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Protestant Expansion and Chinese Views of the West

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  28 November 2008

Suzanne Wilson Barnett
Suzanne Wilson Barnett
Affiliation:
Harvard University
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Extract

Confrontation with the British during the years 1839 to 1842 jolted the Chinese into a more realistic perception of the wider world. Before the Opium War, the Chinese took little notice of the world beyond the traditional Chinese realm; during the course of the war China's inadequate knowledge of overseas countries proved to be a strategic disadvantage. In the 1840s, knowledge of the wider world was important to China's defense against Western intrusion, and a handful of Chinese scholar-officials who shared this view engaged in the serious study of foreign nations. A small but influential group of Chinese set out to expand China's knowledge of the West; they did so in the belief that this was essential to China's survival. The comprehensive accounts put together by Wei Yüan (1794–1857) and Hsü Chi-yü (1795–1873) and shorter works by other authors suggest the importance of this new perspective in the decade after the Treaty of Nanking.

Type
Articles
Information
Modern Asian Studies , Volume 6 , Issue 2 , March 1972 , pp. 129 - 149
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1972

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References

1 The HKTC and Hsü Chi-yü, Ying-huan chih-lüeh (A brief survey of the oceans roundabout; 10 chüan, prefaces 1848, published 1850), are well-known geographical collections. Yao Ying K'ang-yu chi-hsing (Notes on the study of foreign geography; 16 chüan, started 1844, completed 1849?), is a shorter collection inspired by the first edition of the HKTC. Another collection was Liang T'ing-nan Hai-kuo ssu-shuo (Four treatises on maritime countries; 1846); see Hsien Yü-ch'ing Liang T'ing-nan chu-shu lu-yao (On the writings of Liang T'ing-nan), Ling-nan hsüeh-pao (Lingnan journal), 4.1, 119–54 (April 1935).Google Scholar

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9 Wylie, , pp. 5, 19–28, introduces Morrison' Hsi-yu ti-ch'iu wen-chien lüeh-chuan (1819); Milne's magazine; and Medhurst's ealry works, including Ti-li pien-t'ung lüeh-chuan (Geographical catechism; 1819), T'e-hsüan tso-yao mei-yüeh chi-chuan (A monthly record of important selections; 1823–1826), and Chiao-liu-pa tsung-lun (A general discussion of Java; 1824). For Milne' monthly magazine, see Ts'ai Wu , T'ant'an ‘Ch'a shih-su mei-yüeh t'ung-chi-chuan’: Hsien-tai Chung-wen ch'-ik'an ti-i-chunt' : (Milne's Chinese monthly magazine: the first modern Chinese periodical), Kuo-li chung-yang t'u-shu-kuan kuan-k'an (National Central Library Bulletin), new series 1.4, 27–40 (April 1968).Google Scholar

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16 Chinnery, George, the British artist who resided in Macao, made a drawing of Gutzlaff ‘in the dress of a Fokien sailor’ that became a colored lithograph (London, Colnagh and Company, 1835).Google Scholar

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18 Both the Harvard-Yenching Library, Harvard University, and the Wason Collection, of the Cornell University Library, have extensive holdings of the THYK. For a recent study of the magazine, see Ts'ai Wu, , ‘T'an-t'an 'Tung-Hsi-yang k'ao mei-yüeh t'ung-chi-chuan’: Chung-kuo ching-nei ti-i-chung hsien-tai Chung-wen ch'i-k'an : (Gutzlaff's Chinese magazine: the first modern Chinese periodical published in China), Kuo-li chung-yang t'u-shu-kuan kuan-k'an, new series 2.4, 23–46, (April 1969).Google Scholar

19 Gutzlaff's prospectus for the Chinese Magazine appears in CR, II. 4, 187 (August 1833).

20 THYK, 1835, bound no. 6, p. 9b (also 1837.3, 9b).Google Scholar

21 THYK, 1835, bound no. 6, pp. 10b–11b (also 1837.3, 10b–11b).Google Scholar

22 THYK, 1835, bound no. 6, p. 14; 1838.8, 8b–11.Google Scholar

23 See the reports of the SDUK/C in CR, III. 8, 378–84 (December 1834), IV. 8, 354–61 (December 1835), V. II, 507–13 (March 1837), VI. 7, 334–6 (November 1837), and VII. 8, 403 (December 1838).

24 THYK, 1838.3, 42–44b, 51b; 1838.4, 63–65b, 5, 81–83.

25 Wei Yüan made this work one of the most frequently cited sources of the HKTC, beginning with the 1847 revision. Hsü Chi-yü's references (2, 31b and 3, 55) to Wan-kuo ti-li shu , by ‘a Westerner’ (T'ai-Hsi-jen ) seem to point to Gutzlaff's Universal geography. Hsü may have obtained this work in 1844 from David Abeel, an ABCFM missionary, who presented Hsü with several maps and some books in Chinese by Westerners (see Hsü's preface).

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28 Kao-li-wen, , Mei-li-ko, 24, 61b–62 (also in HKTC [1852], 59. 44–44b).Google Scholar

29 CR, IV.8, 355–6 (December 1835) and V.11, 512 (March 1837).

30 Ying, Yao, 12, 2b–6, presents a wide range of geographical terms in use in the 1840s.Google Scholar

31 Hsin-pao, Chang, Commissioner Lin and the Opium War (Cambridge, Mass., Harvard University Press, 1964), carefully examines Lin's involvement in the opium crisis. For a biography of Lin, see the recent study by his descendant, Lin Ch'ungyung , Lin Tse-hsü chuan (A biography of Lin Tse-hsü, Taipei, Chung-hui ta-tien pien-yin-hui , 1967).Google Scholar

32 Peter Parker to Rufus Anderson, from Canton, 4 July 1839, ABCFM, ABC, 16.3.8, V. Ia, identifies the four translators as ‘Aman, Shaou Tih, Alum, Atih.’

33 Hunter, William C., Bits of old China (London, Kegan Paul, Trench and Co., 1885; repr. Taipei, Ch'eng-wen Publishing Company, 1966), pp. 260–3.Google Scholar

34 For a useful biography of Leang A-fa, see McNeur, George Hunter, China's First Preacher: Liang A-fa (Shanghai, Kwang Hsueh Publishing House, [1934]). I have spelled Leang's surname as it appears in contemporary writings by missionaries.Google Scholar

35 There are references to Leang A-teh in miscellaneous notes on missionary activity in 1839 (ABCFM, ABC, 16.3. 11, V. 1, pp. 72, 74); in Bridgman's semiannual reports for 7 september 1839 and 1 January 1840 (ABCFM, ABC, 16.3.8, v. 1a); and in CR, X.10, 576–7 (October 1841).

36 CR, VII.2, 71–7 (June 1839) and 5, 270 (September 1839), chronicle Bridgman's meetings with Lin on 17 June and 10 September 1839. CR, VIII. 12, 634–7 (April 1840), provides a record of Parker' meetings with Lin' deputies.

37 In the HKTC, Wei Yüan identified excerpts from the Ssu-chou chih by describing them as ‘written originally by a European, translated by Tse-hsü, Lin. Ssu-chou chih appears also in Hsiao-fang-hu-chai yü-ti ts'ung-ch'ao (Collected copies of works on geography, from the Haiao-fang-hu study), comp. Wang Hsi-ch'i (Shanghai, 1877, 1894, 1897), Chih , 12.Google Scholar

38 Chia-chien, Wang, Wei Yüan nien-p'u (A chronological biography of Wei Yüan; Teipei, Institute of Modern History, Academia Sinica, 1967), pp. 76, 82.Google ScholarFor a valuable recent study of the HKTC, see Leonard, Jane Kate, ‘Wei Yüan and the Hai-kuo t'u-chih: A Geopolitical Analysis of Western Expansion in Maritime Asia’ (unpublished Ph.D. thesis, Cornell University, 06 1971).Google Scholar

39 Ch'en, Kenneth, ‘Matteo Ricci's Contribution to, and Influence on, Geographical Knowledge in China’, Journal of the American Oriental Society, LIX.3, 325–59 (09 1939), considers the effects of Jesuit geographical writings.Google Scholar

40 Well-known Jesuit writings included Ricci's world-map (K'un-yü wan-kuo ch'üan-t'u ; 1584–1608); Ai-ju-lüeh (Guilio Aleni), et al., chih-fang wai-chi (Further notes on foreign geography; 5 chüan, 1623); and Nanhuai-jen (Ferdinand Verbiest), K'un-yü t'u-shuo (Illustrated world geography; 2 chüan, 1672). The section on foreign geography (wai-kuo chuan in the Ming-shih (History of the Ming dynasty; completed 1739); Chang Hsieh Tung-Hsi-yang k'ao (A study of the Eastern and Western ocean [routes] 12 chüan, author's preface 1617); Ch'en Lun-chiung Hai-kuo wen-chien lu (A record of things seen and heard among the maritime countries; author's preface 1730); and Yin Kuang-jen and Chang Ju-lin Ao-men chi-lüeh (A brief record of Macao; completed 1751), also were standard references on foreign geography in the early nineteenth century.Google Scholar

41 One indication of renewed interest is Wang Ta-hai , Hai-tao i-chih (Treatise on the islands of the sea; 6 chüan, 1791), which describes the Western presence in the Eastern seas.

42 Wilson, Suzanne, ‘The Hai lu: A Chinese View of the Maritime World in the Early Nineteenth Century’ (unpublished seminar paper, Harvard University, May, 1967), pp. 6–7.Google Scholar

43 See Waley, See Arthur, The Opium War through Chinese Eyes (London, George Allen and Unwin, 1958), pp. 66–7.Google Scholar

44 Ch'en Feng-heng Ying-chi-li chi-lüeh (A brief account of England; 1 chüan, completed 1841), is one Opium War work on England.

45 For a brief general discussion of statecraft scholarship, see Fairbank, JohnK., Reischauer, Edwin O., and Craig, Albert M., East Asia: The Modern Transformation (Vol. II of A History of East Asian Civilization; Boston, Houghton Mifflin Company, 1965), pp. 123–7.Google Scholar

46 For introductions to this work and its contents, see Wakeman, Frederic, ‘The Huang-ch'ao ching-shih wen-pien’, Ch'ing-shih wen-t'i, I. 10, 8–22 (02 1969),Google Scholar and Peter M. Mitchell, ‘A Further Note on the HCCSWP’, ibid, II. 3, 40–46 (July 1970).

47 Chia-chien, Wang, p. 47; Chang Hsin-pao, p. 122.Google Scholar

48 For details on these works, see my bibliographic survey, ‘Wei Yüan and Westerners: Notes on the Sources of the Hai-kuo t'u-chih’, Ch'ing-shih wen-t'i, II. 4, 1–20 (11 1970).

49 One troubled official was Liang Chang-chü , whose essay on ‘T'ien-chuchiao’ (Christianity), in Lang-chi ts'ung-t'an (Collected essays by Liang Chang-chü; 1847), 5, 8–9, clearly indicates his apprehensive view of Westerners and their religion.

50 Cohen, Paul, China and Christianity: The Missionary Movement and the Growth of Chinese Antiforeignism, 1860–1870 (Cambridge, Mass., Harvard University Press, 1963), brilliantly pursues this theme.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

51 Gully, Robert and Denham, Capt., Journals Kept by Mr. Gully and Capt. Denham during a Captivity in China in the year 1842 (London, Chapman and Hall, 1844), pp. 46, 134–5.Google Scholar

52 For snatches of this work, unavailable today in its complete form, see Hsien Yü-ch'ing, 144–5.

53 For a translation of Hsü's passage on Washington, see Ssu-yü, Teng and Fairbank, John K., China's Response to the West (Cambridge, Mass., Harvard University Press, 1954), pp. 44–45.Google Scholar

54 Fairbank, , Reischauer, , and Craig, , p. 364, point out the influence of this well known publication on the reform movement in China during the late Ch'ing.Google Scholar