Abstract
The worlds that Matteo Ricci lived in—early modern Europe, Ming China and the pre-Westphalian international order—are vastly different from the world of the 21st century, when accelerated globalization binds China and Europe together as never before and when global international society is moving decisively beyond Westphalia. How much are the legacies of Matteo Ricci still relevant, 400 years on, to enriching the relationship between China and Europe in the 21st century? This paper starts with a brief overview of the civilizational encounters between China and Europe and the unfolding of their turbulent and often troubled relationship over the last four centuries of wars, collapse of empires, internal convulsions, nation-state building, scientific and industrial revolutions and great economic transformations. Against this historical narrative is the discussion of Matteo Ricci as a cultural agent, a knowledge broker and a practitioner of public diplomacy in fostering Sino–European relations in its nascent years. The paper argues that even in an increasingly globalized world, Matteo Ricci’s conception of culture, his wisdom about the power of knowledge and his practice of people-to-people diplomacy remain valuable in informing both China and the EU, two aspiring global players, in their search for a viable China–EU strategic partnership.
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Notes
In Millar’s words, ‘The Sinomania of the late seventeenth and early eighteenth centuries represents the first phase of European reception of information on China’(Millar 2007, 40).
In this particular context, I mean by ‘Europe’ largely Western Europe. China’s relations with Eastern Europe were on a different footing.
In addition to annual summits and regular high level dialogues between EU and China, there are more than 50 sectoral dialogues on topics including industrial policy, education, customs, social affairs, nuclear energy and consumer protection. For more details, see http://eeas.europa.eu/china/index_en.htm.
There are more radical claims. T’ang Leang-li asserts, for example, that ‘The Jesuits have given China the best of what contemporary Europe could give, and they have interpreted the spirit of China in a way that no Chinese could have improved upon.’ (Cited in Treadgold 1973, pp. 30–31). The original quote is in T’ang Leang-li (1927) China in Revolt: How a Civilization Became a Nation? p. 43.
Fewer than a thousand Jesuits went to China over the entire period of the Jesuit missionary enterprise in China over three centuries.
For an enlightening discussion of how EU constructs its own identity through turning third parties into the Other, see Diez T (2005) Constructing the Self and Changing Others: Reconsidering ‘Normative Power Europe’. Millennium 33 (3): 616–633.
Joseph Needham (1954, p. 148–9) described Matteo Ricci as ‘one of the most remarkable man in history … not only an extraordinary linguist, mastering the Chinese language to perfection, but also a scientist and mathematician of eminence’.
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Zhang, Y. Culture, knowledge and diplomacy in contemporary EU–China relations—reflections on the legacies of Matteo Ricci. Asia Eur J 12, 5–19 (2014). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10308-014-0376-8
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10308-014-0376-8