This article is transferred from: hometown Shanxi V
One
The missionaries who came to China in the late Qing Dynasty were a relatively difficult group to delineate. A large number of missionaries came to China by following the guns and cannons, and the missionaries themselves were long regarded as cultural invaders of the Western powers.
However, it is undeniable that the missionaries also brought advanced Western civilization into China in the process of mission. Before the Chinese reformers were formed and formed a group, Western missionaries were the pioneers in China to enlighten and break the conservatism and isolation, especially the Protestant missionaries who were actively committed to creating a new type of charity, culture, publishing, education, medical care and other undertakings in China while spreading the gospel of God.
Missionaries in the late Qing Dynasty were also a large and complex group, not only with differences in sectarianism, but also in their moral character, motives for coming to China, and their behavior in China, so it was necessary to conduct a large number of in-depth and detailed case studies in order to make as accurate and comprehensive evaluations as possible. In a special era, in order to uniformly define all missionaries as accomplices or direct participants in the foreign aggression and expansion of the imperialist countries, some case studies were also selectively conducted.
The Englishman Timothy Lee was one of the most prominent missionaries to China in the late Qing Dynasty and the most influential foreigner in China.
Timothy Lee was a British Protestant Baptist missionary, born Timothy Richard, who came to China in 1870 and called himself Timothy Lee, alias Boyue. In the early days, while preaching in Shandong and Shanxi, he devoted himself to charity such as disaster relief, and was praised by the gentry and the people.
In the later period of China, especially after he took office in October 1891 as the director general of the Tongshu Society, Timothy Lee's main activities were the dissemination of cultural publishing and ideological enlightenment.
Kang Youwei, Liang Qichao, Tan Si and other reformers were deeply influenced by him, and local officials such as Zuo Zongtang, Li Hongzhang, and Zhang Zhidong, and even Weng Tongyong, Sun Jianai and other important officials of the imperial court established good personal friendships with them. During the Wuxu Reform, he was recommended as a foreign adviser to the Guangxu Emperor, and was awarded the first-class top wear, the second-class Shuanglong Baoxing by the Qing court, and posthumously awarded the third generation.
Arriving in China in 1870 and returning to England in 1916, Timothy Lee devoted 45 of his most precious years of his life to social change in China, except for a brief sabbatical sabbatical.
Whatever his intentions, or how incompatible with our civilization was in the way he transformed China, Timothy Lee's 45-year efforts were eventually recognized by many of his contemporaries.
There are detailed historical records about Timothy Lee's charity, cultural publishing, ideological enlightenment, and establishment of modern education in China, and there is no objection to it. However, as early as during Lee's activities in China, the reason for his origin had aroused sufficient vigilance among the Chinese people.
Kang Youwei believed that he was greatly influenced by missionaries such as Timothy Lee, but by placing "Baojiao" as equally important as "protecting the country" and "protecting the species", it was obvious that he wanted to use Confucian orthodoxy to oppose the "foreign religion" preached by Timothy Li and other missionaries.
Although Timothy Lee won the trust of Li Hongzhang, Zhang Zhidong, Weng Tongyong and other important court officials by virtue of his good deeds in China, Timothy Lee was keenly aware that they "still had strong xenophobic feelings left behind" in their good personal friendships, and Timothy Lee and his foreign companions were also soberly aware that many Chinese officials "wanted to learn from foreign armies and navies, and wanted to broaden their minds, with the aim of striking at foreigners and driving them out of China." ”1
Whether it is Kang, Liang and other reformers, Zhang Zhidong, Li Hongzhang and other Western-style pioneers, and even Weng Tongyong, Sun Jianai and other conservatives, they all carefully and selectively obtained their initial understanding of the outside world through Timothy Lee.
Timothy Lee and his "Literature Society" contributed more to China than any other charitable activity undertaken by the missionaries. China is a sleeping giant, and the first to call her awake was a blonde foreigner like Timothy Lee.
During his 45 years in China, Timothy Lee witnessed the fall of the Qing Dynasty and saw the end of an era. When the Xinhai Revolution broke out and a new era began, Timothy Lee was already old and more focused on missionary work and comparative religious studies, and at the same time, China's sleeping giant finally had some awakening, and the concept of the Celestial Empire was completely shattered in successive failures and setbacks, and the Chinese began to work hard to learn Western civilization, and Western learning from the East has gradually become a trend, and there is no longer a need for missionaries like Timothy Lee to volunteer to introduce Western civilization to the Chinese people.
After returning to England in 1916, Timothy Lee gradually disappeared from the attention of his countrymen.
In 1918, two years after Timothy Lee left China, Mr. Lu Xun said: "Scientific books and other books are really preferable to those produced by the Literature Society, and they can be purchased, but the world has neglected to open them by their churches." 2 Presiding over the dissemination of science and ideological enlightenment by the Literature Society is Timothy Lee's most important contribution to China, "and the world is mostly opened by its church and ignored" obviously contains deliberate elements, Yan Fu, who was engaged in the cause of ideological enlightenment in China significantly later than Timothy Lee, has attracted more and more attention from the Chinese people and has become an epoch-making figure recorded in history, and even Li Shanlan, Hua Yufang and others who assisted the missionaries in translating books have also left their names in history and are admired by later generations, while Timothy Lee, Fu Lanya, Ding Yunliang, Lin Lezhi and other foreigners who made pioneering and outstanding contributions to China's enlightenment and awakening have gradually disappeared from our official history. ”
Timothy Lee was highly praised by the Western community for his work in China as a missionary and civilization, but he lived in China for too long, and when he returned to England, he became a stranger. In his later years, his greatest wish was to return to China, where he had lived for 45 years, and when he died in April 1919, he still had a ticket to return to China in the autumn. Two
Upon his return, the aging Timothy Lee could no longer carry out his pioneering work.
In the preface to an oral autobiography compiled by her daughter Eleanor, published in London in 1916 at the request of the British Baptist headquarters, entitled "Forty-five Years of the Late Qing Dynasty: Memoirs of Timothy Lee in China," Timothy Lee proudly said: "These old stories tell of a compassionate effort." "This effort means the elevation of China in different directions – through a better religion, more advanced science, better means of communication, better international trade, the creation of modern schools and professional colleges, the establishment of modern publishing houses, and the construction of new industries and new products in a country the size of Europe." I'm involved to some degree in all of these areas. ”
In 1924, Timothy Lee's close friend and colleague and the second chief teacher of Shanxi University's Western Studies College, Su Huilian, published Timothy Lee in China, in which Su Huilian said emotionally: "There is no foreigner, missionary, or parishioner in China who has such a high reputation. In every province and city in China, as well as countless towns and villages, the name 'Timothy Lee' is widely known and revered. From the emperor sitting on a throne to a rural student on a rough wooden bench, Timothy Lee's writings have been read by many readers, and his love for China has been recognized. ”
Su's book is prefaced by the famous diplomat Zhu Yidian, who served as the British minister to China. Although Zhu Erdian realizes in the preface as a foreigner who has lived in China for many years, "only a very small number of foreigners have left an impression on the Chinese public, or have left some influence behind them." Dr. Timothy Lee is one of those rare exceptions. His Chinese name, 'Timothy Lee,' occupies a solid place in the hearts of the Chinese."
Moreover, there was a translation of the Chinese section of Su's book (translated by Zhou Yunlu) in that year, but in China at the beginning of the 20th century, major historical events were one after another, and the course of national salvation was magnificent, Chinese not only did not have time to take care of these two biographies of the Li family, but even the Li family himself was almost completely forgotten.
In 1949, the Chinese people stood up, and not only did imperialism run away with its tail between its legs, but almost everything related to imperialism disappeared from China. Resisting the cultural aggression and infiltration of imperialism, eliminating the influence of imperialist cultural aggression, and helping people to keep their eyes open and see clearly the true colors of all imperialists is the distinctive discourse of the times.
In 1951, the book "Timothy Lee" edited by Ding Zeliang was included in the "Knowledge Series to Resist US Aggression and Aid Korea" and published by Kaiming Bookstore, with an initial print run of 10,000 copies.
In his early years, when Ding Zeliang was studying at Tsinghua University and Southwest Associated University, he was trained by Chen Yinke, Zhang Yinlin, Lei Haizong, Yao Congwu and other historical masters, and was highly expected by the historical circles. On the recommendation of Lei Haizong, he served as Yang Zhenning's tutor.
Talented historians, although they cited a lot of information, almost used the language of the "Red Guards" of great criticism to "report", "criticize", and "accuse" such a complex historical figure as Timothy Lee, and obviously had a tendency to take the initiative to move closer to the mainstream discourse of society at that time.
In 1964, Timothy Lee, a new historical scholar cultivated by New China, was published by Zhonghua Book Company, with an initial print run of more than 10,000 copies. It is not clear whether there is a connection between the two pamphlets with the same name, but the positions and methods are basically the same. Both books have a completely negative attitude towards Timothy Lee, hooking up historical materials, far-fetched and even thoughtful criticism and slander of Timothy Lee.
Needless to say, the purpose of proselytizing is to fool, paralyze, and deceive the Chinese people, and even the charity activities to help the famine are regarded as hypocrisy to deceive the trust of the Chinese people, and the dissemination of Western studies is even seen as a deception of trust by selling superficial and outdated scientific common sense.
In addition, at the request of Zhang Zhidong, the governor of Shanxi, Timothy Lee used modern means to survey the terrain of Taiyuan to provide a scientific basis for flood control construction, used altimeter barometer to measure altitude, and even investigated the disaster situation during the Shanxi disaster relief period, which was directly exposed and criticized as spy activities.
Time has passed, and there is no need to refute the criticisms and slanders of Timothy Lee in these two pamphlets. After the Cultural Revolution, Professor Li Shiyue, who had become a member of the Fang family, thought that "it was only after the Cultural Revolution that he began to think with his own mind"3. Professor Ding Zeliang was branded as an anti-party rightist in 1957, and immediately sank himself in the Weiming Lake of Peking University, all efforts to move closer to the mainstream discourse were in vain, and his name was destroyed with him. Three
Putting things in order, a new page has been opened in China's history. Refusing to forget, and even once again "turning history upside down" has become the new mission of historical research.
In February 1980, Professor Xu Shihu, a famous writer and educator who was the president of Shanxi University and taught at Northern Jiaotong University, published a long article "Shanxi University Before Liberation" in the seventeenth volume of Shanxi Literature and Historical Materials, which introduced the difficult process of Timothy Lee's founding of Shanxi University in a factual manner.
In 1986, Professor Xu Shihu published a long article "Timothy Lee and Shanxi" in the sixth issue of Shanxi Literary and Historical Materials (48th volume in total) to introduce Timothy Lee's deeds, in line with "the scientific spirit of seeking truth from facts, using the first-hand materials he has seen, bringing the problem to a specific historical scope, and detailing the relationship between Li and Shanxi in the four aspects of relief for the victims, introducing Western learning, solving teaching plans, and founding Shandong University". missionaries who have studied both Confucianism, Buddhism, Taoism and Islam" and concluded that although Timothy Lee was "motivated by the spread of the gospel of Yahism, he objectively did a lot of good things for the people of Shanxi." In particular, it is an undeniable fact that the establishment of Xizhai (i.e., Shanxi University) has cultivated a large number of construction talents."
Similarly, in 1986, the twenty-second volume of Shandong Literary and Historical Materials published a long oral essay by Wang Juntang (Bingzheng) entitled "British Missionary Timothy Lee". Although the old man Wang Juntang was a member of the church, he could not meet Timothy Lee in person, but only reminisced about the accounts of his father, brothers, relatives and friends, after several decades, "although he was over eighty years old, but when he recalled it, the impression was as if it was yesterday." ”
Recalling Timothy Lee's great help to China, not only in the mainland, but also due to historical reasons, Hong Kong and Taiwan scholars paid attention to Timothy Lee at an earlier time.
In 1957, the Hong Kong Christian Auxiliary Overseas Publishing House republished the Chinese translation of Su Huilian's book Timothy Lee in China. In 1965, Mr. Wang Shuhuai, a Taiwanese scholar, wrote "Outsiders and the Wuxu Reform" as a special issue of the Institute of Modern History of the Academia Sinica in Taiwan, with a preface by the famous scholar Mr. Hsiao Gongquan, who studied in detail several foreigners related to the Wuxu Reform, among which Timothy Lee was the main research object, not only to study in detail the relevant activities of Timothy Lee before and after the Wuxu Reform and the influence of the Chinese Restoration, but also to describe the life of Lee.
Mr. Siu Gongquan commented on the book: "The material is rigorous, the judgment is prudent, and the discussion is detailed and concise. This book can be regarded as a classic work of Timothy Lee's research, and it has had a great influence on later mainland scholars.
In 1971, the Taiwan Biographical Literature Publishing House published Yao Songling's "Several Foreigners Who Influenced the Mainland Restoration", introducing Timothy Lee and other famous missionaries who came to China in the late Qing Dynasty.
With the development of reform and opening up and the deepening of ideological emancipation, historical research has gradually broken through the forbidden area, and mainland scholars have also begun to take missionaries as the object of study. In 1981, Gu Changsheng wrote "Missionaries and Modern China", in 1994 Xiong Yuezhi's "Western Learning and the Late Qing Society", and in 1996, Gu Weimin's "Christianity and Modern Chinese Society" were all published by Shanghai People's Publishing House.
In 2005, Shanghai Bookstore Publishing House published Gu Changsheng's work From Morrison to Stuart Leiden: A Commentary on Protestant Missionaries to China, which was the biography of all Protestant missionaries from the late Qing Dynasty to China, including Timothy Lee, of which Timothy Lee occupied the longest volume.
Shanghai is a place that has won the first place, and it is unparalleled in China in the study of cultural exchanges between China and the West, especially in the history of the spread of Christianity in China.
These works of mainland scholars have written a lot about Timothy Lee, and the historical data is exhaustive, and they have a comprehensive understanding of Lee's life and deeds, and they basically have a positive attitude towards Lee's activities in China. He refuted the slander of Timothy Lee by Ding Zeliang and Li Shiyue in his early years, and admitted that Timothy Lee had made great contributions to China "objectively", but like the Taiwanese scholar Mr. Wang Shuhuai, he still expressed deep doubts about Timothy Lee's subjective intentions.
Although the two sides of the Taiwan Strait are separated by several decades and have different ideologies, scholars and ancestors on both sides of the Taiwan Strait basically hold the same attitude towards Timothy Lee's motives and intentions in coming to China: "If you are not of my race, your heart will be different." Four
It has been the mindset of domestic scholars for a long time to understand the true purpose of Timothy Lee's good deeds to China through the superficial phenomena of Timothy Lee's good deeds to China.
The famous writer Mr. Tang Haoming's long historical biographical literature "Zeng Guofan" and "Zhang Zhidong" are popular, and Luoyang paper is expensive for a while. In "Zhang Zhidong", Timothy Lee appeared as a positive image, and it was with the guidance and help of Timothy Lee that Zhang Zhidong was able to transform from a stubborn and clear-minded figure to an enlightened Western-style official.
However, Mr. Tang Haoming's assertion that Timothy Lee's claim that the motive behind China's establishment of modern industry and railroads was to obtain a large rebate4 lacks corroboration, and should be taken for granted by a novelist.
Timothy Lee's performance in China was not unassailable, and although he is known for his outstanding contributions to social change in China over the past 45 years, scholars have concluded that he had other intentions and did have a handle.
During the Sino-Japanese First Sino-Japanese War, at the request of Zhang Zhidong, Timothy Lee proposed a "first-aid method" to solve the Chinese crisis, the content of which is undoubtedly to turn China into a protectorate of the British Empire and use the power of Britain to counter Japan.
Scholars conclude that Timothy Lee's fox tail was exposed through this incident, and that all of Timothy's previous and subsequent good deeds were all disguises to deceive trust.
Timothy Lee's suggestion is undoubtedly wrong, but if we can look at the problem objectively and historically, who can come up with a better way to solve the national crisis when the Chinese Empire, which is in decline?
Timothy Lee was only a missionary, neither a politician, nor a diplomat, nor a military strategist, and in times of crisis, he pondered a way to save China from an emergency, even if it was harmful to China's fundamental interests, and it should be the lesser of two evils. Moreover, this method was proposed at the request of local officials in China, and whether it is feasible or not is only for the reference of the authorities.
In the midst of anxiety and indignation about the future of the country and the nation, and in the midst of extreme disappointment with the authorities and the people, sages such as Tan Sitong, Sun Yat-sen, and Chen Duxiu also put forward some ideas that were very detrimental to national sovereignty and national dignity at different times and on different occasions.5 However, it is a Chinese cultural tradition to dedicate the Venerable One, and future generations have not belittled the historical achievements of Tan Sitong, Sun Yat-sen, and Chen Duxiu because of these erroneous remarks, so it seems that we should not adopt double standards for outsiders like Timothy Lee.
As for the million-dollar demand, Timothy Lee's request can be regarded as just and bright. It is the matter of the imperial court to deal with the sky-high asking price and repay the money on the spot. Considering that Timothy Lee maintained a simple life all his life, used his missionary salaries and allowances, and even inherited inheritance income to spread Western learning in the early days of China, appealed to the Church of England to invest in establishing universities in China, and suggested to Li Hongzhang to invest one million taels of silver in education every year as China's "seed money", and considering that Timothy Lee was the first to use the Gengzi indemnity to establish a university in Shanxi in the future, asking for one million, and its purpose was also unknown for China's education. It can be said that Timothy Lee was naïve, and it was reluctant to believe that he had some great conspiracy in this matter.
Timothy Lee was an Englishman and a missionary, and there are sufficient historical materials to prove that the Western powers used religion as a means of colonial expansion in modern times, but it is obviously not a scientific attitude to conclude that all Westerners and all missionaries are colonialists. Timothy Lee's claim may be consistent with the British government's policy of colonization in China, but there is a lack of evidence to conclude that his claim was instructed by the British government.
Of all the doubts about Timothy Lee, one irrefutable point is that everything Timothy Lee did was for the sake of proselytizing. This was never concealed by missionaries such as Timothy Lee.
However, can we conclude that all Timothy Lee's good deeds are frauds are aimed at deceiving Chinese people into believing in foreign religions? Fraud, there should be content of taking what you want from others and doing what you do not want to do to others, and foreign religions are lifelong believers for a devout Christian like Timothy Lee.
In 2003, the Religious Culture Publishing House published the book "Never Forget the Past, the Teacher of the Future: A Review of the Historical Facts of Imperialism's Use of Christianity to Invade China" edited by Mr. Luo Guanzong, a leader of contemporary Chinese Christianity. In the foreword, Mr. Law admits that not all missionaries engage in political aggression, but on the one hand, he says: "Many missionaries came to China with the mission of evangelism, and many missionaries dedicated their lives to spreading the gospel, translating the Bible, and doing a lot of work for cultural exchanges, medical and health care, changing customs and social services...... We will never forget it. On the other hand, he asserted: "Because the missionaries come from the social background of the United States, Britain, and other countries, the cultural education they receive is often unable to get rid of the political concept of their own country towards the oppressive nation; more importantly, because of the close relationship between the entire missionary undertaking and the government, the missionaries sent by the mission cannot shake off the fetters of their government's policy toward China." ”
Not only is it self-contradictory, but people who overturn a boat with a rod should not be considered a scientific attitude. The evaluation of Timothy Lee's life and deeds in the book is basically the same as the views of Ding Zeliang and Li Shiyue in the 50s and 60s of the 20th century, and the main basis for the evaluation is from Ding Zeliang's book "Timothy Lee". Five
Although there is a saying that all history is contemporary history, with the passage of time, later generations will always interpret and narrate history with less utilitarian purposes than their predecessors, and will be less affected by the positions of the parties involved in historical events. It is the life of historical research in the new era to return historical research to historical materials, to start speaking from historical materials, and to peel off the different deep meanings wrapped in the process of historical narration.
In June 1998, Joint Publishing in Beijing and Hong Kong simultaneously published the "Selected Writings of the Universal Gazette", which included 120 articles published in the "Universal Gazette", including 17 direct writings and translations by Timothy Lee, providing original materials for understanding Timothy Lee's words, deeds and thoughts. In the introduction to the book, Mr. Zhu Weizheng clearly affirmed the positive role played by missionaries such as Timothy Lee in China's reform, and pointed out: "They are not professional humanities scholars or sociologists, and they have been in China for a long time, so they are required to pay close attention to the history and current situation of European and American academic circles, and introduce them to the Chinese through translations in a timely manner, otherwise it will prove that they are all deliberately used as tools for the great powers to achieve spiritual aggression against China, which is inevitably reluctant." ”
At the same time, however, Mr. Zhu Weizheng was still very wary of the motives of Timothy Lee and other missionaries in coming to China, and he also made it clear that "they did not give up their dream of Christianizing China until they died." ”
In 2003, Professor Yuan Weishi of Sun Yat-sen University published "The Sunset of the Empire: The Great Changes of the Late Qing Dynasty" by Jiangxi People's Publishing House. In his dedication at the beginning of the volume, Professor Yuan Weishi solemnly pointed out that Timothy Lee, Lin Lezhi, Fu Lanya and others "devoted their whole lives to cultural exchanges between China and the West, and tried their best to promote China on the road to prosperity and strength, not only out of the responsibility of returning history to its original face, but more importantly, in the hope of learning from history, so that no one in their motherland will foolishly set up obstacles to sharing the fruits of civilization."
Yuan should be the book that Chinese have spoken of most highly of Timothy Lee and other missionaries so far, not only examining in detail the role and social influence of the people who came to western China in the late Qing Dynasty, but also exploring the hidden and seriously examining whether Timothy Lee, Lin Lezhi, and other outstanding missionaries "should bear the charge of 'aggressor' or imperialism," and established that "whether these foreigners are enemies or friends of the Chinese people, and the key point is to examine whether their words and deeds are harmful or conducive to China's social progress and national independence" It also analyzed the large number of statements and behaviors of Timothy Lee and other missionaries in China, cautiously and clearly concluded that "their efforts in the cultural field are conducive to China's progress and development" and that they "were important intermediaries in the spread of Western learning and played an important role in promoting China's learning from the advanced culture of the West", and warned the Chinese people to "not mistake the friends of the Chinese people in the 19th century for the wolf grandmother."
On the other hand, Professor Yuan Weishi also cited missionaries such as Timothy Lee as a reason to prove that these missionaries were not "perfect people who shine throughout".6
Of course, there are no perfect people who shine throughout, but using preaching theology as the basis for negative evaluation of missionaries can only show that even in today's China, the spirit of religious tolerance and freedom of belief is still relatively alienated from us.
More than 300 years ago, the English philosopher Locke, in his sensational book On Religious Tolerance, said that if it was not possible to "make a strict distinction between the affairs of civil government and religious affairs, and to correctly define the boundaries between the two," "it would not be possible to conclude the recurrent disputes, that is, between those who care or at least think they care about the soul of men, and those who care about the interests of the state, on the other."
For today's Chinese, religious disputes and other things on the other side are not enough to affect our pace of chasing happiness on this shore, but we should also make it clear that the issue of religious belief is entirely a private matter of individual citizens, and freedom of religious belief is not only a universal value, but also a civil right clearly stipulated in the Chinese Constitution.
In May 2005, after nearly 90 years, the Chinese version of "Forty-five Years of the Late Qing Dynasty: Timothy Lee's Memoirs in China" (translated by Li Xiantang and Hou Linli) was finally published by Tianjin People's Publishing House. In December 2007, the full translation of Timothy Lee in China (translated by Guan Zhiyuan, Guan Zhiying, and He Yu) by Su Huilian was also published by Guangxi Normal University Press.
Although the translators of both books coincidentally affirmed Timothy Lee's great help to China in their afterwords, they still identified Timothy Lee as a "man full of aggressive ambitions"7, especially the translator of Timothy Lee's memoirs, who concluded through translation: "The nobility of human nature and racial prejudice, the piety of religion and the humility of the world, the advanced insight and the arrogance of the powerful, the naivety of idealism and the shrewdness of the philistine, Don Quixote's personal heroism and the brutality of the bullying colonizers, etc., these contradictory elements are united in his (Timothy Lee's) vast and lonely mind, making him a historical figure worth appreciating. ”
Looking at both books, there is really no place that embodies Timothy Lee's "racial prejudices, worldly meanness, the arrogance and conceit of the powerful, the shrewd calculation of philistines and the brutality of the bully colonizers." But thanks to the translators, the translation of the text provides us with first-hand evidence for knowing, understanding, and studying Timothy Lee.
One hundred years after the founding of Shanxi University, a statue of its founder, Timothy Lee, has finally been able to stand on the campus lawn, reminding future generations of students who have benefited from it that there was such a foreigner in China's history.
In an increasingly open China, no one can doubt that openness and exchange are a worldwide trend. At the beginning, the Bodhidharma patriarch came to China with the grand desire to promote Buddhism, opening a new era of mutual influence and integration of Confucianism, Buddhism and Taoism, and Zen Buddhism has increasingly become the same important Chinese cultural connotation as Confucianism and Taoism.
If we can apply the judicial principle of the presumption of innocence to serious academic research, then until there is sufficient evidence to prove that Timothy Lee came to China with other intentions, we should conclude that the reason why Timothy Lee came to China is exactly what his patriarch came to the West. (This article was originally published in Book House, Issue 3, 2011.) Notes: 1. Su Huilian, Timothy Li in China, p. 227, Guangxi Normal University Press, December 2007, 2, Lu Xun's Complete Works, Vol. 11, p. 353, Lu Xun's Letter to Xu Shoushang, p. 3, Li Shiyue, New Theory of Modern History, p. 2, Shantou University Press, 1993, p. 4, see p. 404 of Zhang Zhidong by Tang Haoming, People's Literature Publishing House, 2002, 5, see Yuan Weishi, Imperial Sunset: The Great Changes of the Late Qing Dynasty 222 pages, 292 pages, Jiangxi People's Publishing House, November 6, 2003, Yuan Weishi, "Imperial Sunset: The Great Changes of the Late Qing Dynasty", 229 pages, Jiangxi People's Publishing House, November 7, 2003, Su Huilian, "Timothy Lee in China", 324 pages, Guangxi Normal University Press, December 2007