Michael Szonyi, a renowned social historian of late imperial and modern China, was a faculty director of the Fairbank Center for Chinese Studies at Harvard University and is currently Frank Wen-hsiung Wu Professor of Chinese history at the university. His books include The Art of Being Governed: Everyday Politics in Late Imperial China, Practicing Kinship and Cold War Island: Quemoy on the Front Line.

A photo presents the front profile of Michael Szonyi.

Michael Szonyi

Michael Szonyi talks about his relationship with China, disagreeing with American political scientist Samuel P. Huntington’s “clash of civilizations” theory that predicts in the future wars would be fought between cultures, not just countries. Szonyi’s argument is that the East and West share more similarities than differences: “What we share as human beings vastly exceeds what distinguishes us and what differentiates us because of where we happened to be born.”

CNS: As a Canadian, how did you develop an interest in China and decide to pursue a career in Chinese studies?

Michael Szonyi: I first became interested in China in the early 80s, when I was just a teenager. After I finished high school, I was looking for an opportunity to do something more interesting than go directly to university. I sent literally hundreds of letters looking for something interesting to do in a foreign country. To my good fortune, I got a job to teach English in Wuhan in central China. So I traveled there at the age of 17 and lived there for several months. It was just the beginning of China’s reform and opening up. There was such an extraordinary eruption of energy at that time and I became fascinated.

At that time, I didn’t know any Chinese, but somehow, I was able to travel all over China using different kinds of transportation, hiking, hitchhiking and sometimes in the back of trucks. It was a fascinating time and I became very interested in watching this country develop and transform. When I returned to Canada to go to university, I started to study Chinese and eventually decided to be a China historian.

Initially, I hadn’t deliberately planned to pursue a career in Chinese studies. I was just extraordinarily lucky that I became interested in China in an interesting time and the opportunities really grew from there.

CNS: In a previous interview you mentioned that the most intellectual experience you had during your Ph.D. years was collecting materials for your research in the southeastern coastal province of Fujian. Why was it important?

Michael Szonyi: I went to a village in Fujian and briefly lived in the village hall dedicated to ancestors, and then with a farmer’s family. From a professional perspective, this experience made me realize how important it is to go to the places where history actually happened. Historians usually do their work in the library or in the archives. If we go to the places where history actually happened, we get a very different understanding of how it really developed. This knowledge has guided my historical work ever since.

At a personal level, if you live in a village, eat with the villagers and share the evenings with them, inevitably you learn a great deal just through casual conversations with them about their concerns, their interests and the challenges they face. It had a profound influence on me as an individual and deepened my interest in both historical and contemporary China. It was truly an unforgettable phase of my life.

CNS: When studying a historical problem, you said you like to use micro-historical experiences in order to explore macro-historical questions. What are the characteristics of the Chinese historically? How are they different from the West’s?

Michael Szonyi: Most histories were told from the perspectives of the elite or states. We get a very different sense of history when ordinary people are the sources. This has always motivated me to work with a micro-historical approach. The essence of history is making sense of how people made decisions in a context different from the one we live in and understanding the differences. When we think about it this way, I don’t really see much historical difference between the Chinese and the West. I think people in our two societies shared a humanity above all. This is why history is interesting. When we read about people living in China long ago, when people in China read about people living in Europe long ago, when we read about people who live in different societies today, we can actually see the similarities.

My book The Art of Being Governed: Everyday Politics in Late Imperial China, is a study of the Ming Dynasty (1368–1644). At that time, there was something called the junhu system—that some families had a hereditary obligation to provide a male member each to serve in the army. Not everyone had to be a soldier but every junhu household had to provide a male member. We can think of this military service as a kind of tax. The junhus were willing to pay this tax but they wanted the allocation of the tax to be fair. I think that’s pretty much how I think about tax. I don’t want to pay more tax than I have to and I want the taxing to be fair and I want to know how much tax I need to pay. The tax I pay to the U.S. Government today is very different from the service the soldiers provided to the Ming Dynasty but I think the way they tackled their problems is very similar. We may use different languages or different tools to address these problems, but ultimately, theirs and my problems are the same problems.

Both our civilizations and societies are shaped by tradition, but the way tradition shapes our lives and affects our choices is not automatic. Our choices are not dictated by the inheritance of tradition. I keep coming back to this basic point that what we share as human beings vastly exceeds what distinguishes us and what differentiates us because of where we happened to be born.

CNS: Huntington argued that the clash of civilizations would be the primary source of conflict in the future. Do you think there is a clash of civilizations between the East and the West?

Michael Szonyi: A simple answer, no. I think the notion of a clash of civilizations is meaningless. With due respect to Professor Huntington, who was a great scholar, I think the whole idea rests on a fundamental misunderstanding of how society works. There is conflict in human societies to be sure, but the evidence is simply not there for the idea that civilizations want different things. For one thing, civilizations don’t speak or act with one voice. Huntington identified a number of clashes. One was the clash between Islam and the West. There is certainly tension between certain Islamic groups and the United States, but I don’t think you can say every Muslim in the world is in conflict with the values of the United States.

I have devoted my professional life to help improve the understanding of China in the U.S. and the English-speaking world. I work at Harvard with very bright students and all these different types of students are able to gain a strong understanding of China, which proves there is no fundamental obstacle to understanding China. But this is a very optimistic account of human nature. Part of the story is that people are also afraid of things they don’t know well and sometimes have negative reactions. But I think when people meet, they figure things out. I’m a great advocate and supporter of people-to-people diplomacy.

I work with young people. One thing I encourage them to do is to go to China so that they get a better understanding of China and the Chinese. Another thing is, if they go to China and then return to America and decades later become leaders in business, politics or media, I hope that kind of experience will allow us to avoid the continuing deterioration of relationships. Person-to-person relationships are valuable in the present and essential for development in the future.

CNS: American historian John Fairbank, an esteemed China expert, played a critical role in educating the American public about China and the Fairbank Center is named after him. As a leading Chinese studies center, what kind of role can it play in deepening understanding between the U.S. and China?

Michael Szonyi: We can work with experts in various fields, in the corporate sector and the tech sector, to help them better understand the situation in China. At this moment, our most important task is to persuade the government that students seeking knowledge is a good thing. Whatever happens to the U.S.-China relationship, knowing more about China is good for America and knowing more about America is good for China. We play a second role as neutral, scientific and objective observers of each other’s society. When American scholars talk about China, they do so not on behalf of the government, but based on their scholarship, based on what they think is right. I think this really needs to be understood by both sides.

Right now what we, the Fairbank Center and many other Chinese studies centers around America, are facing worries me a great deal. Many people in China feel we represent American Government interests. What makes this especially difficult is that now many people in the U.S. also think that we have been influenced or penetrated by the Chinese Government, so what we are doing is actually representing Chinese views.

CNS: U.S.-China relations are at a critical stage. The U.S. recently rejected hundreds of Chinese students’ visa applications, including to study in Harvard. What is your opinion on this?

Michael Szonyi: We are at a very critical stage vis-a-vis education in both countries. Educational exchanges have been disrupted on both sides. For China it is primarily because of its ways of fighting COVID-19, for the U.S. it is due to security reasons. It is obvious that the U.S. needs to do a better job of managing intellectual property and sensitive technologies. To me it is also obvious that they are doing it wrong right now. Targeting Chinese visitors because they’re Chinese, because of their connection to the CPC, because of their past experience, is the wrong thing to do.

We want the relations between our two countries to improve. We have common interests in battling climate change and enhancing economic prosperity for all. We have to figure out ways to improve the relationship and I think education certainly has a role to play.

(Interviewed by Sha Hanting)