The First Person to Resist Modern Cultural Aggression

In 1723, the Yongzheng Emperor ordered Catholicism banned: “Recently in Fujian, certain Westerners have harassed my people and despised my laws. The Fujian officials have memorialized me; I shall curb these disorders. This is my state’s affair, and I am responsible for its enforcement… You wish all Chinese to become converts — I know your demand. But consider: if that came to pass, what would we become? Would we not become subjects of your emperor? Converts know only you alone. Once trouble arises on the borders, the people will obey only your orders. Though we need not worry of this now, if thousands of warships should come to our shores, the disaster would be great.”

In 1842, during the First Opium War, after the British first tried and failed to force open China’s doors with opium, and as China’s national power was in decline, their ferocious face was laid bare — and the painful beginning of modern Chinese history commenced.

This had multiple causes concentrated together: the Qing government’s closed-door diplomatic policy, the internal factor of growing corruption, and the continual decline of national strength.

When reflecting on this history, on the one hand people blame the Qing governmental system’s structure, which could not bring about an industrial civilization; on the other hand they blame the closed-door policy for cutting off information, leaving China far surpassed abroad without knowing it.

Had the Qing government been adequately prepared against foreign aggression, it would not have suffered such a miserable defeat.

In the late Ming, to facilitate preaching in China, a group of Jesuits led by Matteo Ricci conformed to Chinese rites, not prohibiting converts’ veneration of Heaven, worship of ancestors, or sacrifices to Confucius, holding these to be commemorative and educational Chinese customs unrelated to religious belief.

Moreover, in the course of missionary work they vigorously proclaimed that the Confucian Tian and Shangdi had the same meaning as one another, thereby facilitating Catholicism’s spread in China and becoming an important reason that attracted Chinese scholar-officials to the faith.

However, after Ricci’s death, disputes arose within the Jesuits. The focal point of contention was: do the “Tian,” “Tianzhu,” and “Shangdi” of the Confucian classics share the same meaning as the Latin Deus? Are veneration of Heaven, ancestral worship, and Confucian sacrifice forms of idolatry and superstition? To unify understanding, Jesuits in China convened at Jiading in 1628, deciding to uphold Ricci’s view, not treating ancestral and Confucian rites as superstition, forbidding the use of “Tian” and “Shangdi” to address Deus, and retaining the translation “Tianzhu” (Lord of Heaven).

In the thirty-second year of Kangxi (1693), Charles Maigrot (Yan Dang), a French Missions étrangères priest serving as vicar apostolic of Fujian, suddenly ordered a ban on Chinese converts in his jurisdiction from practicing ancestral worship and Confucian sacrifice; forbade addressing Deus as “Tian” or “Shangdi,” allowing only the term “Tianzhu”; and ruled that the “Revere Heaven” plaques hung in every church smacked of idolatry and must all be removed. He then dispatched a missionary to Rome to petition the Holy See to ratify this decree.

In the thirty-ninth year of Kangxi (1700), Domingo Fernández de Navarrete and other Jesuits jointly memorialized, on the one hand setting out the Jesuits’ view of Chinese rites, and on the other requesting that the Kangxi Emperor issue an edict testifying that Chinese rites had nothing to do with religion. Kangxi annotated their memorial in vermilion: “What is written here is very good and accords with the Great Way. Revere Heaven, serve ruler and parents, and respect teachers and elders — these are universal principles under Heaven, and admit of no change.”

The Pope of Rome directly ignored Kangxi’s view. In November 1704 he issued a decision requiring the prohibition of Chinese rites, and dispatched Bishop Carlo Ambrogio Mezzabarba as legate to China to resolve the Chinese rites controversy, spreading far and wide in China the demand that the faithful abandon their traditional rites.

This enraged Kangxi. In the forty-fifth year of his reign (1706) he decreed: all missionaries in China must obtain a Qing court residence permit, declaring that they would never return to Europe, observe Ricci’s rules, and submit to Chinese rites — only then might they remain in China. Otherwise, “they shall categorically not be permitted to reside in China and must be driven out.”

What ultimately spurred Kangxi to firm resolve was the Fujianese official Chen Ang. As recorded: “A Quanzhou native, of Gaopu. In the early dynasty, coastal residents were relocated inland to Guankou; his father and brother died in succession. With his widowed mother struggling to make a living, he abandoned books and became a merchant on the sea, repeatedly brushing with death. Travelling between the eastern and western seas, he came to know thoroughly their winds, tides, local customs, and the difficulties or ease of every terrain.”

Thus Chen Ang held a strong wariness of Catholicism, and later stated outright in a memorial: “I know that Europeans are barbarous by nature and use religion as a banner in trying to control Japan; I also know that they in fact seized Manila, raised many churches in Guangzhou and elsewhere, and drew countless people to their side.”

According to the Veritable Records of Shengzu of the Qing: in the fourth month of the fifty-sixth year of Kangxi, “the Board of War deliberated and replied to the memorial of Chen Ang, commander-in-chief of Jieshi in Guangdong, stating: the religion of Tianzhu was established in the West; today halls are set up in every province, gathering a lawless rabble whose intentions are unfathomable. At present in the city of Guangzhou, churches are established and fill every quarter; with similar foreign ships crowding together, who knows whether they may collude and stir up trouble? We beg that Your Majesty order an early and thorough prohibition, lest it spread. Investigation shows that in the eighth year of Kangxi, at a conference on the Catholic religion, it was decreed: Catholicism, except that Verbiest and others may continue their usual practice, is to be strictly forbidden as regards establishing halls and making converts in the provinces of Zhili and elsewhere; a strict public proclamation of prohibition shall be issued. But as years have passed and the law has slackened, the Eight Banners, Zhili and the provinces, as well as Fengtian and other places, should again impose strict prohibition.” Kangxi endorsed: “Approved.”

By the Yongzheng era, Supervising Secretary Famin of the Office of Scrutiny of Rites memorialized: “Your servant Famin, Supervising Secretary in charge of the seal of the Office of Scrutiny of Rites, humbly submits this memorial on presenting a foolish view. … Converts to the Tianzhu religion should be strictly prohibited. Loyal to the ruler, filial to parents, fraternal among kin, harmonious between husband and wife, scholars at study, farmers at diligent toil — these are the teachings of a flourishing age, followed throughout the realm. Now the Westerners establish the Tianzhu religion, composing books to deceive the simple folk of the capital and the provinces; all who join are given clothing and travel expenses and advances of silver, so in recent years many ignorant men and women have entered the faith for material gain. Some wealthy and illustrious persons also join and discourse, bewitching the people. Once one joins this religion, one casts off parents, brothers, wife and children, venerating only Tianzhu. Worse still, they print Tianzhu marks and hand them to converts to paste on their doors — truly rebellious and contrary to reason. Your servant reflects: those with no kinship or friendship, giving silver to others without cause, to win over hearts — there must be some hidden intent. If not strictly prohibited, it will surely spread. Presently the Imperial Almanac Compilation Office still needs these men, who may remain employed; apart from the cook they employ, all others — whether Manchu, Mongol, Han Banner, Han, or even bondservants — should be strictly forbidden to associate with them. Guards of soldiers and officers should be posted at the Westerners’ quarters in the capital, and in the provinces the duty should be entrusted to local civil and military officials, likewise for strict prohibition. Those who violate the ban shall be severely punished. Thus will hearts be rectified, and those who have entered the heterodox faith will depart of themselves. … [I] humbly submit this confidential memorial, respectfully awaiting Your sagacious discernment. Written by your servant Famin with his own hand.”

Naturally, the missionaries took corresponding action. On the eleventh day of the fifth month of the second year of Yongzheng (1 July 1724), missionaries including Ignatius Köegler (Dai Jinxian) directly submitted to the Yongzheng Emperor a memorial, “Westerner Ignatius Köegler and others humbly submit this memorial, imploring Your Majesty’s gracious examination.” In the memorial they first stated: “Since Matteo Ricci sailed east, we subjects have been here nearly two hundred years, fortunate to enjoy the broad toleration of this sagacious dynasty, so that scholars arriving here feel at home. We observe the law and cultivate our practice in purity; this was never a heterodox path.”

Was this truly so? In the Sino-Russian negotiations at Nerchinsk, the Portuguese missionary Thomas Pereira and the French missionary Jean-François Gerbillon, who served as translators for the Chinese delegation, secretly “provided valuable assistance to the Russians,” earning from the Russian envoy Golovin “his heartfelt thanks, offered in his own name and in the name of the Tsar.”

Another French missionary, Dominique Parrenin, before the later border negotiations at Kyakhta, secretly informed the Russian envoy Sava of the Chinese emperor’s and plenipotentiaries’ attitudes and dispositions, as well as other relevant political and military circumstances; “the envoy promised to pay a certain price to him personally and to the entire Society of Jesus, as a reward for this service.”

Likewise, the intelligence that early missionaries to China stole from various parties after gaining knowledge of China became extremely useful reference material for later missionaries and military aggressors.