A History of China (59 page)

Western merchants other than the Portuguese began to arrive in the late sixteenth century. The Spanish and the Dutch, who eventually created another seaborne empire, sought trade with the late Ming dynasty, but, as the Dutch became involved in the East Indies (modern Indonesia), they played a gradually lesser role in China. For a time, the Spanish superseded other Westerners due to their domination over the Philippines and South America. The seemingly inexhaustible supply of silver from America provided Spanish merchants with a commodity that lured the Chinese into trading their silk. The Spanish use of silver set the pattern for Western commercial exchanges with China, which appeared interested in only one European product: precious metals. The Qing, like the traditional Chinese dynasties, continued to profess self-sufficiency and did not seek to exchange its silks, tea, or porcelains for European commodities. Thus, China was awash in silver up to the late Ming dynasty and then again from the seventeenth to the early nineteenth centuries. Despite repeated efforts, Europeans could not find products other than precious metals to trade with China. The Qing court began to depend upon a steady supply of silver for its own expenditures, as well as for state projects.

When the Manchus took power, Kangxi did not turn away these European merchants but did impose the same restrictions as in earlier Chinese–European relations. He described Westerners as tribute bearers and had government officials supervise their activities. Once the Westerners had concluded their affairs, they departed for their homelands. Although Kangxi’s government did not encourage this commerce, it was no doubt profitable and initially posed no threat. Prompted by an insatiable curiosity, Kangxi learned a great deal from these European merchants.

However, he learned much more from the missionaries representing the Society of Jesus. Founded in part as a response to the Protestant Reformation, the Society’s members (known as Jesuits) differed from what they perceived as the corrupt and ignorant clergymen who had found places in the Protestant Church. The Jesuits needed to be well versed in Church doctrines; to lead disciplined, incorruptible, and even abstemious lives; and to be sincere in their devotion to Church beliefs. They served as exemplars for the regular clergy in reaffirming Catholic principles as Protestants challenged them. Part of their regimen was an emphasis on careful study, knowledge of Church teachings, and intellectual rigor. They respected scholarship and attempted to convey an image as learned religious leaders. In addition, they kept up with the latest developments in the secular world and in the sciences – skills and knowledge that Kangxi valued. Their knowledge, sophistication, and persuasiveness prompted the papacy to dispatch them as missionaries to the parts of the world that Europeans had reached in the sixteenth century.

When Franciscans and Jesuits initially arrived in Japan and China, they were cordially received. Some of the Japanese elite were captivated by their message, especially since the Jesuits respected Japanese culture and sought to conform to Japanese sensitivities and customs. By learning the Japanese language, the Jesuits could explain Christian theology, hoping to couch it in terms that the Japanese could fit into their own culture. Having experienced a century of disunity and violence, the early unifiers of Japan – Oda Nobunaga (1534–1582) and Toyotomi Hideyoshi (1536 or 1537–1598) – at first welcomed the Jesuits. However, Hideyoshi and his successor and founder of the new Shogunate, Tokugawa Ieyasu (1543–1616), began to suspect the Jesuits of trying to subvert their government and to fear that Christianity, the new ideology, was disturbing the rigid social class system they had created. The Jesuits’ apparent involvement in the Shimabara Rebellion of 1637 to 1641 against the government prompted the shoguns to ban Christianity and foreign missionaries and to institute a policy of “closing the country” (
sakoku
) to Westerners. Only Dutch traders who had not attempted to proselytize for Christianity were permitted to enter Japan and even they were limited to Deshima, an island off the coast of Nagasaki.

After initial misunderstandings, the Jesuits in China also received a warm reception, partially because they strenuously tried to accommodate to Chinese culture and to learn the Chinese language, which impressed the Chinese elite. Arriving during the last decades of the Ming dynasty, Matteo Ricci (1552–1610) became the most renowned Jesuit of the era; his journals were published and became a vital source of knowledge about China for Europeans. His book, which was published posthumously in Rome in 1615, revealed the extraordinary respect with which he viewed Chinese civilization. It lavished praise on the Chinese, Confucian values, and the educated elite and described geography, products, and customs. His residence resulted in great achievements and in his eventual appointment as Superior General of the Jesuit order in China. After having learned spoken and classical Chinese in Macao, he spent five years in Guangzhou province before a local governor expelled him in 1589. Returning to Macao, he compiled, with an associate, a Portuguese–Chinese dictionary and a map of the world in Chinese. Later, with the help of a Chinese Christian named Xu Guangqi (1562–1633), he translated the Chinese classics into Latin and translated Western works on science and mathematics into Chinese. At the same time, he received a visitor from the Jews in Kaifeng and was the first Westerner to report on this community of so-called Chinese Jews. In 1601, Emperor Wanli (1563–1620) permitted Ricci and other Jesuits to reenter China as a reward for sending a chiming clock to him. Over the next decade, Ricci and his brethren converted a few members of the scholar-official class, but they did so without condemning Confucianism and the associated ancestral rituals. In fact, Ricci, in describing Christianity, linked it with Confucian precepts, thus making Christian doctrines less foreign to the Chinese. He also began to wear Chinese garb in order to ingratiate himself with the men in the Confucian elite whom he had befriended. The Ming court respected him so highly that the emperor, responding to Jesuit entreaties, allowed Ricci to be buried in Beijing on his death in 1610.

Many of the Jesuits who arrived in Ricci’s wake gained the approval of the Qing emperors, especially if they could make practical contributions. Ferdinand Verbiest (1623–1688), a Flemish Jesuit well versed in mathematics and astronomy, transmitted the latest European discoveries in those fields. He engaged in a contest with a leading Chinese astronomer who had already bested the German Jesuit Adam Schall von Bell (1592–1666). Having proved that European astronomy was more accurate, Verbiest received an appointment as Director of the Main Observatory while his opponent was executed. Kangxi substituted Jesuits for Chinese and Muslims in the Bureau of Astronomy. Verbiest, through his position as Director of the Main Observatory, met with Kangxi to teach him geometry, music, and philology. Kangxi became even more impressed when Verbiest introduced the Chinese to new methods of casting more powerful cannons. Kangxi’s good impression of Verbiest led him to recruit Jean-François Gerbillon (1654–1707), a French Jesuit, and Tomás Pereira (1645–1708), a Portuguese Jesuit, as interpreters and translators in negotiations with Russia, which led to the Treaty of Nerchinsk, the first modern treaty that China signed. Later, Guiseppe Castiglione (1688–1766), an Italian Jesuit, was so attracted by Chinese culture that he modeled his works on those of Chinese painters and even assumed the Chinese name Lang Shining. In turn, Qianlong, Kangxi’s grandson, was so entranced by Castiglione’s work and knowledge that he had the Jesuit artist draw up plans for a Western-style palace in the Old Summer Palace.

Kangxi, in particular, patronized and then recruited Jesuits for government positions. His support of the Jesuits stemmed from the Europeans’ practical contributions. The Jesuits’ scientific and technological expertise tantalized the Qing monarchs. The Jesuits delighted Kangxi with their gifts of clocks while also producing such vital products as cannons for him. Their instruction in music, mathematics, optics, and medicine appealed to him. As long as the Jesuits offered practical and tangible benefits, Kangxi appreciated their efforts and assigned them to specific tasks. He also recognized that they tried to accommodate to Chinese culture by wearing Chinese dress, learning the Chinese language, and emphasizing the common features of Christianity and Confucianism. He himself expressed little interest in their religious teachings and did not perceive of them as threats merely because they had converted a tiny segment of the Chinese population. Still he valued, in particular, their secular contributions and their assistance in science and technology.

Relations between the Jesuits and the emperors would readily have been maintained had internal disputes within the Church not created instability and undermined the ecclesiastical mission. Others in the Vatican and other orders disputed the Jesuits’ approach toward China. They disapproved of the Jesuits’ accommodation to Chinese culture and insisted that Confucius had to be condemned as a heretic and that Confucianism and its rituals, including ancestor worship, could not be tolerated. Approval of such practices and rites would translate into acceptance of major errors in Christian principles, and such errors would divert Chinese Christians from the true path. The Jesuits ­countered these arguments, noting that they could not denigrate Confucianism and still hope to convert the Chinese. Instead, they would portray Confucius as a great teacher and the practices and ceremonies associated with him as secular. In short, they would treat Confucianism as a moral philosophy and the rituals simply as an expression of cultural pride. The Vatican responded that the deviations proposed by the Jesuits led to significant alterations of the Christian message and would vulgarize and distort Christianity simply to appeal to the heretical Chinese.

This fundamental disagreement subverted the Jesuit enterprise in China. The popes, siding with the religious orders in Rome, ordered the Jesuits to censure the Chinese rituals. In the early eighteenth century, the Jesuits continued to act in their own way, but the popes responded by dispatching only those missionaries who subscribed to Vatican policies. The adamant and nonconciliatory messages of the missionaries alienated the emperors and the courts. In 1724, the emperor who succeeded Kangxi banned Christianity. Individual Christians were allowed to remain in China, but anti-Christian members of the elite ordered many churches closed or razed. By the middle of the ­eighteenth century, there was only a minimal Christian presence in China.

By 1760, China appeared to be in control of its relations with Westerners. Most foreign Christian missionaries had either been expelled or had departed of their own volition. Foreign merchants generally abided by Qing-dynasty regulations and accepted a status as tribute bearers. These traders, especially those employed by the British East India Company, which was fast becoming the leading trading company in China, enjoyed such substantial profits that they were willing to accept what they perceived to be unusual, government-imposed restrictions on commerce. Transport of Chinese tea, silks, and porcelains to the European market was so lucrative that the representatives of the British East India Company chose not to challenge Qing rules. The monopoly granted to the East India Company by the British government ensured that it did not face competition, permitting it to charge high prices for the Chinese products it shipped to Britain.

The Qing’s success accompanied similar outstanding achievements along its frontiers. Unlike earlier dynasties, which steered clear of expansionism, the Qing set forth to annex the steppelands and, in the process, also expanded into the regions northwest of China. The expansion was motivated by attempts to pacify the Zunghar or Western Mongols, who were based in western Mongolia and in the regions in modern Xinjiang, north of the Tianshan mountains. The Qing had harmonious relations with many Mongols and had adopted some features of Mongolian culture, but their relations with the Zunghars were often hostile, with both sharing the blame. The Zunghars had undergone a transformation in the seventeenth century, which permitted them to supersede the Eastern or Khalkha Mongols in the international struggles of the late 1600s. They had made strides toward the creation of a more sedentary society. Their leaders encouraged crafts and industries, promoted agriculture, embraced Tibetan Buddhism, and developed a new and more precise written script for Mongolian.

The rise of the Zunghars is connected to the accession of their leader Kharakhula. He initiated the internal consolidation of confederations to create a powerful union. He and his son Erdene Baatar built a palace, an indication that the Zunghars sought to settle down and deviate from the seasonal migrations of the nomadic Mongols. Erdene Baatar promoted agriculture and industry, economic activities that required a more sedentary society. He sought to suppress shamanism and to foster the spread of Buddhism, considering shamanism a more rudimentary form of religious expression and organization that was ill suited to the social structure that he was attempting to create. Buddhism was more organized and more in tune with unification.

By the time of Erdene Baatar’s death in 1653, therefore, the Zunghars were well on their way to becoming a powerful confederation. They could indeed be troublesome to the Qing if they were able to unify all the Mongols. Yet unification would prove to be difficult. The Khalkha themselves were divided into four separate khanates. The ruler of one of these khanates tried to use Buddhism as a unifying force by selecting a Mongol boy as the Bogdo Gegen, a reincarnate who would become a symbol around whom all Mongols would rally. The so-called Bogdo Gegen’s value as a unifying figure would supersede his role as a religious leader. However, this “Living Buddha” did not fulfill the khan’s expectations. His devoted followers did not unite, as his religious prestige did not translate into political authority. Capitalizing on the lack of Khalkha unity, the Qing established a typical tributary system with them, with the Mongols providing horses and animal products to the court while it reciprocated with grain, tea, pots and other manufactured articles, as well as luxury products such as silk.