55 Dirasat

The Birth of Religious Tolerance for Foreign in Late Imperial : A Brief Review from the Perspective

Sha'ban, 1441 - April 2020 of the Relationship between and the State

Hung Tak Wai 孔德維

The Birth of Religious Tolerance for Foreign Religions in Late Imperial China: A Brief Review from the Perspective of the Relationship between Religion and the State

Hung Tak Wai 孔德維

Table of Contents

1- Religion in Traditional Chinese Politics 8 1.1 The Religious Integration Policy of the Imperial Chinese state 12

2. A Gray Area? An Overview of Islam and Christianity’s Marginalization in China 20 2.1 Christianity and the State in Late Imperial China 24 2.2 Islam and the State in Late Imperial China 32

Conclusion 44

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Given China’s geographic expanse and large population size, diversity has always been a fact people have had to contend with, regardless of their views and opinions of it.(1) Nevertheless, Chinese people, particularly the Han (the major ethnic group of the population), and sometimes even foreigners who have attempted to investigate China, have been largely deceived by the illusion of a presumed cultural homogeneity. On the one hand, the borders of dynastic empires expanded from time to time and non-Chinese groups were integrated into China; on the other hand, foreigners have arrived China since the past two millenniums for all kind of purposes, and many of them subsequently settled there. As is the case in many other contexts, in the past or today, immigrants, regardless of whether they joined the community willingly or not, have always caused tensions. Should they be pressured to accept the new country’s way of life? Or should the country where they settled accept, or even embrace, the worldviews and cultures of these newcomers? To put it in a simpler way, are native peoples, their rights and cultures, superior to those of immigrants? These questions remain difficult to answer even in the twenty-first century. Answering this question has caused even more embarrassment: If newcomers do not accept native morality, culture, religion…etc., how should the state that received these immigrants react? This article attempts to provide a brief illustration of how imperial Chinese rulers responded to these questions. In

(1) This article is a concise and revised version of my PhD thesis, “Redefining Heresy: Governance of Muslims and Christians in the Qing Empire, from the Eighteenth Century to the Mid- Nineteenth Century” (University of Kong, 2018). Here I attempt to present the key theme of my thesis for scholars who are less familiar with Chinese history and therefore I avoid using too many original Chinese sources and references in this brief review. Readers who are interested in the discussion should refer to my thesis which is available on the Hong Kong University (HKU) Scholars Hub website. I owe a debt of gratitude to Dr. Song Gong 宋剛 of the University of Hong Kong, Dr. Ying Fuk Tsang 邢福增, Dr. James Frankel, and Dr. Kung Wai Han龔惠嫻of the Chinese University of Hong Kong for their supervision and instructions through the composition of this article. Dr. Wang Fan Sen 王汎森 and Dr. Chin-Shing 黃進興had also provided a great deal of advice during my visit in Academia Sinica. I am also grateful to the anonymous reviewers as well as to my colleague Ms Law Yee Wing 羅苡詠who has also supported this research in many ways. particular, I focus on an emerging discourse of religious toleration, mainly with respect to Islam and Christianity, which began in the late seventeenth century and became more influential in the coming centuries. Although the toleration of the two Abrahamic faiths was granted by the state only if Muslims and Christians did not engage in political actions against the throne, this limited tolerance was already in conflict with traditional religious policies originating from Confucian political philosophy. The birth of religious tolerance for foreign religions therefore marked a sea change in the relationship between religion and the state in Chinese history. Today the relationship between religion and the state in China is receiving much more attention than any time before. However, it is not an easy topic to discuss without substantial background knowledge of the Chinese people and their culture. China was governed under an imperial system from 259 BCE to the early twentieth century. Although much in China has been transformed since the 1911 revolution that ended the , many of its features remain intact. The imperial era of China has fundamentally shaped modern Chinese political culture, including how religion is understood by contemporary political elites and intellectuals. It is quite difficult, in this sense, to illustrate the relationship between religion and the state in China since the twentieth century without reviewing its history, at least in the late imperial era. The relationship between government and religion during the imperial era is therefore an interesting and thought-provoking topic to investigate, not just for historians of the imperial era but also for those who are concerned with post-imperial China. This article offers a brief review of the relationship between religion and the state in China in the imperial period, with a focus on the concept of religion toleration since the seventeenth century. I start with an introduction to religion in traditional Chinese politics before looking specifically into the cases concerning Islam and Christianity.

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1- Religion in Traditional Chinese Politics Emperor Yuan of the 漢元帝 (r. 48 BCE–33 BCE) made a clear statement about the relationship between religion and the state in imperial China during this early period: We make it a point to establish personally our ancestral temple, because this is the ultimate power to build upon our authority, eliminate the sprouts of rebellion, and make the people one. 因嘗所 親以立宗廟，蓋建威銷萌，一民之至權也.(2) “Make the people one” means, in the language of contemporary political philosophy, to maintain a single official ideology within a state. People currently might call this “state ideology,” while I refer to the form in which it appeared in China before the twentieth century as “state religion.” Since the very beginning of the imperial era, Chinese governments have sought to eliminate “ethnic, cultural, political, and linguistic” differences within the empire through a process of unification or standardization. Emperors monopolized the power of interpreting the transcendental world. According to , “governing and teaching were not two things; the roles of official and teacher were united” (zhijiao wuer, guanshi heyi 治教無二，官師 合一).(3) This policy strengthened the rule of different monarchies for at least two millenniums. This is why Anthony Yu 余國藩 suggested that: …there has never been a period in China’s historical past in which the government of the state, in imperial and post imperial form, has pursued a neutral policy toward religion. . . .For more than two

(2) Ban Gu 班固, Han shu 漢書 [Book of Han], Shigu 顏師古, compiler; Yang Jialuo楊家駱, ed., (Taipei: Tingwen, 1986), 73:3116. The translation is quoted from Anthony C. Yu 余國藩, State and Religion in China: Historical and Textual Perspectives (Chicago and La Salle, IL: Open Court, 2005), p. 146. (3) Zhang Xuecheng 章學誠, “Yuan Dao” 原道 [On the Dao], section 2, in Wenshi tongyi 文史通 義 [The general principles of literature and history] (1832), Vol. 2 (Canton: Yueya Tang congshu 粵雅堂叢書, 1831), p. 8a. For the English translation, see Philip J. Ivanhoe, trans., On Ethics and History: Essays and Letters of Zhang Xuecheng (Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 2010), pp. 34-39. millennia, the core ideological convictions shaping and buttressing imperial governance also direct correlatively the purpose and process to regulate, control, and exploit all rivalling religious traditions whenever it is deemed feasible and beneficial to the state.(4) Ever since the early imperial era, successive dynasties have established a religious state with the support of the elite literati.(5) The reason for this can be understood through the myth of the “Separation of Heaven and Earth” (jue di 絕地通天). In primordial times, all humans were able to communicate with celestial beings through the help of religious experts ( 巫). As a result of this however, the sacred and the profane became intermingled and caused cosmic calamities until the mythical sage-ruler Zhuanxu 顓頊, with the approval of the Heavenly God (shang di 上帝), ceased the communication between the Heaven and Earth. The leader of the state thus became the representative of all human beings and monopolized the right to communicate with the transcendental world.(6) However, who could have the right to receive these exclusive blessings from Heaven? In traditional Chinese political philosophy dating back to the time of the Zhou dynasty (1046 BCE–256 BCE), the “Mandate of Heaven” (tianming 天命), sacred political legitimacy, was believed to be granted only to virtuous rulers. In the “Announcement of the Duke of ” (Zhaogao 召誥) in The (Shangshu 尚 書), one of the main sacred texts of the Confucian tradition, the virtue of an individual was the foundation to good governance (under Heaven’s mandate):

(4) There has been a great deal of scholarship relating to this long and important discussion. For a brief illustration, see Valerie Hansen, “The Granting of Titles,” in Changing Gods in Medieval China, 1127–1276 (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1990), chap. 4, pp. 79-104; Yu, State and Religion in China, p. 3. (5) See Yu Ying-shih余英時, Lun tian ren zhi ji: Zhongguo gu dai si xiang yuan shi tan 論 天人之際：中國古代思想起源試探 [Between the heavenly and the human: On the origin of Chinese ancient thought] ((Taipei: Linking Publishing, 2014); see also John Lagerwey, China: A Religious State (Hong Kong: Hong Kong University Press, 2010), pp. 1–55. (6) Yu Ying-shih, “Between the Heavenly and the Human,” in Chinese History and Culture, Volume 1: Sixth Century BCE to Seventeenth Century (New York: Columbia University Press, 2016), pp. 1–19.

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“Oh! Heaven had compassion on the people of the four quarters; its favoring decree lighted on our earnest [founders]. Let the king sedulously cultivate the virtue of reverence.”(7) Since the pre-imperial era, virtues (de 德 or daode 道德), rather than the religious rituals performed by shamans before the time of the sage-ruler Zhuanxu, were the central medium by which to connect the sacred and the profane.(8) At least rhetorically, sacred political legitimacy was obtained from transcendent beings through the act of ethical self-perfection. In the middle of the twentieth century, neo-Confucian scholars promoted the concept of “inward transcendence” or “immanent transcendence” (neixiang chaoyu / neizai chaoyue 內向超越/內在超越). At least until the end of imperial era, they believed that this concept constituted the essence of Chinese religions, as opposed to outward transcendence in Abrahamic religions where the object of religious life was a monotheistic God that exists outside the human mind and body.(9) With such an understanding of the ‘proper’ relationship between religion and the state, it is unsurprising that Chinese dynastic empires constantly sought to intervene in the religious life of their subjects. If a state, bequeathed with the Mandate of Heaven, accepts its pedagogical role in governance, it

(7) James Legge, trans., “Announcement of the Duke of Shao,” in The Book of Documents of the Sacred Books of China: The Texts of Confucianism (Delhi: Motilal Banarsidass, 1966), pp. 184– 185. The philosophy was further elaborated upon in the Great Learning (Daxue 大學), which is attributed to Confucius and his disciple Zengshen曾參 (505 BCE–435 BCE), while the book was actually written after their deaths. The main theme of the Great Learning was the “Ba tiaomu” 八條目, or the eight specific points, which embedded politics in the personal cultivation of inner consciousness. These ideas were widely shared by the majority of Confucian elites since the time of the Southern Song dynasty (1127-1279). See Andrew Plaks, “Bi tiaomu,” in Routledge Curzon Encyclopedia of Confucianism, ed. Yao Xinzhong (Oxon: Routledge, 2003), p. 20. (8) The “medium to connect” the sacred and profane varies in different religions. It may be a set of rituals of sacrifice, a relic from a sacred being, or an icon of a religious figure. It is often revealed as a “break” in the normal time and space and transforms something normal into special. See Mircea Eliade, The Sacred and the Profane: The Nature of Religion, Willard R. Trask, trans. (New York: Harper Torchbooks, 1961). (9) See Yu, “Between the Heavenly and the Human,” pp. 1-19; for a more complete expression of the idea that was published as a short book in Chinese, see Yu Ying-shih, Lun tian ren zhi ji: Zhongguo gu dai si xiang qi yuan shi tan 論天人之際：中國古代思想起源試探 [Between the heavenly and the human: On the origin of ancient Chinese thoughts]. is therefore obligated to reeducate believers in “heretic religions” (xiejiao 邪教) i.e. those traditions that do not communicate with the celestial beings according to state-approved “rituals” ( 禮) and “understandings” (jiao 教). Following its adoption as the official state religious in the second century BCE, Confucianism developed and reinforced this attitude towards heretical religions. (10)The scholar Miyakawa Hisayuki 宮川尚志claimed that Confucianism, in earlier periods of Chinese history, had already evolved into “a Sino-centric cultural doctrine” that “stressed . . . universal ethics.”(11) He also believed that Confucianism’s “utopia” is a society ruled by a universal monarchy (or anarchy, in some interpretations) using rites and righteousness.(12) Miyakawa believed that Chinese empires in the early imperial era, with Confucianism as their colonial ideology, conquered the “barbarians” (manyi 蠻夷) located in today’s southern China.(13) During the colonization process, the Confucian Chinese always tried to preserve their religion in the newly conquered land and

(10) This generalization regarding Confucianism as the core state religion of imperial China requires more explanation. During some periods, Daoism and Buddhism were officially recognized by the court as state religions. For example, John Lagerwey and Michel Strickmann argued that religious Daoism was to China what Christianity was to Europe. Daoism, as compared with Confucianism, was particularly familiar with the reform and absorption of local cults and “paganism,” but its priests were never the major component of the civil administration as the Confucian intellectuals were. Moreover, even in times where Daoism and Buddhism were recognized as official religions, Confucianism was still the core of the state cult and rites. and Buddhism were absorbed by Confucianism and considered as forms of orthodoxy. See John Lagerwey, “Taoism and Political Legitimacy,” in Taoist Ritual in Chinese Society and History (New York: MacMillan; and London: Collier MacMillan, 1987), pp. 253–264; for a brief introduction to the process of constructing the political religion with Confucianism as the core, see John Lagerwey, “A Brief History of the Pantheon: Ancestors and Gods in State and Local Religion and Politics,” in China: A Religious State, pp. 19–55. In this article, I have preferred the term “Chinese religions” instead of “Confucianism,” which has been poorly defined. (11) Miyakawa Hisayuki, “The Confucianisation of South China,” in Arthur F. Wright, ed., The Confucian Persuasion (Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 1960), p. 22. (12) Ibid., pp. 23–24. (13) Describing the expansion of imperial China as “colonial expansion” might seems controversial to some scholars. However, this expression was, in fact, used not only by non-Chinese scholars but also supported by nationalist and traditionalist historians, including Ch”ien Mu 錢穆, who described the eleventh-century BCE expansion of the Western Zhou as a colonial movement. Ch”ien Mu even described the expansion as a military migration and occupation comparable to those of modern states before the twentieth century. See Ch”ien Mu 錢穆, Guoshi dagang 國史大綱 [An outline of the national history] in Binsi xiansheng quanji 錢賓四先生全集 [Collected work of Ch”ien Binsi] (Taipei: Taiwan Commercial Press, 1995), 27:49–51.

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attempted to “assimilate” and “convert” their foreign subjects.(14) During the Qing era (1636–1912), according to Miyakawa, Confucianization was carried out even in Formosa. Although the Han population was already Sinicized, the Manchu court still carried out the “Confucianization” process through administrative policies and the establishment of private Confucian schools.(15) Miyakawa correctly assumed the supremacy of Confucianism throughout the history of imperial China and asserted that there existed a definitive unity between religion and political authority. One could, however, add to Miyakawa’s argument that Confucianism was not the only religion approved by the “Sons of Heaven” (tianzi 天子) – the emperors - during the imperial era. Other religions, including Daoism and popular religions originated from China, and foreign religions, including Buddhism, Islam, and Christianity, were accepted, or even supported, by the state at different times. Diversity of religion was accepted by politicians from time to time, provided the authority of the throne was not being threatened. In the next section I discuss how the government of the Song dynasty (960–1279) incorporated the governance of deities and religion into the bureaucratic system.

1.1 The Religious Integration Policy of the Imperial Chinese state During the Song dynasty, district magistrates were required to identify heretics among their subjects and to report the merits or contributions of deities to the court. Deities with merits would be promoted to a higher rank in the “celestial bureaucratic system,” or state pantheon. The process continued in the coming centuries with many deities from Daoism, Buddhism, and other popular religions elevated into the state pantheon. Among these gods, the worship of Tianhou 天后 and Guandi 關帝, in particular, became a commonly shared faith of the Chinese-speaking population and a key component of

(14) Hisayuki, “The Confucianisation of South China,” pp. 26–27. (15) Ibid., pp. 43–46. Chinese politics during the late imperial era. The sophisticated bureaucracy of the Song dynasty “began to award name plaques and official titles to deities” in order to assist commoners in distinguishing between good and evil deities.(16) The worship of the gods was therefore heavily regulated by the state. Under this emerging state cult, Confucian bureaucrats were occupied with extra duties. According to Valerie Hansen: Once appointed to office, district magistrates collected taxes, administered justice, and supervised local schools. Because they represented the emperor, who presided over the entire empire and who was viewed as the appointee of the gods, each official was responsible as well for the spiritual well-being of his district.(17) Under this arrangement, deities were treated by Confucian bureaucrats in a manner no different than the living subjects of the empire. The underlying cause for this incorporation of religious issues into the bureaucratic system stemmed from the political circumstances of China after the tenth century. The Song government was mainly managed by scholar-bureaucrats who had passed the imperial “civil service examination” (keju 科舉). Almost all officials in the upper levels of the bureaucracy were recruited through this method. Examinations became one of the most important responsibilities of the Chinese state around this time. After 1065, examinations and recruitments of the central government were held regularly every three years, and candidates had to pass qualifying examinations at the local level or establish academic merit from other sources before the examination started. Political powers were granted to those who equipped themselves with knowledge, rather than those who were born into a prestigious or wealthy family. The importance of this meritocratic bureaucracy under the Song dynasty can be evidenced from the various regulations promulgated to maintain its

(16) Hansen, Changing Gods in Medieval China, p. 3. (17) Ibid., pp. 11–12.

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efficiency. For instance, scholar-bureaucrats and their relatives were barred from commercial activities, and relatives of the imperial family, whether by blood or by marriage, were not permitted to participate in government. Theoretically at least, promotions were based on merit and performance as opposed to family background. Scholar-bureaucrats were responsible for their actions in the government, and high officials who nominated their colleagues for promotion were deemed fully responsible for theirs nominees’ conduct.(18) This sophisticated bureaucratic system provided the necessary foundation for rulers to manage every incident that occurred within the empire, including the maintenance of religious orthodoxy. What about the role of Confucianism in this system? In imperial China, state religions did not influence the state through an independent religious institution like the Catholic Church in medieval Europe. The situation was more similar to the early United States, as Alexis de Tocqueville (1805–1859) observed. He suggested that in the newly formed United States, religion did not influence politics and public affairs as in the European continent; Christianity was, rather, a commonly shared faith of the citizens, and thus public affairs were indirectly influenced by the Christian faith. He explained that “in the United States religion exercises but little influence upon the law and upon the details of public opinion; but it directs the customs of the community, and, by regulating domestic life, it regulates the State.”(19) Politics in imperial China since the Song dynasty were directed mainly by Confucian scholar-bureaucrats, and their worldview became the basis for the ethics and customs of the empire. Moreover, the doctrines of the state religion restricted not only the commoners but also the rulers. In the “Debate on Prince Pu” (Puyi 濮議) from 1064 to 1066, for example, the new emperor, Yingzong

(18) Ch’ien Mu, Traditional Government in Imperial China: A Critical Analysis, Hsueh -tu 薛君度 and George O. Totten, trans. (Hong Kong: Chinese University Press, 2000), pp. 67–89. (19) Alexis de Tocqueville, Democracy in America, Arthur Goldhammer trans., (New York: Penguin Putnam, 2004), chap. 17. 英宗 (1032–1067, r. 1063–67), was forced to address his cousin, the previous emperor, as “father” instead of his actual biological father. Prince Pu, Yingzong’s biological father, was to be addressed as “uncle” according to Confucian ethics.(20) Therefore, when we describe China as a religious state, as John Lagerwey did, it means that religion was not just an instrument that the monarchs used to control their subjects, nor was it an independent institution intervening in secular society like the Catholic papacy. Rather, it was a shared worldview of the Chinese people, and more importantly, of their government officials.(21) The bureaucrats of late imperial China, who were selected from those who had passed the imperial civil service examination, were heavily influenced by Confucianism. This goes against the Western commonsense idea that modern politics, with a centralized government and civil bureaucracy, was opposed to religion.(22) The rule of the Song dynasty ended with the Mongol invasion in the thirteenth century. After the short Mongol reign (1271–1368), the new Han- dominated Chinese government further strengthened the relationship between religion and the state by monopolizing the right to regulate religious life. The Ming dynasty (1368–1644), with the support of Confucian scholar-bureaucrats and Daoist and Buddhist religious leaders, would define which of the gods were appropriate to worship and determine the proper rituals by which commoners could approach these transcendental beings. Confucian scholar-bureaucrats and the state developed a more sophisticated system to regulate religion by integrating heretical beliefs into the state-supported religious system. This system was basically inherited by the Qing dynasty (1636–1912) in the –populated region of after the Manchurian conquest in the mid-seventeenth century.

(20) Ute Hüsken, Negotiating Rites, Frank Neubert ed., (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2012), pp. 102–103. (21) See Lagerwey, China: A Religious State. (22) Peter van der Veer and Hartmut Lehmann, “Introduction,” in Peter van der Veer and Hartmut Lehmann, eds., Nation and Religion: Perspectives on Europe and Asia (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1999), pp. 3–14.

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In 1995 James Watson described the relationship between religion and the state in the later imperial era (roughly coinciding with the Ming and Qing eras) through a “standardization” theory. As Watson suggested, China maintained its “overarching ‘Chinese culture’” and “a [shared] grand cultural tradition”(23) though the “standardization” of culture: namely, the promotion of “‘approved’ deities by state authorities,” with temples established in newly conquered areas or on the frontiers in order to spread, if not enforce, the religions backed by the state apparatus. (24) Nevertheless, many scholars found this description of the relationship between religion and the state unconvincing. Michael Szonyi for example, through his investigation of the “Five Emperors” and their worshippers, concluded that the effects of state sanctioning of particular deities could be simultaneously penetrating and illusory.(25) Szonyi believed that the “standardization” processes were, more often than not, a “series of manufactured associations, misidentifications or conflations”(26) of “translocal” and local cults, despite the fact that a particular deity sanctioned by the state would draw the local elites’ claims of devotion. However, local deities did not fade away when local communities, including

(23) See James L. Watson, “Standardising the Gods: The Promotion of T”ien Hou (‘Empress of Heaven’) along the South China Coast, 960–1960,” in D. Johnson, A. J. Nathan, and E. Rawski, eds., Popular Culture in Late Imperial China (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1955), chap. 10, pp. 292–324; David Faure and Liu Zhiwei interpreted the “grand culture” as “da yi tong” 大一統. See David Faure 科大衛 and Liu Zhiwei劉志偉, “‘Biaozhǔnhua’ haishi ‘zhungtong hua’?—Cong minjian xinyǎng yǔ liyi kan zhong guo wenhua de da yitong” 「標 準 化 」還 是 「正統化」？—從民間信仰與禮儀看中國文化的大一統 [Standardisation or legitimisation? Perception of the unity of Chinese culture from the standpoint of popular beliefs], Journal of History and Anthropology 歷史人類學學刊, 6, nos. 1–2 (October 2008): 1–21. (24) The relationship between imperial China”s ideological and political expansion has been discussed for many years. For example, Miyakawa Hisayuki illustrated the increase of state influence in South China from the second century BCE to the late nineteenth century through the implantation of Confucian schools and Chinese religions. His discourse in the 1960s focused more on the side of state education and did not elaborate much on the state’s manipulation of regional and local religions. See Hisayuki, “The Confucianisation of South China,” pp. 21–47. (25) Michael Szonyi, “The Illusion of Standardising the Gods: The Cult of the Five Emperors in Late Imperial China,” Journal of Asian Studies, 56, no.1 (February 1997): 113–135; Michael Szonyi, “Making Claims about Standardisation and Orthopraxy in Late Imperial China,” Modern China, 33, no. 1 (January 2007): 47–71. (26) Szonyi, “The Illusion of Standardising the Gods,” p. 129. both the elites and the commoners, maintained their faiths. “Standardization” was thus just a “complex illusion,” which Szonyi also described as “pseudo- standardisation,” and which was actually comprised of repeated conflation and syncretism between the state and local cults. In the end, the variations among believers and stakeholders remained. Paul Katz contributed to the discussion by suggesting that the state was not the only source of “orthodoxy.” Different parties, Daoist believers, local militias, and even rebels would create their own “orthodoxies.”(27) “Standardisation,” according to Katz, was not monopolized by the state. Regardless of the disputes among scholars concerning the degree of “standardization” and how many varieties remained under the state’s manipulation, most scholars were convinced that, as Valerie Hansen showed in her study of religions in the twelfth to thirteenth centuries in China, the imperial government intended to establish and maintain its authority over different regions of the empire through the manipulation of local religions. In short, the process involved granting titles to the transcendental “allies” of the state from among local deities and proscribing the worship of those deemed to be against – or offensive to - the state’s ideology.(28) The state was not the only force to shape national unity. David Faure and Liu Chi-wei 劉志偉, in seeking to explain the existence of multiple orthodoxies, developed the three-levels of recognition models first proposed by Barbara Ward in the 1960s. They argued that different groups of Chinese people could recognize the differences that existed among their own mode of activities (the immediate model), those of other social groups (the observer’s model), and the ideal promoted by the Confucian Chinese social system (the ideological model). Although both the thoughts and daily activities of different social

(27) Paul R. Katz, “Orthopraxy and Heteropraxy beyond the State Standardising Ritual in Chinese Society,” Modern China, 33, no.1 (January 2007): 72–90. (28) Hansen, “The Granting of Titles,” chap. 4, pp. 79–104.

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groups varied greatly, most of them believed their actions were “close” to and “intimate” with the “orthodox” Confucian Chinese social system and that they therefore represented the ideal ideological values of the state.(29) Elites in these social groups would even try to adapt their own mode of activities to approximate the ideal mode promoted by the Confucian Chinese social system in order to show their willingness to cooperate with the state. This explains how differences remained under the “unity” of China. Nevertheless, this explanation raised difficult questions for scholars who studied late imperial China outside China proper: where was the boundary of this “unity”? Did the empire, as Miyakawa Hisayuki suggested, “colonise” newly conquered areas to establish unity? There are examples of successful cases. For example, Xie Xiaohui 謝曉輝 discussed how the “White Emperor Heavenly Kings” (baidi tianwang 白帝天 王) deity in Xiangxi 湘西 was included in the state pantheon in the eighteenth to the nineteenth centuries. Through continuous reinterpretation of the Miao 苗 religion, the state linked the “foreign” deities with the orthodox religions of the empire, which regarded loyalty to the state as a virtue to be cherished. In the early nineteenth century, alongside the promotion of Confucian education and civil examinations, the identity of the Miao eventually faded and the faith of “White Emperor Heavenly Kings” became part of the orthodox religion of the empire.(30) From Laura Hostetler’s study of ethnographies and cartographies in Southwest China and the Miao population under the Qing reign, we can easily

(29) David Faure 科大衛 and Liu Zhiwei, “‘Biaozhunhua’ haishi ‘zhungtong hua’?—Cong minjian xinyang yu liyi kan zhong guo wenhua de da yitong” 「標準化」還是「正統化」？—從民間信 仰與禮儀看中國文化的大一統 [Standardisation or legitimisation? Perception of the unity of Chinese culture from the standpoint of popular beliefs], Journal of History and Anthropology 歷史人類學學刊, 6, nos. 1–2 (October 2008): 1–21. (30) Xie Xiaohui 謝曉輝, “Miao jiang de kaifa yu difang zhi de chong su—jian yu su tang di tǎolun bai di tianwang chuanshuo bianqian de lishi qingjing” 苗疆的開發與地方神祗的 重塑—兼與蘇堂棣討論白帝天王傳說變遷的歷史情境 [The development of the Miao frontier and the recasting of local deities: A debate with Donald Sutton on the historical background to changes in the legends of the White Emperor Heavenly Kings,” Journal of History and Anthropology 歷史人類學學刊, 6, nos. 1–2 (October, 2008): 111–146. identify the agenda of the Qing court to convert the Miao areas into “normal” or standardized counties of China proper.(31) If we turn our attention from the west to the east of the Qing dominion, the intention to “unify” the empire culturally was even more clear. The city of Lukang 鹿港 in Taiwan, for example, was a city populated mainly by Han Chinese after its colonization by the Qing in the 1680s. The people of the city were devoted worshippers of Tianhou, a deity strongly supported by the state. However, the Qing court still insisted on constructing a Palace of Tianhou (Tianhou gong 天后宮) in 1716, despite the fact that there had been a Temple of Tianhou established there for decades.(32) During my fieldwork experience in the city in December 2016, I noted that the two temples are less than ten minutes’ walk from each other. It was obvious that the Qing did not consider the old site suitably proper for the worship of a state-approved deity, and opted instead to build a religious site “consecrated” by its imperial authority. However, just like other policies in late imperial China, the enforcement in different regions of the gigantic empire varied a great deal. In accord with the official policy of imperial China, its scholar-bureaucrats, although claiming their offices by showing their merit in the study of Confucian classics, always followed more than one religious tradition. It is wrong to assume that all scholar- bureaucrats held the same view on other religions. Nevertheless, little attention has been given to this issue in the scholarship until recently. In analyzing data collected from more than 120 stelae belonging to various Daoist and other popular temples located in eleven different counties in Guangzhou, Lai Chi Tim 黎志添 showed that the Confucian gentry and bureaucrats participated in a wild variety of popular religious activities. Compared to traditional scholarship which emphasized the enthusiasm of Confucian scholar-bureaucrats in enforcing

(31) Lauera Hosterler, Qing Colonial Enterprise: Ethnography and Cartography in Early Modern China (Chicago and London: University of Chicago Press, 2001), pp. 1–50. (32) See Chen Shih Shien 陳仕賢, gang tian hougong 鹿港天后宮 [Palace of Tianhou in Lukang] (Lukang: Lushui Cǎotang 鹿水草堂, 2003).

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orthodox state religions, Lai’s finding proved that these actors also joined and participated in “heretical” or “unorthodox” cults. Their relationship with the so- called heresies was always vague and dynamic.(33) Taking this into consideration, could we then assume that religion tolerance existed in late imperial China? Investigating popular religions that originated from Chinese culture and religion and could easily disguise themselves to fulfill the taste of Confucian scholar-bureaucrats might only imply “pseudo-standardization” and a failure of governance. In the next section, we shall look into two cases of foreign religions – Islam and Christianity - in late imperial China and their relationship with the government, in order to gauge the reality and extent of imperial tolerance.

2. A Gray Area? An Overview of Islam and Christianity’s Marginalization in China Islam has been practiced in China for more than a thousand years. Traditionally, it is believed that its history began when the religion was first brought to China by Saʿd ibn Abī Waqqās (595-674), who was part of several diplomatic missions sent by Uthman ibn Affan (579-656) to the Chinese imperial court. .(34) However, this event, which presumably led to the propagation of Islam in places like Canton, has not been mentioned in any Chinese historical documents. Jonathan Lipman and many other historians also believe that Waqqās did not personally reach China, although other Muslim diplomats and merchants are believed to have visited during the Tang Empire

(33) Lai Chi Tim 黎志添, ‘‘Shendao she jiao’—cong guangzhou fu difang miaoyu beike wenxian tansuo ming qing shidafu dui minjian shen ci miaoyu de lichang” 「神 道 設 教 」— 從 廣 州 府 地 方廟宇碑刻文獻探索明清士大夫對民間神祠廟宇的立場 [Establishing teachings by means of the ‘Way of the gods’ (Shendao shejiao): the relationship between Ming and Qing literati and the popular shrines and temples—a study of the collection of the steles of Guangzhou temples], in Chen Hsi-yuan 陳熙遠, ed., Zhongyang yan jiu yuan di si jie guoji han xue huiyi lunwen ji: Fu an de lishi (shangce) 中央研究院第四屆國際漢學會議論文集：覆案的歷史（上冊）[Papers from the Fourth International Conference on Sinology: Exploring the archives and rethinking Qing studies (Volume 1)] (Taipei: Academia Sinica, 2013), pp. 315–355. (34) Mohammed Khamouch, Jewel of Chinese Muslim’s Heritage (Manchester: Foundation for Science Technology and Civilisation, 2005), pp. 1–21. (618–907) a few decades after the time of the Prophet Mohammed.(35) In any case, Islam arrived in China sometime before the tenth century. Nevertheless, the multifaceted nature of Islam’s presence in China has complicated any discussion of the subject. In the years since the end of the Mongol reign in the late thirteenth century, contact between the Muslim population in China and the Islamic world eventually diminished due to political reasons. The Ming and Qing governments restricted private maritime trading and coastal settlements and Muslims were always under suspicion in the eyes of the Confucian scholar-bureaucrats. As a result, Muslims in the eastern part of China had a large incentive to “Sinicize” or even “Confucianize.” In a century’s time, they were intimately and inextricably linked to the Chinese state and society. However, Turkic-speaking Muslims maintained a closer relationship with the Muslims in Inner and Western Asia. The story of Christianity in China was much simpler. Christianity first arrived in China around the eighth century. Christians were, however, banned by the Emperor Wuzong of the Tang Empire 唐武宗 (r. 840–846) during his persecution of Buddhism in 845. Christianity, together with Zoroastrianism, was labeled as a foreign religion like Buddhism and was accordingly banned from being practiced.(36) Traditionally, Chinese scholars believed these Christians were Nestorians but recent scholarship has discovered that these groups were Soghdians from the Church of the East, which originated from the Sasanid Empire in the fifth century.(37) Christianity entered China again in

(35) Jonathan N. Lipman, Familiar Strangers: A History of Muslims in Northwest China (Seattle: University of Washington Press, 1997), p. 25. (36) Michael Keevak, The Story of a Stele: China’s Nestorian Monument and Its Reception in the West, 1625–1916 (Hong Kong: Hong Kong University Press, 2008), pp. 5–60; Wang Ding, “Remnants of Christianity from Chinese Central Asia in the Medieval Ages,” in Roman Malek and Peter Hofrichter, eds., Jingjiao: The Church of the East in China and Central Asia (Sankt Augustin: Institut Monumenta Serica, 2006), pp. 149–162. Christianity also had a role in China during the Mongol reign; see also Li Tang, East Syriac Christianity in Mongol-Yuan China (Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz, 2011). (37) Peter L. Hofrichter, “Preface,” in Malek and Hofrichter, eds., Jingjiao.

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the sixteenth century because of the efforts of European Catholic missionary societies. Its reentrance had greater success than its first attempts centuries ago. In 1582, Matteo Ricci (1552–1610) arrived at Macau, which was a Portuguese colony at the time, and began his missionary work in the Ming Empire. He reached the court in in 1601 and the Jesuits entered into a century- long service for the Ming and Qing emperors.(38) Due to the close relationship between Christians and European political entities, the arrival of Christianity was viewed as a national security issue by some of the ruling elites in China. In fact, Christianity caused conflicts at almost all levels of Chinese society after the death of Matteo Ricci despite Christians’ many years of service to the imperial government. Some viewed Christian missionaries as a unique group of agents attempting to form a bridge with European civilization; others considered the foreign religion to be a heterodox sect or an organization of spies from foreign countries. Unlike Buddhism, Islam and Christianity could not be integrated into the Chinese religious system and always caused difficulties for rulers in China. First, their monotheistic faith in one creator-god could not be incorporated into the Chinese religious cosmology, while Chinese Mahayana Buddhism eventually developed the doctrine that every enlightened individual could become Arhat, Bodhisattva, or even Buddha, which meant that sages and deities in Chinese religions could easily be adapted into that worldview. There was, however, less rooms in Islam and Christianity for Chinese religions to merge. Second, as compared to Buddhism, Islam and Christianity had stronger connections with foreign political powers outside China. The governance of the followers of the two monotheistic religions was thus not simply related to the maintenance

(38) Hsia Po-chia Ronnie 夏伯嘉, “The Catholic Mission and Translations in China, 1583–1700,” in Peter Burke and Hsia Po-chia Ronnie, eds., Cultural Translation in Early Modern Europe (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2007), pp. 39–51; Hsia Po-chia Ronnie, A Jesuit in the Forbidden City: Matteo Ricci 1552–1610 (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2010); Daniel H. Bays, A New History of Christianity in China (Chichester and Malden, MA: Wiley-Blackwell, 2012), pp. 17–65. of orthodoxy and state religion, but also an issue, in contemporary political language, of “national” or “cultural security.” Third, Muslims and Christians continuously showed their importance in political and economic life in late imperial China. At least 244 Muslims served in significant offices of the Qing bureaucracy after finishing the imperial civil examination,(39) and Muslims also provided military services to the empire, not just in Altishahr and Dzungaria but also in China proper.(40) Catholic Christians, on the other hand, had served as science and art experts in Beijing. They also supported diplomatic missions of the Ming and Qing courts.(41) As for Christians from Tsarist Russia, their diplomatic role was even clearer. The legal status of the Russian Orthodox Church was approved by the imperial government on the promise that they do not preach Christianity or intervene in the politics of Qing Empire. As a result, Orthodox priests were allowed to stay in the imperial capital and received various types of support from the Qing Empire from 1721 onward. They also served as diplomats between the Tsardom and the Qing Empire until the mid- nineteenth century.(42) With these necessary functions, Muslims and Christians were not eliminated by the state as were the heterodox faiths that originated from within China itself.

(39) See Yang Daye 楊大業, Ming Qing huizu jinshi kao luu 明清回族進士考略 [Study of the Muslim Jinshi in the Ming and Qing dynasties] (Yinchuan: Ningxia people’s Publishing House, 2011). (40) Ma Jianzhao 馬建釗, Zhang Shuhui 張菽暉, and Wang Jing 汪鯨, Guangdong huizu lishi wenhua 廣東回族歷史文化 [History and Culture of Canton Hui Muslim] (Beijing: Publishing House of Minority Nationalities, 2012), pp. 120–123. (41) Birgit Tremml-Werner, Spain, China, and Japan in Manila, 1571–1644: Local Comparisons and Global Connections (Amsterdam: Amsterdam University Press, 2015), pp. 125–168; Diogo Ramada Curto, “The Jesuits in China: A New Perspective,” Portuguese Studies, 19 (2003): 213–219; Victor Lieberman, “The Qing Dynasty and Its Neighbours: Early Modern China in World History,” Social Science History, 32, no. 2 (Summer 2008): 281–304. (42) Nikolai Gorodtskij 尼古拉‧阿多拉茨基 (also translated into Chinese as 高連茨基); 閻國棟, 蕭玉秋 trans., Dongzhengjiao zai hua liang bainian shi 東正教在華兩百年史 [History of the Orthodox Church in China over two hundred years] (Canton: Guangdong People’s Publishing House, 2007), pp. 3–58; for the later development of the Orthodox Church in Beijing in the first half of the nineteenth century, see also Nicolas Standaert and R. G. Tiedemann, Handbook of Christianity in China, Vol. 2 (Leiden: Brill, 2010): 193–213.

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2.1 Christianity and the State in Late Imperial China Traditionally, it is believed that Christianity was banned from China in 1721 by Emperor Kangxi 康熙帝 (r. 1661–1722) of the Qing Empire after the Chinese Rites controversy. However, this was a misunderstanding of the imperial order of Emperor Kangxi. The Chinese Rites controversy was originally a dispute among European Catholic missionaries (mainly between Jesuits and Dominicans) over the religiosity of Chinese rituals for ancestors, Confucian sages, and emperors during the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. If these rites were categorized as religious, according to some missionaries, they would be incompatible with the monotheistic beliefs of Christianity. In 1704, the dispute ended with a final decision made by Pope Clement XI (r. 1649–1721), who defined Chinese rites as religious and outlawed all further discussion. Emperor Kangxi reacted to the Holy See’s decree by banning all Christian missions in China.(43) However, one must distinguish between banning missions and the banning of Christianity. Although they were not allowed the spread their religion, Christians—at least those from Europe—were allowed to maintain their religion. Russian Orthodox and Jesuits priests remained in Beijing in the coming century. There were also Catholics and Protestants in the Canton region who had traveled to China for commercial purposes with the approval of the Chinese state. Therefore, it is wrong to accuse the Qing Empire of suffering from a virulent strain of cultural solipsism. Although this was a gray area within the empire, its size was basically clear. Even intellectuals stationed in Europe could understand that the rationale for having this gray area within the empire was to de-politicalize the religious community:

(43) See George Minamiki, The Chinese Rites Controversy: From Its Beginning to Modern Times (Chicago: Loyola University Press, 1985); Robert Aleksander Maryks and Jonathan Wright, Jesuit Survival and Restoration: A Global History, 1773–1900 (Leiden: Brill, 2014), pp. 261–298. Recent studies have also focused on the Chinese Rites controversy and generally have investigated the words of the Chinese, including those who converted to Christianity. See Nicolas Standaert, Chinese Voices in the Rites Controversy: Travelling Books, Community Networks, Intercultural Arguments (Rome: Institutum Historicum Soc., 2013). All the eastern peoples, except the Mohammedans, believe all religions are indistinguishable in themselves. It is only as a change in government that they fear the establishment of another religion. . . every religion is good. But it does not result from this that a religion brought from a distant country, totally different in climate, laws, mores, and manners, has all the success that its holiness ought to promise it. This is chiefly true in the great despotic empires: at first foreigners are tolerated because no attention is paid to what does not appear to harm the power of the prince; there one is extremely ignorant of everything. A European can make himself agreeable by having certain bits of knowledge; this is good at the beginning. But, as soon as one has some success, or some debate occurs, or people who can have some interest are alerted, because this state by its nature requires tranquility above all and because the slightest disturbance can overturn it, the new religion and those who announce it are instantly proscribed; when debates break out among those who preach, one begins to find distasteful a religion in which those who propose it are not in agreement.(44) Of course, the reductionist description of “all the eastern peoples, except the Mohammedans” is an over simplification of reality. However, Montesquieu understood that “what [did] not appear to harm the power of the prince” was allowed to continue. In short, a zone was reserved for foreign religions that did not threaten the “tranquility” of the state. Heretical religions, in this sense, were tolerated within the empire. But from where, then, did other scholars conjure up the image of a large-scale persecution of Christianity raking place in China?(45)

(44) Charles de Montesquieu, Montesquieu: The Spirit of the Laws (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1989), pp. 492–493. (45) For example, Sun Jiang 孫江 suggested that “the Qing government had been severely prohibiting the religion” and believed that this was the underlying cause for Qing conflicts with Westerners in the twentieth century. See Sun Jiang, Shizijia yu long 十字架與龍 [Cross and ] (: People’s Publishing House, 1990), pp. 16–17.

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This might very likely be because contemporary scholars are too comfortable with liberal discourse and take the freedom of religion for granted, which would lead to the condemnation of any degree of intervention from the state. Putting modern value judgment aside, a misinterpretation of several imperial policies could also be sources of this misunderstanding. Since 1723, the Qing court had ordered the altering of churches (except in Beijing and Canton) for public use (gaiwei gongsuo 改為公所). By examining more than thirty , Zhang Xianqing 張先清 recovered the history of the implementation of the reconstruction order. For almost a century, Christian churches had been systematically reconstructed. Many of the churches were reconstructed as government offices (guanshu 官署) and public warehouses (gongcang 公倉) according to the order of the emperor. Nevertheless, many of the Confucian scholar-bureaucrats, especially in the reign of Yongzheng 雍正帝 (r.1722– 1735) and the early part of the Qianlong乾隆帝 (r. 1735–1796) era, attempted to rebuild churches as public colleges and schools (shuyuan 書院, yixue 義學), and some even converted them into altars (like ci 賢祠 and jiexiao ci 節孝 祠)dedicated to famous Confucian figures (like Han Yu and Zhu Xi) . In some instances, local scholar-bureaucrats also rebuilt churches into temples of other state-supported religions, such as for Guandi and Tianhou. As compared to the edicts from the court that requested that churches be converted for “public use,” local scholar-bureaucrats implemented this order with a stronger religious emphasis than was perhaps intended by the Qing emperors. Reconstructing the religious sites of Christianity into sites promoting Confucianism, either through the education or worship of ethical role models or of other state-supported deities, symbolized the replacement of heterodoxy with orthodoxy. The most symbolic example can be found in the case of 鄂爾泰 (1677–1745) in 1724. As the provincial administration commissioner of Jiangsu (jiangsu buzheng shi 江蘇布政使), Ortai abolished the church in Zhangzhou county. With the support of a descendent of Confucius, Kong Xinyu孔興豫 (whose dates of birth and death are unknown), Ortai constructed a branch temple of the authentic family altar of Confucius in Queli 闕里.(46) It is important to understand the difference between the court order to rebuild the churches as public facilities and the orders from Confucian scholar-bureaucrats to construct educational and religious sites on lands on which churches stood. In the era of Emperor Kangxi, scholar-bureaucrats had attempted to request the court to convert buildings that spread heretical beliefs into academies of Confucianism. A famous Confucian theorist, Zhang Boxing 張伯行 (1651–1725), reported that Christians were flooding into Fujian福建 , the province under his governance, and begged the court to send all Westerners (xiyang ren 西洋人) to their home countries and dissolve the Chinese Christian communities. To restore the ethics of the region, he recommended that the churches be rebuilt to provide free education.(47) Emperor Yongzheng received the same request from Gioro Manbao覺羅滿保 (1673–1725), the viceroy of Zhemin (zhemin zongdu 浙閩總督), in 1723.(48) Nevertheless, the emperors did not adopt these policies even when they did choose to abolish the churches. It is very possible that they chose to replace Christian buildings with relatively neutral constructions instead. Another policy leading to the image of cultural solipsism was the execution of missionaries. European priests were not allowed to spread their religion or travel within the empire without a permit. The punishment for missionary

(46) Zhang Xianqing 張先清, “Kongjian de yinyu: Qing dai jinjiao shiqi tianzhujiao tang de gaiyi ji qi xiangzheng yiyi” 空間的隱喻：清代禁教時期天主教堂的改易及其象徵意義 [The metaphor of space: the reconstruction and its symbolic meaning of the Catholic Church during the Forbidden Ages in the Qing dynasty], Journal of Macao Polytechnic Institute, 4 (2015): 61–69; see also Li Guangxiu 李光修, Zhangzhou xianzhi 長州縣志 [ of Zhangzhou] (1753), ed. Gu Yilu 顧詒祿 (: Jiangsu Ancient Books Publishing House, 1991), 6. (47) Zhang Boxing, Zhengyi tang xuji 正誼堂續集 [Sequel collection of Zhengyi Tang] (Fuzhou: Fuzhou Zhengyi shuyuan 福州正誼書院, 1866; collected by Center for Informatics in East Asian Studies, Institute for Research in Humanities of Kyoto University 京都大学人文科学研 究 所 附 属 東 アジ ア人 文 情 報 学 研 究 センター ), pp. 20a–22b. (48) Qing zhong qianqi Xiyang Tianzhujiao zai Hua huodong dang’an shiliao 清中前期西洋天主 教在華活動檔案史料 [The archives concerning western Catholic Activities from the early to mid-Qing era in China], 1:56.

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activity was death. However, in most cases the Qing government preferred to expel European priests to Macau or their own countries instead of executing them. The reason behind this policy was to avoid foreigners arguing that the Qing Empire had more severe punishments for foreigners. This strategy was developed by Emperor Qianlong in the early part of his reign, after the execution of Spanish missionary Petrus Sanz (his was Bai Duolu 白多祿), the acting bishop of Fujian, who had been appointed by the Holy See. Sanz was arrested and executed publicly in 1747. Some months later, foreign merchants from Luzon (Lusong 呂宋) surprised the Qing court by applying for the remains of the executed priest from the customs officers. The court was worried about how foreigners in countries far from their territories might interpret their actions. Following the visit of the merchants from Manila, other priests who were arrested in similar incidents were all executed secretly. For the rest of Emperor Qianlong’s reign, however, most arrested priests were not punished with the death penalty.(49) In his own words: Christianity is the state religion of Western countries. They are still different from the heresies like the sects of Randeng 燃燈 and Dacheng 大乘, made up by our own evil subjects. It was our uneducated commoners who joined Christianity voluntarily, [so] to execute the Westerners with laws of our Empire seems to be problematic. This is not coherent with our doctrine to cherish foreigners. We shall now order the Grand Coordinator to send the arrested foreigners to Macao and request these people to return to their home country by

(49) Chuang Chi-fa, “Qing dai gan jia nianjian (1736–1820) guan shen dui tianzhujiao de fanying” 清代乾嘉年間（1736–1820）官紳對天主教的反應 [Response of bureaucrats and gentries of the Qianlong and Jiajing reign (1736–1820) to Catholic Christianity], in Cheng Liang-Sheng 鄭 樑生, Zhongwai guanxi shi guoji xueshu yantao hui lunwen ji: Sixiang yu minzu jiaoliu 中外 關係史國際學術研討會論文集：思想與民族交流 [International Conference on Sino-Foreign Relations: Cultural Exchange], pp. 167–198; Feng Erkang 馮爾康, “Kang Yong Qian san di tianzhujiao fei ‘wei jiao’ guan yu xiangying zhengce” 康 雍 乾 三 帝 天 主 教 非 ’偽 教 ’觀與相應 政策 [On the view of “Christianity not equal to fake religion” and related policy by Emperor Kangxi, Yongzheng and Qianlong], Journal of Anhui University (Philosophy and Social Sciences Edition), 1 (2014): 1–13. vessels. 天主教原系西洋本國之教，與近日奸民造為燃燈、大乘 等教者尚屬有間，且系愚民自入其教，而繩之以國法，似與撫 綏遠人之義亦有未協，應令該撫將現獲夷人，概行送至澳門， 定限勒令搭船回國.(50) Foreign priests who were arrested had two identities in the view of the Qing government. First, they were foreigners, and second, they were Christians who disobeyed the laws of the Qing Empire, which forbade them to spread their religion within its territories; the Qing court placed the stronger emphasis on the first identity. Although being a Christian missionary was a dangerous crime, the religious identity counted for much less when compared with the secular identity of being a foreign national. In these incidents, the Qing Empire had a strong diplomatic sense and always attempted to avoid discord for the sake of maintaining the religious purity of its subjects. This is a reminder of the way in which Li Wei compared the peace that the Qing Empire enjoyed to the conflicts between the Tokugawa Bakufu and the Europeans over the Japanese persecution of Christianity in the seventeenth century. Li Wei believed that even though the state should expel the Christians, it should not murder foreigners as the Japanese did.(51) This principle, which was developed during the , appeared again in the discussion between Emperor Qianlong and his ministers. This attitude remained the same during the reign of Emperor Jiaqing 嘉慶帝 (r. 1796–1820). Although the emperor had also punished European Christians, he was only opposed to the spread of their religion. In 1805, the emperor recognized that European priests in Beijing had translated their books into Chinese and spread copies to his subjects. The emperor imprisoned one of the priests who

(50) Feng, ‘Kang Yong Qian san di tianzhujiao fei ‘wei jiao’ guan yu xiangying zhengce” 康雍乾三 帝天主教非’偽教’觀與相應政策 [On the view of ‘Christianity not equals to Fake Religion’ and Related Policy by Emperor Kangxi, Yongzheng and Qianlong], p. 9. (51) Shizong Xian Hunagdi Zhupi Yuzhi世宗憲皇帝硃批諭旨 [The Vermillion Responses to Memorials of the Yongzheng Reign], 174:406b–411b.

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served in his court for the crime and exiled the Manchurian and Han Chinese Christians who refused to forgo their religion to Ili (Yili 伊利). The translation and publication of thirty-three kinds of Christian books was obviously impossible if only one priest was involved. We can thus see that the punishment of one priest was merely a symbolic action taken by the court. More importantly, the emperor recognized the right of European Christians in Beijing to keep publishing religious materials in their own language for their own use: Christianity is a traditional custom in their country, discussing and publishing their thoughts is not forbidden; but to publish and spread (these materials) to the people in our land has always been illegal. 在該國習俗相沿。信奉天主教。伊等自行講論。立說成書。原 所不禁。至在內地刊刻書籍。私與民人傳習。向來本定有例禁.(52) From this edict, freedom within the grey zone was clearly defined. If we look into church material from the Catholic priests, there is evidence of more freedom outside the capital of the empire. “Catholics, both Chinese and foreign, generally lived undisturbed by the early 1790s,”(53) suggested Robert Entenmann. From his study of Nouvelles lettres édifiantes des missions de la Chine et des Indes Orientales (Newly edified letters from the missions of China and the East Indies), Robert Entenmann reconstructed the relationship between Christianity and the Chinese state around Sichuan 四川 in the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries. Despite the emperor’s wish for them to cease spreading their religion to Qing’s subjects, Christians enjoyed de facto toleration. According to Church records, nearly 23,000 became catechumens and 15,445 people were baptized between 1796 and 1805 in Sichuan province. Robert Entenmann explained the phenomenon:

(52) Renzong rui huangdi shilu 仁宗睿皇帝實錄 [Veritable Records of Emperor Jiaqing] (Beijing: Zhonghua Book Company, 1986), 142:945a–945b, 951b–953a. (53) Robert Entenmann, “Chinese Catholics and Their Relations with the State during the Campaign against White Lotus,” in Peter Chen-main Wang, ed., Contextualization of Christianity in China: An Evaluation in Modern Perspective (Sankt Augustin: Institut Monumenta Serica, 2007 p. 230. One reason that local officials developed a laissez faire practice toward Catholicism is that they gradually became more and more knowledgeable about the religion, no longer seeing it as a variant of volatile White Lotus or radical Muslim sects [referring to the Jahriyya of Ma Mingxin]. Although they continued to regard it as one of the illicit heterodox sects, officials came to regard Catholicism as innocuous, especially compared to While Lotus teachings. In contrast, White Lotus adherents, while generally quiescent, were potentially rebellious.(54) The cooperation between the Qing government and the Christians became more important during the White Lotus uprising in the late eighteenth century. Militias raised from Christian communities participated in Qing military operations and rich Christians were asked to donate to the court. When militias from non-Christian Chinese communities attacked Christians or when even accused of that, local officials would intervene and protect Christian communities. Thus, Entenmann concluded that “by 1800 government officials and troops no longer harassed the Catholics.”(55) One of the priests wrote in his record that “the [Catholic] religion continues to enjoy peace and tranquility from the government throughout the province of Sichuan. If the pagans accuse the Christians—as Christians—the mandarins reject the accusations.”(56) The case in Sichuan exemplified the actual size of the authorized region for Christianity after the reign of Emperor Yongzheng and Qianlong. It shows that besides the safe zone for foreign Christians serving in Beijing, there were

(54) Ibid. (55) Ibid., pp. 227–242. (56) Ibid., p. 263; see also “Dufresse to Chaumont, 26 September 1798,” Nouvelles lettres édifiantes des missions de la Chine et des Indes Orientales, 3:299; “Rélation de la mission du Su-tchuen, année 1798, envoyée par Mgr. L’évêque de Caradre, vicaire apostolique de cette province, à MM. Les directeurs du séminaire des Missions-Étrangères, 13 Septembre 1798,” Nouvelles lettres édifiantes des missions de la Chine et des Indes Orientales, 3:361.

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gray areas in which converted Qing subjects could maintain their Christian faith. The conditions for this gray area were clearly the same as the conditions to maintain the safe zone for foreigners. Heretics were those who opposed the state instead of those who worshipped indecent deities. When the empire drew the line to distinguish ally and foe, they had largely marginalized ethics, worldview, and religion. Within this tradition, political discussions in this period relating to Christianity, just like those of Wei Yuan 魏源 (1794–1857) and Gong Zizhen 龔自珍 (1792–1841) on Muslim subjects of the empire (as described in the next section), had a limited relationship to the religion itself.

2.2 Islam and the State in Late Imperial China When we look into the case of Islam in late imperial China, the marginalization of religious identity could be expressed in another way: the absorption of political elites from a religious community into the imperial administrative system. By taking in elites from the Muslim subjects as representatives and agents at the regional level of the government, the political consciousness and impulse to revolt against non-Muslim authority was weakened among lay Muslims. This strategy was widely employed in the Tarim Basin and Dzungaria. As seen in the Turkic sources, Turkic- speaking Muslims had very limited contact with the imperial government, and their understanding of China was also limited. Muslim elites, playing the role of Qing local collaborators, successfully reduced the tension between the ruler and his subjects.(57) In this sense, Qing bureaucrats and Muslim elites monopolized most political power in the region and good governance depended on cooperation between them. I call this process “the administrative absorption of religion”. The term for this process is borrowed from a study by Ambrose Yeo-chi King 金耀基 who

(57) Rian Thum, “China in Islam: Turkish Views from the Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries,” Cross- Currents: East Asian History and Culture Review (e-journal) no. 12 (September 2014): 118–142. first proposed the existence of a similar process, the “administrative absorption of politics”, being undertaken by the British colonial authorities in Hong Kong: Basically, we are of the opinion that Hong Kong’s political stability in the last hundred years could be accounted for primarily by the successful process of the administrative absorption of politics. It is a process through which the British governing elites co-opt or assimilate the non-British socio-economic elites into the political- administrative decision-making bodies, thus attaining an elite integration on the one hand and a legitimacy of political authority on the other. We have witnessed a system of synarchy, though a lopsided one, operating in Hong Kong. However, the synarchical system is only open to a rather small sector of the population—men of wealth, established or new.(58) In many ways, the indirect governing and synarchical systems in British Hong Kong and of the Qing Empire were similar. Most importantly, they helped alien rulers avoid dealing with ideological tension and identity differences between themselves and their subjects. Through such arrangements, the imperial administration system did not need to impose assimilationist policies in the newly conquered areas. In other words, when the tradition to “make the people one” gave way to the need for political stability, the Qing political agenda shifted from assimilating religious identity (integration into state-approved religions) to assimilating political identity (integration into the Qing Empire as loyal subjects). This shift was not simply an adjustment of colonial policy but rather had significant ramifications for the Qing Empire, Chinese intellectuals, and Confucianism. One of the major changes we can easily identify was the transformation of Confucians’ understanding of Islam. Although suspicion

(58) Ambrose Yeo-chi King, “Administrative Absorption of Politics in Hong Kong: Emphasis on the Grass Roots Level,” Asian Survey, 15, no. 5 (May 1975): 422–439.

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and mistrust never disappeared, Confucian scholar-bureaucrats in the early nineteenth century started to view Islam, as with Christianity, as a school of belief that shared a similar nature and function with Confucianism and other state-approved religions. Especially in the case of Confucians who were part of the bureaucracy, the critiques of Islam no longer simply equated the religion with heresy and savagery. These scholar-bureaucrats recognized the positive side of the faith and attempted to emphasize its inferior elements by comparing Islam and Confucianism (and sometimes other religions). In the writings of certain Confucians, Islam was also sometimes related to the Heavenly Way (tiandao 天道). I will end this section by illustrating this change in viewing Islam among Confucians with two examples: Wei Yuan and Gong Zizhen. These two Confucian scholar-bureaucrats were “national elites” who “had influence that transcended [their] regional origins, and connections that reached to the apex of national political life.” According to Philip Kuhn, these elites were able to dominate the political life of late imperial China based on “their dual identity: as a stratum of community leadership and as a corps of state bureaucrats.”(59) In addition, these two national figures had de facto influence over a large number of scholar-bureaucrats, all of whom were situated within a well-developed intellectual network. Wei Yuan, who is famous for his contribution to Chinese intellectual history as a historian and geographer. His best-known work, Haiguo tuzhi 海國圖志 [Illustrated gazetteer of the countries overseas], published in 1847, was the first in the Qing Empire to fully illustrate the geographical, material, and cultural conditions of the outside world. The gazetteer was seen as one of the major sources of knowledge of the world in East Asia since the 1850s. Wei Yuan was also part of the jingshi 經世 movement in early

(59) Philip A. Kuhn, Rebellion and Its Enemies in Late Imperial China: Militarisation and Social Structure, 1796–1864 (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1980), 3–5. nineteenth-century Confucianism, which sought to reform the Qing Empire.(60) He had participated in the reformation of the salt economy and the national transportation system and had worked as an analyst during the war between the Qing Empire and the British Empire in 1840. Soon after the war, Wei Yuan also wrote a military history of the Qing Empire in its early period. The fourteen-volume history, which is known as the Shengwuji聖武記 [The record of the sacred wars], was published in 1846 following two revisions. One of his aims was to compare the success of the Qing army, mainly on the

(60) The label of the school of jingshi 經世 was not precise because the term applies broadly to all attempts to reshape the world or society. This-worldly concerns, as coined by Max Weber and elaborated on by a many scholars, have always been one of the core features of Confucianism. The only difference among them is the means to shape the world. The meaning of the term thus shifted quite often during late Imperial China. In the latter part of the Ming era, jingshi referred to jiang-xue 講學, or lecturing. It is widely believed that through lecturing in the court and also in the villages, Confucians reshape the world. For related research, see Chu Hung- lam 朱鴻林, Zhongguo jinshi ruxue shizhi de sibian yu xi xue 中國近世儒學實質的思辨與習學 [The substance and the practice of Confucian learning in late imperial China] (Beijing: Peking University Press, 2005); Lu Miaw-fen 呂妙芬, Xiaozhi tianxia: Xiao jing yu jìnshi zhongguo de zhengzhi yu wenhua 孝治天下：孝經與近世中國的政治與文化 [Governing the world with filial piety: “The classic of filial piety” Politics and Culture in Early Modern China]. In the early Qing period, the implication of the notion shifted to the restoration and purification of Confucian rituals in ordinary families. Significant scholars include Gu Yanwu and Wang Fuzhi 王夫之. See Chow Kai-wing 周啟榮, The Rise of Confucian Ritualism in Late Imperial China: Ethics, Classics, and Lineage Discourse (Stanford: Stanford University Press,1994); and Wang Fan-sen, “Qing Chu ‘Lizhi Shehui’ Sixiang de Xingcheng” 清 初「 禮 治 社 會 」思 想 的形成 [The formation of the ideas of “society governed by ritual propriety” during the early Qing], in Zhongguoshi Xinlun: Sixiangshi Fence 中國史新論．思想史分冊 [New perspectives on Chinese history: Intellectual history], ed. Chen Jo-shui 陳弱水 (Taipei: Linking Publishing, 2012), pp. 353–392. Since the early nineteenth century, which is the focus of this article, jingshi mainly referred to national-level political reforms. These included the salt administration, the grain tribute administration, the currency system, the opium question, and the determination of international trade and tariffs. William T. Rowe has provided a brief introduction for the intellectual history of the period. See William T. Rowe, China’s Last Empire: The Great Qing (Cambridge, MA; London: The Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, 2009), pp. 162– 165; see also Philip A. Kuhn, Origins of the Modern Chinese State, for the illustration of the changing mentalities of the Confucian elites involved in reform. Politically active intellectuals were constructing, in this period a “body of knowledge known as jingshi,” which could be translated as “statecraft” in modern sense, according to David Faure; see “The Introduction of Economics in China, 1850–2010,” in Modern Chinese Religion, Volume 3: 1850–2015, ed. Vincent Goossaert, Jan Kiely, and John Lagerwey (Leiden: E .J. Brill, 2016), pp. 65–88. However, due to rebellion and invasion, the search for statecraft faded during the 1850s. Confucian elites turned to regional forces (which have been identified as local militias, gentry managers and later regional armies by Fredrick Wakeman, Jr.) for opportunities to engage in politics. The meaning of “jingshi” thus shifted again from knowledge of national-level political reformation to the involvement of regional politics. See Fredrick Wakeman, Jr., The Fall of Late Imperial China (New York: Free Press, 1977), pp. 163–172.

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northwest frontier and in Tibet, with its recent failures against the British. Wei relied on his knowledge of the Qing conquest and governance of the Muslim subjects, mainly during the Qianlong reign, to evaluate the policy adopted by the Qing court against its new European enemies.(61) We can assume that he was very familiar with the history of the Qing policy on Muslim subjects in the previous century. Wei’s views on Islam can be found in the Haiguo tuzhi, which was published one year after the final edition ofShengwuji . In the Haiguo tuzhi, he argued that Islam was an inferior religion compared to Confucianism. Wei Yuan introduced the Prophet Mohammed and some of the basic components of the Islamic faith. He believed that many features of Confucianism and Islam were similar. He stated that Muslims were “sincerely practicing the five rituals to serve the Heavenly Way; honestly honoring the five ethics to serve the Way of Men, [and] the five [ethical principles of Muslims] were similar to those of Confucianism.” (jing fu wu gong, tian dao jin yi; dun chong wu dian; ren dao jin yi; wu dian tong ru 敬服五功，天道盡矣。敦崇五典，人道盡矣。五典同儒)(62) More importantly, Wei Yuan paid special attention to the five pillars of Islam. He described the pillars in detail and suggested that the rituals were not simply superstitious idol worship. Although his understanding of the Islamic

(61) Biographical information about Wei Yuan published in English can be found in Peter MacVicar Mitchell, Wei Yuan (1794–1857) and the Early Modernization Movement in China and Japan (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1970); Peter MacVicar Mitchell, “Wei Yuan and Westerners: Notes on the Sources of the Hai-kuot’u-chih,” Ch’ing-shih wen-t’i, 2, no. 4 (November 1970): 1–20; Peter MacVicar Mitchell, “The Limits of Reformism: Wei Yuan’s Reaction to Western Intrusion,” Modern Asian Studies, 6, no. 2 (April 1972): 175–204; Jane Kate Leonard, Wei Yuan and China’s Rediscovery of the Maritime World (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1984); Kuhn, Origins of the Modern Chinese State, chap. 1; Ho Ping- ti, “The Salt Merchants of Yang-Chou: A Study of Commercial Capitalism in 18th Century China,” Harvard Journal of Asiatic Studies, 17, nos. 1–2 (June 1954): 130–168. I have also gathered biographical information about Wei Yuan from Chinese sources; see Hung Tak Wai, “Zhongji guanhuai yu xianshi kaoliang: Weiyuan de zongjiao guan yu tianzhujiao lunshu” 終極關懷與現實考量：魏源的宗教觀與天主教論述 [Ultimate concern and political agenda: View on religions and Tianzhujiao discourse of Wei Yuan], Chinese Culture Quarterly, 38 (2017): 91–141. (62) Wei Yuan, Haiguo tuzhi 海國圖志 [Illustrated gazetteer of the countries overseas] (Guweitang 古微堂, 1847; reprint, Taipei: Cheng Wen Publishing, 1967), 14:41. faith was not without shortcomings, his attempt to express Islam in terms of accepted Confucian terminology set him apart from the hostile explanations given by Chen Shiguan 陳世倌 (1680–1758), the grand coordinator of (Shandong xunfu山東巡撫), and Lu Guohua魯國華 (dates of birth and death are unknown), who was temporarily assigned as surveillance commissioner (zan shu anhui ancha shi si暫署江南安徽按察 使司) in the mid-eighteenth century.(63) The subjective and idiosyncratic interpretation of certain Islamic practices (yishi dao shenme shi shenme 意識 到甚麼是甚麼) constituted an important part of Wei Yuan’s understanding.(64) For example, the Hajj was explained by him as follows: Making the pilgrimage to the Heavenly Gate [tianque 天闕] once in the lifetime. The Heavenly Gate is Tianfang 天方 [usually referring to Arabia]; no matter which country those who practice the religion are from, they must make the pilgrimage to the Holy Tomb in Tianfang once in their lifetime, and touch the “stone of origin” [yuanshi 元石] with their own hand to show his [or her] humble return [to Heaven]. This is to make the tangible pilgrimage [to Tianfang] a metaphor for the intangible pilgrimage to Heaven. 終身一覲天闕。天闕即 天方，凡修教之人無論何國，終身必往天方瞻禮聖墓，親撫元 石，以示歸敬，是謂借有形之朝覲，以寓無形之朝覲.(65) Although Wei Yuan had a limited understanding of the background of the Hajj and mistakes the Kaaba for a holy tomb, in his explanation, Islam had no “heretical” characteristics. In another section of the same chapter, Wei Yuan showed an even more explicit appreciation of the religion:

(63) National Palace Museum 國立故宮博物院, Gongzhong dang Yongzheng Chao Zouzhe 宮中 檔雍正朝奏摺 [The memorials of the palace archive of the Yongzheng era] (Taipei: National Palace Museum, 1979), 3:175b–178b. (64) Wang Fansen, Sixiang shi shenghuo de yizhong fangshi: zhongguo jindai sixiangshi de zai sikao 思想是生活的一種方式：中國近代思想史的再思考 [Thinking as a way of living: Rethinking of Modern Chinese Intellection History] (Taipei: Linking Publishing Company, 2017), p. 47. (65) Wei, Haiguo tuzhi 海國圖志 [Illustrated Gazetteer of the Countries Overseas], 14:41.

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The serving of Heaven in Islam is same as the serving of God [ 上帝] in Confucianism; Muslims abduct the rituals of worship, fasting, chanting and offering doctrines from Buddhism, supported with simplified explanations of Karmic belief. Basically, it does no harm to worldly ethics. Its highest level of worship is for Heaven, the Earth, the Sun and the Moon; its middle level of worship is for the Mountain, the River, the Water and the Soil; the lowest level of worship is for the ancestral temples and graves. Islam does not abandon the worship of the gods and the dead, [therefore it is] better than Christianity, which clings to its bias [and worships only one God].天方教之事天，同於儒之事上帝。而襲取釋教禮拜齋 戒，持誦施舍，因果淺近之說以佐之，大旨亦無惡於世教。其 以天地日月為上祭，山川水土為中祭，宗廟墳墓為下祭，不廢 神祇人鬼，亦勝天主教之偏僻.(66) Through this understanding, Islam could definitely be accepted in the Qing Empire. We must not, however, overexaggerate the acceptance of Islam within early nineteenth-century Confucian intellectual circles. Wei Yuan, of course, criticized Islam in his writings. For instance, he could not accept the Islamic cosmology of the seven levels of Heaven. In particular, he pointed out that there could be no way of proving the existence of the ‘Seat’ (kuerxi tian 庫爾西天) and ‘Throne’ (aershi tian 阿爾實天), just as there could be no way of proving that the Quran was from Heaven. Thus, these beliefs regarding “Heaven” were, according to Wei Yuan, “not far from fabrications” (jinzao 近鑿) and “not far from lies” (jinwu 近誣).(67) Wei’s comments on the ethical dimensions of Islam were more critical than his comments on the cosmology. First, he could not accept the marriage that the Prophet Mohammed arranged between his daughter and his cousin (referring

(66) Ibid., 14:45. (67) Ibid., 14:45–46. to Fatimah and Ali, although Wei Yuan did not mention the names), which he believed to be “quite repugnant” (taidu 太瀆) and something only practiced by primitive people in China before Confucianism.(68) Wei Yuan used another lengthy paragraph to criticize the halal diet of Muslims, which mandates eating only the “pure” (chunliang 純良) animals. He questioned Liu Zhi (劉智), a famous Chinese-speaking Muslim who explained Islam to Confucians in their own language, about his use of the Confucian classics to defend the dietary habits of Muslims. Wei Yuan quoted Liu Zhi, who argued that the halal diet was “a response to the Merciful will of the Heaven Muslims serves (Huijiao shi tian, dang ti tianxin, hao sheng e sha 回教事天，當體天心，好生惡殺)” and then responded in this ironic fashion: Oh! In what matters have the Muslims followed the teachings of the Sage Kings [in Confucianism]? Are they following it only when they slaughter? Did the Sage Kings teach [them] to chant the name of the Lord before they slaughter? Did the Sage Kings teach them to forbid the consumption of dogs and pigs and slaughter only the pure [animals]? 嗚呼！回教何事遵於先王？獨於殺生乃援先王，豈先王亦教人 誦主名而殺乎？先王亦教人但禁犬豕，專殺純良乎？(69) Generally speaking, Wei Yuan found Islam to be an inferior religion. His critiques, however, did not lead to the conclusion that the religion was harmful to the empire or that the government should expel Muslims. Neither did he advocate any agenda to “civilise” Muslims so that Confucians could fulfill their obligations to teach and enlighten. From the viewpoint of governance, Islam was essentially transformed from a “problem” into an “issue.” A close friend of Wei Yuan, Gong Zizhen (1792–1841), who came from a prestigious Confucian family, expressed similar attitudes in his political

(68) Ibid., 14:46. (69) Ibid., 14:46–47.

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thought. Gong Zizhen obtained the degree of “metropolitan graduate’ (jinshi 進士) in the 1829 imperial civil service examination and joined the Grand Secretariat (neigu內閣) as a secretary (neigu zhongshu 內閣中書). Before his resignation in 1839, he was one of the most important reformers and political thinkers within the Qing bureaucracy, and was a known supporter of the jingshi movement. Besides being friends with Wei Yuan, Gong was also a close friend of Lin Zexu林則徐 (1785–1850), the famous viceroy of Liangguang who suppressed the opium trade and led the campaign again the British invasion in 1840. Gong was a key supporter of Lin, and shared his opinion (and that of many others) that the opium trade had to be suppressed instead of legalized, as was suggested by other scholar-bureaucrats.(70) In the earlier years of his political career, Gong had also commented on Qing policy in the western frontier and the governing of the Muslim subjects located there. His views can be found in two of his writings, the article “Xiyu zhi xingsheng yi” 西域置行省議 [On establishing provinces in the western region] and “Yushi anbian suiyuan shu” 御試安邊綏遠疏 [Memorial for the imperial examinations about subduing the frontier and pacifying faraway lands]. The first article was written in 1819–1820, before the invasion of Jahangir Khoja (which was supported by the Kokand khanate) in summer 1820.(71) The second was a dissertation that earned Gong his degree of “presented scholar” in 1829. The article was a response to the warfare between the empire and Jahangir Khoja in the 1820s, in which Gong expressed his views on solving the “disloyalty” problem of Turkic-speaking Muslims in the region.

(70) Biographical information on Gong Zizhen published in English can be found in Kang-i Sun Chang 孫康宜 and Stephen Owen, eds., The Cambridge History of (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2010), 2:416–418; Encyclopædia Britannica, s.v. “Gong Zizhen,” accessed February 17, 2018, https://www.britannica.com/biography/Gong-Zizhen. (71) Zhang Shuhong 張淑紅, “Cong Gong Zizhen ‘xiyu zhi xing shengyi’ xiezuo niandai kan qi xibei shi di xue yanjiu” 從龔自珍“西域置行省議”寫作年代看其西北史地學研究 [A study on northwest historical geography from the writing time period of ‘xiyu zhi xing shengyi’ of Gong Zizhen], in Tushu guan lilun yu shijian 圖書館理論與實踐 [Library theory and practice] (2013): 12:115–117. In his first article, Gong Zizhen outlined two major problems facing the empire: first, within China proper, overpopulation had become a serious issue. “Fifty to sixty percent of the population could not serve in the government, could not farm, could not produce, nor could they became merchants (bushi, bu nong, bu gong, bushang, shi jiang wu liu 不士,不農、不工、不商，十將 五六),” and he argued that these people would either die in poverty or join the heresies. Second, the newly conquered territories outside Jiayu Pass (嘉裕關) were lacking in population. As the population there was not large enough, the economy of the region could not support the army and bureaucracy stationed there. This, as Gong precisely predicted, would lead to chaos in the future. Gong suggested that the western frontier should adopt the province-county system as the eighteen provinces of Chinese proper had. The new style of government should recruit and support unemployed Han Chinese from regions experiencing poverty to engage in agricultural and industrial production in the newly established provinces. The Muslim elites should hold honorary positions in the provincial and county governments. Though the Muslim population and the immigrants lacked knowledge now, government schools (which were always built with Confucius temples) and imperial civil service examination quotas should be arranged for them thirty years following the establishment of the province-county system (ying qing yu sanshi nian hou, li xue gong, she sheng yuan, ju xiangshi, sianzai wuyong yi 應請於三十年後， 立學宮、設生員、舉鄉試，現在無庸議).(72) Although Gong also mentioned the establishment of the temples of the God of Wind (fengshen ci 風神祠) and God of Spring (quanshen ci 泉神祠), he did not recommend any interventions with respect to Islam. The widespread presence of Islam in the region, the absence of Confucian

(72) Gong Zizhen, “Xiyu zhi xingsheng yi” 西域置行省議 [On establishing provinces in the western region], in Wang Peizheng 王佩諍 ed., Gong Zizhen quanji 龔自珍全集 [Complete works of Gong Zizhen] (Beijing: Zhonghua Book Company, 1974), pp. 105–112.

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education, and the need to establish Confucian temples, and even create an imperial civil service examination quota made the region quite different from the non-Han regions of southern China. It was also different from the regions of Southwest China, where native religion was gradually replaced by Confucianism.(73) Both Gong’s articles concerned Dzungaria and the Tarim Basin, which was mainly populated by Muslims, but Gong suggested no policy related to Islam. He had avoided the problem of religion intentionally. Even after the war of Jahangir Khoja, during which Muslims were regarded as “potential traitors” against the empire, the policy suggested in Gong’s writing in 1829 still overlooked religious issues. Gong recognized that the major threat to the frontier security was the disconnect between local Qing authorities and the Muslim population. Muslim Baigs (boke 伯克), as opposed to the Qing Empire, enjoyed the support of the Qing Muslim subjects under the system of indirect rule. Without any attempt to assimilate the Muslim population religiously, Gong believed that the loyalty of the Muslims could be gained by accepting them into the state agriculture program. By providing farmland to the local people, both Muslims and non-Muslims, to have as their private property, they would have a greater incentive to produce and thus be able to support the local economy in the Tarim Basin. This would be the foundation of well-trained local forces in Dzungaria that did not have to rely on the support of other regions of the empire. Gong believed that an adequately sufficient economy and strong military forces could “pacify” the region and deter any threats from inner Asia.(74) From the political thought of Wei Yuan and Gong Zizhen, we can easily identify that it was the wish of the Confucian scholar-bureaucrats to convert

(73) Ibid. (74) Gong Zizhen, “Yushi anbian suiyuan shu” 御試安邊綏遠疏 [Memorial for the imperial examinations about subduing the frontier and pacifying faraway lands], pp. 114–117. the Muslim population into Confucian subjects like themselves. However, this “conversion” was not a religious conversion but in fact political conversion. The threat imposed by the Muslims to the Qing Empire involved the connections between Muslims within and outside the territory. In particular, individual Muslims’ connections with the Islamic hinterlands always endowed them with religious authority, which could easily be converted to power in politics. This was not something the Qing emperors would accept. The toleration of Islam in the Qing Empire had limits. The bottom line was respect for the sole and absolute political authority of the throne. There was ambiguity however as to whether the throne also possessed the highest authority religiously, which reflected the competition between the “tradition of governance” and the “tradition of the Way” if we use the language of Confucianism. In order to secure political unity, Emperor Yongzheng abandoned the obligation of monitoring and maintaining the ethics of his Muslim subjects. This become a state policy of the Qing Empire nationally after his reign. In the early part of the nineteenth century, Confucian scholar-bureaucrats followed the principle even in their private publications. The core idea to neglect the religious differences of Qing subjects and define heresy as disobedience of imperial authority had been well received by the Confucians. In their political discussions, therefore, religious conversion was no longer a major concern, which was different from the attitude of Confucians in the early years of the Qing regime. The marginalization of religions, especially foreign religions, from political arrangements, in this sense, had two levels. First, religious identity was marginalized and even ignored at the level of policy. This was done to avoid the positional conflicts that emerged from value differences that could de-stabilize the empire. Second, religion was marginalized from discussions at the intellectual level among elites. This refers to the reluctance to include religious issues in political discussions among the intellectual and political elites of the Qing Empire.

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Conclusion Chinese political philosophy during the imperial era, which included Confucianism as one of the main schools of thought, was a tradition that tightly fused ethics and politics together. Scholar-bureaucrats of the empire were obliged to promote an “ethical” way of living for the people. We may take inspiration from a famous discussion between Confucius and one of his disciples. When the Confucius was asked whether a government should give up food or the moral way of living in times of difficulty, he said he believed that government should “give up food,” as “death has always been with us since the beginning of time, but when there is no trust, the common people will have nothing to stand on. 去食。自古皆有死，民無信不立.” (The Analects 12:7; Translated by D. C. Lau 劉殿爵). Therefore, in the minds of fundamentalist Confucian scholar-bureaucrats, ethics were not to be sacrificed under any circumstances. From another perspective, a politics of virtue might imply the continuous demand by political authorities for unity in thought and ways of living among the subjects under their rule. Maruyama Masao 丸山 眞男 (1914–1996), a leading Japanese political scientist and political theorist in the years after the Second World War, explained that morality (dōtoku 道徳) and political power and authority (kenryoku 権力) had always been combined before the early modern period (kinsei 近世). He explained that ethical beliefs of citizens were inculcated by the state, a common feature of premodern political entities.(75) This was obviously not a unique characteristic of Confucian political philosophy, as there were similar features in European Christendom and the Japan Shogunate before the eighteenth century. In other words, internal resistance against intervening in the religious life of “heretics” (i.e., a move towards religious toleration) in late imperial China marked a

(75) Maruyama Masao 丸山眞男, Lin Ming-te 林明德 trans., Xiandai zhengzhi de sixiang yu xingdong: Jian lun riben junguo zhuyi 現代政治的思想與行動：兼論日本軍國主義 [Modern political thoughts and actions: also on Japanese militarism] (Taipei: Linking Publishing, 1984), pp.374-387. modernization of political thought and of the relationship between religion and the state. Although tolerance for Islam and Christianity was not a universally accepted concept in late imperial China, and although neither the state nor the scholar-bureaucrats aimed at embracing the diversity of culture and value this entailed, the acceptance of the practice of different religions within the empire was a major change of thought. Even if Chinese rulers made political loyalty a precondition for such religious toleration, they had covertly abandoned the intention to “convert” or “enlighten” wayward subjects. The mandate to “make people one” was transformed from being meant culturally (or religiously) to being meant politically, as indicated by the analysis of discourses and policies discussed in this article.

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About the Author

Dr. Hung Tak Wai earned his PhD in History at the University of Hong Kong. His research focuses on minority religious groups, including but not limited to Muslims and Christians, with particular attention accorded to the faith and identity of minority communities and their interaction with governments. He is currently affiliated with the King Faisal Center for Research and Islamic Studies and the Centre for the Study of Islamic Culture at the Chinese University of Hong Kong, and is organizing and teaching courses on Asian history and religion in different universities in Hong Kong. Dr Hung has been invited as a Visiting Scholar in different institutes of Academia Sinica and as an Academic Visitor in the Oxford Centre for Islamic Studies.

King Faisal Center for Research and Islamic Studies (KFCRIS)

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