Durham E-Theses Orientalism and Representations of China in the Early 19th Century: A Case Study of The Chinese Repository JIN, CHENG How to cite: JIN, CHENG (2019) Orientalism and Representations of China in the Early 19th Century: A Case Study of The Chinese Repository, Durham theses, Durham University. Available at Durham E-Theses Online: http://etheses.dur.ac.uk/13227/ Use policy The full-text may be used and/or reproduced, and given to third parties in any format or medium, without prior permission or charge, for personal research or study, educational, or not-for-prot purposes provided that: • a full bibliographic reference is made to the original source • a link is made to the metadata record in Durham E-Theses • the full-text is not changed in any way The full-text must not be sold in any format or medium without the formal permission of the copyright holders. Please consult the full Durham E-Theses policy for further details. Academic Support Oce, Durham University, University Oce, Old Elvet, Durham DH1 3HP e-mail: [email protected] Tel: +44 0191 334 6107 http://etheses.dur.ac.uk 2 ORIENTALISM AND REPRESENTATIONS OF CHINA IN THE EARLY 19TH CENTURY: A CASE STUDY OF THE CHINESE REPOSITORY Cheng Jin St. Cuthbert’s Society School of Modern Languages and Cultures Durham University This dissertation is submitted for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy 2019 March 2019 DECLARATION This dissertation is the result of my own work and includes nothing, which is the outcome of work done in collaboration except where specifically indicated in the text. It has not been previously submitted, in part or whole, to any university of institution for any degree, diploma, or other qualification. In accordance with the School of Modern Languages and Cultures guidelines, this thesis is does not exceed 100,000 words. Cheng Jin Durham i ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS Firstly, I would like to express my gratitude to both of my supervisors, Mr Don Starr and Dr Cao Qing, for their continuous support of my study and related research. Mr Don has revised my work for many times and helped improve the quality. Dr Cao has also provided me with many inspiring comments. They helped me in all the time of research and writing of this thesis. Besides my supervisors, I would like to thank: Professor Qu Wensheng, Professor Chen Xinyu, Dr Marc Schachter and Dr Mamtimyn Sunuodula for their insightful comments and encouragement. Their questions also motivated me to widen my research from various perspectives. Last but not least, I would like to thank my parents for supporting me financially and spiritually throughout writing this thesis. ii iii Abstract This research focuses on representations of China in English in the early 19th century by Western visitors and residents attracted by trade and missionary opportunities. This was the second major wave of western commentators on China following the Jesuits from the 16th to 18th centuries. As in the earlier case the main commentators are Christian missionaries, but in the 19th century they were mainly British and American protestant missionaries bringing a different world view to China. This world view was conditioned by their religion and their sense of superiority based on the relative decline of China in technological and institutional terms compared to the time of the Jesuits. Their views were widely disseminated in the West, and they became both theoretical and literal interpreters (as a result of their language expertise missionaries were employed as interpreters) for Western policy makers. There were three distinct groups of Westerners: merchants, diplomats and missionaries. The missionaries were the most intellectually curious and hence the most active commentators on China, but at the same time were the most inflexible in the framework of understanding they took to China. They also had different concerns and attitudes towards China, compared to the other groups, such as on the opium trade in China. Missionaries are selected as the main subjects for observation in this research. There are three main research questions: firstly, how did the Protestant missionaries from the early 19th century represent China to Western readers in their publications—primarily in The Chinese Repository, and why did they represent China in the ways they did? Do these representations share some common characteristics or patterns? To what extent were these representations motivated by a framework of expectations that arose from their Western backgrounds? The main data used in this research is from The Chinese Repository. It was the first English journal devoted to offering a comprehensive introduction to Sinology. It was published between 1832 and 1851, and it witnessed the outbreak of the first Opium War and the change of discourse that occurred over that period. Around 60 articles are selected from the journal to analyse how missionaries represented China and to suggest some reasons for this. The main theoretical framework of the research is orientalism propounded by Edward Said in 1978. It is approached by two dimensions: a micro dimension which focuses on the book itself published in 1978 and American scholars’ feedback in the decade following its publication, and macro dimension which concentrates on Chinese scholars’ views of orientalism from the 1990s onwards and Western scholars’ new interpretations in the 21st century. I transpose the notion of orientalism from the 20th century Middle East to the 19th century Chinese context, and apply this notion to analyse missionaries’ representations of the Chinese language, religion and society. I believe that the orientalism has different contextual manifestations: in other words, it should be ‘topic-sensitive’. I find that within the framework of orientalism missionaries adopted three different specific iv approaches in representing China: syncretism, fundamentalism and progressivism. They used these to inform and reconcile what they found in China with the framework of understanding derived from their religious beliefs and their socio- political view of the world. v Contents Chapter 1 Introduction 1 1.1 Historical Background 2 1.2 Theories and Research Methodology 8 1.3 Research Questions 14 1.4 Chapter Breakdown and Three Manifestations of Orientalism 16 Chapter 2 Literature Review 21 2.1 Orientalism and Orientalists in China in the 19th Century 21 2.11 Three Groups of Westerners in China in the 19th Century 22 2.12 Applying Orientalism to a 19th Century China’s Context? 25 2.2 Works on Orientalism 26 2.21 Origin and Definition of Orientalism by Said: a Western Style of Domination over the Orient 27 2.3 Supporters and Critics of Said: Admitting the Political Reality or Maintaining Scholarly Expertise 32 2.31 Contemporary Reviews of Said in 1980 (A Sense of Subjectivity derived from Orientalism) 32 2.32 Later Reviewers: Supporters and Critics 37 2.33 More Recent Perspectives in Interpreting Orientalism 41 2.34 Orientalism through a Chinese Lens: the Dilemma of being a Diaspora and a Self-examination of the Creation of such an Image 45 2.4 Works on the ‘Western Perception of China’ 51 2.5 Previous Works on The Chinese Repository: a Historical Research Approach 60 2.6 On the Applicability of Orientalism to this Research 65 Chapter 3 Syncretic Approaches on Chinese Language 67 3.1 Evaluation of the Chinese Language 68 3.11 Is the Chinese language Related to the ‘Confusion of Tongues’? 69 3.12 The Written Form=’Cumbrous Medium’? 80 3.13 Chinese Characters Contained Christian Messages? 94 3.2 On Morrison’s Chinese Bible 97 3.3 Other Syncretic Approaches 109 3.31 Bridgman and The Concise Account of the United States of America 110 3.32 Gutzlaff and Milne’s East-West Examiner and Monthly Recorder 112 3.4 On Syncretic Approach 114 Chapter 4 Fundamentalist Attitudes on Chinese Religion 116 4.1 The Origin of Fundamentalism in China in the 19th Century 117 4.11 A Comparative Examination of Monotheism/Polytheism and Monogenism/Polygenism 117 4.12 The ‘Founders’ of Fundamentalism in the 19th century: Morrison and his tutor—David Bogue 119 4.13 Morrison’s Activity in China 125 4.2. First Embodiment of the Protestants’ Fundamentalism: on Attacking ‘Catholicism’ 139 4.21 On the Jesuits before Yongzheng’s Reign 139 vi 4.22 The Turning Point: Early Qing Period 144 4.23 Predicament during the Post-Kangxi Period 149 4.3 Second Embodiment of Fundamentalism among the Protestants: On Attacking Chinese ‘Paganism’ 156 4.31 Morrison, the Pioneer 156 4.32 A Short Discussion on Chinese Religion 159 4.33 Morrison’s Followers 163 4.4 The Relationship between Fundamentalism and Syncretism 168 Chapter 5 Progressivist Attitudes to Chinese Society 174 5.1 The Meaning of Progressivism 175 5.2 The Significance of the Opium War 179 5.3 Protestant Missionaries’ Original Stand on Opium: Loathe the Habit but Be Sympathetic to Smokers 180 5.31 Early Phase: Different Ways to Attack the Opium Trade in China 181 5.32 Views on Confessions of an English Opium-Eater 187 5.33 Probing their Motives in Criticising Opium 190 5.4 Missionaries’ Views on the Imperial Court and Law: Cruel and Uncertain 193 5.41 Inglis on Chinese Government and Law 196 5.42 Various Criminal Reports, One Obvious Theme 200 5.5 Missionaries’ Views on the Chinese people: Partial and Discrediting 204 5.51 On National Characters of Chinese 204 5.52 On the Foot-binding of Chinese Women 209 5.53 On the Defects of Chinese Education and Healthcare 212 5.6 What Comes with the Progressivist Attitude? 217 Chapter 6 Conclusion 221 Appendix 230 References 234 vii Chapter 1 Introduction In the nineteenth century a substantial change took place in interstate relations. As the West was striving to acquire wealth, power and prestige in the context of the industrial revolution, China, one of the societies that was unwilling to participate in the new world order, was regarded as backward and thus in need of reformation and modernisation.