Global Perspectives through ancient and modern times: Chinese scholars on how to "understand China"

Beijing, December 23 (China News Service) -- How can we more fully understand the views of other countries on China? How to cooperate and exchange with other countries on the basis of mutual understanding? How to further promote Chinese culture to go global?

In view of the above hot topics in academic and political circles, recently, the social platform "Sanlian Zhongyue" under Sanlian Life Weekly joined hands with Jiangsu People's Publishing House to invite a number of Chinese scholars to review the development context of overseas China studies from the two-way perspective of Chinese and foreign scholars, and to analyze why they "understand China" from a global perspective.

How has U.S. china research affected the relationship?

Liu Dong, dean of the Zhongxi Academy of Zhejiang University, first talked about the "prototype" sinologists overseas. These people were mainly missionaries from Britain and the United States, such as Li Jacob, Wei Sanwei, Ming Enpu, etc., but they only talked about China's "exotic tone" and rarely involved The characteristics of Chinese culture such as Confucian thought and values.

Liu Dong then cited the famous American sinologist Fairbank as an example, and pointed out that compared with the traditional old-school Sinology in the United States, The study of China led by Fairbank is a regional study. The study is based on the problem awareness of the United States, which is more in line with the national interests of the United States, so it can obtain more generous funding, and can build the advantage of knowledge intersection by mobilizing the support of various disciplines at Harvard University. Liu Dong pointed out that the study of China initiated by Fairbank has always been between academics and politics.

Liu Dong believes that Fairbank has a very important tendency: if Americans need a secure future, they need to understand China and use this to understand U.S.-China relations, which is why Fairbank's sinology research can continue to promote and influence the process of understanding the development of relations between the two countries.

Liu Dong said that Fairbank and his colleagues were on the opposite side of the extreme anti-communist McCarthyism, thus leaving "a gap in the door" for Sino-US relations. But today, there are almost no independent authoritative scholars like Fairbank who can not be moved by McCarthyism, and American sinology is now one-sidedly biased toward politics, which is not only unfavorable to China, but also to the academic development of the United States itself. However, for the current Sino-US relations, Liu Dong believes that a cautiously optimistic attitude can be maintained, because there is still room for turning back.

How does the "foreign history" of science have insight into the history of Chinese science and technology?

Jiang Xiaoyuan, a chair professor at the Institute of The History of Science and Culture of Science at Shanghai Jiao Tong University, talked about the Academic Research of British Scientist Joseph Needham on the history of Chinese science and technology, and pointed out that Needham's book is the largest existing English work on the history of Chinese science and technology in the West.

Jiang Xiaoyuan believes that Needham's research is not a "internal history" study that only focuses on the internal history of the discipline in the traditional sense, but a scientific "external history" study that explores the connection and interaction between the discipline and the external world. Needham brought the issues related to the study of the history of science in China to the academic vision of social history, and also provided a convenient channel for more people to enter the field of chinese science and technology history research.

Jiang Xiaoyuan also introduced two overseas scholars engaged in the study of the "foreign history" of Chinese science and technology history: Dagmar Sch?fer, a German sinologist, and Charlotte Furth, a professor of history at the University of Southern California. Xue Feng's masterpiece "Gongkai All Things" studies the "Tiangong Kaiwu" written by the Chinese Ming Dynasty scientist Song Yingxing and the social background of the Ming Dynasty, which has a strong "foreign history" color. Fei Xiali's book "The Yin of Prosperity", subtitled "Sex in the History of Chinese Medicine", discusses the sexual content of the history of Chinese medicine between the 10th and 17th centuries.

Why does overseas China studies dialyze modern China?

Lei Yi, a researcher at the Institute of Modern History of the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, pointed out that overseas China studies provide us with different perspectives on modern China. Lei Yi believes that with the defeat in the Opium War and the introduction of modern geography, the traditional Chinese "tianxia view" with the "Huaxia-centrism" as the core began to gradually collapse; and after the Penghu Restoration after the Sino-Japanese War, the understanding of citizens by Chinese Enlightenment thinkers represented by Liang Qichao prompted China to change from an ethical view of the state to a contract-type state view, which eventually led to institutional changes. (End)

Source: China News Network