A widely circulated "historical source" says that during the Kangxi Dynasty, Leibniz, the greatest European mathematician and philosopher at the time, wrote a letter to the Qing emperor proposing the establishment of an academy of sciences in China.
But no one has found any evidence to prove the existence of this "historical material", and I suspect that it is the result of false rumors - the people who disseminate this "historical material" do not care whether there is anything wrong, but only regret it - if you follow Ley's advice, the future of China may be very different, perhaps it will embark on the road to modernization - this is actually a kind of
Do it yourself
Amorous assumptions. As long as we understand a little of Kangxi's attitude toward foreign cultures, we can't come to this untenable conclusion. In other words, Kangxi represented not just his own will, but a rational choice made by the Qing Empire under the Chinese cultural tradition.
Leibniz had a keen interest in the distant ancient countries of the East, knew China far better than the average European, and he continued to correspond with the missionaries in China, constantly asking them for information about China and asking them to answer his various questions about the country.
I noticed another letter from him.
We do not know whether Hong Ruohan conveyed Leibniz's meaning to Kangxi, or whether Kangxi seriously considered Lai's proposal, but what we do know is that the Qing did not make efforts to establish the Rausch Academy of Sciences, and the consequence of the liturgical dispute was that the Qing and the Holy See fell against each other, and the passage between China and the West became narrow.
Nurhaci and his descendants, who started with thirteen pairs of armor, marched south from the vast grasslands and established a unified Qing Dynasty with powerful force. When the brilliant Kangxi took over the rule of the empire, through years of conquest and institutional construction, his empire looked more unbreakable and stronger than any other regime in the world at that time, he had enough self-confidence to see everything, he was obsessed with and firmly believed in the orthodox Confucian culture of China, and regarded it as the foundation of stability in the world.
As he emphasized in a holy decree issued in the controversy over etiquette: Chinese reasoning is infinite, the meaning of the text is profound, and It is impossible for Westerners such as Fei'er to argue.
Kangxi forbade missionaries to work, "in the future, there is no need for Westerners to practice religion in China, and it is forbidden to do so, so as not to be troublesome", and the four dynasties of Yongzheng, Qianlong, Jiaqing, and Daoguang continued this policy, and Catholicism could only be spread through underground forms.
Although Kangxi was once impressed by the "ingenuity" brought by missionaries from Europe (as can be seen from his fascination with the Western calendar, medicine, geometry and related technologies), he never really considered catholicism, nor did he personally learn from the West, vigorously introducing and promoting Western-style technology. Compared with the great "Tao" of Confucianism, these Western-style technologies are nothing more than "techniques", and the scholar Wu Guosheng said, "Ancient China did not produce science in the modern sense of the West, not accidental mistakes, but the fate of existence." Diamond, a biologist known for his book Guns, Germs and Steel, explains from another dimension why the development of science and technology in China is hindered: a unified authoritarian system that makes a new technology once banned or rejected never emerges, and this concern does not exist in Europe, where there are many countries, and even if one country rejects the new technology, other countries may accept or promote it.
The Yongzheng Emperor imposed a harsher policy of prohibition than his father, while the Qianlong Emperor showed similar interests to his grandfather and had close relations with missionaries, but he still forbade them to preach, limiting them to art forms such as painting and architecture, and driving them to serve their personal interests.
Leibniz's Chinese expectations were completely disappointed, in other words, his expectations or suggestions could not enter the emperor's eyes at all. At least in the "Prosperous Era of Kangqian", the Qing Empire, which looked at everything, had no impetus for modernization and did not have the need to learn from the West.
Factors such as the respective cultural systems, religious beliefs, governing philosophies, national political systems, and development directions of China and the West have prompted the two to gradually drift apart, and the gap is getting heavier and heavier, until the sound of a cannon in the Opium War, people are surprised to find that this is no longer the time, the Westerners are no longer the Westerners of the past!
[1] Refers to the controversy of Western Catholic missionaries in the 17th and 18th centuries over whether traditional Chinese rituals are contrary to Catholic doctrine, and its direct consequence is that the spread of Catholicism in China is prohibited.
[2] Reprinted from Recent Events in China, p. 213, (german) Leibniz, Elephant Press, first edition, July 2005.
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