Source: China News Network
China News Service, Beijing, June 17 Title: Exclusive | Mutual Learning among Civilizations: Why did Voltaire name the study "Confucius Temple"?
——Interview with Zhang Xiping, chief expert of the Institute of International Communication of Chinese Culture at Beijing University of Foreign Chinese
China News Service reporter An Yingzhao
Zhang Xiping. I provide the picture
Exchanges and exchanges between China and the West have a long history, and the process of mutual understanding and mutual influence has lasted for thousands of years. From the 17th to the 18th century, Chinese culture once triggered a century of "Chinese fever" in Europe, and the famous French Enlightenment thinker Voltaire even named his study "Confucius Temple" and took the pen name "Confucius Temple", which shows that Chinese thought and culture have had a profound impact on Europe.
"The most important common cultural heritage between China and Europe is the three-hundred-year cultural exchange from 1500 to 1800, which is very precious in the entire history of human civilization exchanges." Zhang Xiping, professor of Beijing University of Foreign Chinese, chief expert of the Institute of International Communication of Chinese Culture, distinguished professor of Beijing Language and Culture University, editor-in-chief of International Sinology, and former vice president of the International Confucian Federation, pointed out in an exclusive interview with China News Agency's "East and West Question" a few days ago that mutual learning among civilizations should be the way for different civilizations in the world to get along, and this is the best plan provided by Chinese civilization for today's world.
The interview transcript is summarized below:
China News Service: You divide the Western understanding of China into three development stages: "Traveling Sinology, Missionary Sinology, and Professional Sinology.", what are the most prominent features of each stage? Why is it so divided?
Zhang Xiping: Cultural exchanges between China and the West have a long history, since Zhang Qian of the Han Dynasty "chiseled" the western region, China and Europe have had material cultural exchanges, in the process, China's four major inventions have also been transmitted to Europe. However, China, which has written records in European history, must also start from the study of travelogue Sinology. During the Yuan and Mongolian dynasties, merchants or missionaries represented by Marco Polo and Brown guests came to China and opened the stage of travelogue sinology, depicting a distant East for the first time.
At that time, Marco Polo's travelogues were written as "Khitan", not "China". After the geographical discovery of Columbus, a group of missionaries represented by Matteo Ricci came to China through the Indian Ocean through the shipping routes opened by Portugal and established themselves in Macao. They entered China and dealt with Chinese literati in the form of "Heru Confucianism", opening up an important stage in missionary sinology, which promoted cultural exchanges between China and the West.
In 1814, the French set up the "Lecture on Chinese, Tatar-Manchu Language and Literature" at the Académie française, which included Chinese studies in its formal professional system of Oriental studies, and the first professor, Remussa, and his disciple Julian began the professional sinology stage. In this way, the history of Western research on China has lasted for nearly 400 years, and has gone through different stages and produced different results.
Infographic: Tourists visit Matteo Ricci's themed exhibition. Photo by Huang Yaohui, China News Service
China News Service: From the 17th to the 18th century, the western transmission of Chinese culture in Europe triggered a century-old "China fever" and also had an important impact on the European Enlightenment. However, from the end of the 18th century, especially since the 19th century, some scholars who hold "Eurocentrism" and "Western-centrism" have tried to deconstruct or even deny this history. What do you think?
Zhang Xiping: The historical exchanges between China and Europe are very long, and if we look at the mutual contact and translation of classic works, it should originate from the Jesuits' entry into China. During this period, Western Bibles and some scientific and technological works were translated into Chinese, which played a great role in the development of Chinese culture. In the process, Chinese texts began to be translated into Latin, French, and Portuguese on a large scale, and from French to Various European languages.
Since the 16th century, exchanges between China and Europe have actually gone through two stages. The period from 1500 to 1800 is a stage, and the dividing line of history is the visit of Macartney to China in 1793, which is more than three hundred years of mutual learning between China and the West, forming the "Western Learning East Gradually" of China learning from the West and the 18th century "China Fever" of the West learning from China. The second stage was after the 19th century, beginning with the First Opium War in 1840, when Europe resorted to colonial means, aggression and aggression against China. After the strength of Europe in the 19th century, European scholars rarely talked about the stage of mutual learning between China and Europe before the 18th century, but upright scholars still acknowledged this stage and proved in a large number of books that this history cannot be erased.
Data map: Confucius's hometown of Qufu, Shandong. Photo by Liang Ben
China News Service: The whole process of the European Enlightenment has a complex and profound connection with Chinese thought and culture. Voltaire named his study "Confucius Temple" and pen named "Grand Abbot of Confucius Temple", but Condorcet regarded China as a "stagnant country". Why is this change occurring? What are the implications in the future?
Zhang Xiping: The mainstream of the Enlightenment is in favor of China, including Voltaire and Diderot in France, and Leibniz and Wolff in Germany. Of course, the entire Enlightenment movement also had different voices, such as Montesquieu, Rousseau, and Condorcet who criticized China relatively more.
In Voltaire's writings, such as the Philosophical Dictionary and the Treatise on Customs, there are tangible statements, and its acceptance and praise of China is a fact. As the leader of modern Western thought and an advocate of freedom, equality and fraternity, why did Voltaire accept traditional Chinese ideas represented by Confucianism?
First, in the heyday of Kangqian, Chinese society was richer than in Europe, when Europe was still on the eve of the industrial revolution, and its economic and social development was not as good as China's. The American scholar Gund Frank pointed out in the book "Silver Capital" that since the contact between Europe and China in the 15th century, the silver mined in Mexico has basically flowed to China. Because China's currency symbol at that time was silver and the spread was higher than that of Europe, and there were no more industrial products exchanged in Europe, Chinese tea, silk and porcelain became the main products of Sino-European trade. Until The time of Macartney's visit to China, the cotton spun by Jenny's spinning machine was not as good as China's, and China had a large trade surplus.
Second, China's social management at that time was also better than that in Europe. The examination system allowed the poor to be elected as officials, and the whole society was relatively fair. At that time, European society was still an aristocratic hereditary system, and we felt that the imperial examination system was not good, but it was still better than Europe in selecting talents and appointing talents.
In addition, China's ideas represented by Confucianism have also completely touched the European intellectual circles. At that time, Europe adopted a religious chronology, and from the Old Testament of the Bible, all mankind was a descendant of Noah's Ark. After the chinese historical chronicles were translated into Europe by missionaries, they found that neither the Greek nor the Latin Bible could match the historical records of China such as the Great Yu Zhishui. Later, the French missionary and astronomer Song Junrong wrote a "History of Chinese Astronomy", which proved the authenticity of Chinese historical chronology by examining the eclipses and lunar eclipses recorded in ancient Chinese books. After reading this book, Voltaire began to think that if the historical chronology of China is true, then the religious chronology of Europe is false, which is tantamount to a "political atomic bomb" at that time, and Voltaire is even more opposed to the chronology of the church.
The earliest record of Christianity in China can be found around the time of the Zhenguan Dynasty in the Tang Dynasty, when the Nestorian school (Jingjiao) was introduced to China. There was no Christianity in China before, but in the Han Dynasty, the people's life was already very good, indicating that the whole world is not God's people, and it can be said that the existence of China dissolves the universal statement of Christianity.
Also, can man survive without God? Europeans found that Confucius was not a divine figure, but a mortal, "tired as a lost dog", who was forbidden to enter through twelve kingdoms, but his thoughts could tell people in secularized societies how to become benevolent, and how to become upright gentlemen after leaving God, that is, benevolence, righteousness, etiquette, wisdom, and faith. This shows that after leaving God, man can still have some basic moral constraints, so as to achieve an ideal state of "benevolence." These ideas provided Europe with the ideological weapon to break free from the shackles of the medieval church. Therefore, Europe's acceptance of China in the 18th century was caused by the different stages of social development and the methods and objects of faith, and China provided Europe with ideological resources and social examples for getting out of the "medieval castle".
On the one hand, this shows that Europe's acceptance of Chinese thought in the 18th century was based on its own development needs, and on the other hand, it also shows that traditional Chinese culture can be understood from the perspective of modernity. It is not comprehensive to completely describe the "China fever" of the 18th century as "Theory of Yin Shuyan", and it is a historical fact that China was a model for Europe in the 18th century, and it is also recognized by upright scholars in the West. For a long time, when it comes to China-Western relations, some people have always understood the Sino-Western relations in the 19th century, which is incomplete.
Data map: People visiting the Yuelu Academy in Changsha. China News Service reporter Jia Tianyong photographed
China News Service: In the field of public opinion in the West, China seems to have always been the "two Chinas", the historical And Chinese culture is brilliant and brilliant, they admire, but have been sleeping in the museum; the contemporary Chinese economy is developing rapidly, but it is still politically "different", and there is a natural difference from the Western liberal democratic tradition. How do you understand the connection between historical China and contemporary China?
Zhang Xiping: In general, there is indeed a cognitive difference between the West and China, because Chinese civilization is the only civilization in human civilization that extends to today and is alive.
Western sinologists may also have different interpretations of ancient Chinese civilization, for example, after the Westphalian Peace, when the Single Nation State in the West looks at China, it will find that China is a "nation-state in disguise". Because since the Han Dynasty, China has always been a multi-ethnic country, Which Mr. Fei Xiaotong called "pluralistic unity". China is a very special country, there is no such type of country in human history, and in the long course of history, many nationalities have fused together. China is not the China of the Han people, but a great civilization created by many ethnic minorities and the Han people together. "Inside and outside the Great Wall is the hometown", the Chinese nation is more special, and historical China has continued to contemporary China, and historical China lives in our hearts.
After the Communist Party came to power, China was still linked to historical China. For example, one of the core theories of the Chinese Communist Party is the "seeking truth from facts" on the plaque of Yuelu Academy, which comes from the Book of Han. The harmony and difference advocated by Confucianism have become the basic norms of Chinese diplomacy today, in addition to the concepts of mutual learning among civilizations, consultation, co-construction, and sharing. The civilization of historical China has continued to this day and has become an important source of wisdom for the ruling of the Communist Party of China. Historical China and contemporary China are the same China, and the state system of contemporary China is different from other countries, but it is not a strange country, but a country that has developed in its own historical context.
Chinese civilization continues to this day because it constantly learns and accommodates external civilizations. The Buddhist civilization came from India, which had an impact on the languages of Chinese, and what we call "the world", "present", "past" and "future" were all Buddhist languages at the earliest. After the arrival of Christian civilization, it also had a very big impact, and in the "West learning from the East", Chinese know that the earth is round, not "the heavens are round places". All the astronomical instruments of the Jianguomen Ancient Observatory in Beijing were built for us by missionaries in China. The plane geometry was brought about by Matteo Ricci. It should be said that Chinese civilization has always held an attitude of tolerance and learning from foreign civilizations, which has nourished its own civilization and enabled it to constantly move toward modernization.
Even when the West colonized China in the 19th century, we made progress from this process. As Marx said, "No matter how many crimes England has committed, it has caused this revolution, after all, as an unconscious instrument of history." "In this tortuous process, China still learned from Western civilization, made progress, and stepped out of the agricultural society.
After the founding of New China, China, which officially joined the United Nations and the World Trade Organization, returned to the world system, enabling both China and the West to gain great benefits in this civilizational exchange. The whole world has also made progress, but China's progress is too fast, and the West did not expect that this ancient civilization would achieve industrialization in only 40 years or so, creating an unprecedented miracle for mankind. A century of poverty and weakness have led to the outbreak of repressed Chinese modernity at a rate of 40 years.
Infographic: Foreign youth play Chinese folk music and feel the charm of Chinese culture. China News Service reporter Zhang Yu photographed
China News Service: Today, when China is increasingly moving to the center of the world stage, how should we explain the modern values of traditional Chinese culture to the world?
Zhang Xiping: It must be reiterated that historical China and contemporary China are the same China, the current China has evolved and developed from historical China, and history and culture are in the blood of contemporary China, in the life of every Chinese. Traditional Chinese culture has accumulated a lot of wisdom in the long history of civilization, which also provides a good reference for dealing with various contradictions in the world today, and we can extract it and make more contributions to contemporary human civilization.
In 1789, France wrote "do not do to others what you do not want" into the Declaration of Human Rights as the basic moral code of citizens and the golden law of human ethics. The highest realm pursued in ancient China was the unity of heaven and man and the Taoist nature, not anthropocentrism, while the modern Western civilization represented by the Industrial Revolution was the conquest of nature. Ancient Chinese thought advocated that man and nature live in harmony and provided a good solution for today's human society. Another example is mencius's idea of the noble people, "the people are precious, the society is secondary, and the king is light", which also provides a very important source of thought for us to attach importance to the people and put forward the concept of "people first" today.
To this day, the Chinese civilization has embarked on a path of peaceful coexistence with different civilizations: the harmony of all nations, so that this civilization can be extended all the time. When different civilizations in the world meet, they have different values and different ideas, which is normal. We respect all civilizations and different ideologies, and individual countries should also respect our civilizations and ideologies so that we can coexist. How boring it would be if there were only one civilization in the world, only one ideology!
There are no two identical leaves in the world, and there can be no uniform civilization, and human beings should respect the diversity of cultures and civilizations as they respect the diversity of nature and biology. Mutual learning among civilizations should be the way for different civilizations in the world to get along, and this is the best solution provided by Chinese civilization for today's world. (End)
Zhang Xiping, Professor of Beijing University of Foreign Chinese, Chief Expert of the Institute of International Communication of Chinese Culture, Distinguished Professor of Beijing Language and Culture University, Editor-in-Chief of International Sinology, former Vice President of the International Confucian Federation, and expert with outstanding contributions to the State Council, enjoys special government allowances. He has long been engaged in the history of modern Western culture, the history of Cultural Exchanges between China and the West from 1500 to 1800, the history of Western Sinology and the history of Chinese Christianity, and is currently engaged in the history of cultural exchanges between China and the West, the study of early Western Sinology and the overseas spread of Chinese culture. He has published more than 10 monographs and more than 100 papers in core academic journals.