Ad Astra * Index: Letters from a Chinese Official, New York, 1903

I

Recent events in China have brought into new prominence at once the fundamental antagonism between Eastern and Western civilization, and that ignorance and contempt of the one for the other which is mainly responsible for the present situation. In the face of the tragedy that is being enacted, I have long held my peace. But a growing sense of indignation, and a hope, perhaps illusory, that I may contribute to remove certain misunderstandings, have impelled me at last to open my lips, and to lay before the British public some views which have long been crying for utterance. Of the immediate crisis I do not propose to speak. It is my object rather to promote a juster estimate of my countrymen and their policy, by explaining, as far as I am able, the way in which we regard Western civilization, and the reasons we have for desiring to exclude its influences. For such a task I conceive myself to be not altogether unfit. A long residence in England gives me some right to speak of your institutions; while absence from my own country has not disqualified me to speak of ours. A Chinaman remains always a Chinaman; and much as I admire in some of its aspects the achievement of Western civilization, I have yet seen nothing which could make me regret that I was born a citizen of the East. To Englishmen this may seem a strange confession. You are accustomed to regard us as barbarians, and not unnaturally, for it is only on the occasions when we murder your compatriots that your attention is powerfully drawn toward us. From such spasmodic outbreaks you are apt overhastily to infer that we are a nation of cold-blooded assassins ; a conclusion as reasonable as would be an inference from the present conduct of your troops in China to the general character of Western civilization. We are not to be judged by the acts of our mobs, nor even, I may add, by those of our Government, for the Government in China does not represent the nation. Yet even those acts (strongly as they are condemned by all educated Chinamen) deserve, I venture to think, on the part of Europeans, a consideration more grave, and a less intemperate reprobation, than they have hitherto received among you. For they are expressions of a feeling which is, and must always be, the most potent factor in our relations with the West—our profound mistrust and dislike of your civilization. This feeling you, naturally enough, attribute to prejudice and ignorance. In reality, I venture to think, it is based upon reason; and for this point of view I would ask the serious and patient consideration of my readers.

Our civilization is the oldest in the world. It does not follow that it is the best; but neither, I submit, does it follow that it is the worst. On the contrary, such antiquity is, at any rate, a proof that our institutions have guaranteed to us a stability for which we search in vain among the nations of Europe. But not only is our civilization stable, it also embodies, as we think, a moral order; while in yours we detect only an economic chaos. Whether your religion be better than ours, I do not at present dispute; but it is certain that it has less influence on your society. You profess Christianity, but your civilization has never been Christian; whereas ours is Confucian through and through. But to say that it is Confucian, is to say that it is moral; or, at least (for I do not wish to beg the question), that moral relations are those which it primarily contemplates. Whereas, with you (so it seems to us) economic relations come first, and upon these you endeavor, afterward, to graft as much morality as they will admit.

This point I may illustrate by a comparison between your view of the family and ours. To you, so far as a foreigner can perceive, the family is merely a means for nourishing and protecting the child until he is of age to look after himself. As early as may be, you send your boys away to a public school, where they quickly emancipate themselves from the influences of their home. As soon as they are of age, you send them out, as you say, to "make their fortune"; and from that moment, often enough, as they cease to be dependent on their parents, so they cease to recognize obligations toward them. They may go where they will, do what they will, earn and spend as they choose; and it is at their own option whether or no they maintain their family ties. With you the individual is the unit, and all the units are free. No one is tied, but also no one is rooted. Your society, to use your own word, is "progressive"; you are always "moving on." Everyone feels it a duty (and in most cases it is a necessity) to strike out a new line for himself. To remain in the position in which you were born you consider a disgrace; a man, to be a man, must venture, struggle, compete, and win. To this characteristic of your society is to be attributed, no doubt, its immense activity, and its success in all material arts. But to this, also, is due the feature that most strikes a Chinaman—its unrest, its confusion, its lack (as we think) of morality. Among you no one is contented, no one has leisure to live, so intent are all on increasing the means of living. The "cash-nexus" (to borrow a phrase of one of your own writers) is the only relation you recognize among men.

Now, to us of the East all this is the mark of a barbarous society. We measure the degree of civilization not by accumulation of the means of living, but by the character and value of the life lived. Where there are no humane and stable relations, no reverence for the past, no respect even for the present, but only a cupidinous ravishment of the future, there, we think, there is no true society. And we would not if we could rival you in your wealth, your sciences, and your arts, if we must do so at the cost of imitating your institutions.

In all these matters, our own procedure is the opposite to yours. We look first to the society and then to the individual. Among us, it is a rule that a man is born into precisely those relations in which he is to continue during the course of his life. As he begins, so he ends, a member of his family group, and to this condition the whole theory and practice of his life conforms. He is taught to worship his ancestors, to honor and obey his parents^ and to prepare himself from an early age for the duties of a husband and a father. Marriage does not dissolve the family; the husband remains, and the wife becomes a member of his group of kinsmen. And this group is the social unit. It has its common plot of ground,, its common altar and rites, its tribunal for settling disputes among its members. No man in China is isolated, save by his own fault. If it is not so easy for him to grow rich as with you, neither is it so easy for him to starve; if he has not the motive to compete, neither has he the temptation to cheat and oppress. Free at once from the torment of ambition and the apprehension of distress, he has leisure to spare from the acquisition of the means of living for life itself. He has both the instinct and the opportunity to appreciate the gifts of Nature, to cultivate manners, and to enter into humane and disinterested relations with his fellows. The result is a type which we cannot but regard as superior, both morally and aesthetically, to the great bulk of your own citizens in Europe. And while we recognize the greatness of your practical and scientific achievements, yet we find it impossible unreservedly to admire a civilization which has produced manners so coarse, morals so low, and an appearance so unlovely as those with which we are constantly confronted in your great cities. Admitting that we are not what you call a progressive people, we yet perceive that progress may be bought too dear. We prefer our own moral to your material advantages, and we are determined to cling to the institutions which, we believe, insure us the former, even at the risk of excluding ourselves from the latter.