fruitless metaphysical speculation. These previous accounts, then, disagree less on the retelling of the historical events than on what conclusions are to be drawn from this alleged first encounter of China and the West. In broad terms, there have been three general approaches to the issue. Earlier works had argued that the Chinese rejected Western science and culture because of their own xenophobia, conservatism, and pride. Subsequent scholarship sought to revise this view, concluding that this first encounter was a dialogue between China and the West. Still more recent research work has countered that this was not a dialogue at all, but instead a series of unfortunate and profound misunderstandings: in one view, these misunderstandings resulted from the Jesuits’ deliberate distortions of emerging modern Western science; in another view, the misunderstandings were the inevitable consequence of a radical incommensurability between China and the West. Although these three perspectives differ considerably in their ultimate conclusions about the nature of this first encounter of China and the West—whether xenophobic rejection, constructive dialogue, or unfortunate misunderstanding—what they share is an interpretive framework in which the very local, historically specific events of the cooperation between several dozen Jesuits and their Chinese collaborators have been inflated into a grand narrative about two “civilizations.” These previous accounts—despite their differences—share another important feature: they have often been based primarily on the Jesuits’ own prolific writings on their mission, sometimes supplemented by the writings of the Chinese officials who collaborated with them. The result is that too often these studies have adopted, as historical conclusions, viewpoints similar to those of their sources. For example, in their own writings, the Jesuits and the Chinese literati who collaborated with them do frequently argue that China was in a state of decline— moral, political, religious, intellectual, and scientific. They do claim to employ logical reasoning, empirical observation, and clear argument to refute what they decry as the absurdities of Buddhist superstition and metaphysical speculation. They insistently emphasize the newness of Western Learning and how radically it differed from its...