Turbulent Past, Uncertain Future: China’s history is not a thing of the past and eminent historian Jonathan Spence explains why

03.28.2014 18:37

Turbulent Past, Uncertain Future

China’s history is not a thing of the past and eminent historian Jonathan Spence explains why

By staff reporters Huang Shan and Long Zhouyuan

(Beijing) –British-born public intellectual, Jonathan Spence, has just released the 3rd edition of his most acclaimed work, “The Search for Modern China,” in the United States. This book, a survey of Chinese history spanning from the dawn of the Qing dynasty to the present day, emerged from his introductory courses given at Yale University, where Spence served as Sterling Professor of History for 15 years.

Taking aim at the prevalent idea of Chinese history which begins with the collapse of the dynastic political structure, Spence provides a view in which the country’s periods of weakness can be understood as part of a larger process in its development. China has absorbed many ideas from abroad and in some instances this emerged from both imperial weakness and imperial pressure, said Spence.

In a recent interview with Caixin, Spence talked about his understanding of Chinese history and the modern China. Excerpts of the interview follow.

Caixin: Let me start with your classic book “The Search for Modern China,” published 24 years ago. In this book you mention that by looking back at the histories of the late Ming and Qing dynasties, we can gain a sharp understanding of the forces now confronting China and the chances for and against the troubled nation now claiming its place in the world. So 24 years after the publication of this book, what’s your take on today’s China?

Jonathan Spence: The thing that most interested me, was that perhaps in more conventional histories of China, as we entered the 1990s, there was a sense that Chinese history began with failure, collapse either of the Ming or Qing era political structure. And we lived through that. That was the way “China” tended to be taught – collapse, followed by deeper collapse and then some kind of dramatic change and revolutionary redeployment of national resources. And so I felt that in my teaching a general introductory class at university, I thought what would happen if we start with a much more powerful China, integrated despite huge tensions and some warfare.

But if we started with a strong China, then with students and the public alike, you have a different kind of view of the period of weakness. The period of weakness is not therefore an ongoing process, it’s really a shorter process in a pattern of change and real development.

I tried to be careful not to over-generalise totally beyond my knowledge—China is so huge. The evidence from different points of view is so great that one has to be careful and think through what the main issues are.

Your books trace the influence of Western cultures and technologies on China. So do you think this influence still carries weight today? How does this inform the relationship between China today and the rest of the world?

It’s a huge question. I think China came into the People’s Republic period with a very large legacy of troubles in the past and a very mixed series of relationships with foreign powers. And sometimes those relationships had been very encouraging – my first book, just after I was a student, was called “To Change China.” That was looking at a stream of influence coming from the West that was being used to analyse China right from the Ming dynasty onwards.

It usually starts in our analysis with church missionaries. Matteo Ricci is an example of someone who is able to have several agendas at once – he is a Christian missionary, he is a Catholic thinker, and he is the first Westerner probably to have learned really good Chinese, which he could use in conversation. He is certainly the first Westerner who could write books in Chinese and I was very intrigued by that. That seemed to be a high achievement, to be able to use your time in China to strengthen that kind of ideological climate of opinion in which a foreigner could meet with quite senior officials, or official people with official rank from the late Ming and Qing period.

So I was ready to accept that, I mean it seemed to me that was the way history had unfolded itself, and then the question is why did things go so sour? Why did it get so bad? And it was partly, I think, because of imperial weakness in China, but it was also because of imperial pressure, and a very demanding series of kickbacks to be made by the Chinese. We call that the “treaty port system.” The treaty port was a way of limiting China’s development of its own resources and leaving the management of those resources to foreigners. That eventually became unacceptable.

There was a study recently by an Italian sinologist, which looked at the Italian relationship with China, which is not well known at all. But the particular thing that struck this scholar, was that if one took a look at China’s situation, in the late 19th century, Italy was the last of the foreign powers that had imperial ambitions – or we might say imperialist ambition – and so they went to the Qing court, just like so many Chinese had done before them, so many of the Manchu had done before them. And the Italians put in a demand to the imperial system, and the imperial spokesperson said, “No, no, you’ve done enough of this, and we will not give you the concessions you wish.” And the Italians took this quite seriously, but they couldn’t get the Qing to change their minds.

The scholar who wrote the book thought that that was a big breakthrough. It seems a small solution to the problem, but actually it marked a moment right about 1898, where you had the Guangxi reforms, and that showed you the possibility of moving in on the system and perhaps changing the system, and so there’s a sort of connection perhaps from that refusal to grant any more concessions that was linked, if we jump forward in time, with some similarities with the Chiang Kai-shek regime, which did put a lot of energy into tariff reform and legal reform and educational reform and that I think can be counted positively for the Kuomindang, who faced themselves a very, very difficult situation. As you can probably tell, I’m the sort of historian who sees everything as leading to something else, and that is part of the difficulty of writing a serious study of modern China, however you define it.

I think you specialise in China by telling individual stories. So if today, you were to write a book about China, who would be your main characters?

Well that’s always difficult, because different ideas overlap. But in the first talk I gave at Peking University, I was thinking mainly of the first Chinese who came to Europe – of which we have careful information – and that is Shen Fuzong, who was from Nanjing territory, but who also was Catholic. His father had been converted to the Catholic religion and Shen Fuzong was willing to travel into Western countries in contact with the church at the time. It’s well recorded that in 1687, Shen reached Europe and actually went to Paris, Rome, and to London and then finally to Oxford University. And so Shan used this time, some of it he had religious mission, but other times he had more of what we now call “cultural diplomacy.” He met with some British scientists, he actually met with the King, who had curiosity about China and wanted to ask a few questions, and he met the King of France. I was intrigued by this, again, it was a study of language and cultural contact, and flexibility, and again it tells a different story than the kind of changeless China – this is a very adaptable China, with an international language that we’ve never had since, which was Latin.

Latin was known to Chinese Catholics and Western intellectuals. So it was possible for Shen Fuzong within a few weeks of coming to England, to talk with English professional scientists and people in official positions and to work on organising the books in Oxford University. Because none of the English people in the 17th century knew how to actually write and read Chinese. They could talk some Chinese, some of them. But Shen had a more speedy agenda, because his language skills included Latin and he was able to contact people in England.

I think there might have been a very major impact from this, because the Kangxi Emperor was known for his curiosity about foreign powers and he might have well heard about this story. But, and it’s a big but, Shen Fuzong died of a fever, a very dangerous illness, just after he left England. So what might have been a major cultural change, became simply a curiosity of history. But that’s where I’m spending some of my time now, and some other scholars are as well.

So it seems like China is trying to restore its rightful place in this world, to achieve the great rejuvenation of the Chinese nation. What do you think of the path that China’s taking now? And what do you think is the biggest obstacle in China’s rejuvenation?

You’d have to be very bold to say you could answer every detail of this. I just thought it was an ongoing proof of flexibility, the need to take a sensible view of the border regions around China – to see China not as the only central kingdom but as one of a series of interlocking powers in the far-east and the Pacific region. Nowadays Chinese are spreading some of their own investigations into the Arctic regions, in discussions with Russia or Scandinavia; in the Mediterranean with interest in Greece and the Middle East – that would probably be the next logical step. But China, again if you look at the map, more creatively maybe, the Chinese sphere of action could also be seen to be incorporating New Zealand and Australia and perhaps even some Latin American countries, and China’s been also very active in Africa.

The values have switched from the old foreign influence stage of history. China has the opportunity at least to show much greater flexibility, and also develop its economy, in a way that’ll have really long range beneficial effects for the Chinese people. And it’s for the leadership to know where to come down on this, how much to invest in which aspect and where to build up special skills in China and support them.

What’s your view of the official Chinese narrative of its contemporary history?

The so-called “official narrative” depends which historian is writing what and who is supporting them – is it the commercial market? Is it the ordinary publishing market conducted without official guidance? And maybe we need more openness in the present, two different channels of information and education and ideas about the economic system.

I can just see that some things make China more critical of other societies. We can see that the logic is not always the same as our own. In my case it’s from being raised in England and teaching in the United States and having many friends in China. But there’s so much room for manoeuvre, that’s a good thing about the present time. There really is room for manoeuvre and China doesn’t have to feel pushed into a new kind of subservient position, it doesn’t seem to be true at all. I think if it continues the kind of route we talked about before, in terms of a great power status, that probably would be something that could be modified, that China could do more sharing about the future development of with countries.