Source: China News Network
Deng Jianguo: Under the great changes, why did the exchanges between Chinese and Western civilizations "go to The Plug and Seek Communication"?
China News Service, Shanghai, 1 November Title: Under the great changes, why do the exchanges between Chinese and Western civilizations "go to Cyprus and seek access"?
Written by Fan Zhonghua and Zhang Nan
Why is it particularly difficult for China and the West, which have a long history of exchanges, to break through the "barrier of exchange"? Is the ever-changing modern media technology a constraint or an opportunity for China and the West to "understand each other"? How should the collision of Eastern and Western civilizations be viewed behind the appearance of communication?
Deng Jianguo, professor of the School of Journalism of Fudan University and director of the Department of Communication Studies, said in an exclusive interview with the China News Agency 'East and West' a few days ago that throughout history, exchanges between China and the West have been far more "smooth" than "not smooth.", and behind the appearance of communication is the many turns in the flow of Eastern and Western civilizations, and the motive is precisely the internal driving force that mutual hopes to learn from each other.
Data map: Silk Road international tourist city of Dunhuang, Gansu, 10,000 people swim in the Mingsha Mountain Crescent Spring. Photo by Wang Binyin
The interview transcript is summarized below:
China News Service: The exchange of civilizations between China and the West has a history of more than a thousand years, is "not smooth" the norm?
Deng Jianguo: Looking back at history, Sino-Western exchanges have not always been "unsmooth". As early as the 13th century, the Italian merchant Marco Polo brought back the picture of Chinese civilization to the West. His description of the prosperity of China's commercial ports and large cities in the early years of the Yuan Dynasty for a long time constituted the background of the Western "Chinese imagination".
Beginning in 1405, Zheng He took the initiative to spread Chinese culture in the West, which had a far-reaching impact. The Asian and African countries he passed through were amazed by the majesty of the Ships of the Ming Dynasty fleet, the magnificence of the characters, the ingenuity of the talents, and the specific and subtle, meticulous and orderly ceremonial culture of the Ming Dynasty. These materials and civilizations, which were far superior to the local areas, made the countries along the route full of yearning for Ming Dynasty China, and took the initiative to send envoys to learn and imitate the advanced culture, technology and even institutional system of the Ming Dynasty, which promoted the development of their own countries.
With the opening of new shipping routes, in the 16th and 17th centuries, a large number of European merchants and missionaries came to China and brought back to the West what they saw and heard in China and even sinology classics. One of the more representative is the Italian missionary Matteo Ricci, who is proficient in Chinese, translated the Four Books into Latin, and introduced China in detail in his writings, making the European people's understanding of China more positive and optimistic.
At that time, the West had always been in a state of admiration and yearning for Chinese civilization, and Europe even formed a "China fever" for nearly a hundred years in the 18th century. From the royal family to the commoners, Chinese opera, porcelain, gardens, customs and culture are hotly discussed.
More importantly, traditional Chinese Confucian and Taoist ideas, as well as the resulting picture of a civilized, stable, and prosperous country, were yearn for Europe, which had experienced a dark Middle Ages and was constantly at war, eager to find an outlet for a new political system. Voltaire was keen to praise Chinese morality and law, and regarded Confucius as the "interpreter" of "reason" and "wisdom". It borrows the ideology and culture of China and other Eastern countries, expands its horizons, and gradually forms its enlightenment ideological system.
Therefore, before modern times, China's splendid civilization has been exported to the West, although it is limited by the means of communication and geographical space restrictions at that time, it is a trickle, but on the whole, Chinese civilization has had a profound impact on the Western world.
Infographic: Audiences visit the exhibition "Raphael's Art: The Impossible Encounter" at the China Millennium Monument in Beijing. Photo by China News Service reporter Hou Yu
China News Service: What factors have led to the "poor communication" between China and the West in modern times?
Deng Jianguo: The most fundamental reason is that since the 18th century, the development of Chinese and Western societies has produced a great divide. At that time, China was still in the slow development mode of agrarian society, while the West experienced the Renaissance, the natural sciences achieved great development, further gave birth to the industrial revolution, and greatly improved productivity. On the one hand, the rapid development of social economy, the rapid progress of ideology and culture, and the gradual establishment of a modern production system, system, and legal system; on the other hand, overproduction has oversupplied its domestic market. At this time, according to the "Chinese imagination" formed in the past, the West began to aspire to establish trade relations with great powers far away in the East.
This has formed a "big collision" of modern Chinese and Western civilizations that subverts the imagination. In 1793, during the Qianlong period of the Qing Dynasty, the British Ma Garni led a delegation of more than 800 people to China to negotiate trade and trade, but Qianlong refused, experienced the "kneeling dispute", and also saw the real China that lagged behind the West at that time.
The British came to China to seek trade opportunities, which was an opportunity for in-depth exchanges between China and the West, but because the ideological concepts and social development between China and the West were far apart, the two collided and bounced off. After that, britain began the opium trade with China, which eventually led to the Opium War, and China began to enter a historical period of salvation and survival. Because the urgency of "salvation" is far greater than the revival and enlightenment of culture, Chinese began to learn advanced Western ideas and technologies to quickly change backward China, and at this time, ideas such as "mastering the art of mastering the art to control the yi" became the mainstream. As a result, the flow of information between China and the West has undergone a complete turn.
At the same time, beginning with the invention of the telegraph, modern media technology appeared in the West, supporting its ubiquitous colonial rule and value export, which made the West further control the discourse power of international communication in modern times.
Therefore, it can also be said that "East-West communication" has not been smooth, but only the flow of information has changed. From China's point of view, it is the division of modern economic and social development between China and the West that causes the discomfort of its transformation from the identity of "inheritor" to the identity of "recipient". In the Western vision, after the "imaginary China" was broken, for a long time, whether in terms of communication technology or modern civilization, China was reduced to its "natural" passive "audience".
China News Service: At present, China's economy has risen, with the revival of culture, the return of cultural self-confidence, China's mobile Internet is becoming more and more developed, which makes The new trend of Sino-Western exchanges?
Deng Jianguo: First of all, we must realize that today the West is still the strong side of discourse, and the political and economic structure on a global scale has not undergone fundamental changes. In addition, China's developed mobile Internet is mostly reflected in the application side of consumption, service and so on, and the global use rate of the three major social media in the United States is still extremely dominant.
But on the other hand, a country's economic hard power can affect its soft power, and a rising China represents a revival of Chinese civilization that is different from the West. The contact between China and the West is inevitable, but its flow will show a two-way trend. In smaller and smaller "global villages," "how to do it" is more important than "how to say."
Therefore, I believe that China should now act in both action and dissemination. For example, China has achieved the largest poverty alleviation in human history, China has fulfilled its commitment to "opening the door wider and wider" through various paths, and China has effectively controlled the epidemic to become the only major economy in the world with positive economic growth in 2020. As long as a country's words and deeds are consistent, credibility will naturally be built up and gain global recognition.
Data chart: On September 22, 2021, local time, the Louvre museum in France launched a new offline special exhibition after one year, called "Coming from Afar", showing a variety of collections related to trade and travel, and also specially introducing trade routes such as the ancient Silk Road. Photo by Li Yang, a reporter from China News Service
China News Service: In the face of the current situation of Sino-Western exchanges, what can China take the initiative to do in international communication?
Deng Jianguo: On the one hand, there is a change in macro concept, and China should open itself more fully and let the West know more about concrete China.
This "opening" involves a re-understanding of what information can lead to identity. There is a concept of "intellectual bias" in persuasion theory, that is, when the public decides whether to trust a speaker, it compares the content of its speech with the identity of the speaker (and the interests behind it). Therefore, Chinese self-criticism and criticism of foreigners have a completely different effect on their credibility; second, China's external communication should show more real people and the resulting countries. Countries with many advantages but also some disadvantages will appear more real, amiable and attractive.
On the other hand, we should "seek common ground" in international communication rather than emphasize differences. The heterogeneity of civilization may stem from the isolation and disparity of geographical environments, but when it comes to the individual audience's thirst for information, both East and West are roughly the same. This "sameness" is the nature of Chinese and Western audiences as "people" who can understand each other.
Although the current media expressions are diverse, it is still crucial to find suitable information for different media to disseminate. Non-fiction writing is a genre other than hard news, which tells the stories of ordinary people to ordinary people, uses a large number of good-looking film narrative techniques, and opens up Chinese and Western audiences at the level of human nature, so that they can empathize and understand each other. It turns out that both Chinese and Western audiences are interested in this humane, immersive genre of journalism.
In addition to making the audience susceptible in details, a civilization must also be attractive in terms of values, and the combination of the two has a strong communication power.
This requires that the values based on civilization be further detached from their concrete consciousness, and must be more universal, even abstract. The concept conveyed can be actively interpreted by different people around the world from different perspectives and transformed into "self-ideals". For Western audiences, this is different from the fragile "Chinese imagination" constructed by the era of geographical isolation, this identity is the unity of three sets of tensions between the words and deeds, reality and ideals, and ancient and today of a country in the era of developed media, with an ideal charm based on authenticity. (End)
Respondent Profiles:
Deng Jianguo, Professor, Doctoral Supervisor, Head of communication department, Doctor of Communication, School of Journalism, Fudan University, was a former reporter and editor of Shanghai Daily. Visiting Scholar of School of International and Public Affairs and School of Journalism, Columbia University, China Journalism Awards Network Journalism and International Journalism Judge, Shanghai Shuguang Scholar, Senior Advisor of Sixthtone, etc. His research interests include communication theory, Chinese and foreign communication ideas, media integration, etc., and he has published more than 60 papers in Chinese and English in academic journals at home and abroad, published two monographs, translated many books, and completed two national social science projects.