For a couple of years now I've wanted to buy some books on Chinese history, but I was always reluctant to buy such books in China, for fear of having to wade through a whole lot of political bullshit. I would like at least an attempt at objectivity. Anyways, a few weeks ago I decided to just go and buy some books anyway, so I did. I bought 'Cultural Flow Between China and Outside World Throughout History' by Shen Fuwei (Foreign Languages Press
, 1996; Translated by Wu Jingshu) and 'An Outline History of China (revised edition)' by Bai Shouyi (Foreign Languages Press, 2002). Granted, these are two very different books. The first has a very specific focus, tracing the cultural exchanges between China and the outside world throughout history (obviously), and the second, equally obviously, providing a general overview of the history of China. However, a certain difference in one aspect of style struck me. 'Cultural Flow' generally avoids the political bullshit I feared I would have to wade through, and presents a reasonably objective account of this aspect of Chinese history. 'An Outline History' does too, up to a point, that point occuring at roughly the time Matteo Ricci set foot in China. Before Ricci's arrival, Mr Bai gives a generally balanced and fair account, although his education in Marxist theory is obvious. Fortunately, though, the Marxist observations seem fair and do make worthwhile points. After that point, however, Mr Bai suddenly takes a rather nationalistic, anti-imperialist approach, providing me with all the political bullshit I could want to wade through, and then some. The result is that he rapidly loses his sense of objectivity and the readers can't help but feel they are being fed a decidedly shallow, overly politicised version of Chinese history which, at times, seems to be laced with an undercurrent of xenophobia.

To be fair to Mr Bai, because he is no longer alive to defend himself, he lived from 1909 to 2000, and the first version of 'An Outline History' was published in 1982 (the revised edition includes 'An Outline History of China, 1919 - 1949, published in 1993, which wasn't included in the original because of 'factual difficulties'). My point? Like all of us, he could not help but be a product of his time, and must have had to bow to certain political realities. In fact, given the period in which he was raised, I wouldn't blame him if he did consider 'An Outline History' to be a fully factual, reasonable and unbiased account. If we are to be completely honest with ourselves, we will have to admit that much of what we consider to be objective fact is in fact the result of the propaganda we were raised with.

However, I do think it is useful to compare the tone of the two books, with a particular focus on the differences in their treatments of Matteo Ricci and the Catholic Church, although I will look briefly at certain other aspects of these books. I think, to be fair, I should state at the outset that I have not finished reading 'An Outline History'. I found the differences in the treatments of Matteo Ricci and the Catholic Church particularly interesting, and that is why I chose to write this.

The differences in the treatments of Matteo Ricci are particularly striking not because one book adores him while the other slanders him; they're striking because one book goes into a great deal of depth in its description of Ricci's life in China and examines his attitudes and beliefs in surprising detail, while the other virtually ignores him.

Let's begin with 'Cultural Flow': Pages 229 to 233 provide the most detail, and I find the amount of space devoted to one man surprising considering this book of a mere 397 pages covers a period stretching from pre-history to the early years of the Republic. And considering Ricci was a missionary and that missionaries are generally seen as Evil Cultural Imperialists these days, the rather positive portrayal Mr Shen provides is quite refreshing.

On page 230, we find this explanation:

"Why was Ricci so notable in his personal achievement, and what was his attitude and philosophy compared with his European predecessors? The best answer was given by the Italian Jesuit himself in his book 'Notes on China', written in his late years. In the book, he pointed out that he and his colleagues were never tired of learning more about China, even though they had read much about that country from books while in Europe."

And later on page 230, an introduction to Ricci's approach to his missionary work:

"As a result of years of continued research, he designed a pragmatic approach of proselytising among the Chinese compatible with the circumstances of China. According to such an approach, the missionaries should pursue their religious proselytism first through introducing the advanced scientific knowledge of the Western world to their friends- members of the Chinese ruling strata- while respecting the Chinese heritage of Confucianism and other traditions."

It was absolutely astounding to read such an account, especially considering the reputation of the Jesuits.

On page 231 Mr Shen describes the situation Ricci and his colleague Michael Ruggieri found themselves in when they settled in Zhaoqing, Guangdong. Despite having obtained government approval to stay in Zhaoqing as missionaries, they were faced with an atagonistic public who considered them agents of the "foreign devils" (yes, Mr Shen does use quotation marks there) in Macao, and their houses were attacked. Then we are told:

"Under such conditions, Matteo Ricci tried to make himself appear as an enthusiastic admirer of Confucian doctrine and a follower of Chinese traditional rites in order to win friends among local officials and intellectuals in Zhaoqing."

Pages 232 and 233, however, contain what could be seen as the only negative aspect of Ricci's attitudes, although it seems Mr Shen has gone out of his way to be fair to Ricci:

"Following these accomplishments, Ricci came to realise the reason he was able to win such keen admiration for the Western civilisation from a nation, which had always boasted of its superior cultural heritage, was because he had demonstrated things these people had never seen before. In his memoirs, he criticised the conceit of those Chinese, who had once looked down on any other kingdom, dynasty or culture in the world. Attributing the Chinese egoism to their ignorance, he assumed that once these people realised their inadequacy under the new circumstances, their superiority complex would give way to inferiority complex. Nevertheless, he had found the Chinese not at all reluctant to accept new knowledge and understand the changing world. They appreciated the information of Western culture, which Ricci had brought to China, because it was a blessing they had not expected to come from overseas- sources that were blamed for troubles and disturbance over the past 200 years. Such a blessing, for most Chinese friends of Ricci, had emanated not from his Christian creed but from his impressive knowledge of science."

It's a long quotation, I know, but I feel it was necessary to quote the entire paragraph in order to show you the full portrayal of Ricci in 'Cultural Flow'. We can see from this paragraph that Ricci fell into that superiority complex trap that all expats are especially vulnerable too, but that at the same time, he did make a positive contribution to Chinese society and was warmly received by at least certain sectors of the Chinese community.

All told, 'Cultural Flow' gives us a surprisingly full portrayal of Matteo Ricci when one considers the small size of the book and the large size of the time frame it covers. It is not merely a full portrayal, but a balanced and fair portrayal which shows us a good deal of the depth and complexity of the character, leaving us with more than yet another name followed by dates in brackets.

'An Outline History', on the other hand, hardly deigns to mention Matteo Ricci. Granted, this book aims to provide an overview of Chinese history, and covers roughly the same time-span as 'Cultural Flow', so the author doesn't have so much time and space to devote to a single man. However, Ricci strikes me as being a fairly important character in the history of relations between China and the West, and I would have thought him deserving of a little more space than a couple of token mentions. Ricci is first mentioned on page 383 of 'An Outline History', where we are told little more than that Ricci started to work in Zhaoqing, Guangdong in 1583, and that he was one of more than seventy Jesuits identifiable from their written works to have worked in China. He is again mentioned on page 385, where his 'Atlas of Geography' is mentioned along with Julio Aleni's 'On World Geography' and Ferdinand Verbiest's 'Complete Atlas of the World' and 'Explanations of the World Atlas' as one of the very few things the Jesuits did to benefit China. And that's that.

So Mr Shen gives us a surprisingly comprehensive account of Ricci's life and works, while Mr Bai only mentions him in passing, and that in the context of an overwhelmingly negative account of the Catholic Church's activities in China. One can understand Mr Bai's motives for such an underwhelming portrayal of Ricci, given the sheer size of the topic his book must cover and the political situation of the times in which he was raised, educated and wrote the book, but given Mr Shen's portrayal, one is left wondering whether Mr Bai would have done his readers a better service by revising his portrayal of China's encounters with the West from the Ming Dynasty onwards as well as simply adding a section dealing with the period from 1919 to 1949.


The differences in the treatment of the Catholic Church are similar, in that Mr Shen shows a greater willingness to go into some depth and present a relatively objective account of matters. However, the issues involved, although related to those of Ricci, are quite different in many respects.

On pages 256 to 261 of 'Cultural Flow' we get quite an in depth account of the issues facing the Catholic Church in its missionary work in China during the Ming Dynasty. By this I don't mean the Church's relationship with China or the Chinese people, but the internal debates and divisions regarding approaches to missionary work and adherence to orthodox Catholic theology. These pages are given the heading "The Catholic Crisis", which quite succintly sums up the pages to follow.

This section begins with a recap of Ricci's approach to proselytising: "As he stated in his book "Truth of Catholicism" published in 1595, Ricci tried to adapt Catholicism to Confucianism- "in order to convert Confucianists into Christians," as Xu Guangqi had put it. Ricci was quoted as saying that the Chinese Confucianists, while refraining from discussing supernatural beliefs, were, however, adhering to the same moral principles as the Jesuits." (page 257). Ricci's approach was continued by other Jesuits after Ricci's death in 1610. The Dominicans and Franciscans, however, opposed Ricci's approach and the Archbishop of Manila reported the controversy to the Vatican in 1635. The Vatican, at first supported the Jesuits, but after continued complaints issued a directive in 1656 which allowed missionaries to exercise their discretion, but the controversy, of course, continued. Eventually, the Vatican appointed a Bishop Pallu as priest-administrator in China and issued an order requiring all missionaries in China to take an oath to obey the administrator. Bishop Pallu didn't arrive until 1684, however, and only created new problems, with the missionaries of the Franciscan and Dominican orders insisting on following their old chain of command through Manila. After his death, Bishop Pallu was replaced by Bishop Charles Maigrot, and this time it was the Jesuits who refused to obey the administrator. "Recognising that its order had caused chaos among the Catholic missionaries in China, the Vatican's circular department made a concession in 1688, rescinding its requirement for oath-taking, demanding only their obedience to the new administrator." (page 259).

This may seem all well and good, but the result is now that the Jesuits, the French King Louis XIV and the Qing Emperor Kangxi are now in direct conflict with the Vatican over the issue of Ricci's accomodation process. The Vatican sent an envoy, Carlo Tommaso Maillard de Tournon, to visit Kangxi and explain the Vatican's new position. On his second audience with the emperor, Tournon got up the courage to inform the emperor of the Vatican's position, and, as a result, the Vatican administrator Maigrot was expelled from the court and, in 1707, Kangxi "formally notified all Western missionaries in China that anyone of them, who refused to follow the established practice of Matteo Ricci, would not be allowed to stay on in China "as voluntary missionaries" and continue their religious career in the country." (page 260). To clarify matters, Mr Shen adds:

"The Qing emperor made it clear that China had no intention to ban Catholicism in the country, but it could not adapt the Chinese traditions to suit the Vatican's missionary policy, as demanded by the Pope." (page 260)

The dispute between the Vatican and Kangxi continued, however, and the result was an eventual ban on all missionary activity in China. Mr Shen's response to this situation is:

"Thereafter, the Catholic missionaries could only work among the poor people in China and were unable to make any converisons from among the intellectuals or officials. As a result, the cultural exchange between China and Europe- through the bridge of Western missionaries- virtually came to a standstill; so ddi the hitherto rapidly-expanding introduction of Western technology into China, despite the Qing government's policy of welcoming specialisedd Western missionaries to work in China- "provided they respected Chinese rites." Consequently, this adversely affected the cultural and scientific development in China." (pp 260-261)

Compare this in-depth portrayal of the divisions within the Catholic Church and their eventual resolution followed by the conflict with the Qing government with Mr Bai's portrayal of the Catholic Church's adventures in China. Pages 382 to 383 of 'An Outline History' correspond roughly to the same period covered by pages 256 to 261 of 'Cultural Flow'. On page 383 of 'An Outline History' we find this statement:

"The missionary activities of the Roman Catholic Church in China began in 1583 when an Italian named Matteo Ricci started to work in Zhaoqing, Guangdong Province. From then on and until 1775, the missionary work in China was practically monopolised by the Society of Jesus."

Interesting, considering Mr Shen, in 'Cultural Flow', on page 257, mentions the Dominican and Franciscan objection to the Jesuits' methods being reported to the Vatican in 1635. In fact, neither the Dominicans nor the Franciscans appear at all in the index of 'An Outline History', and although I haven't yet finished reading the book, I have no memory of any branch or sect of the Catholic Church, other than the Jesuits, being mentioned at all in this section, whereas 'Cultural Flow' is able to describe a serious doctrinal controversy occuring within the Catholic Church in China at this very time.

In fact, Mr Bai's description of the Catholic Church strikes me as being an exceedingly superficial portrayal of all missionaries as being irredeemable Evil Imperialists bent on the destruction of China. Reading this book, I find it hard to believe that Mr Bai did any more than the most basic research into the subject of the Catholic Church's involvement in China. Take this as an example:

"The Society of Jesus was a diehard, anti-reform organisation within the Roman Catholic Church, that came about in response to the Protestant Reformation of the sixteenth century. It advocated none but the orthodox theology of medieval time." (page 383)

And yet Ricci, a member of this very same Society of Jesus, took the rather radical approach of adapting Catholic theology to fit the Chinese situation, whereas it was the Dominicans and Franciscans who took on the role of defenders of orthodox Catholic theology. There would seem to be a contradiction here.

On page 384, Mr Bai tells us:

"The Jesuits have been praised as the importer of Western science to China, a praise they did not deserve. We know that modern science came about as a result of liberating man's mind from theology and that the Roman Catholic Churchwas a deadly enemy of modern science and a brutal persecutor of scientists.
(.....)
Speaking of astronomy, they maintained that "the change in the movement of stars and planets affects the fortunes or misfortunes of man." Was this really modern science? The Jesuits castrated modern science of which they made a mockery."

This is an extraordinary contrast with Mr Shen's portrayal of a Matteo Ricci whose most valued contribution to China was his vast knowledge of Western science.

The tirade continues on page 385, this time with a more focused attack on the Jesuits contribution to China's knowledge of geography. This is where Ricci is mentioned the second time as the author of 'Atlas of the World'.

"One of the reasons for making the world atlas was to arouse the curiosity of Chinese intellectuals about the non-Chinese world so as to foster with them a personal relationship."

One wonders why Mr Bai seems to consider this such a bad thing.

The tirade continues still, moving on to the reform of the calendar with Jesuit help. Throughout the tirade, Mr Bai seems intent on portraying the missionaries in the most evil light possible, and, although he does give credit for the good that they may have brought to China, such credit is given only grudgingly, leaving one with the impression that the sheer weight of facts overwhelmed his ability to spin anti-Western propaganda.

So on the one hand we have a Mr Shen willing to investigate the Catholic Church of the period, willing to accept that some of the missionaries may have done some good for China, and who seems to lack the desire to write propaganda, and who therefore presents us with a detailed and nuanced account of the Church and its activities in China. On the other hand we have a Mr Bai who seems determined to portray the Catholic Church as a monolithic structure of purely evil cultural imperialism intent on destroying China, and as a result we are given an account that at times distorts facts and at times completely disregards those facts which might call into question the author's previous conclusions, leaving us with an extremely superficial portrayal of the Church hardly worthy of a high school essay.


The portrayals of Matteo Ricci and the Catholic Church are not the only areas in which we can see such a marked difference in these two authors' portrayals of relationships between Chinese and Westerners. Compare this passage from page 231 of 'Cultural Flow':

"However, from the first time they practised their religious missions in Zhaoqing of Guangdong, the two "Indian monks" found themselves facing an antagonistic public. Then, on August 10, 1583, Matteo Ricci and Michael Ruggieri obtained the local government's approval to stay as resident missionaries in Zhaoqing. This did not change the hostility of the local people, who considered them agents of the "foreign devils" in Macao and even attacked their houses."

...with this passage from page 390 of 'An Outline History':

"The Chinese people, meanwhile, were outraged by the actions of the British troops and the capitulation of the Qing officials. On May 29, they struck back on their own when the people in Sanyuanli outside the city of Guangzhou killed several British soldiers who had come there to plunder. Then the villagers orgainsed, joining with people from neighbouring villages in a common fight against the British.
(....)
This was the earliest known spontaneous struggle by the Chinese people against foreign aggression in modern history."

Now, to be fair, I must state right here that the Chinese people were right to fight the British. However, this passage is a perfect example of how Mr Bai describes all those who opposed the foreigners as 'patriots' defending the motherland without ever stopping to think that maybe some of these 'patriots' may have just been xenophobes. Whereas Mr Shen has the decency to admit that some Chinese people are racist and that some foreigners are good, Mr Bai consistently writes off all foreigners as Evil Imperialists and all Chinese who oppose them as patriots. Mr Shen does a lot more research with a more open mind, and as a result we are given an in-depth, nuanced, fair and balanced portrayal of Chinese history. Mr Bai seems to have done very little research into the foreigners who started arriving in China from the Ming Dynasty onwards, and as a result we are given a very shallow, one-sided and chauvinistic portrayal of a very important aspect of China's recent history.

Although in places one suspects Mr Shen of being perhaps a little too pro-foreign, his portrayal of Matteo Ricci being one of those places, on the whole I found 'Cultural Flow' to be a very honest account of the history of cultural exchanges between China and the outside world. 'An Outline History' could be divided into two sections: pre- and post-Ricci. The section of the book dealing with Chinese history up to roughly the point where Matteo Ricci enters China, it is quite a good, balanced account of Chinese history. After Ricci's arrival, however, although I can see how it is still of some use to those wanting to study Chinese history, the propagandistic nature of the book detracts greatly from the quality of the work. I can accept that many objective factors beyond Mr Bai's control, such as the political and societal situations in which he was raised and educated and under which he worked, may well have compelled him to write such propaganda, and so I won't lay the blame for this at his feet. He may well have wanted to write a more balanced account for all I know.

I should finish reading 'An Outline History' before I comment any more on the book. However, as I read it, I do find myself wondering why the Foreign Languages Press decided to publish this book when 'Cultural Flow' would seem to suggest more balanced and fair histories are available.