Sinologism: An Alternative to Orientalism and Postcolonialism 0415626544, 9780415626545

Table of contents :
Front Cover
Sinologism
Copyright Page
Contents
Foreword by J. Hillis Miller
Acknowledgments
Introduction: Orientalism and beyond
1. Knowledge and cultural unconscious
2. Sinology, Sinologism, and postcolonialism
3. Sinologism: a historical critique
4. The ideology of epistemology
5. The ideology of methodology
6. The intellectual unconscious
7. The political unconscious
8. Linguistic Sinologism
Conclusion: a theory of self-conscious reflection
Notes
Bibliography
Index

Citation preview

Sinologism

Why, for centuries, have the West and the world continuously produced China knowledge that deviates from Chinese realities? Why, since the mid-­nineteenth century, have Chinese intellectuals oscillated between commendation and condemnation of their own culture, and between fetishization and demonization of all things Western? And why have some of the world’s wisest thinkers expressed opinions on Chinese culture, which are simply wrong? In order to answer these questions, this book explores the process of knowledge production about China and the Chinese civilization, and in turn provides a critique of the ways in which this knowledge is formed. Ming Dong Gu argues that the misperceptions and misinterpretations surrounding China and the Chinese civilization do not simply come from misinformation, biases, prejudices, or political interference, but follow certain taken-­for-granted principles that have evolved into a cultural unconscious. Indeed, Gu argues that the conflicting accounts in China–West studies are the inevitable outcome of this cultural unconscious that constitutes the inner logic of a comprehensive knowledge system which he terms “Sinologism.” This book explores Sinologism’s origin, development, characteristics, and inner logic, and critiques its manifestations in the writings of Chinese, Western, and non-­ Western thinkers and scholars, including Montesquieu, Herder, Hegel, Marx, Weber, Russell, Pound, Wang Guowei, Guo Moruo, Gu Jiegang, Wen Yiduo, and many others in diverse discip­lines from arts and humanities to social sciences. In doing so, Gu demonstrates why the existing critical models are inadequate for Chinese materials, and makes a crucial attempt to construct an alternative theory to Orientalism and postcolonialism for China–West studies and cross-­cultural studies. Sinologism crosses over the subjects of history, thought, literature, language, art, archaeology, religion, aesthetics and cultural theory, and will appeal to students and scholars of East–West studies with a particular focus on China, as well as those interested in cultural theory more broadly. Ming Dong Gu is a Distinguished Guest Professor in the Institute for Advanced Studies of Humanities and Social Sciences at Nanjing University, China, and ­Professor of Comparative Literature at the University of Texas at Dallas, USA. He is the author of Chinese Theories of Reading and Writing (2005), Chinese Theories of Fiction (2006), and Anxieties of Originality: Multiple Approaches to Language, Literature, and Cultural Studies (in Chinese, 2009).

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Sinologism

An alternative to Orientalism and postcolonialism

Ming Dong Gu

First published 2013 by Routledge 2 Park Square, Milton Park, Abingdon, Oxon OX14 4RN Simultaneously published in the USA and Canada by Routledge 711 Third Avenue, New York, NY 10017 Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group, an informa business © 2013 Ming Dong Gu The right of Ming Dong Gu to be identified as author of this work has been asserted by him in accordance with sections 77 and 78 of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act, 1988. All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or reproduced or utilized in any form or by any electronic, mechanical, or other means, now known or hereafter invented, including photocopying and recording, or in any information storage or retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publishers. Trademark notice: Product or corporate names may be trademarks or registered trademarks, and are used only for identification and explanation without intent to infringe. British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication Data A catalog record has been requested for this book ISBN: 978-0-415-62654-5 (hbk) ISBN: 978-0-203-08447-2 (ebk) Typeset in Times New Roman by Wearset Ltd, Boldon, Tyne and Wear

To J. Hillis Miller, A Bona Fide Mentor

Contents



Foreword by J. Hillis Miller Acknowledgments 



Introduction: Orientalism and beyond

1

1 Knowledge and cultural unconscious

15

2 Sinology, Sinologism, and postcolonialism

42

3 Sinologism: a historical critique

66

4 The ideology of epistemology

92

5 The ideology of methodology

113

6 The intellectual unconscious

139

7 The political unconscious

165

8 Linguistic Sinologism

187



Conclusion: a theory of self-­conscious reflection

216



Notes Bibliography Index

226 250 264

xiv xx

Foreword J. Hillis Miller

I am pleased to write a preface for Professor Ming Dong Gu’s distinguished book, Sinologism: an alternative to Orientalism and postcolonialism. It is an honor to have been asked to do this. Sinologism is an extremely important and timely book. Gu has immense learning, intellectual sophistication, and conceptual originality. He is a leading example of those relatively few Chinese American scholars who authoritatively know both Chinese and Western languages, scholarship, and cultures. Gu has published outstanding scholarly work in both Chinese and English. He stands at the forefront of those scholars who are making comparative studies of Chinese and Western literature, literary theory, culture, and humanistic scholarship. Gu has published two major books in his field, and over 40 essays. He has an amazing command both of the Chinese materials from ancient times to the present, and of Western literary and critical theory from Aristotle down to Saussure, Lacan, and Derrida. Few other scholars combine his native command of the Chinese language and Chinese writings in his field with advanced training in Western critical theory at a major American university (the University of Chicago). Gu’s goal is twofold: he wants to find some common ground or grounds from which Western and Chinese materials may be fairly compared, and he wants to stress the originality and value of the Chinese tradition in its differences from the Western tradition. Gu’s first book, Chinese Theories of Reading and Writing: A Route to Hermeneutics and Open Poetics, is a splendidly learned study of its topic. His argument is that a resonance exists between recent Western ideas that a literary work is open to diverse interpretations (in Umberto Eco, for instance) and an insistent tradition in Chinese poetics from ancient times to the present that espouses something like the Western idea of the “open text.” This tradition of hermeneutic openness is followed with great learning and specificity from the ancient exegeses of the Shijing or Book of Songs and the Zhouyi or Book of Changes down to work of the present day. Gu’s assumption is “that the Chinese hermeneutic tradition has traversed a road of development from exegetic closure to interpretive openness similar to that of the Western tradition.” But he suggests that “the Chinese tradition arrives at that destination through a quite different route.” Gu’s second book, Chinese Theories of Fiction: A Non-­Western Narrative System, is equally learned and original. I found perhaps most interesting his

Foreword by J. Hillis Miller   xv demonstration that The Dream of the Red Chamber, the great eighteenth-­century Chinese “novel” (if you can name it with that Western term), anticipates already Western postmodern narrative devices. Of great value also is Gu’s discussion of the significance of the characters’ names in the classic Chinese novels. Gu has a gift for specific readings of details in the works he discusses. These readings depend on intimate knowledge of Chinese language and literature. These are distinguished and original books, from which I have learned much. Gu’s essays are equally strong. I’ll mention two of them in this Foreword, as a way of illustrating his learning and his preparation for writing his new book, Sinologism. “Reconceptualizing the Linguistic Divide: Chinese and Western Theories of the Written Sign” is the best essay I have read on the vexed question of the difference between Western phonetic writing and Chinese partly graphic writing. He shows convincingly, with references to Peirce, Saussure, and Lacan, as well as to the traditional descriptions within Chinese writings of the written sign, that Chinese written language mixes graphic and phonetic elements in a way that distinguishes it from Western phonocentric writing and in a way that supports some recent Western theoretical anti-­phonocentric claims, for example those of Jacques Derrida. I much admire this essay. It is an example of Gu’s willingness to take sides judiciously on controversial topics in his field. The other essay is called “Chinese Bi-­xing and Western Metaphor.” It is a splendid comparison of Western theories of metaphor from Aristotle to the present, on the one hand, and the subtle Chinese theory of Bi-­xing, on the other. Through his patient and detailed exegesis I felt I was coming to understand just what the Chinese mean by Bi and Xing, just what the difference between them is, and just how these two concepts of something like metaphor differ from Western concepts. Especially valuable in this essay are the detailed discussions of examples of Bi-­xing from poems in the Chinese Book of Songs. These are wonderfully illuminating essays. They demonstrate in detailed examples the almost unparalleled command of both Chinese and Western materials, in their juxtaposition, that qualifies Gu for the challenging scholarly task he undertakes in this new book. Sinologism is, in scope, timely importance, and conceptual originality, Gu’s most distinguished book so far. It is the product of many years of research and thinking. In these days of globalization and of an immense increase in importance of China/West relations, a comprehensive study of how the West has established its views of China and of how accurate or inaccurate those views are is of great significance. In the United States, television news and widely-­read newspapers like the New York Times have articles about China almost every day. Our President and Congress are constantly making important policy decisions or passing laws that involve the relations of the United States to China. It is crucial to know whether or not we are “getting China right.” Gu demonstrates with impressive documentation that we have been getting China wrong in various ways since the West’s early attempts in the sixteenth century, in the wake of Marco Polo’s famous thirteenth-­century travel book, to understand China. These Western writings about China go from Leibniz to

xvi   Foreword by J. Hillis Miller ­ ontesquieu, Voltaire, Hegel, Marx, Russell, Fenollosa, Pound, and many M others, down to present-­day scholars like John K. Fairbank, Joseph Levenson, and Stephen Owen. Gu’s book does not attempt to correct all the mistakes we in the West have made about China over several centuries. That would be a monumental task. He aims rather to answer the question: how did this happen? Why have we not been able to attain an objective understanding of Chinese culture? The errors, as Gu shows, go in both directions. On the one hand, the West has sometimes gone toward a portrayal of China as an uncivilized place of ignorance and “oriental despotism.” On the other hand, we have sometimes gone toward an idealization of China as a perfect civilization governed by wise rulers. These extremes persist to this day, though of course in different forms from those errors Voltaire, for example, committed. On the plus side, we in the West have been taught recently to see China as a miracle of rapid economic, manufacturing, and technological achievement. Our media tell us daily that China may soon be the world’s leading economic power. On the minus side, we in the West are instructed by the media to see China as a place of oppression, censorship, and human rights violations (as if we were never guilty ourselves of these!) The fundamental argument of Sinologism is subtle and complex. It is, as I have said, based on years of research, and judiciously nuanced in its formulations. You must read the book for yourself to find out what he really says. A brief outline, however, may be helpful in this preface. “Singologism” is the key word in this book. It differs from “Sinology.” The difference is something like the difference between “deconstruction” and “deconstructionism.” The former is a flexible strategy of reading. The latter is an often-­blind adherence to a set of formulas like Derrida’s almost universally misunderstood maxim: “There is nothing outside the text. (Il n’y a pas de hors-­texte.)” “Sinology” is the usual name for the academic study of China by Western academics. It is one example of a host of words using as suffixes the English derivative of the complex Greek word logos. Logos in Greek means mind, knowledge, word, rhythm, ratio, and ground. In Christianity, Christ is in St. John’s Gospel called the Logos or, in English, the Word, but Christ is also, in Christian theology, the pervasive ground of the whole Creation. Our “-logy” words tend to mean “knowledge of so and so,” or “study of so and so.” English has “theology,” “geology,” “ideology,” etc., and even (in Kenneth Burke’s coinage) “logology,” the general study of “logos.” “Sinologism” is Ming Dong Gu’s coinage for the set of often-­unconscious epistemological and methodological assumptions that form the hidden logic of Western discourses about China. This logic is “unconscious” in the sense that it is so much taken for granted, so much a matter of course, as to be invisible to those who are under its spell. “Few scholars engaged in sinologistic practices,” writes Gu in his Conclusion, “are aware of the fact that they come under the sway of an unconscious motivating force that controls the epistemology and methodology of their scholarship.” Gu’s unconscious almost, but not quite, coincides with the Marxist and Althusserian concept of “ideology,” or with the

Foreword by J. Hillis Miller   xvii Freudian or Jungian unconscious. The difference is that Gu does not stress, as Marx and Althusser do, the dependence of the ideology of Sinologism on circumambient material means of production, distribution, and consumption. As opposed to the differing conceptions of the unconscious in Freud and Jung, Gu’s “cultural unconscious” is connected neither to sexual repression nor to universal archetypes. Though Gu’s terminology is derived from Freud and Jung, and inspired by Jameson’s The Political Unconscious, and Edward Said’s Orientalism, what Gu says differs in essential ways from all of these. Gu argues persuasively against much recent scholarship on China, that Said’s idea of “Orientalism” does not work for China/West discourse. It does not work because Said was talking in the context of Western attempts to dominate and colonize the Near East and Middle East, whereas the West has never conquered China. Gu’s “cultural unconscious” differs from Jameson’s “political unconscious” in having a less overt political dimension and in being more a matter of scholarly distortions in what are asserted to be objective and scholarly accounts of China by the West. Those distortions are brought about by the misapplication of Western epistemologies and methodologies to a culture that is not amenable to such applications. “Sinologization,” says Gu, is an undeclared but tacitly administered institutionalization of the ways of observing China from the perspective of Western epistemology that refuses or is reluctant to view China on its own terms, and of doing scholarship on Chinese materials and producing knowledge on Chinese civilization in terms of Western methodology that tends to disregard the real conditions of China and reduce the complexity of Chinese civilization into simplistic patterns of development modeled on those of the West. Sinologism provides in the course of its chapters abundant and dismaying documentation of sinologization at work. One of the most striking aspects of Gu’s book is the detailed evidence he gives that modern Chinese scholars have in many cases been contaminated by sinologization. They view their own country through Western eyes and make the same distortions Western scholars do. We may not have colonized China in the sense of occupying and exploiting it, but we have colonized the minds of many Chinese scholars who write about China, as well as the minds of ordinary Chinese people. We have persuaded the Chinese themselves to believe that China is inferior to the West and that Western methodologies of scholarship will work to account for Chinese history and culture. “The blind acceptance of Western ideas, theories, models, and paradigms,” writes Gu, created a distinctive Chinese dimension of Sinologism. I argue that the conscious admission of Western superiority and Chinese inferiority was so self-­ consciously promoted and reinforced through propaganda, education, and discourses in media and publications that it penetrated into the deeper layers

xviii   Foreword by J. Hillis Miller of the intellectual mind and became sedimented into a cultural unconscious in intellectual thought. This cultural unconscious is the inner logic responsible for the dazzling arrays of Chinese misrepresentations and mis-­ evaluations of Chinese culture and cultural achievements. Sinologism ends with an eloquent and noble plea for an escape from the mystification of Sinologism by a return to impartial objectivity in scholarship, difficult as it may be to succeed in doing that. I know that difficulty from long experience doing literary criticism of Western works. Even the questions you ask of a work, for example, “what are its narratological assumptions?” are motivated by prejudiced presumptions, for example, in this case, by the assumption that narratological conventions contribute to meaning. I believe that is the case, though I suspect with dismay that this belief may be part of my own cultural unconscious. “Although it is not entirely possible to separate politics from scholarship,” writes Gu we should strive for disinterested production of scholarship, and set as an ideal the practice of striving for knowledge production for knowledge’s sake, not alienated knowledge at the service of any ideological agenda. In a likely manner, we cannot completely cleanse scholarship of political influence, but we should as much as possible strive to depoliticize scholarship and advocate scholarship for scholarship’s sake. A practical way to come close to the idea would be a hermeneutic approach to knowledge production and scholarship, based on the recognition that China is a great book that requires repeated readings and fresh interpretations. Gu’s book is an outstanding example of the hermeneutic scholarship for scholarship’s sake he advocates. I have found Professor Gu’s Sinologism powerful and moving. Reading it has been an eye-­opener for me. It has strongly reinforced my reluctance to make generalizations about present-­day China on the slender basis of the numerous trips I have made there for conferences and to lecture. I have certainly been amazed by the rapid changes I have witnessed in China over the couple of decades I have been making visits, but I have mostly learned how complicated and challenging the question of China is, and how ignorant I am about China. If so many learned scholars have got China wrong, why should I assume I can get it right? Sinologism has helped me to become aware of the degree to which, almost in spite of myself, I have been to some degree under the spell of sinologization. Almost all my sinological assumptions, based on what I have been told by the media and by Western China experts, have turned out to be wrong when I have tested them empirically; for example the suspicion that the way of teaching of literature in China is prescribed by an authoritarian bureaucracy. A trustworthy Chinese informant, a teacher herself, assures me, with detailed documentation, that teachers have much freedom in the classroom to teach a given literary work as they like and also to choose just which works to teach. Tacit limits exist,

Foreword by J. Hillis Miller   xix of course, but so do they in United States classes in literature. I also learned just the other day from a student I met in China, and continue to exchange emails with, that a large number of websites exist in China that contain original works of fiction and that these are read by large numbers of Chinese. It sounds as if China may be ahead of the United States in preserving literary creativity through use of the internet. That was yet another surprise for me about present-­day Chinese culture. I urge all who read this preface to hurry on to read the book itself. It is a wonderfully exciting work of scholarship and analysis. Sinologism is a major contribution to China/Western Studies and cross-­cultural studies. It is a superbly learned and wide-­ranging book. Its highly original theoretical paradigm is persuasively cogent. The book will be constructively useful as an alternative to ­Orientalism and postcolonialism. January 26, 2012 Sedgwick, Maine

Acknowledgments

In the process of writing this book, I have received advice, assistance, and support from various institutions and individuals. First of all, I owe the completion of this book to two institutions that I have worked for in the past ten years or so. The first is my previous institution, Rhodes College, Tennessee. While I was working there I received several Faculty Development Endowment Grants, part of which enabled me to gather research data and conduct initial research in the US and China. The second is the University of Texas at Dallas where I am now working. In my current institution I was awarded a Special Faculty Development Award, which allowed me to take a whole semester off to concentrate on my book project and turn previously written chapters into a publishable book. A third institution to which I am indebted is the Institute for Advanced Studies of Humanities and Social Sciences at Nanjing University. In the summer of 2010 I was hosted by the Institute and stayed there to revise my completed book draft. In the conception and writing of the book I have received inspirations, insights, expertise, and thought-­ provoking suggestions from these world renowned scholars: Professors J. Hillis Miller of the University of California at Irvine, W. J. T. Mitchell of the University of Chicago, Rey Chow of Duke University, and Li Zehou, Professor Emeritus of the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, with whom I have engaged in extended discussions through correspondences, face-­to-face discussions, or extended telephone conversations. In clarifying my visions, and locating viable approaches for the book, I received gracious assistance and advice from Professor Rey Chow of Duke University, who made light of her hectic schedule to comment on my book proposal and offer thoughtful and insightful suggestions. After the first draft of the book was completed, I gave some key chapters to my colleagues and friends in my current institution, and other institutions of higher learning, and sought their opinions and criticism. These scholars include Professor J. Hillis Miller of the University of California at Irvine, Professor Dennis Kratz, Dean of the School of Arts and Humanities, Professor Fredrick Turner of University of Texas at Dallas, and Professor Zhou Xian, director of the Institute for Advanced Studies of Humanities and Social Sciences at Nanjing University. All of them read the chapters critically and offered perceptive comments and useful suggestions that helped clarify my visions and enabled me to revise my book into a desirable shape. To all of them I am permanently in debt.

Acknowledgments   xxi I want to single out Professor Zhou Xian for special thanks. He showed a great interest in my book project and invited me to present my research results at Nanjing University’s Renowned Scholars’ Forum several times. Moreover, he encouraged me to translate and rewrite parts of my book in Chinese and have them published in reputable Chinese journals. Because of his encouragement and support, I turned sections of the book into six articles and had them published in these prestigious journals in China: the Journal of Nanjing University (2010, No. 1; 2011, No. 3), Literary Review (2010, No. 3), Academic Monthly (2010, No. 12), Journal of Tsinghua University (2011, No. 2), and Journal of Dr. Sun Yat­sen University (2012, No. 1). To the editors of these journals I wish to express my heartfelt thanks for publishing my articles. Apart from his encouragement, Professor Zhou Xian has played an important role in my efforts to improve the draft and to perfect the book. His sagacious insights helped sharpen my vision on crucial theoretical issues and his candid criticism made it possible for me to identify blind spots in my conceptualizations. To further help me hone the book, he made the suggestion for a symposium on “Sinologism: Theoretical Inquiry,” jointly organized by the Institute for Advanced Studies of Humanities and Social Sciences at Nanjing University and the School of Art and Humanities of the University of Texas at Dallas. The symposium was held in Nanjing, October 20–21, 2010, and attended by over a dozen renowned scholars including Professors Kam Louie of the University of Hong Kong, Zhao Xifang and Ye Jun of the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, Wang Ning of Tsinghua University, Zhao Yiheng and Cao Shunqing of Sichuan University, Geng Youzhuang of the Chinese Peoples’ University, Cheng Aimin, Zhang Bowei, Cheng Zhangcan, Qian Linsen, He Chengzhou of Nanjing University, and Tian Weiping, editor-­inchief of the Academic Monthly. Each of them addressed issues in my presentation and critiqued my presented ideas in a candid manner. To each of them I express my sincere thanks. In the past few years I have had opportunities to present my ideas on Sinologism at a number of universities in China, among which are Southeast University, Nanjing University, Yangzhou University, Tsinghua University, and Huazhong University of Science and Technology. I’d like to take this opportunity to thank the faculties and students of those universities for their comments and critical opinions. At the International Conference on “Literature and Form,” and the Annual Conference of Chinese Association of Theories of Literature and Art in 2010, the organizers generously invited me to present part of my research on Sinologism at a plenary session. I wish to thank the organizers of the conference for giving me the opportunity, and Professor Hu Yamin of Huazhong Normal University for commenting on my presentation. I have also discussed my conceptions and ideas of the book with Professors Roger T. Ames of the University of Hawaii, Liangyan Ge of Notre Dame University, Zhou Ning of Xiamen University, Wang Shouren of Nanjing University, Wang Tingxin, Liu Xuming, and Ji Xin of Southeast University, Zhou Yun of Jiangsu Normal College, Chen Jun, Yu Hongliang, and Qin Xu of Yangzhou University, Wan Xuemei of Jiangsu University, and Zhuang Guo’ou of Central Arkansas

xxii   Acknowledgments University. I have also discussed ideas in the book with my graduate students and received feedback from them. My doctoral student Yuehong Chen took much time to prepare the bibliography, and another doctoral student, Tang Le, took the trouble to prepare the index. To each of them I wish to extend my gratitude. I am most grateful to two anonymous reviewers of the Routledge Press for recommending my book for publication and for their detailed suggestions for improvement. I am especially grateful to one of them. When I submitted my manuscripts to Routledge for review, I myself was dissatisfied with the structural organization. But because of my vague vision on how to reorganize the general structure, I was unable to find a satisfactory way to solve the problem. One of the two readers came to my aid and offered a viable suggestion that helped me clarify my previously vague vision and come up with a satisfactory organizational scheme. Last but not least I wish to thank two of the publisher’s editors, Ms. Stephanie Rogers and Ms. Hannah Mack, for working with me in turning the manuscript into a successful book, my wife Ping Lu for emotional and logistical support which enabled me to squeeze precious time out of my teaching schedule and daily life to finish the manuscript, and my son William Gu for helping me with computer-­related technical issues. Professor Hillis Miller has been a mentor to me for many years. He read my book chapters and provided insightful comments and suggestions for revision. What moved me most is that when I asked him if he could write a preface for the book after it was accepted for publication, he graciously accepted my invitation and generously took his precious time to finish it before the final manuscripts were turned over to the publisher. As a token of my boundless gratitude, I have decided to dedicate this book to him.

Introduction Orientalism and beyond

“Seek truths through hard facts.”

Ban Gu, author of the History of the Han

“To be conscious that you are ignorant is a great step to knowledge.” Benjamin Disraeli “Distortion is the bane of knowledge; politics a hindrance to scholarship; prejudice paves the way to intolerance; a closed mind leads to atrophied creativity.” Anonymous

This is a book on cross-­cultural study, a very broad topic, but it was nevertheless initiated by a rather modest aim and focuses on aspects of China–West studies. For over two decades I have been preoccupied with these questions: why, for centuries, have the West and the world continuously produced knowledge about China that deviates from the realities of Chinese civilization? Why, since China was forced to enter the modern world after the Opium War (1839–1842), have Chinese intellectuals oscillated between exaggerated eulogies and masochistic condemnation of their own culture on the one hand, and between unhealthy fetishization and irrational dismissal of Western theories, paradigms, and approaches to scholarship and knowledge on the other? And why have some of the world’s most sagacious thinkers and most discerning critics expressed ideas of, and commentaries on, Chinese intellectual thought, literature, arts, and society, which border on fallacies or are downright wrong? Having observed numerous cases of inaccuracy and distortion in a variety of fields by both Chinese and Western intellectuals, I have come to the realization that the misperceptions of China by the West and misinterpretations of Chinese culture by the Chinese themselves do not simply come from the obvious factors of misinformation, biases and prejudices, or political interference; there is a fundamental logic sustained by epistemological and methodological underpinnings that has become a cultural unconscious. This unconsciousness further splits off into a series of unconsciousnesses, among which an intellectual and academic unconscious is located at the center. The conflicting images of China in the West’s produced knowledge and in the assessment by the Chinese themselves are but

2   Introduction: Orientalism and beyond the inevitable outcome of this cultural unconscious, lying at the heart of the overall misperception of China and constituting the inner logic of a comprehensive knowledge system, for which I have employed the term “Sinologism.” Since 1990 I have been determined to undertake a long-­term inquiry into the inner logic that has troubled general knowledge production about China and the West. For this purpose I have prepared myself as best as I can, especially in critical theories. Naturally, Edward Said’s theory of Orientalism came to my attention first and became the major source of inspiration and insight. Indeed, since I first encountered Said in person at a public lecture during his tour, at the University of Kent at Canterbury, England in 1986, I have cherished the ambition to write a book that addresses Orientalist problems in China studies. Initially, however, I attempted to apply Said’s critical insights to relevant materials in China–West studies with the expected outcome of a book that would have this title, “Orientalism in Sinology.” But I gradually came to the disconcerting realization that effective as it is, Said’s theory of Orientalism turns out to be a square peg in the round hole of China-­related materials, and the application of it often makes me feel as though one were scratching an itchy toe from outside one’s shoe. Said reiterated on several occasions that his book was written in response to the situation of domestic and international politics. As Said’s theory mainly deals with Westerners’ (both colonizers and scholars) problematic perception, conception, and evaluation of the cultures of the Middle East, it has left out the colonized people completely from his picture of Orientalism. Moreover, Said’s critical theory has not dealt with the attitudes toward and views of the colonized culture by the colonized people themselves. It is, therefore, understandable for some scholars to take issue with Said for completely leaving out the colonized people in his critical studies. Arif Dirlik is a vocal critic of this weakness in Orientalism: Where orientalism as articulated by Said is wanting, I think, is in ignoring the ‘oriental’s’ participation in the unfolding of the discourse on the orient, which raises some questions both about the location of the discourse and, therefore, its implications for power. I have suggested above that orientalism, regardless of its ties to Eurocentrism both in origin and in its history, in some basic ways required the participation of ‘orientals’ for its legitimation. And in its practice, orientalism from the beginning took shape as an exchange of images and representations, corresponding to the circulation of intellectuals and others – first the circulation of Europeans in Asia, but increasingly with a counter-­circulation of Asians in Europe and the United States.1 Dirlik has rightly identified a major weakness in Said’s Orientalism: it has paid little attention to the colonized people’s role in the perpetuation of colonized mentality and self-­colonization, still less to what Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak describes as “the possibility that the intellectual is complicit in the persistent constitution of the Other as the Self ’s shadow.”2 This weakness has also been criticized by other postcolonial critics, including Homi Bhabha,3 Robert Young,4

Introduction: Orientalism and beyond   3 Ziauddin Sardar, Aijaz Ahmad, and other postcolonial and Marxist critics, who have done a great of work to revise, remedy, and reconceptualize Said’s contributions in their writings. As a result, postcolonial studies have gone beyond Said’s sharp dichotomy between the West and East, the colonizer and colonized, and broadened Said’s vision. It would seem to be of practical use for my inquiries. But once again, I realized that the postcolonial discourse has its own limits and limitations. One obvious point is that China was never colonized by the West. This historical condition would certainly have left its impact upon the perception and views of Chinese culture and society by the Westerners and the Chinese, including both ordinary people and intellectuals, and upon their ways of doing scholarship. Another obvious point is related to the first: the differences in nature and function shaped by history between the matrix of Orientalism (Oriental scholarship) and the matrix of Sinologism (sinological scholarship). Nowadays, most scholars accept Orientalism as a “colonial discourse,” but few scholars engaged in sinological scholarship would accept Sinology as a colonial discourse for the obvious reason that they are differently motivated scholarship. Homi Bhabha offers a simple description of colonial discourse: “The objective of colonial discourse is to construe the colonized as a population of degenerate types on the basis of racial origin, in order to justify conquest and to establish systems of administration and instruction.”7 In terms of this description, Sinology is certainly not a colonial discourse. Thus, to approach the problems in China knowledge production using a theory generalized out of the studies of cultures colonized totally by the West would be inadequate to say the least. As time went on, and especially as my knowledge of literary and cultural theories as well as knowledge about China–West studies broadened, I found another big weakness in the use of Orientalist and postcolonial models for an approach to China–West studies. This weakness constitutes my biggest dissatisfaction with both Orientalism and postcolonialism. I will discuss it in detail in Chapter 1, but for the time being, I will just mention it. The weakness is that their politically oriented and ideologically motivated approaches easily give rise to culture wars which are incapable of resolving scholarly issues and often ignore the fundamental objectives of knowledge and scholarship. As a result of this perception, I came to the realization that I needed a new conceptual paradigm, different from that of Orientalism and postcolonialism. Accordingly, my plan has changed from writing a book on the application of Said’s theory to writing a book of critical inquiry that aims at self-­conscious reflection on how to conduct China–West studies and cross-­cultural studies and produce knowledge about China in ways as free from the interference of politics and ideology as possible. I have been keenly aware of a deep-­seated intellectual mentality and scholarly habit in China–West studies; the conscious and unconscious acceptance of Western teleological models and conceptual frameworks for Chinese materials irrespective of their appropriateness and the historical and cultural conditions in which the materials were generated. My awareness has been shared by not a few sagacious Chinese thinkers, among whom Li Zehou and Wang Hui are two prominent representatives, who have conducted deep reflections on how to 5

6

4   Introduction: Orientalism and beyond address the relationship between Chinese and Western knowledge. On numerous occasions Li Zehou criticizes the predominant trend in Chinese academia since 1919, which mechanically borrows and applies Western theories to Chinese materials with the consequence of losing grasp of the distinctiveness of Chinese culture. As recently as 2006, he reiterated: Since the May Fourth Movement of 1919, Chinese thinkers from Hu Shi, Feng Youlan to Mou Zongsan have all employed Western conceptual frameworks to talk about Chinese things. This way of doing scholarship has its achievements: it has achieved certain successes in elucidating such Chinese concepts as the Dao (the Way), Qi (pneuma or vital energy), Taiji (Great Ultimate), Xing (Nature), Li (Principle) and other ideas, which are not easy to explain. But it has also cancelled out the distinctive features of Chinese culture.8 In his introduction to Wang Hui’s most recent book in English, The Politics of Imagining Asia, editor Theodore Huters identifies a similar methodological concern in Wang’s book: “[T]he real leitmotif of these essays is a profound dissatisfaction with the imported Western discourses that have been used to characterize and analyze China for most of the past century.”9 Like Wang Hui, I am concerned with the uneasiness with which materials and analytic data from Chinese history and culture have been forced to fit into the Western-­centric conceptual models and paradigms. Nevertheless, my book differs from Wang Hui’s book in content and especially in approach. While Wang’s book offers his “ongoing efforts to delineate a different vision of Chinese history, one that is not set exclusively in the Western conceptual framework that has dominated most Western and recent Chinese thinking about Chinese history and its legacy,” and “to develop the possibility of an alternative modernity,”10 my book attempts to get behind and beneath the miscellaneous phenomena in China–West studies with the aim of finding insights for an adequate understanding of the inner logic for the misperceptions and misrepresentations in China–West studies. Nevertheless, my book shares his spirit of critical skepticism on mechanical application of Western-­generated theories to Chinese materials. By way of an example to illustrate the scholarly habit of applying Western ideas and models to Chinese materials of ancient China, Wang Hui observes: [M]any modern scholars, heavily influenced by modern European philosophy, proceed directly to make philosophical analyses of Song dynasty thought from within the framework of ontology, realism, and epistemology. In my opinion, however, such an analytical method is in itself extrinsic to Song thought, being an interpretive system based on the concepts, categories, and theoretical frameworks of European philosophy.11 Wang Hui’s comment contains the epistemological conviction with which I embark on my inquiry into the problematics of China–West studies.

Introduction: Orientalism and beyond   5 After years of observation, contemplation, and research, I have clarified my vision and located crucial insights into the inner logic of the problems in China– West studies, which, I believe, is an ideological unconscious in China–West knowledge production. The insights have enabled me to uncover the core of a comprehensive knowledge system, which I term “Sinologism.” Sinologism is not a form of Orientalism, Euro-­centrism, Western-­centrism, or Ethno-­centrism though it touches aspects of all of them. Sinologism is a new concept that I have employed to refer to the problematics in Western knowledge production about China and Chinese knowledge production about the West. It is related to Sinology, an area study focusing on China, but it is not a form of Sinology. Rather, it is an alienated form of Sinology and knowledge production, which comprehensively covers problematic ways of doing scholarship on China–West studies with a distinct epistemology and methodology. In the past 20 years I have been collecting research materials, thinking hard on some core issues, and writing intermittently on the project. After years of research, I have completed the project; which has become an inquiry into a hidden paradigm of knowledge production in China–West studies as well as cross-­cultural studies.

What is Sinologism? Sinologism is a recent coinage that has yet to be defined and accepted into a dictionary. Its denotations and connotations are still widely open. In the West, the term seems to have first appeared around the late 1990s. In 1998 Bob Hodge and Kam Louie used the term in their study of Chinese language and culture.12 In the same year, Adrian Hsia, another scholar in Germany, published a book, Chinesia (1998), which focuses on the construction of China by European thinkers and writers in the seventeenth and eighteenth century. In the book, Hsia not only used the term “Sinologism” but also showed how Said’s notion of Orientalism naturally gives rise to the term “Sinologism.” In explaining an invented term “Sinism,” he suggests that it may also be called “Sinologism” because it “would seem to parallel Edward Said’s notion of Orientalism . . . and would seem to be a more precise term than Orientalism described by Said” in the study of European construction of China.13 In China, Zhou Ning, a professor at Xiamen University, was the first to use the term and advance it as a critical category.14 There are one or two mentions of the term in other writings, but generally speaking, the word has not yet received much attention from scholars. Doubtless, the appearance of Sinologism is inspired by Edward Said’s Orientalism. Indeed, the few existing references to this word both in China and the West characterize it as a form of Orientalism in sinological studies.15 But in my conception, Sinologism is not another form of Orientalism, because unlike Said’s Orientalism, which is an intellectual product totally created by the West, Sinologism is not a purely Western invention, but an intellectual enterprise jointly undertaken by the Chinese and Westerners. I admit, Sinologism shares some fundamental principles with Orientalism. Although people may have ­different interpretation of Said’s Orientalism, Said’s seminal work may be

6   Introduction: Orientalism and beyond understood as the Western construction of the Orient in ways that serve to advance the agendas of Western colonization. True, like Orientalism, Sinologism is also a Western construction of China, but as I will show in the following chapters, it is only one of the many dimensions. Sinologism is a more complex and comprehensive system of knowledge production that has both benign and malicious motivations, romantic and unsightly features, positive and negative outcomes. Fundamentally, while Orientalism is a theory about explicit and implicit views, ideas, beliefs, ideology, and scholarly practices in the service of Western colonization, Sinologism is a theory of knowledge production about China, guided by Western-­centric ideology, epistemology, methodology, and Western perspectives, and immensely complicated by the responses of the Chinese and non-­Western people. It is not just Westerners who use Western perspectives to look at Chinese civilization; it is also the Chinese who employ Western epistemology and methodology to look at the world, their own culture, and themselves. It controls almost all aspects of knowledge production about China. Thus, Sinologism is a bilateral construction by both Chinese and Westerners. Because of this bilateral construction, neither the theories of Orientalism nor postcolonialism are a fitting theoretical paradigm for processing materials and phenomena in Sinologism. In the worldwide context Sinologism is more than a bilateral construction by the Chinese and Westerners. To a certain extent it is an intellectual enterprise undertaken by the whole world with the participation of intellectuals from many countries and regions, including Third World peoples. Because of worldwide globalization, Sinologism has become an intellectual commodity with China as its content, produced by intellectuals all over the world for consumption by all people of the world. To the Chinese people in mainland China, it is not a representation of China described to the world by Western Sinologists and Sinologists of Chinese origin, but rather something with exported Chinese intellectual sources as its raw materials, processed by the Western intellectual machine, and then imported to China as a “hot” intellectual commodity.16 Except for my use of the term as a critical category distinctly different from Orientalism,17 all the existing references to the term have characterized it as a concept that refers to it as a branch of Said’s Orientalism, or just simply a form of Orientalism in sinological studies. Sinologism in this study, however, is a separate conceptual category. Its conception is certainly related to Sinology, an area study focusing on China, and to Orientalism, but as I will argue and discuss in detail in the next chapter, it is neither a form of Orientalism nor a form of Orientalism in sinological studies. I employ “Sinologism” to describe a heterogeneous array of phenomena in China–West studies in particular, and to identify epistemic problems in the West’s perception, conception, and evaluation of Chinese culture in general. As a form of knowledge it came into being as a result of Western attempts, since the thirteenth century, to build a world system, a process now popularly known as globalization. As ways of observing and doing scholarship on China, it refers to the heterogeneous problems lying in the epistemological and methodological approaches to China knowledge production by

Introduction: Orientalism and beyond   7 both Westerners and non-­Westerners. Since its denotation and connotation cannot be found in existing dictionaries, its content will be determined as my study unfolds. Its definition will not be formulated until a substantial amount of research is done. But as a preliminary conception to facilitate inquiry, I will give an initial description. Sinologism is primarily an implicit system of ideas, notions, theories, approaches, and paradigms, first conceived and employed by the West in the encounter with China to deal with all things Chinese and to make sense of the bewildering complexity of Chinese civilization. As the political and intellectual spectrum has been dominated by the West, and the world has to observe China and consume knowledge about China through the Western lens, Sinologism has been complicated and enriched by the non-­Western peoples’ perceptions, conceptions, and evaluations of Chinese civilization. Because the ways of observing China and producing knowledge and scholarship on China are controlled by an inner logic that operates frequently beyond our conscious awareness, Sinologism is basically a cultural unconscious in China–West studies and cross-­ cultural studies. Sinologism is both a system of knowledge and a practical theory of knowledge production. The former mainly covers the heterogeneously complex phenomena in China–West studies, while the latter refers to ways the West in particular and the world in general are engaged in generating knowledge about Chinese civilization. As a whole it is a knowledge system built upon a Western-­ centric system of ideas, notions, theories, approaches, and paradigms, the theoretical core of which is an implicit ideology derived from colonization and self-­colonization in epistemology and methodology. It is characterized by two opposite tendencies: one tends to idealize, patronize, and exaggerate the value of things Chinese, while the other tends to criticize, dismiss, and devalue things Chinese in terms of a teleological model derived from studies of Western materials. Although the two tendencies come from opposite directions, they share one common ground: Western standards must be upheld as the yardstick by which Chinese materials are to be evaluated. Sinologism has a secondary dimension, which is almost absent in Orientalism. This dimension has two aspects. One aspect refers to non-­Western people’s (including the Chinese) conscious and unconscious absorption of Western epistemology and approaches to Chinese materials, the willing acceptance of the imposed Western models, a self-­conscious application of Western standards in evaluating things both Chinese and Western, and the implicit and explicit admission of the superiority of Western cultures over non-­Western cultures. An extreme manifestation of this dimension is epitomized by the almost masochistic attacks on Chinese civilization by some Chinese intellectuals. Another aspect is just the opposite. Its extreme form has been characterized by Rey Chow in a scathing description: [W]hat we often encounter is a kind of cultural essentialism – in this case, sinocentrism – that draws an imaginary boundary between China and the

8   Introduction: Orientalism and beyond rest of the world. Everything Chinese, it follows, is fantasized as somehow better – longer in existence, more intelligent, more scientific, more valuable, and ultimately beyond comparison.18 Some Sinologists of Chinese origin, and Chinese scholars, hold the opinion that because of the long-­enduring nature of Chinese history and civilization, and the distinctive features of Chinese language and literature, few Western people, even including Sinologists and China experts, can truly penetrate into their deep structure and fully understand and appreciate their spiritual essence and cultural depth. Hence, their Chinese studies are either impressionistic accounts that scratch the surface of Chinese materials, or full of downright Western-­centric prejudices and biases. For example, some Chinese scholars claim on various occasions that ancient Chinese poetry can be fully understood and appreciated only by the Chinese. Some Western Sinologists have rightfully dubbed this view as “ethno-­criticism.”19 Some other Chinese scholars hold the opinion that Chinese civilization is a unique tradition totally different from other traditions, and has developed a system of approaches to Chinese materials for which Western theory and methodology are ineffective. Hence, they call for a resistance to, and complete rejection of, Western theories and approaches in the study of Chinese materials, and insist on adhering to traditional approaches to Chinese scholarship. In my opinion this kind of parochial view distorts Chinese culture in a different way and represents a tendency that should be rightly criticized as “Sino-­centrism,” and even smacks of cultural fundamentalism.

Alternative conceptual grounding The conceptual grounding of the book is neither the theories of Orientalism nor postcolonialism. It is an integrated grounding that has two overarching conceptual underpinnings. The first is the idea of “cultural unconscious,” which consists of a series of sub-­categories: “intellectual unconscious,” “scholarly unconscious,” “epistemological unconscious,” “methodological unconscious,” “ethnic unconscious,” “political unconscious,” “linguistic unconscious,” and “literary unconscious,” etc. The grouping of all these unconsciousnesses into one arch-­ category will serve as my conceptual grounding, which attempts to comprehensively cover all the issues related to Sinologism in my book, and sets my conception of Sinologism apart from Orientalism and postcolonialism. The cultural unconscious is so pervasive that I will demonstrate in this study that few scholars, including myself, are immune to its hidden power. The second idea is “alienation of knowledge,” which, I argue, is adequate to describe the nature and condition of Sinologism. In terms of alienated knowledge, I regard Sinologism as the alienation of Sinology and China–West knowledge. The integration of “cultural unconscious” and “alienated knowledge” has constituted the theoretical core for the conceptual framework of the book. In line with this conceptual core, the book will devote substantial space to theorize the cultural unconscious and

Introduction: Orientalism and beyond   9 focus on how Sinologism has evolved into “alienated knowledge” in China– West studies. I suggest that the cultural unconscious is the source and driving force for Sinologism, while alienated knowledge of sinological and China–West studies is its end product. Based on the conceptual grounding, the book will first theorize the thematic concerns for Sinologism and then continue to explore its rationale and its multiple dimensions. This organizational arrangement will fulfill my intention of initiating a new paradigm for China–West studies. This potential paradigm is based on the assumption that Sinologism is an intellectual enterprise with multiple dimensions in academic fields (humanities, social and natural sciences) operated by an inner logic which is largely unconscious and often produces alienated knowledge. The reason why Sinologism has the potential to become a paradigm is that it is capable of offering new visions and approaches for scholars from diverse fields and disciplines to explore its manifestations, and to emancipate the scholarly mind from its epistemological and methodological shackles in producing knowledge in China–West studies. With the proposed conceptual grounding, my study is not one that proposes Sinologism as a critical theory and employs case studies to explore its principles and logic; but one that aims at a critical theory of self-­conscious reflection. With such a theoretical orientation, my book is not mainly intended as one that sets out to expose biases and prejudices against China, correct errors and misrepresentations of Chinese civilization, and dispute misperceptions and misinterpretations of Chinese materials. Although all these objectives remain visible in the process of analysis, they are relatively easy to accomplish as numerous studies of this kind have already appeared. A more difficult job is to get behind and beneath the identified problems in order to uncover the motivations, mental frameworks, attitudes, and reasons for all those phenomena. My basic objective is to discover the inner logic responsible for the problems arising in scholarship on China and the West. In conceptual terms, my study is primarily intended to discover the epistemology and methodology for the dazzling phenomena under the rubric “Sinologism.” Secondarily, I want to raise people’s awareness of a cultural unconscious responsible for problematic knowledge production, and to show its grave consequences in the context of globalization, which, among other things, includes obstructing cross-­cultural exchanges and causing epistemic inertia and the atrophy of original creativity of non-­Western peoples. Third, I want to contribute to the clarification of scholarly issues in the application of Said’s theory of Orientalism to Sinology and China studies. Last, but not least, I hope to initiate a viable shift in the existing paradigm of China studies, which is based on Western-­centric models and pseudo-­scientific teleology, and to offer inspirations for locating genuinely scientific ways of knowledge production about China. My ultimate purpose is to encourage and promote the production of relatively neutral and objective knowledge about China, free from bias, prejudice, subjective attitudes, and political interference of any kind. This last aim may seem rather utopian, given the widely accepted view that knowledge is ­constructed and truth, even in natural sciences, is not free from subjectivity.

10   Introduction: Orientalism and beyond Nevertheless, I wish to insist that even though there is no absolutely objective knowledge, we must uphold the relative neutral nature of knowledge. Otherwise, knowledge production will degenerate into wars of discourse, culture wars, or even worse, ideological wars, which will compromise the dissemination of knowledge, promote cultural intolerance and bigotry, and hinder inter-­cultural understanding. Worse still, it will add fuel to the clash of civilizations forewarned by Samuel Huntington in his well-­known argument.20

Objectives and scope Although this book was originally inspired by Orientalism to launch a critique of Western ways of looking at China and its misrepresentations of Chinese culture, its current concern, which departs from the original objective radically, is to probe the inner logic of scholarship and produced knowledge. It is therefore not a study of knowledge, but one about knowledge production. To be more precise, it is a critical inquiry into knowledge production about China and Chinese civilization vis-­à-vis the West and the world. Knowledge about China has its broad and narrow senses. In its broad sense it is any learning about China; in its narrow sense, it refers to Sinology or China studies. As a critical inquiry, the primary focus of this book is on the problems that have appeared in China–West studies, while its secondary concern is with problems in China knowledge produced in the non-­Western world including China. By analyzing the problematics of China–West knowledge production, and uncovering the inner logic behind it, this book attempts to find inspiration and insights for offering more scientific, less subjective, and more judicious approaches to knowledge production about China and the West. With a predominantly academic orientation, I hope to posit a theory of critical reflection under the conceptual category of Sinologism, and open new ground for China–West study in particular and for cross-­cultural studies in general. Specifically, my project attempts to explore the origin, rise, historical development, characteristic features, current condition, and inner logic of Sinologism, and examine its manifestations in the produced knowledge about China in the diverse fields of history, thought, language, literature, art, religion, aesthetic theory, and cultural studies. My book also addresses a series of theoretical questions, some of which I have already mentioned above; while other questions include: is it scholarly justified to posit Sinologism as a conceptual category at a time when Orientalism and postcolonialism are accepted theories of critique in China studies? If it is, what exactly is Sinologism? In what ways does it differ from other critical theories such as Orientalism and postcolonialism? If Sinologism is a valid conceptual category, how broad and diverse are the areas covered by it? Is Sinologism a form of ideology in knowledge production about China? What is sinologization? What are its consequences? How can we resist the trend of sinologization in different areas? Can we turn Sinologism from a deconstructive discourse of critique to a constructive paradigm that facilitates the rise of genuinely scientific ways of observing and doing scholarship on China and

Introduction: Orientalism and beyond   11 inspires and encourages the production of knowledge of truly universal value? And an overarching concern is: should the theoretical exploration of Sinologism yield a theory of critique rooted in politics and ideology, or should it generate a theory of self-­conscious reflection on how to produce disinterested knowledge and scholarship? The book consists of an introduction, eight chapters, and a conclusion. The introduction addresses the origin, objectives, and thematic concerns of the book, as well as the major reason why a theory of critique on China knowledge production under the conceptual category of Sinologism is proposed. The first three chapters lay the groundwork for the whole book by exploring Sinologism in relation to some related theories, categories, and issues, and by examining the problems in China knowledge production from the historical and critical perspectives. Chapter 1 explores the theoretical issues for proposing Sinologism and justifies the proposition of it as a conceptual category for critical inquiry. It argues that neither Orientalism nor postcolonialism is able to meet the needs of China–West studies, and that it is necessary to propose a new theory to replace them. In their place, it advances a theory of cultural unconscious as the guiding principle for critically examining problems in China–West studies in particular and for cross-­cultural studies in general. It also discusses conceptual issues pertaining to Sinologism and its possible coverage. Chapter 2 examines the relation of Sinologism to “Sinology,” works out the major differences between Sinology and Sinologism on the one hand, and Sinologism and Orientalism on the other, and clarifies the interrelationship between Sinologism and other ideological thoughts like Euro-­centrism, Western-­centrism, ethno-­centrism, Occidentalism, etc. In addition, it probes the relationship between Sinologism and forms of non-­ territorial colonization, and examines the ultimate form of Sinologism: sinologization. Chapter 3 conducts a historical critique of Sinologism. Instead of offering an exhaustive historical account, it examines its development at some crucial stages of evolution from its early rise through its maturity to its modern forms. By critically examining the works of some major thinkers and scholars in Western history, it seeks to grasp the pivotal points of development crucial to the formation of “Sinologism” as a system of knowledge production about China, Chapters 4 and 5 are related by their conceptual concerns with the epistemology and methodology of Sinologism. By reflecting on the theoretical insights teased out of critiques of chosen theorists’ works in history, the two chapters examine issues of Sinologism in conceptual terms, formulate conceptual frameworks capable of describing and critiquing aspects of the problematics of knowledge production about China and Chinese civilization, and seek to uncover the epistemology, methodology, and working logic responsible for the dazzling array of phenomena that can be subsumed under the conceptual category of “Sinologism.” Chapter 4 studies the ideology of epistemology in Sinologism, and argues that it is predicated on a subtle ideology, or what we may call “ideological unconscious.” This ideology is, to a large extent, not real-­political in nature but evolves out of a problematic epistemology which transforms ways of observing China into an epistemic ideology. The chapter examines the inner

12   Introduction: Orientalism and beyond logic of Sinologism, defines it, and explores its nature and content. Chapter 5 examines the ideology of methodologies in Sinologism and suggests that it is a rationale based on certain habitual ways of doing scholarship on Chinese civilization. Despite their claim to do objective, scientific, and bias-­free scholarship, the various approaches of Sinologism reveal their ideologically laden nature and subjectively oriented rationale to be contaminated by academic politics, discursive power, and ethnic identity. As the methodological problems are often perpetrated without conscious awareness of their inherent biases and prejudices, the ideology of methodologies becomes a methodological unconscious responsible for the misperception, miscomprehension, and distorted representations of Chinese civilization. Chapters 6 and 7 have their focus on issues relating to common concerns with politics, ethnicity, and identity, and explore how these issues shape scholars’ mentalities in doing scholarship, bring about politicization of scholarship, and obstruct meaningful dialogues among scholars of different ethnic origins and nationalities. Chapter 6 deals with politics of scholarship caused by the difference of ethnic origin. Drawing materials from studies of Chinese antiquity and intellectual thought, it examines how concern over the ethnic origins of scholars develops into identity politics in scholarship, and how it adversely affects conceptions and uses of paradigms of scholarship. Since few scholars entangled in the identity politics are consciously aware of ethnic identity at work, or are willing to acknowledge it, the mentality responsible for the negative impact on scholarship may be called “ethnic unconscious.” Chapter 7 argues that despite its subtle and less invasive form than that in Orientalism and postcolonial studies, there is a political dimension in China–West scholarship. Real-­politics became an important factor in China knowledge production after China turned from a feudal empire into a nation state, especially after the establishment of the People’s Republic of China. The recognition of China as a socialist state belonging to the communist camp during the Cold War period introduces a visible orientation into China–West studies that has gradually evolved into a political unconscious in China knowledge production. This chapter draws analytic data from a wide range of sources covering both Chinese and American civilizations. The last chapter is a case study that deals with Sinologism in language studies. It is meant to demonstrate how Western-­centric epistemology and methodology in doing linguistic scholarship cause both Chinese and Western scholars to misunderstand and misrepresent Chinese language and writing. By re-­examining the enduring controversy over the nature of Chinese language, especially writing, the chapter argues that the dazzling varieties constitute what may be termed linguistic Sinologism, which in the case of Chinese language is conditioned by Western phonocentrism and logo-­centrism. Refusing to study Chinese language on its own terms, scholars investigate it from the Western linguistic point of view and determine the nature of Chinese writing in terms of Western alphabetic languages with the consequence that the true conditions of Chinese language are distorted and misrepresented. The epilog presents some afterthoughts on Sinologism, redefines

Introduction: Orientalism and beyond   13 it as alienated knowledge, and offers reflections on how to avoid sinologization in China–West studies, how to go beyond Sinologism, and how to transform it from a theory of deconstructive criticism to a constructive theory of knowledge production. It draws the conclusion: Sinologism is not a theory of critique but a theory of self-­conscious reflection.

Critical concerns I am a scholar of humanities whose specialty is comparative study of Chinese and Western languages, literatures, and thought. My specialty determines that the analytic data used in this book will come from these fields, but the research materials are also taken from a wide variety of sources and writings by a large number of thinkers and scholars in other fields, including sinological studies and China–West studies. In the areas where I engage in considerably in-­depth ana­ lysis, my primary concern is not with resolving controversial issues but with how the diverse issues reveal an unrecognized inner logic that gives rise to those issues and how recognition of it may help us find ways to move beyond the controversies. Among the scholars from whom I have drawn analytic data, some are long gone, some are still alive, and some are my teachers, colleagues, and friends. Whatever materials I cite for critical analysis, whether for praise or criticism, affirmation or disputation, I want to make it absolutely clear that I cherish the highest admiration for, and most profound reverence of, their work; for which I am forever in debt, a debt I can never repay. Since this book is meant to construct a theory of critical reflection which takes problems in knowledge production as its analytic focus, it cannot avoid being critical in orientation and approach, and sometimes it may even seem polemic in argument. When I recall the fury and furore aroused by Said’s Orientalism among Orientalist scholars and Sinologists, I cannot help but contemplate with unease what kind of response and reaction I will get when my book is in print. I feel especially uneasy on three counts. First, my book involves critical analysis of some of my teachers, colleagues, and friends. My criticism may be misconstrued as indications of disrespect. Second, in spite of my call for depoliticization and de-­ideologization of scholarship, I do not avoid politically, ideologically, and ethnically related controversies. Third, in my attempt to find ways out of the ghetto of culture war in scholarship, my study is critical of politicized scholarship by the right as well as by the left. For all of these reasons I am quite fearful that I may encounter the awkward situation of someone who ventures into no-­man’s land in a war, and gets shot from all sides. But after much reflection I feel reassured by the fact that my overarching concern is with scholarship, not with any form of personal animosity, or ideological position. Scholarship is scholarship; knowledge is knowledge; both should be disinterested, at least in principle. Disinterested scholarship should be free from any non-­scholarly ­considerations: ideological, personal, social, academic, whatever. It should, in particular, transcend the influence of politics and ideology. The idea of disinterestedness has, since Matthew Arnold first proposed it as a rule in the late

14   Introduction: Orientalism and beyond n­ ineteenth century,21 been subjected to relentless scrutiny and vehement disputations, but we need to make a distinction between cultural criticism and scholarship/knowledge production. While criticism is inevitably affected by a critic’s political and ideological positions, the relatively neutral nature of knowledge and scholarship should not only be accepted and respected, but also be set as an ideal goal. My knowledge of the history of Sinology informs me that before modern times, sinological studies were seldom contaminated by political considerations. But after China became a nation state, Sinology, or China studies, became heavily embroiled in international politics, ethnic politics, personal politics, and academic politics. My study aims to depart from the political orientation of Orientalism and postcolonialism, freeing China–West knowledge production from political and ideological interference. I wish to caution the reader that my critical analyses of the ethnic and political dimensions of Sinologism should not be mistakenly construed as adopting the same political approach as Orientalism and postcolonialism. I genuinely hope that this book can contribute to depoliticization of scholarship and play a role in creating conditions for the return of the “good old days” when scholars of Chinese and Western origin engaged in sinological studies that were devoted to the noble pursuit of scholarship for its own sake. In writing this book I cherish a number of fond hopes. First, many far-­sighted scholars have expressed their concerns over the fact that the irresistible trend of globalization is Western-­centric, having the danger of becoming varied forms of Westernization and even Amercanization. I hope that my book may make contributions to the healthy development of globalization. Second, I hope that my book may help raise scholars’ awareness of the adverse effects of Sinologism, put them on guard against the potential dangers of sinologization, and inspire original creativity by non-­Western peoples. Third, I hope it may help scholars of East–West studies to go beyond the dichotomy of Orientalism and Occidentalism and open up new avenues in the comparative studies of Eastern and Western cultures. Last, but not least, I hope it may help construct an alternative paradigm to the politically centered and ideology-­laden one initiated by Edward Said’s seminal work, further developed by the current postcolonial studies, and enthusiastically embraced by most scholars in the field of cross-­cultural studies, and offer some theoretical insights for postcolonial and cross-­cultural studies in general and for China–West studies in particular. I would feel immensely satisfied if this book can offer an alternative theory for cross-­cultural studies.

1 Knowledge and cultural unconscious

It has become a cliché to repeat: knowledge is strength and power. But since “a little learning is a dangerous thing,” in many circumstances, biased and distorted knowledge is no better than ignorance. In some circumstances, manipulated knowledge is worse still, for it arouses mistrust, fear, and even hatred, which may bring about strife, conflict, and war. This has been true in cross-­cultural exchanges, especially in the intercourses between China and the West over history. Since the first direct contact between Europe and China in the thirteenth century, there has existed a long-­lasting ambition to formulate comprehensive views, theories, and paradigms that attempt to account for the vast knowledge about Chinese history, language, literature, art, religion, thought, and people, vis-­à-vis the West. But for various reasons the West’s perceptions, conceptions, generalizations, and evaluations tend to be detached from the real conditions of Chinese culture and society. As though reflected in a distorting mirror, China in Western views has almost always been presented as being either larger or smaller than itself, never showing its right size and proper image. The almost inevitable distortion takes polarized forms: the benign one of admiration, appreciation, and idealization, and the malignant one of exoticization, denigration, and demonization. As a consequence, over the centuries, the West’s view of China always tends to oscillate from one extreme to another, seldom producing an accurate picture. In Western representations, China has been viewed as an ideal kingdom on earth where its rulers were wise sage-­kings and its inhabitants lived in peace, harmony, and affluence, while in the characterization by other Westerners, China was a living hell where rulers were Oriental despots and its people were nothing but pitiable slaves. Great thinkers who reflected on China’s history and society gave confident prophecies about China’s development, which invariably turned out to be unfulfilled. Even the so-­called China experts often produce conflicting representations of China and send out contradictory messages about China’s future that have bewildered the world at large. This disconcerting situation is adequately reflected in the recent and ongoing debates about the present day China’s economy and future. At one pole we find a most gloomy picture of China and its future in some China experts’ descriptions. Gordon Chang, a US China expert of Chinese ethnic origin published in

16   Knowledge and cultural unconscious 2001 a book on the bestseller list, The Coming Collapse of China. In it, he paints an utterly dismal view of China’s political and economic future and confidently predicts the imminent implosion of the Chinese economy and government.1 At the other pole we see eminent economists and China experts resolutely refuting Chang’s analysis and frankly dismissing his prediction as sheer fantasy. Contrary to Chang’s pessimistic view, they predict that China’s economy will continue to grow at a fast pace and China will catch up with the industrialized West in 25 years and surpass the US by 2050. Ted C. Fishman’s book, China, Inc. represents this opposing view. The subtitle “How the Rise of the Next Superpower Challenges America and the World” captures a forcefully made assertion repeated by many China watchers that the twenty-­first century will be the “Chinese Century.”2 Most disconcerting of all, the same China experts may express entirely opposite views on the same issue concerning China in a short period of time. In 1995 Lester R. Brown, director of the Worldwatch Institute in the US, published a book, Who Will Feed China?3 Employing carefully designed economic models, he studied the data on China’s food production and consumption in relation to the conditions of the international food market and drew a sensational conclusion: China will not be able to feed its increasingly large population, thereby posing a non-­military threat to world peace and stability. But recently, Brown changed his view and admitted that China has been and will continue to be able to feed its people.4 The ongoing economic downturn that sweeps across the world gives new impetus to the “China Will Collapse” prediction. At the beginning of 2010 Gordon Chang published an article with the title, “China: the world’s next great economic crash,” and made this alarming prediction: “Like Dubai at the beginning of last year, China is now reaching the peak of a bubble.”5 His prediction was echoed by James S. Chanos, who accurately forewarned the collapse of Enron and other high-­flying US companies. Chanos is more pessimistic about the Chinese economy: he predicted that China’s hyper­stimulated economy is headed for a crash which will be worse than that of Dubai.6 The contradictory images of China, and conflicting views of Chinese civilization, are so diverse and so numerous that there have appeared a fairly large number of studies devoted to this topic, which include, among others, Raymond S. Dawson’s The Chinese Chameleon: An Analysis of European Conceptions of Chinese Civilization (1963),7 Steven W. Mosher’s China Misperceived: American Illusions and Chinese Reality (1990),8 Xin Jianfei’s The World’s Perceptions of China: A History of the Knowledge about China over the Past Two Thousand Years (1991),9 Julie Ching and Willard Oxtoby’s Discovering China: European Interpretations in the Enlightenment (1992),10 Adrian Hsia’s Chinesia: The European Construction of China in the Literature of the 17th and 18th Centuries (1998),11 Jonathan Spence’s Chan’s Great China: China in Western Minds (1998),12 Colin Mackerras’s Western Images of China (2000),13 Rupert Hodder’s In China’s Image: Chinese Self-­Perception in Western Thought (2000),14 David Martin Jones’s The Image of China in Western Social and Political Thought (2001),15 Zhou Ning’s The Early Encounters and Conflicts between China and

Knowledge and cultural unconscious   17 the West (2000); China’s Images in Western Theory, Scholarship and Legends (2004); Imagining China (2004); China in the Eyes of the World: A Study of China’s Images Abroad (2009),16 and most recently, Wang Hui’s The Politics of Imaginging Asia (2011).17 This study has no intention to add another account of China’s images in the world through history to the already numerous existing “China image” studies. It intends to look behind the dazzling images for the motivating logic. I argue that the contradictory images of China, and conflicting views of Chinese culture, reveal deep-­seated problems in the Western and the world’s knowledge production concerning China. In their approach to Chinese civilization most Western thinkers and scholars tend to start their inquiry armed with preconceived notions about China in terms of Western knowledge and perspective, and studies of Chinese materials tend to be used as data to confirm or disconfirm the correctness of the preconceptions. Except for a few far-­sighted personages, a majority of scholars, and the public, seem to be unaware of the necessity to modify their preformulated notions, or unwilling to extricate themselves from their imagined and fictionalized accounts of China. In some cases, if the Chinese conditions do not support their notions, they will remold the Chinese materials so as to fit them into the Procrustean bed of Western conceptions and imaginations. One frequently encounters Westerners who can express opinions on China, make generalizations about Chinese society, and pass judgments on Chinese things on very meager direct observations of Chinese materials, and still insist on the correctness of their views. This is found not only among the general public but also among thinkers, scholars, and even China specialists: from Montesquieu, Rousseau, Hegel, Marx, Weber, Herder, and Russell, to Sinologists, China observers, news reporters, businessmen, visitors to China, and ordinary people. As John Fairbank, one of the great Sinologists in modern history, rightly observed long ago: Western man since Marco Polo has not stopped trying to comprehend Chinese ways. Yet the writers of each generation, whether philosophers of the eighteenth-­century Enlightenment or exemplars of the treaty-­port mind, have viewed Chinese civilization with a large degree of subjectivity.18 Owing to the subjectivity, and even though China opened its door to the outside world in the nineteenth century, it is still largely shrouded in a veil of mystery, exoticism, and fantasy. The true picture of China remains as elusive as ever to the general public in the West, and to the world at large. My foregoing narrative serves to show how muddy the water in China studies can be. The already complicated situation has been further complicated by two factors in knowledge production about China and assessment of the cultural worth of Chinese civilization undertaken by non-­Western peoples including the Chinese themselves. They have adopted the Western perspectives and view China through the Western lens with the outcome of creating a dazzling array of images of China that are larger or smaller than but seldom true to China herself.

18   Knowledge and cultural unconscious In this dimension, the attitudes adopted by Chinese intellectuals toward their own civilization since the late nineteenth century up to the present day are most bewildering and even bizarre. At one extreme we have the famous and notorious Chinese conservative scholar Ku Hong-­ming who, after comparing and contrasting Chinese culture with that of Britain, France, Germany, and the United States, categorically declared that Chinese culture was superior to all the cultures under examination.19 From the opposite direction we have Lu Xun who, epitomizing the iconoclastic spirit of the May Fourth New Culture movement, condemned Chinese civilization figuratively as a 3,000-year history of cannibalism, and Chinese culture as a sumptuous feast of human flesh. Between the two extremes we can locate almost all major Chinese intellectuals living through the historical period from the late nineteenth to the twenty-­first centuries, either lauding Chinese civilization to the sky or trampling it down to the ground. In Chinese academia there has been a host of ambivalent attitudes toward the time-­honored Chinese scholarship and its Western counterpart, Sinology. Here again, the situation is complicated by the formation of two camps among Chinese scholars: the conservative cultural fundamentalists who adamantly uphold the value of traditional scholarship and insist on doing scholarship in strictly Chinese ways, and the radical Westernizationists who relentlessly dismiss Chinese scholarship and its ways of production as worthless trash and indiscriminately embrace all Western ideas, concepts, theories, paradigms, and approaches to scholarship. The contention between the two camps finds its concentrated expression in the opposite attitudes towards Sinology and China studies in the West. While one side expresses a blind faith in the validity and value of sinological scholarship and enthusiastically imitates and emulates it, the other side adopting Said’s theory of Orientalism and postcolonialist theory vehemently criticizes Sinology as a colonial discourse and dismisses it as a biased branch of learning guilty of all the problems of Orientalism.

Sinologism and its unconscious nature The conflicting images of China in the West’s and world’s produced knowledge about China, the ambivalent ways the Chinese view their own culture and civilization, and the contradictory responses to ways of doing scholarship in Sinology and China studies, have in effect constituted a comprehensive intellectual system, which I term Sinologism. It has hindered objective understanding and representation of China and Chinese culture and will continue to be an obstacle to cultural exchange and the healthy development of globalization. It will not be a short-­lived phenomenon. But recognition of its logic, rationale, and practice may be the first step towards going beyond it. One may, like Fairbank, attribute the inner logic of this system to subjectivism brought about by political, economic, historical, social, and academic factors, but I argue that beneath the obvious subjectivism lurks a totality of multifaceted blindness in epistemology and methodology in observing China and processing Chinese materials. The ­dazzling misrepresentations are but symptoms of the epistemological and

Knowledge and cultural unconscious   19 ­ ethodological malady at the heart of China–West studies. Although the sympm toms are easily observable, their pathogeny is rooted in deeply hidden intellectual sources, which have constituted the inner logic of Sinologism. For various reasons the inner logic of Sinologism is deeply buried and has multiple and complicated dimensions. Since I first became interested in the idea of Sinologism I have discovered that I myself had been under the sway of its logic, and pursued my scholarship in ways that conform to its principles without being consciously aware of their problems. As people seldom self-­consciously pause to reflect on its nature and rationale, there are ample reasons to call this logic, “cultural unconscious.” The current available critical theories and approaches are not always able to go beneath the manifested phenomena and penetrate into the core of this unconscious. After years of observation, contemplation, and research, I have gradually clarified my vision and located crucial insights into the inner logic of this cultural unconscious. The insights have enabled me to realize that Sinologism is not a form of Orientalism, Euro-­ centrism, Western-­centrism, or Ethno-­centrism, though it touches all of them. It is related to Sinology, an area of study focusing on China, but it is not a form of Sinology. Rather, it refers to a way of carrying out scholarship on China with a distinct epistemology and methodology. In a word, the problematic epistemology and methodology are the two dimensions of a cultural unconscious which lie at the core of Sinologism.

Why Sinologism? Nowadays, in the field of cross-­cultural studies, especially in areas that involve Western and non-­Western cultures and traditions, Said’s theory of Orientalism has become a paradigm that has given rise to various theories and approaches that have collectively subsumed under the umbrella term “postcolonialism.” I myself was initially fascinated by his theory, but as time went by I gradually came to the realization that the theories of Orientalism and postcolonialism, inspiring and provocative as they are, are not entirely suited to materials in the field of China–West studies. In what ways are Said’s Orientalism and postcolonialism inadequate in dealing with Chinese culture and China–West studies? I will, in the next chapter, offer a detailed account of the differences between Sinologism and Orientalism on the one hand and between Sinologism and postcolonialism on the other. In this chapter I will only explain the major reasons why neither Orientalism nor postcolonialism are adequate for China–West studies, and why I propose a critical theory of Sinologism to replace them. With the aim to construct a new conceptual framework to deal with the complicated dimensions of Sinologism, I will theorize on the conceptual core of Sinologism – the cultural unconscious in China–West studies, and offer a tentative view of what Sinologism is. Orientalism and postcolonialism are theories of political and ideological critiques. Said frankly admits to the political nature of Orientalist critique in his book: “My contention is that Orientalism is fundamentally a political doctrine

20   Knowledge and cultural unconscious willed over the Orient because the Orient was weaker than the West.”20 The political nature of postcolonial discourse has been acknowledged by all post­ colonial theorists and critics from Frantz Fanon, Gayatri Spivak, and Homi Bahbah to Robert Young, Bill Ashcroft, and Bart Moore-­Gilbert. This understanding has been accepted by most scholars of Sinology, China–West study, and China knowledge production as well. But I wish to point out that precisely on the political and ideological focus, my conception of Sinologism differs significantly from both Orientalism and postcolonialism. I argue that Sinologism is endowed by its history and development with a less political and less ideological tendency (which constitutes the most significant difference between Sinologism and Orientalism/postcolonialism) and possesses the potential to be transformed from a deconstructive theory of critique to a constructive theory of academic criticism. Having said this I must hasten to add that it does have a political dimension, which, nevertheless, was acquired rather late in its development. I am in complete accord with Fredric Jameson, who argues in his influential book, The Political Unconscious that “there is nothing that is not social and historical – indeed . . . everything is ‘in the last analysis’ political.”21 Jameson makes this recognition the precondition for liberation from the all-­powerful and all-­present “law of social life under capitalism,” which “maims our existence as individual subjects and paralyzes our thinking about time and change just as surely as it alienates us from our speech itself.”22 For me as a scholar who is preoccupied with the perils of subjective production of knowledge and scholarship, the recognition of the political nature of all cultural acts is the precondition for academic freedom from political and ideological interferences responsible for misperceptions, misrepresentations, and willful distortions of knowledge and scholarship. As I will demonstrate in this book, due to their salient ideological and political orientations, political criticisms of all brands easily lapse into situations in which scholars engaged in studies of a field adopt clearly subjective positions, examine analytic data from certain ideological perspectives, and draw entirely different, and often opposite conclusions for a cultural phenomenon with little regard for historical facts and objective truth, and with little respect for the relatively neutral nature of knowledge and scholarship. The strong response to and reaction against the publication of Said’s Orientalism is a case in point.23 Orientalism as scholarship used to be a highly respected academic field, and the word “Orientalism” a positive scholarly term, albeit one that was voted to be obsolete in 1973 at the Twenty-­ninth International Congress of Orientalists.24 But the publication of Said’s seminal book a few years later completely overturned the academic legitimacy of Orientalism as a discipline and subverted the political legitimacy of “Orientalism” as a scholarly term. This aroused strong opposition from scholars of Oriental studies. There is little doubt that Orientalists’ counter-­criticism of Said’s work is tinged with a measure of politics, ideologies, and even ethnic prejudices and biases, but their discontent with the ways Said’s theory of Orientalism completely shackles Oriental scholarship to the bandwagon of European nations’ imperialist policy

Knowledge and cultural unconscious   21 and colonialist expansion is not entirely groundless and unreasonable. Their criticism of Said’s inadequacy in Oriental scholarship and his simplistic and politicized treatment of historical materials cannot be dismissed by “characteristic Orientalist formulas,” a phrase employed by Said in his counter-­criticism. By contrast, when I propose Sinologism as a new theory of criticism, not in the least do I intend to challenge the legitimacy of Sinology or China study as a discipline. On the contrary, I hope, by criticizing the problems in sinological and China studies, which include politicization of China scholarship, to achieve the ultimate aim of depoliticization and de-­ideologization of scholarship, and help turn Sinology and China studies into a genuinely scholarly field in which scholars can produce as scientific, objective, and fair knowledge about China as possible, and transform existing ideas and approaches of Sinologism from a political criticism into a new paradigm of academic criticism. Similarly, Sinologism differs from postcolonialism in crucial areas. Like the theory of Orientalism, postcolonialist theories are a critical discourse that grows out of analyses and critiques of colonialist culture and legacy. Their basic aim is to cleanse cultures of former colonies of the influence of colonialism. Although historically China was never a Western colony cultural legacies of colonialism are visible and can be perceptively felt in social and intellectual life, or can be found to exist in people’s minds and spirits. In this respect Sinologism and postcolonialism share a common ground. But because of its emphasis on race, ethnicity, color, gender, and national identity, and other politically and ideologically oriented issues, postcolonialism tends to overlook the relatively neutral and objective nature of knowledge production and scholarly research, and often lapses into subjectively political criticism and ideological controversy. This drawback is clearly manifested in the debates on postcolonialism, East and West. In Western academia even those scholars who belong to the same camp of postcolonialist theories may express entirely different and opposite opinions on the same issue. By way of example, on the issue of Marx’s relationship to colonialism, Said regards Marx as an Orientalist who differs from other colonialist thinkers only in degree.25 By contrast, Spivak and other postcolonial theorists view Marx as a staunch revolutionary thinker resolutely opposed to colonialism. The drawbacks of postcolonial criticism were clearly visible in academic circles in mainland China, Hong Kong, Taiwan, and overseas Chinese communities. In late 1980s and 1990s, Chinese scholars at home and abroad were engaged in a heated debate on the issues of “unification and independence,” “nativization and westernization,” “tradition and modernity,” “national identity and universal values,” “center and margin,” “theory and reality,” etc. Most of the time the two sides were mired in an embarrassing situation in which each side regarded its views as correct and the other side’s as erroneous. Having observed the debates I have found an interesting phenomenon: rather than preoccupied with analyzing scholarly issues and creating new scholarship and new knowledge, those engaged in the debates were more interested in employing their knowledge of postcolonial theories to advance sensationally new ideas from their own subjective perspectives so as to earn a foothold in the then Chinese

22   Knowledge and cultural unconscious academia full of sound and fury. It seems to me that the motivation governing the debate was not the pursuit of genuine knowledge or truth, but a personalized scholarly desire to propagate certain theories based on certain ideological agendas. In the field of Sinology or China studies we can also observe two opposite attitudes: on the one hand, some scholars question the academic legitimacy of Western Sinology, forewarning people of neocolonialist tendencies in China studies; on the other hand, some other scholars vehemently voice their concerns over what they deem as the “nationalistic tendency” in Chinese academia.26 In the field of Sinology and China studies there has been an ongoing debate over what it means to be Chinese outside mainland China, and what exactly constitutes “Chineseness” in the context of decolonization and globalization. It was initiated by a few leading scholars of China studies like Wang Gongwu, Rey Chow, and Tu Wei-­ming.27 Tu Wei-­ming, in particular, edited a special issue for Daedalus, with the title, “The Living Tree: The Changing Meaning of Being Chinese Today.”28 It soon became a “hot” topic on which many other scholars like Allen Chun, Ien Ang, Sharon A. Carstens, and Shu-­mei Shih, to name just a few, have spent much energy and ink.29 The theme of “Chineseness” has since spread into different fields including political theory, economics, history, literature, art, film studies, women’s studies, and even queer studies. As recently as 2010, Positions published a special issue, whose guest editors stated in their introduction: “We hope to open up this political debate about Chineseness, and specifically how this debate bears on queer lives, by calling the issue an investigation into queer ‘Chinese politics’ and ‘transnationalism.’ ”30 There is little doubt that the debate on “Chineseness” is strongly political and ideology-­laden, embedded in a postcolonial discourse. In a long article with an eye-­catching title, “Fuck Chineseness: On the Ambiguity of Ethnicity as Culture as Identity,” Allen Chun, after analyzing different views, uses, and interpretations of Chineseness in mainland China, Taiwan, Hong Kong, and overseas Chinese communities, locates an irony: [W]hile postcoloniality appears to privilege the local by invoking the reality of multiple identities and make sacred indigenous truths to counter Orientalist fictions, there is . . . a huge gap in our understanding of the local historical-­sociological framework that produces local cultural discourse. In other words the production of real local knowledge somehow gets elided and forgotten. Moreover, an over-­concern with politics and ethnic identity gives rise to a series of “reactions as varied as ethnic nationalism, pan-­national fundamentalism, supranationalism, cult fanaticism, and cultural creolization.”31 In international academia the great debate on postcolonialism has triggered a “Culture War” among scholars of different political orientations and different schools of intellectual thought. It consists of two kinds of battle: the head-­on collisions between upholders and critics of postcolonialism, and the chaotic internal conflicts among proponents of postcolonial theories. The differences between their positions are sometimes as radical as that between fire and water.

Knowledge and cultural unconscious   23 After the publication of Said’s Orientalism and Culture and Imperialism, British scholars, with the exception of the Marxist critic Terry Eagleton, almost unanimously voiced critical opinions and negative evaluations. Some even showed an air of distain and dismissal. Ernest Gellner, a Cambridge philosopher and social anthropologist, wrote a scathing review of Said’s Culture and Imperialism, dismissing it as “quite entertaining but intellectually insignificant.”32 Later, he was embroiled in an acrimonious correspondence with Said. John M. Mackenzie, a British Oriental scholar, takes issue with Said’s and his followers’ inadequate knowledge of imperialism, deficiency in historical scholarship, and ideological prejudices, pointed-­blankly criticizing them as ignoramuses who displayed a simple-­mindedness and thoughtlessness in using historical materials: “Indeed, nothing better represents the naiveté and lack of sophistication of the left-­wing literary critic than this inability to handle historiography.”33 Russell Jacoby, an American historian, also criticizes Said and his followers for their shaky scholarly expertise in the field of colonial history and questions their shift from literary criticism to political criticism: As they move out from traditional literature into political economy, sociology, history and anthropology, do the postcolonial theorists master these fields or just poke about? Are they serious students of colonial history and culture or do they just pepper their writings with references to Gramsci and hegemony?34 The criticism and discontent may even reach a shrill tone. Peter Conrad, an Oxford University literary critic, wrote a scathing article in the Observer, entitled “Empire of the Senseless.” It was written in such an acrimonious tone that even Mackenzie characterizes it as an “abusive and largely unreasoning piece.”35 In it he considers postcolonial criticism, with Said as its founder, as symptoms of a “culture of gripes and grievances” fostered by the national independence movement since the 1960s.36 “As the tone of Conrad’s remarks might suggest,” Bart Moore-­Gilbert shrewdly observes, “postcolonial critics have suffered from the wider backlash against what the New Right has caricatured as ‘political correctness.’ ”37 What annoys Said most is the criticism by Bernard Lewis, a highly influential Orientalist whose book Islam and the West launches an all-­out attack on Said for his historical inadequacy, “science fiction history,” and poor linguistic preparation, “Humpty-­Dumptyism,” and characterizes Said as an anti-­West intellectual who has “profound hostility to the West but more particularly the liberal democratic West.”38 In his Afterword to the new edition of Orientalism, Said singles out Lewis’s attacks as “characteristically Orientalist formulas” and launched a vehement counter-­strike.39 Apart from the criticisms from the New Right, Said was unexpectedly attacked from the left and within the postcolonial studies camp for both political and academic reasons.40 What is most interesting is the criticism by Marxist critic Aijaz Ahmad who, while regarding Said’s book as “by far the most magisterial, the most influential,” makes no move to hide his stern criticism, deeming

24   Knowledge and cultural unconscious the book as “possibly the most ridden with ambivalence and inner contradiction.”41 Ahmad devotes a whole chapter, the longest in his book, to a systematic critique of Said’s Orientalist theory and practice. Subjecting many of Said’s ideas in Orientalism and Culture and Imperialism to relentless analysis, Ahmad deems the two books to be symptomatic of the failures of postcolonial studies in the West on political and ideological grounds.42 He even implies that Said differs only in degree from the Oriental and colonial scholars whom he criticizes, for “Said declares that those ‘other literatures’, Asian and African, cannot be read ‘respectably’ as being on a par with the Europeans.”43 What is even more intriguing is that Ahmad went so far as to agree with Lewis’s criticism of Said, accepting the latter’s major statement in his criticism44 as basically correct, and even considering Said scholarly-­unqualified to make his excursions into the field of Oriental studies.45 It is most curious for a Marxist critic and a right-­leaning Orientalist to form an alliance in criticizing Said. That curious fact alone should alert us to the limitations of political orientations and ideological emphasis in postcolonial theories. It is unnecessary to cite more of the chaotic situations revolving around the postcolonial controversy. Obviously, postcolonialist theories have supplied a great deal of ammunition for the ideologically centered Culture Wars,46 which, while clarifying some of our views on important issues of race, politics, ideology, and culture, nevertheless exert a detrimental impact on education, cultural construction, and the production, transmission, and understanding of knowledge. It is precisely these opposite stands and negative consequences of the Culture Wars that make me keenly aware of the limits and limitations of Orientalism and postcolonialism; that is, an excessive concern with race, nation, nationality, ethnicity, class, gender, and other political and ideological issues that have caused the neglect of disinterested production of knowledge and scholarship. To some, my dissatisfaction with the postcolonial emphasis on politics and ideology may sound rather conservative or theoretically untenable, but I will demonstrate that this is not so. This can be seen in the most ideologically fought battles over Said’s book Orientalism. In one of his responses Said acknowledged that the most devastating attack on his book is the accusation that it represents “a violation of the very idea of disinterested scholarship.”47 He then went on to emphasize the political and ideological nature of Oriental scholarship, launching his counter-­attacks from the political front. Taking issue with Lewis’s comparison of Orientalism with Hellenism, Said vehemently denied the claims made by Lewis and his like and was at pains to prove that Orientalists are far from being disinterested scholars and that Orientalism is far removed from objective scholarship. Taking care to present Lewis as a politically and ideologically motivated scholar who supported the anti-­Arab cause, Said was trying to prove that Lewis’s attack on his book was a political move, far removed from his claim to “defending a field.”48 What is most interesting and most relevant for my argument is that both Lewis and Said in effect agree that there is such a thing as disinterested scholarship. It would be worthwhile to quote Said at some length:

Knowledge and cultural unconscious   25 Take as a typical example of the analogy he draws between my critique of Orientalism and a hypothetical attack on studies of classical antiquity, an attack, he says, would be a foolish activity. It would be of course, but then Orientalism and Hellenism are radically incomparable. The former is an attempt to describe a whole region of the world as an accompaniment to that region’s colonial conquest, the latter is not at all about the direct colonial conquest of Greece in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries; in addition, Orientalism expresses antipathy to Islam, Hellenism sympathy for ancient Greece.49 Here we should note several important points. First, although Said was adamant in his denial of Orientalism as a “learned discipline,” he was admitting that there is disinterested scholarship like Hellenism. Second, despite their diametrically opposite positions in their exchanges, both Said and Lewis in effect believe in the relative neutrality of scholarship and knowledge. Third, if it is preposterous, as Said claimed, to draw a comparison between Orientalism and Hellenism, it would be appropriate to compare Hellenism and Sinology, because both are studies of ancient civilizations, and Sinology was not a by-­product of colonial conquest and was not touched by imperialism and colonialism at least before the turn of the twentieth century. I have presented the see-­saw battles between Said and Lewis not to show how adversely politics and ideology may affect the production of scholarship and knowledge, but to show how I have clarified my vision on the difference between Sinology and Oriental scholarship and why we need a new critical theory for China–West studies. My new vision is: as both Orientalism and postcolonialism emphasize political criticism, they are incap­ able of resolving purely scholarly issues. Most assuredly, they are incapable of disinterested scholarship. My clarified vision leads me to realize the need to de-­emphasize politics and ideology, calls for the pursuit of as near objective, fair, and scientific production of knowledge as possible, and sets it as the ultimate goal. This is the major reason why I feel it highly necessary to propose Sinologism as a critical theory at a time when Orientalism and postcolonialism have become the reigning paradigms in China–Western studies. Based on this realization, I wish to emphasize: unlike Orientalism and postcolonialism, Sinologism is not a theory of political criticism, but is primarily concerned with problems arising from knowledge production and academic criticism. Simply put, it is not a political and ideological critique. Of course, I do not mean that politics and ideology are irrelevant to Sinologism. On the contrary, I will demonstrate in the following chapters how politics has exerted its impact on China–West studies. But my concern with politics and ideology is meant to explore how we can free the production of knowledge and scholarship from political and ideological interference as much as possible. My proposition of Sinologism was motivated by another realization. Having observed numerous cases of critical studies of the miscomprehensions, misrepresentations, and depreciations of Chinese culture, I have noticed a pattern: in their

26   Knowledge and cultural unconscious efforts to use postcolonial approaches to subvert Western-­centrism in China scholarship, the critics were content only with exposing errors, inaccuracies, and lopsided views, but seldom looked beneath the surface to locate the motivations and inner logic for these problems. And if they do, they would invariably trace the problems to political and ideological causes, to the neglect of psychological and cultural conditioning, and invisible unconscious forces. With these insights I have drawn a conclusion: Said’s theory of Orientalism and theories of postcolonialism, efficacious as they are in conducting cross-­cultural studies, are not exactly the right theoretical tools with the necessary explanatory power for my critical inquiry into the inner logic of Sinologism, which is fundamentally unconscious.

The cultural unconscious Having argued in my foregoing statements that neither Said’s theory of Orientalism nor the critical theory of postcolonialism is adequate for undertaking an inquiry into Sinologism, I need to locate a new conceptual grounding to make up for their limitations and to form a new critical theory with a viable conceptual framework for my study. The conceptual grounding that I have found is the idea of “cultural unconscious.” This is not a new concept. Since psychoanalysis began to be applied to the study of culture, it has become a vague term sporadically used by some psychoanalysts, anthropologists, sociologists, literary critics, and cultural studies scholars from Jacques Lacan, Pierre Bourdieu, to Juliet F. MacCannell. It is generally understood to mean the unconscious in culture, but it has seldom been defined. In the few cases in which the term gets defined, it is more a psychological term than a term in cultural studies. Joseph L. Henderson, a Jungian analytic psychologist, may be the first to define the term in clear statements (1990), yet it remains a psychological concept. In Henderson’s conception, the term is defined as a dimension between the Freudian personal unconscious and Jungian collective unconscious.50 Michael Vannoy Adams, another Jungian psychologist, became interested in the term, but found Henderson’s definition unsatisfactory and redefined it on his own terms. In his conception, the cultural unconscious is realigned with Jungian analytic psychology and described as “a dimension of the collective unconscious.”51 In a paper presented at an international conference on analytic psychology in 2005, he points out: By that redefinition, the collective unconscious includes two dimensions. In addition to a dimension that comprises archetypes and archetypal images, the collective unconscious includes a dimension that comprises stereotypes and stereotypical images – and this is what I mean by the cultural unconscious.52 He identifies the stereotypes and stereotypical images in the cultural unconscious with what Samuel L. Kimbles and Thomas Singer call “cultural complexes.”53 He defines a cultural complex as “a set of values about which a culture is

Knowledge and cultural unconscious   27 e­ specially emotionally sensitive.” As an example of cultural complexes, he cites the “Middle Eastern cultural complex” of the Jewish, Christian, and Islamic traditions. What is common to these traditions is a set of values centering on the belief in one God, to which these people feel emotionally sensitive. This conception of the cultural unconscious is certainly far removed from my initial and intuitive perception of it as an unconscious problematic logic in knowledge and scholarship production. The few existing definitions of the cultural complex are, without exception, psychologically based and only perfunctorily oriented toward literary and cultural studies. Thus, the existing conception of cultural unconscious is basically a psychological concept, often interchangeably used with cultural complexes, and has not yet gone through a radical transformation into a concept of cultural studies. The “Introduction” to the Norton Anthology of Theory and Criticism makes a brief mention of the concept, which comes close to my conception: “The knowledge it [literature] conveys is of the ‘cultural unconscious’ – that is, of the archive of historical words, symbols, codes, instincts, wishes and conflicts characteristic of a people and its era.”54 Understandably, it is mentioned only in passing with no further elucidation. Recently, an article titled “The Cultural Unconscious” posted on the internet has some meaningful insights into the many unconscious life experiences that contribute to the formation of the cultural unconscious. Its opening is especially relevant to my conception of the cultural unconscious: Those who are brought up in a consistent culture with consistent environmental features, will tend to find that so long as they stay put, their inner worlds containing various emotional triggers based on past experiences, map their outer worlds (that which is publically discussed with openness and ease) fairly closely. They have developed inbuilt receptors to handle the common cultural messages that take place within the culture into which they were born. Others, born and bred elsewhere, will have a different cultural unconscious – due to the impact on them of a different range of experiences, some of which are made salient to their consciousness by the local use [of] language, employed in culturally specific ways.55 Insightful as it is, this conception has a flaw. It does not adequately account for the relationship between consciousness and the unconscious. As a consequence, it is not so much a concept of cultural unconscious as that of cultural consciousness or cultural conditioning. Of course, a discussion of the unconscious cannot be separated from that of consciousness, as the former is intimately bound up with the latter, but it would be misleading to equate the unconscious with consciousness. I suggest that the cultural unconscious must be examined on the dynamic relationship between the cultural consciousness and cultural unconscious with more attention paid to its unconscious dimension than its conscious level, even though its mechanism and operations are mediated through culture and consciousness. This is because the term, as it stands, is still a form of unconsciousness and its rationale and operations are less observable than those of

28   Knowledge and cultural unconscious culture and conscious behavior. Moreover, it exerts its impact on culture and consciousness in ways that often escape our conscious awareness and serves as the large background against which the conscious human drama unfolds. Despite its similarities to the psychoanalytic unconscious, it differs from the unconscious in psychoanalytic psychology because it is a concept formulated in relation to, and shaped by, the impact of culture. The cultural unconscious, though rooted in history and culture, operates in a similar way to that of the unconscious in psychoanalytic terms. In psychoanalytic psychology, Freud conceives of the unconscious as a dynamic psychological function and a reservoir of desires, emotions, thoughts, and memories that exerts its impact upon our conscious life in ways beyond our conscious awareness. My conception of the cultural unconscious differs little from Freud’s conception as a mental function. What makes my conception different from Freud’s is the difference in the dynamics of formation and content. I will, in the following sections, give a detailed account of the differences. Here, I will only address two fundamental aspects of form and content. In form, my conception is a formation composed of the antinomies of conscious and unconscious structures with the conscious structure self-­consciously made conspicuous. In content, the unconscious in Freud’s conception always contains something unspeakable, unsightly and less respectable because of the socially, morally, and aesthetically unacceptable nature. In my conception, however, the cultural unconscious is always perceived to be highly respectable as it builds on its claims to common sense and universal truth. The respectability, however, is based on cross-­cultural interactions between the colonizer and the colonized. Psychologically, the interactions may be divided into desirable and undesirable conditioning. While the desirable conditioning largely involves the Westerners and colonizers, the undesirable conditioning mostly affects the colonized and non-­Western people. To the colonized, the cultural conditioning is similar to the Freudian unconscious formation in the sense that it is mostly composed of repressed memories born of traumatic experiences of being conquered, humiliated, ill-­treated, and frustrated. These memories were transformed into mental states of pain, anxiety, or feelings of inferiority. To the colonizer, the cultural conditioning vis-­à-vis the colonized covers positive memories of traveling to exotic places, conquest of land and people, victories in foreign wars, and material prosperity, which were turned into mental states of outgoingness, confidence, cultural superiority, and desire for dominance. My description of the positive and negative conditioning in the cultural interactions between the colonizer and the colonized may be somewhat reductive and essentialist, but they largely over-­determine the content and form of the cultural unconscious. Ontologically, the cultural unconscious in my conception grows out of the historico-­psychological integration of culture and the unconscious. Although it is not a concept resulting from a simple addition of the two existing concepts, it would be helpful to describe its conception in relation to the two cardinal concepts that constitute its being: “culture” and “unconsciousness.” I will first

Knowledge and cultural unconscious   29 describe its relation to the unconscious. The unconscious is a foundational concept in psychoanalytic psychology, but now it has become a household word. At first, it was intuitively discovered by creative artists and thinkers, but its mechanism and inner logic were systematically explored by Freud in his masterpiece, The Interpretation of Dreams, and later further expounded by Carl Jung and other thinkers. The Freudian conception consists of three elements: “of pro­ cesses (a) dynamically repressed from (conscious) awareness; (b) capable of being made conscious (brought to awareness and reflection) only by special techniques – hypnosis, psychoanalysis; (c) not under voluntary control, as in the new physical sense . . . but without a limitation to physical causes.”56 Ontologically, Freud in his early explorations conceived of the unconscious as the seat of the id, a seething cauldron bubbling with repressed instinctual desires, most of which are socially and morally unacceptable categories of a sexual nature, that seek fulfillment in objects. D. H. Lawrence severely criticized Freud for describing the unconscious as a deeply hidden cellar full of incestuous ideas, and argued for a new conception of it as the original source of creativity and as another name for life itself.57 Carl Jung also disagreed with Freud’s negative conception of the unconscious and found the sexualized emphasis especially wanting. As a result of the criticisms and reconceptualizations, the later and widely accepted formulation conceives of the unconscious as a reservoir of desires, emotions, thoughts, and memories that exerts its impact upon our conscious life in ways beyond our conscious awareness. My concept of the cultural unconscious is formulated along the line of later conceptualizations. In its most basic sense, I conceive of the cultural unconscious as a cultural mental structure with invisible powers that operate out of sight, but unconsciously influence, shape, and control the cultural activities of human life. In simple terms, the unconscious in the “cultural unconscious” forms the unobservable backdrop against which the observable human drama is enacted. Having dealt with the unconscious, I need to address its relation to the second term in my concept and examine the impact of culture on the unconscious. “Culture,” as Raymond Williams points out, is “one or two of the most complicated words in the English language.”58 Among the numerous existing definitions of “culture,” I find that they can be grouped into two large categories. The first refers to a static conception of the material and intellectual conditions of a culture, society, or group, which covers, as Raymond Williams describes, “a general state or habit of the mind,” “the general state of intellectual development, in a society as a whole,” “the general body of the arts,” and “a whole way of life, material, intellectual, and spiritual.”59 The second refers to a dynamic conception of a process of human cultivation, which, as Williams’ research shows, has its primary sources in “the tending of natural growth” and “then, by analogy, a process of human training.” Williams persuasively argues that “the idea of culture rests on a metaphor: the tending of natural growth. And indeed it is on growth, as metaphor and as fact, that the ultimate emphasis must be placed.”60 Taking the cue from Williams, I conceive of “culture” in the “cultural unconscious” as a cultivation of both natural growth and human growth. Thus,

30   Knowledge and cultural unconscious in my conception of the term, although the word “cultural” is an adjective, it, as I will show shortly, retains its original meaning in the tending of natural growth and as a process of human cultivation. My conception finds its equivalence in the Chinese concept of culture wenhua. As a noun (wen), it literally means the condition of being transformed through patterns; as a dynamic process, the Chinese tradition has several related terms: (1) fenghua, which literally means “to transform in the way a wind blows over grass”; (2) jiaohua, which means “to regulate and order human life by teaching established rites and precepts,” and; (3) wenhua, which means “to transform by patterns or patterned ways of behavior.” In these senses, the Chinese word coincides with Williams’ simplified definition of “culture” as “right knowing” and “right doing.”61 Thus, the word “culture” in “cultural unconscious” not only refers to the materialized conditions of civilization, but also to the dynamic process of social conditioning of human life in terms of definite, consciously constructed forms. In terms of the dynamic process of human cultivation, my concept of the cultural unconscious may be viewed as “cultured unconscious” or “cultivated unconscious.” “Culture” does not just simply add one dimension to the unconscious. It complicates the unconscious in ways that transforms its unconscious nature and turns it into a hybrid concept, which not only retains all the implications of the two parental words but also gives rise to new implications. In the conventional conception of the unconscious, it is, by the word alone, totally unconscious and only becomes conscious after conscious interventions are undertaken either by a psychoanalyst or other outside forces. The cultural unconscious is not entirely unconscious because of its relation to culture. Culture, as it is understood, is the opposite pole of nature. Nature is essentially unconscious, especially in human instinctual desires. But culture is both conscious and unconscious, with large portions being self-­consciously conscious. Williams confirms this feature: “No community, no culture, can ever be fully conscious of itself, ever fully know itself. . . . A culture, while it is being lived, is always in part unknown, in part unrealized.”62 In Freud’s topographical model of the mind, the cultural unconscious comes close to preconscious, or to subconscious, a term Freud nevertheless rejects. In terms of Freud’s later developed structural model, the cultural unconscious comes close to the superego, which is partly conscious and partly unconscious. The inner logic of Sinologism is a cultural unconscious. The logic of the cultural unconscious is structured like a linguistic sign. A sign, according to Saussure, is composed of the opposition between the signifier and the signified.63 In Lacan’s reconception of the sign in terms of an integration of Saussure’s linguistic theory and Freud’s psychoanalytic theory, the signifier is conscious while the signified is unconscious. In a sign, the meaning of the signifier is constantly displaced from the signifier to the signified, which is in turn but another signifier. The signification is always deferred with the signifier constantly sliding on the signifying chain until an anchoring point appears.64 Taking cue from Lacan’s reformulation of the sign, I suggest that the concept of cultural unconscious is such a sign composed of the binary opposition between the signifier and the signified. In the concept, the signifier is “culture” which is always visible, mostly

Knowledge and cultural unconscious   31 perceivable, and largely conscious, while the signified is the “unconscious” which is mostly invisible, largely unrecognizable, and always beyond consciousness. In the way the signified may become a signifier or vice versa, “culture” and “unconscious” form a dynamic relationship in which each has the potential of turning into its opposite. Just as I have demonstrated earlier that the “cultural unconscious” is in effect “cultured unconscious” or “cultivated unconscious,” the concept may undergo a rhetorical transformation and becomes a chiasmus, “unconscious culture,” which refers to an unconscious way of life for a person, a group, a society, a class, and even a whole race. My conception in terms of the sign contains an insight into the hidden logic of the cultural unconscious and the nature of knowledge. The incessant sliding of the signifier on the signifying chain determines that the production of knowledge is essentially a process of conscious programming, a great part of which is occulted and unknown to the conscious mind, thereby becoming unconscious. The conscious programming of the cultural unconscious is very much like computer programming. To the computer user, all the programming is invisible and unknown. What is known and visible is the function of the program, which is only a small part of the enormous amount of programming. It is like the tip of an iceberg, a fond analogy Freud employed to describe the mind. Invisible and unknown as the programming is, it supports and is utterly indispensable for the visible functions of a program, and plays the key role in processing information consigned to the program. Human knowledge is produced in a way similar to computer programming. All knowledge is accumulated and builds upon knowledge produced by previous generations. This is most visible in the evolution of language and metaphor. In Western languages, “crusade” is a word derived from Latin, “crux” (cross), and refers to a series of religiously motivated military campaigns fought by European Christians mainly against the Muslims between 1095 and 1291 for the honor of the Cross. Initiated by the Pope of the Roman Catholic Church, its main aim was to recapture Jerusalem from Muslim rule and gain Christian control of the Holy Land. As time went by, the word as a signifier has lost touch with its erstwhile signified and become a metaphor for a war with a noble purpose. In modern times the word “crusade” has often been used in a metaphorical context to mean a campaign; in everyday discourse, people may talk about conducting a “crusade” against certain vices or adversaries. After the September 11 terrorist attack on New York, former President Bush vowed to launch a crusade against global terrorism, but little did he realize at the time of his speech that he had inadvertently caused the return of the repressed signified. As the terrorists who attacked New York were all Muslims from the Middle East, Bush’s use of the word revived the original meaning of the word and unwittingly aroused fear around the world for a war between the Christian West and the Islamic world. In psychoanalytic theory, the unconscious is the consequence of repression. Freud conceives of repression as essentially a process of turning away instinctual drives, mostly unsanctioned by culture, and keeping them from the conscious.65 However, Freud also admits: “but let us state at the very outset that the repressed

32   Knowledge and cultural unconscious does not cover everything that is unconscious. The unconscious has the wider compass: the repressed is a part of the unconscious.”66 My use of the computer programming analogy to reconceuptualize the Lacanian reconception of the sign is meant to argue that the cultural unconscious comes into being as a result of multiple causes, not solely on the ground of social and moral repression of unacceptable contents. In terms of my new conception, the cultural unconscious is structured like a sign, partly conscious and partly unconscious, and in many ways a cultivated or cultured unconsciousness. The inner logic of Sinologism is a cultural unconscious. Its relationship to Sinologism is like that of an unconscious action. While the action is conscious in content, visible, perceivable, and recognizable, its motivating force is subjected to a latent logic controlled by conflicting repressed ideas and ideologies. I have employed sign theory and computer programming to explicate the structural relations between Sinologism and its logic, but the actual operation of the inner logic is just the reverse of sign signification. In signification, the meaning of a signifier is determined by the displaced signified, but in Sinologism, the meaning of its inner logic is determined by the return of the repressed ideas and ideology, which become repressed because of their socially and intellectually unacceptable nature or unpresentability. As I will show, the nature of repression in Sinologism differs from that in psychoanalysis. It has more to do with political, ideological, and academic correctness than with moral or ethical correctness. Unconscious in nature as they are, the repressed ideas and ideologies are always striving to find expressions in conscious representations. I have suggested that the conflicting representations in China–West studies are symptoms of the problematic in Sinologism. In psychoanalysis, Freud relates “symptom formation” to the return of the repressed: “it is not the repression itself which produces substitutive formations and symptoms, but that these latter are indications of a return of the repressed.”67 The return of the repressed is a psychological process by which repressed elements in the unconscious manage to surface in the form of unrecognizable “derivatives of the unconscious,” which are socially, morally, and aesthetically acceptable. Like the return of the repressed in psychoanalysis, repressed ideas and ideologies in Sinologism return to the cultural domain in unrecognized or ostensibly benign forms. Though the inner logic of Sinologism is a cultural unconscious, in its manifest form, Sinologism is the manifested return of the repressed ideas and ideologies, which work like displaced signified. While the signification of a sign is constantly regressive, the cultural unconscious works in the opposite direction; it lets repressed ideas and ideologies return to haunt the cultural manifestations. In this sense, the cultural unconscious is in effect a return of the repressed, which shows the symptoms without the subject being aware of their causes. Due to its unrecognized forms of manifestation, symptoms of Sinologism require in-­depth analysis to show their pathogens. Thus, my book is a study that examines the complex ways the repressed ideas and ideologies find their expressions in their manifested forms in knowledge production and scholarship. Although my conception shares with the psychoanalytic formulation the basic premises of the unconscious, it differs from Freud’s and Jung’s conceptions in

Knowledge and cultural unconscious   33 significant ways because of its cultural and social nature. First and foremost, my conception differs from both Freud and Jung in that it is not ontogenetically formed or genetically inherited from generation to generation. Both Freud and Jung view the unconscious as a psychological formation that traces its origins to the remotest past of humanity in its ontogenesis and phylogenesis. In my conception, the cultural unconscious does not take a long time to form itself. An exploration of the intellectual and scholarly unconscious in China knowledge production suggests that it may take only a few generations for its formation. In everyday life, the formation may be even shorter. Here, I will only cite one instance, which belongs to the third category of the unconscious: it refers to physical actions within ordinary consciousness, which do not need “conscious initiation or control, or indeed as not capable of either, as in certain fundamental physical processes.”68 Many competent automobile drivers have such an experience: in an unexpected emergency situation that requires an immediate stop, a driver will press the brake pedal automatically to stop the car without consciously being aware of the braking action that has been carried out. This action is unconsciously done because the order to press the brake is not consciously given. Some people call this action a subconscious action, but Freud rejects the concept of “subconscious” and regards it as unconscious. In the described emergency situation, a competent driver will not erroneously press the gas pedal, but many learner drivers have the frightening experience of pressing the gas pedal when an emergency stop is needed. Interestingly, after such a terrifying experience happens to a learner, he or she will never make the same mistake again. Learning to drive a car is not a natural thing; it is a cultural experience in modern times. The terrifying experience of pressing the wrong pedal has sunk into the unconscious and becomes an element in the cultured unconscious. This seems to suggest that aspects of the cultural unconscious do not take a long and extended period of time to form themselves. Second, unlike Freud’s or Jung’s unconscious, which is stable and enduring, the cultural unconscious is relatively stable only for a historical period, and is susceptible to change. Indeed, it can be transformed in a period of time with conscious education and cultivation. My conception of the cultural unconscious deals with the psychological and especially unconscious effects of acculturation. I suggest that acculturation gives rise to a new psychological formation in the mind which serves as a mental reservoir that records and registers personal and collective experiences in the encounter with other cultures, and releases the effects of the experiences at certain times of stumulus. The reserved experiences may be pleasant or painful, positive or negative, memorable or forgettable. They collectively work toward an unconscious formation which nevertheless exerts its impact upon an individual’s perception, conception, and representation of his or her own culture and other cultures. So conceived, my conception of the cultural unconscious shares much common ground with Freud’s and Jung’s conceptions of the individual unconscious and collective unconscious, but in some essential aspects it differs from both. Freud’s personal unconscious is largely the outcome of psychological repression of socially, morally, and aesthetically unacceptable

34   Knowledge and cultural unconscious impulses, desires, and strivings, specific to each individual. By contrast, my conception of the cultural unconscious is not the outcome of repression, but that of acculturation in the broadest possible sense. Although it is specific to an individual, it is collective in nature, at least to a group exposed to similar processes in acculturation in a shared community. But this collective nature is not in the Jungian sense of the collective unconscious, because Jung’s concept is based on the theory of archetypes that have taken thousands of years for formation and are universal to all human beings irrespective of ethnic, racial, or national origins. By contrast, my concept is not one of universality. It varies from individual to individual, from group to group, from nation to nation, and from race to race. It varies even in historical times. People in different historical periods may develop different formations of the cultural unconscious due to their historical locations. Third, due to the emphasis on ontogenesis and phylogenesis, whether it is Freud’s personal unconscious or Jung’s collective unconscious, the conventional conception of the unconscious describes it as having a universal nature applicable to people of all nations, cultures, and races. The cultural unconscious in my conception, however, does not have a universal nature; in fact, it is rather culture-­specific, having essential characteristic features pertaining to different cultures. In other words, people of different nations, cultures, and ethnic groups may have different forms of cultural unconscious. Here, the cultural unconscious shares some common characteristics with national character, but the essential difference between the two concepts is that while the former is an unconscious historico-­psychological formation dominant in intellectual life, the latter is characteristic ways of behavior specific to a nation. What distinguishes them is the difference between conscious and unconscious psychological formation. In terms of universality, its mental structure is universal only to the people of a particular nation, culture, or ethnic group. In this sense, the cultural unconscious comes into being as a result of a process akin to what the Chinese thinker Li Zehou conceives of as “cultural sedimentation,” or historico-­psychological con­ struction: By sedimentation (jidian), I mean that human nature, which is a cultural psychological construction of uniquely human capabilities, was formed from the historical processes of using tools, social interactions, and the rituals of shamanism. What is human has been sedimented into individuals, the rational into the sensuous, and the social into the natural.69 In simple terms, cultural sedimentation is a historico-­psychological formation by which the social, rational, and historical are accumulated and precipitated into the individual, sensual, and intuitional. In terms of Li Zehou’s theory of cultural sedimentation, what differentiates my conception of cultural unconscious from Jung’s collective unconscious is that while the latter is a mental structure inherited from the remotest past, universal to all human races, the cultural unconscious is cultivated by historical experiences and social conditioning, specific to the mentality of a given culture or tradition.

Knowledge and cultural unconscious   35 Although my conception of the cultural unconscious comes close to Li Zehou’s theory of historico-­psychological formation, it differs from Li’s theory in a fundamental way. The main difference is that while his theory pertains to a long historical formation that takes thousands of years, my concept is a relatively short cultural process that may only take a few generations to form a particular cultural unconscious. In other words, while his emphasis is on long-­term historical sedimentation, my emphasis is on short-­term cultural conditioning. Thus, the essential difference may be reduced to one between history and culture on the one hand, and that between sedimentation and acculturation on the other. In contradistinction to Li Zehou’s historico-­psychological formation, my conception is a cultural-­psychological formation. The word, “culture,” especially contemporary culture, is central to my conception. Culture plays a formative role in the formation of the cultural unconscious, whether it is for an individual, a group, a class, a nation, or a race. The cultural conditioning exerts its impact on the mind of individuals or larger groups through acculturation enacted by the family, community, and society. According to the dictionary definition, “acculturation” has two basic meanings: (1) “the process by which a human being acquires the culture of a particular society from infancy”; (2) “cultural modification of an individual, group, or people by adapting to or borrowing traits from another culture.”70 While the first meaning may also be called enculturation, which describes the process of first-­culture acquisition, the second meaning refers to the process of second-­culture learning. For my conception, the second meaning is especially relevant, because it addresses the process of cultural and psychological changes that grow from the interactions between cultures. The effects of acculturation are visible at multiple levels in interacting cultures. At the individual level, differences in the way an individual encounters another culture can be seen not only in changes to daily behavior, but also in perception, conception, and representation of his or her own culture in relation to other cultures. At the group level, differences are observed in diverse changes ranging from food, clothing, and language, to those in customs, collective behavior, and social institutions. When the effects of acculturation are assimilated into the deep recess of the mind, a cultural unconscious comes into being. Fourth, as the cultural unconscious comes close to the superego, it has both socially and morally acceptable and unacceptable dimensions like “do’s” and “don’t’s” that serve as the yardstick for passing value judgment. As a consequence, the cultural unconscious is a paradoxical term: on the one hand, it is a cultured or cultivated unconscious; on the other it is an unconscious culture, in the sense of being an unconscious way of life. It is both conscious and unconscious, free and bound, individual and collective, stable and changeable. It is, in the final analysis, a polymorphous mentality, a cultivated mental structure with both conscious and unconscious elements in the mind of a person, or in the minds of a group, a nation, or a race, which comes into being as a result of momentous experiences of encounters with other cultures and formulates itself in a definite historical period of time.

36   Knowledge and cultural unconscious The unconscious that I have discussed so far is only a mental structure or schema. To use an analogy, it is like a computer equipped with software ready for word processing, but it is still devoid of content and substance. Or more pertinently, it is like the brain of a three-­year-old child, which has all the capacity to process external stimuli and demands, and internal desires and needs. However, the child is still incapable of making moral and socially acceptable judgments and engages in cultural activities that conform to what Williams calls “right knowing” and “right doing.” Right knowing and doing are entangled with ideology. The cultural unconscious is a psycho-­ideological mechanism of representation over-­determined by the combined forces of psychology, language, and ideology. For my inquiry into the inner logic of Sinologism, the cultural unconscious refers to unconscious thought, views, ideas, and ideologies in the consciously undertaken activities of the intellectual life concerned with China and Chinese civilization. Since Sinologism involves diverse aspects of the intellectual life in China studies, the cultural unconscious takes varied forms, which may be classified into historical unconscious, political unconscious, linguistic unconscious, epistemic unconscious, methodological unconscious, aesthetic unconscious, ethical unconscious, etc., just to name a few. The cultural unconscious in China knowledge production takes different forms and shows different substances in the intellectual work of Westerners, non-­Westerners of the world, and the Chinese people. But its common ground is its unconscious nature and unconscious ways of manifestation in terms of certain sedimentated mental structures. In examining the definition of “unconscious,” Raymond Williams perceptively points out: “the original definitions imply that what has become unconscious was once (but too painfully) conscious, and that the sense of unconscious as ‘unknowable’ is specialized to the individual concerned.”71 This means that the unconscious is the result of repression of conscious thoughts for different individuals in different circumstances. With regard to the cultural unconscious in China–West studies, these questions arise: what are the repressed content and substance? How does the repression come about? In what ways are the repressed contents different for different groups in China– West studies? What are their distinctive forms and expressions? These are major issues in my inquiry into Sinologism. The repressed contents in the cultural unconscious are fundamentally connected with colonialism and imperialism. A major aspect of Sinologism is the cultural colonization of the Chinese mind by the Western other, and self-­ colonization by Chinese intellectuals themselves. What is common to both forms of intellectual and scholarly colonization is that frequently the colonizing acts are carried out unconsciously; neither the self-­colonizers nor the other-­colonizers are consciously aware of them. This state of affairs is both the impact of and the product of the cultural unconscious in China knowledge production. How did this come about? It should be traced to the domestic and international situations confronted by China since the Opium War (1839–1842). Ostensibly, the conflicting assessments of the Chinese civilization and contradictory attitudes toward Chinese scholarship and Sinology may be symptomatic

Knowledge and cultural unconscious   37 of the crises in a Western consciousness bewildered by the complexity of Chinese civilization, and the Chinese consciousness under the onslaught of Western imperialist aggression and the influx of Western intellectual thought. Both kinds of crises, in fact, emanate from two unresolved complexes in the minds of the people engaged in China–West studies and cross-­cultural studies. The first crisis of consciousness involves non-­Chinese people where Westerners form the majority population. To these people, Chinese civilization, which has developed uninterruptedly for over 4,000 years and led the world in almost all areas of culture until the beginning of the nineteenth century, is a civilization that commands admiration, respect, and even awe. But after the first Opium War, the time-­honored civilization suffered one defeat and setback after another under the aggressions of Western imperialism until it became an aging, crumbling empire of “sick men in Asia,” which was almost colonized by various imperialist powers. The striking contrast between a nation with a glorious past and the same nation that incurs utmost contempt brings a conflict of perception and evaluation in the minds of people of the world. It evolved into a largely unconscious superiority complex, intermittently tempered by visions of exoticism, romance, and fantasy, in the minds of most Westerners: including the intellectuals. The second crisis involves the Chinese, both in China and overseas. This crisis of the Chinese consciousness came about also because of the onslaught of Western imperialist aggressions, and was exacerbated by the influx of Western intellectual thought. Due to the repeated defeats and traumatic events of the modern historical period, the crisis of the Chinese consciousness brought about an inferiority complex that has gradually been internalized and repressed into the deeper dimension of the collective psyche and turned into a collective cultural unconscious with two related but different aspects of cultural psychology: the intellectual unconscious and scholarly unconscious. After World War II, national independence swept throughout the world, and former colonies of Western imperialism won their independence one after another. The return of Hong Kong to China in 1997 closed the last page of the colonial era and marked the completion of decolonialization in territorial forms. Nowadays, colonization of the land is entirely a thing of the past, but colonization of the mind is far from over, and decolonization of the intellectual field remains an active project in former colonies and Third World countries. But due to the work of the cultural unconscious that has reigned since modern times, both western and non-­western intellectuals have been engaged in acts of intellectual and scholarly colonization without consciously being aware of them. In existing critical theories neither Said’s Orientalism nor postcolonial theories have given sufficient attention to the cultural unconscious at work in the intellectual and scholarly colonization of the world’s mind, still less have they dealt with the cultural unconscious in China knowledge production. This is the fundamental difference between my conception of Sinologism and other critical cultural theories. Like other intellectual complexes, the cultural unconscious has its form and content. For different groups of people, its content and form are different. For

38   Knowledge and cultural unconscious the Chinese and ethnic Chinese overseas, the cultural unconscious is similar to that described by Freud in the sense that its contents are mostly repressed memories of traumas, experiences of pain, anxiety, and conflict, or feelings of frustration and inferiority. As a consequence, their cultural unconscious is largely characterized by an inferiority complex, which takes a dazzling array of conscious and unconscious manifestations, and eventually evolved into the so-­called “mentality of fetishizing the West.” The form of the cultural unconscious in Sinologism is paradoxical in nature. While few Chinese would admit to the West-­fetish, equally few are totally free from unconscious acceptance of Western superiority in culture and scholarship. The unconscious manifestations of this mentality are so unconscious that most people scarcely recognize its source, nature, function, and inner logic. For the Westerners, most of its contents are repressed memories of conquest, victory, and dominance, and a sense of superiority. As a result, their cultural unconscious is characterized by a hidden superiority complex. This complex is formed not solely on political and ideological grounds; in fact, it is in large measure related to education and intellectual training. This aspect of the cultural unconscious is the most intriguing and most deeply hidden. Even the most self-­ conscious critics and scholars are not immune to it. I will quote a passage to illustrate this point: I think it is a mistake to try to show that the ‘other’ literatures of Africa and Asia, with their more obviously worldly affiliation to power and politics, can be studied respectfully, that is, as if they were in actuality as high, as autonomous, as aesthetically independent and satisfying as French, German or English literatures. The notion of black skin in a white mask is no more serviceable and dignified in literary study than it is in politics. Emulation and mimicry never get one very far.72 Reading this passage, the reader may think it comes from a critic who lives in the colonial era or someone who subscribes to the colonial theory of and approach to literature. But ironically, this passage is from the pen of Edward Said, one of the pioneering thinkers of postcolonial studies. In an article intended to grapple with the political problems of English language and literature in former British colonies complicated by postcolonialism, Said could not have been unaware of the politically incorrect orientation and colonialist implications of his remark, but the inevitable question is: why did he make it? As an observation in a published article, this could not be a slip of the tongue or a slip of the pen or an observation made on the spur of the moment. One may adopt a political approach and simplistically attribute it to a political unconscious. But in my view, the root cause lies in an intellectual unconscious cultivated by Said’s education and upbringing. Born in an Arab family with a father of Protestant–Palestinian origin, Said attended the Anglican St. George’s Academy while his family was still in Jerusalem. After immigrating to the US, he received his pre-­college education in a private preparatory school in Massachusetts. After high school he

Knowledge and cultural unconscious   39 went to Princeton University to obtain his bachelor’s degree, and then received his MA and Ph.D. in English literature from Harvard University. Fluent in English, French, and Arabic, and an accomplished pianist well versed in Western musicology, Said was quintessentially a Western-­educated intellectual steeped in aspects of Western culture from intellectual thought to lifestyle, though he viewed himself as someone between two worlds with “no certain identity at all.”73 For this reason, I believe that his politically biased evaluation of African and Asian literatures does not come from his political ideology but from an elitist cultural unconscious cultivated from his elite Western education. It would not be far wrong to say that he must have judged African and Asian literatures to be wanting in terms of his aesthetic sensibilities cultivated through his Western education and the standards of evaluation formulated by the Western cultural tradition. This case is an eloquent testimony to my argument that education exerts a shaping influence upon the formation of one’s cultural unconscious. The dimension of the cultural unconscious shaped by education is more deeply hidden than those formulated by political, social and moral repressions, because the latter dimensions always have their forbidden nature while the former dimension is always camouflaged by its claims to common sense and universal truth. This feature is especially noted in the intellectual life of numerous Western-­educated intellectuals all over the word: Chinese, Japanese, Indian, and African. Self-­consciously subscribing to the Arnoldian definition of “culture” as “the best that has been thought and said in the world,”74 they are scarcely aware of the problematic aspects of their unconscious founded on Western-­centric ideology, epistemology, methodology, and will self-­consciously impose Western ideas, theories and paradigms on non-­Western materials, measuring the achievements of non-­Western civilization by using Western-­centric standards, and passing value judgments in intellectual work. As a consequence the cultural unconscious is consciously put to work. Thus, the cultural unconscious must be understood in relation to consciousness. Consciousness refers to that which can be consciously perceived, conceived, and evaluated. The cultural unconscious is a reservoir of ideas, views, thoughts, and ways of observation which, due to their questionable nature, are consciously rejected or repressed. The cultural unconscious in Sinologism contains consciously repressed or rejected materials, which are nevertheless different for Westerners and non-­Westerners. For the Westerners, on the conscious level, few would deny the validity of these claims in efforts at decolonization: colonialism is founded on the ideology that it is the white man’s burden to civilize the underdeveloped non-­Western countries and peoples. Colonization is the result of imperialist aggression, subjugation, and domination, which are politically, morally, and humanly wrong. Colonialism is a thing of the past. People of all races and ethnic groups are born equal. There are no superior or inferior people, no masters or slaves. Racist profiling of people is wrong. Ideas of white supremacy are totally unacceptable. All that pertains to colonialism and its legacies should be jettisoned lock, stock, and barrel. But the impact of Western dominance of the world for the past five centuries cannot be eradicated overnight.

40   Knowledge and cultural unconscious The task of decolonialization is made more difficult by the simple fact that the West still leads the world in science and technology, and in living standards and quality of life. Thanks to decolonianization the colonial approaches to culture and life have been rejected on the conscious level, but the remnants of colonialism die hard, especially in the intellectual lives of people, Westerners and non-­Westerners alike. The conscious rejection has suppressed and repressed colonialist remnants into the deep unconscious and displaced them from political life into areas of intellectual life including scholarship. Because of the advanced achievements of almost all aspects of Western scholarship, the Western sense of superiority predominates, understandably in science and technology, but also in other disciplines such as the social sciences, Egyptian and Assyrian studies, and even in the field of China studies. For non-­Western people the cultural unconscious evinces its characteristic features and contents in a similar vein, but from just the opposite direction. Consciously, they are eager to accept the claims of decolonization, but on the unconscious level the colonial legacies reign in practically all areas of everyday life and intellectual life. It does not take much effort to observe their manifestations in non-­Western societies. However, while consciously denying Western superiority, non-­Western people tacitly or unconsciously admit and even accept their cultural inferiority in their encounters with Western people and cultures. Despite their opposite directions, the Western cultural unconscious and non-­ Western cultural unconscious share a common ground in a paradox of ideology and epistemology: conscious rejection of colonial approaches to life, Western superiority, and non-­Western inadequacy, and unconscious acceptance of the rejected ideas. This commonality is a theme that runs through Sinologism. In their knowledge production about China, all scholars, Western and non-­Western, consciously strive to produce accurate and faithful representations of Chinese civilization. But few are not engaged in unconscious distortion due to the influence of their cultural unconscious. Even Chinese scholars are not free from the paradox of conscious denial and unconscious acceptance in their scholarly work. Thus, the cultural unconscious in Sinologism is both conscious and unconscious in nature. In the final analysis, it is a false consciousness based on political, ethnic, national, international, ideological, epistemological and methodological consciousnesses. It is therefore a special form of ideology. My conceptual analysis of the cultural unconscious enables me to give the concept a summary. The cultural unconscious is a paradoxical formation of multiple contradictions and antinomies. In relation to the ideas and conceptions from which it is derived, it is both a parasite and a host in terms of J. Hillis Miller’s brilliant etymological reading of the two words.75 The cultural unconscious is a historico-­psychological mechanism specific to people of a given culture and tradition. It is like Freud’s personal unconscious, but is collective in nature and function, as it is jointly shared by a particular class, race, ethnic group, nation, and cultural tradition. Thus, it has affinity to Jung’s collective unconscious, but does not have the eternalizing characteristic of Jung’s archetypal theory, because

Knowledge and cultural unconscious   41 it is not universal to all nations, races, and ethnic groups. It originates from a similar process of mental precipitation to Li Zehou’s cultural sedimentation, but does not take thousands of years in its ontological formation and is not permanent and unalterable. As a false consciousness, it is a kind of ideology, but its cultural value is not widely acknowledged and is even consciously denied. Due to the special circumstances in which it is formed, it is contradictory in nature, function, content, and form. In nature, it is a cultivated unconscious or cultured unconsciousness acquired through education, lived experience, and ideological indoctrination. In function, it serves the demands of both conscious and unconscious needs, thoughts, strivings, and motivations. In content, it is a reservoir of both conscious and unconscious desires and fears, predilections and preferences, biases and prejudices. In form, it generates conscious and unconscious formulae, schemata, models, frameworks, and approaches, and seeks to process the conscious and unconscious contents in both conscious and unconscious ways. In a word, it is a paradox of conscious unconsciousness or unconscious consciousness. In specific cultural conditions, the cultural unconscious turns into an unconscious culture, which is an unconscious way of life, recognizable in all its manifestations but unrecognized for its problematic logic by those who live under its spell. The cultural unconscious is the hidden logic of Sinologism. The conception of the cultural unconscious is capable of covering the complexity of China–West studies and will serve as the conceptual grounding for my inquiry into Sinologism. Sinologism is basically an unconscious culture operating on the logic of a cultural unconscious. The major task of this study is to describe its conscious operations and uncover its unconscious logic in its conceptual formation and multifarious manifestations.

2 Sinology, Sinologism, and postcolonialism

This chapter attempts to examine the idea of Sinologism in the larger context of contemporary intellectual thought, clarify the interrelations among the key terms of this study: Sinology, Sinologism, Orientalism, postcolonialism, and sinologization, and pave the way for in-­depth explorations of conceptual and practical issues central to the proposition of a new theory for critical studies of China knowledge production. The issues to be examined include: how does Sinologism relate to its cognate term “Sinology” and its source of inspiration, Said’s “Orientalism”? In what ways does Sinologism differ from Orientalism? How did the basic differences come about? Is it necessary or scholarly justifiable to propose the conceptual category of Sinologism when we have already at our command the theories of Orientalism and postcolonialism?

Sinology and Sinologism In order to complete a long-­term endeavor to bring China into its conceived intellectual and material system that covers all civilizations in the world, the West has conceived and proposed a series of ideas, theoretical frameworks, and conceptual models to address the dazzling complexity of Chinese history and civilization. These theories, approaches, and models are dominated by a series of epistemological and methodological problems, which are distinctly reflected in Western scholarship in the area covered by Sinology, a branch of learning focusing on the study of Chinese language, literature, and culture. As these problems are the outgrowth of Sinology, “Sinologism” as a conceptual category is naturally related to it. It becomes necessary and, indeed, inevitable, to examine this connection and to probe the relationship between Sinology and Sinologism on the one hand and between Sinologism and sinologization on the other. In its widely known usage, Sinology refers to a branch of scholarship on China and Chinese civilization having a broad scope and a narrow scope. While Sinology is often another name for China studies in European and American academia, it refers more narrowly to the study of traditional Chinese language, literature, history, intellectual thought, and the arts, conducted in an approach characterized by an evidential investigation (kaozheng) that emphasizes philological and textual analysis of historiographical and archaeological materials on

Sinology, Sinologism, and postcolonialism   43 Chinese civilization. Edward Schafer, a renowned Sinologist in the US, narrowed its scope even further to philological study of ancient Chinese texts.1 Its origin, according to one recent Western survey, “may be traced to the examination which Chinese scholars made of their own civilization.”2 Sinology has its Chinese name Hanxue, which literally means “Scholarship of the Han” in contradistinction to Songxue (Scholarship of the Song) and Fanxue (Scholarship conducted by Ethnic Minorities). Its counterpart in China nowadays is called Guoxue (scholarship of China). In this study Sinology refers broadly to China studies. Although it started as an area study in Western scholarship, Sinology had an international background from the outset and has a long global history. In a way, one could date its origins as far back as the legendary Marco Polo in the thirteenth century.3 However, as a field of scholarship, it is more commonly accepted that a systematic study of China did not begin until the sixteenth century, when Western Christian missionaries, among whom the most famous is the Jesuit Matteo Ricci (1552–1610) who went to China with the aim of converting the Chinese to Christianity. As early sinological research often concentrated on the compatibility of Christianity with Chinese culture, it may be said to be based on an “accomodationist paradigm,”4 which is so-­called because scholars attempted to accommodate the vast knowledge about China within the European system. Initiated by Ricci, this paradigm won hearty endorsement from leading European scholars including Leibniz, who considered it essential for Europe to learn about China for its own benefit, and for China to be receptive to European ideas and artifacts.5 Whether it is Ricci’s attempt to convert the Chinese to Christianity, or Leibniz’s lofty goals of mutual understanding, closer cooperation, and cultural exchange between civilizations, from the very beginnings it was a subject of study that was endowed with features that are akin to those of present-­day globalization, although as a subject of study Sinology started as a by-­product of the Christian mission. The central question of this section is: is Sinology an equivalent or a near-­ equivalent to Sinologism, or a form of Sinologism? A most meaningful way to answer this question is to examine the relationship between Sinology and Sinologism by way of Orientalism. Many scholars both inside and outside China have taken their cue from Said and believe that Sinology is a form of Orientalism. Bob Hodge and Kam Louie co-­authored a book on the politics of Chinese language and culture. It contains a brief discussion of the relationship between Sinology, Sinologism, and Orientalism. Employing Foucault’s theory of discourse, they argue: “Sinology showed many classic features of what Said called ‘Orientalism’. However, for a number of reasons it is useful to propose a distinct branch of ‘Orientalism’ which we will call ‘Sinologism’.”6 They state two reasons for using Sinologism to replace Sinology. While one reason refers to the distinctive difference in discourse Sinology displays from Orientalism, the chief reason for proposing Sinologism as a substitute for Sinology is that the latter as the term for an academic discipline is obsolete and not many academic institutions and scholars would use it to identify themselves. Despite “the specific

44   Sinology, Sinologism, and postcolonialism f­ eatures of Sinologism,” they believe that it is “a particular sub-­species of Said’s ‘Orientalism.’ ”7 Thus, in their conception, Sinology is equivalent to Sinologism because they are essentially one and the same thing, only with different names: both are a distinctive form of Orientalism. Their view is echoed by other scholars of Chinese culture. In an interview published in a well-­known journal on literature and art in China, David Wang states: “Since its inception, Sinology has belonged to Orientalism. It arose as an Orientalist fascination with China. Its methodology is dazzlingly colorful and chaotically unwieldy, but basically it is a baggage of Orientalism posited by Said.”8 In China, a similar view is expressed by quite a number of scholars, among whom Zhou Ning is a vocal representative. A professor who has written extensively on China’s relations with the West in history, he is especially well-­known for his study of China’s images in Western scholarship since the West first brought China into the purview of Western imagination and investigation. In an article titled “Sinology or Sinologism,” he explores the relationship between the two named categories. At the start of his inquiry he is not so sure whether they are equivalent. The word “or” between “Sinology” and “Sinologism” in the title reveals his hesitation. This hesitation is further revealed in the question he raises: “If ‘Orientalism’ is but an ‘ism,’ wouldn’t Sinology be guilty of ‘sinologism’?”9 But as he examines the relationship in terms of Louis Pierre Althusser’s theory of ideology, Jean-­François Lyotard’s critique of the “grand narrative,” Michel Foucault’s theory of power, knowledge, and discourse, and Stuart Hall’s theory of cultural representation, and above all Said’s theory of Orientalism, he gradually jettisons his doubt: If China belongs to the “Orient,” and Sinology to “Orientalism,” then, the cultural critique in “Orientalism” applies to Sinology. If the representation of China in the Orientalist discourse by the West contains fiction and power, then, Sinology may be tainted with “Sinologism”; and it may work in complicity with power and become colonialist ideology of imperialism.10 Finally, he solidifies his position and equates Sinology with Sinologism: “Sinologists in the West have always been colored by a heavy ideological tint. Sinology in its broad sense is itself ‘Sinologism.”11 He comes to this conclusion through an elaborate critical analysis of Sinology in terms of Orientalism. Although his conclusion is basically the same as that of others, Zhou Ning’s equation of Sinology with Sinologism has a twist that differentiates it from that of Hodge and Louie. The difference lies in the fact that while in the latter equation Sinologism is but another more appropriate name for Sinology, in the former equation, Sinologism is equivalent to Orientalism, or a form of Orientalism. Despite their subtle difference, both views express a similar message: Sinology is equivalent to Sinologism because their common denominator is Orientalism. There is still another subtle difference in orientation. Hodge and Louie propose to replace Sinology with Sinologism because they want to relate Sinology more narrowly to language and literature and hope to cleanse Sinology

Sinology, Sinologism, and postcolonialism   45 of Orientalist ramifications. Zhou Ning proposes the equation of Sinology with Sinologism because he wants to relate Sinology more broadly and more closely to Orientalism, and questions the status of Sinology as a legitimate branch of learning.

Sinologism and political criticism Since the accepted equivalence between Sinology and Sinologism is predicated on Orientalism, the critical orientation is clearly political in nature. In other words, the existing view of Sinologism as a critique of Sinology is essentially a political criticism of Western produced knowledge and scholarship on China. Critics of Sinology find it, as a scholarship, wanting, because they think it is replete with politics and power. This can be clearly seen in Zhou Ning’s line of argument. By analyzing the ideologically laden nature of Sinology, he argues that “Sinology in its broad sense is not so much a branch of scholarship or a knowledge system as an ideology, and Sinology is contained within Sinologism.”12 The critical theories on which critics of Sinology rely are political and ideological ones, and the problems that they have identified are evidently political in nature, and the political orientation of Sinology reduces its validity and value as an academic discipline. But scholars from the opposite position have voiced opposing views, criticizing an over-­use of Said’s Orientalist theory. Zhang Xiping, a Chinese scholar, argues: In recent years, there are numerous books which follow Said’s theory and employ it to interpret Western Sinology and Western views of China. We cannot say that their profuse writings that make a dozen volumes are devoid of authentic knowledge and brilliant insights. Sparks of ideas and wisdom of language abound in these books. But on the whole, these books are deficient in creative conceptions and cultural self-­consciousness. The general theoretical framework employed to explain Oriental scholarship and Sinology in the West is the one of Said’s, a Chinese version of post-­colonialism.13 Criticizing the critics for doggedly relying on Said’s theory, Zhang Xiping pinpoints the weaknesses of the Orientalist approach: “Oriental scholarship in the West is not as simple as Said observed. It is endowed with multiple dimensions and needs to be analyzed and grasped from multiple angles. Said only emphasized one dimension.” The counter-­argument accuses the critics of Sinology of having committed the same fundamental error as many critics who adopt Said’s Orientalism: no distinction is made between Orientalism as an authentic branch of scholarship and Orientalism as a set of politically motivated ideas that guide the production of knowledge. The accusers of Orientalist critics call for more attention to the three distinct components in Said’s theory: (1) Orientalism as a pure form of scholarship on Oriental culture; (2) Orientliasm as imagined accounts by Europeans of the Oriental world, and; (3) Orientalism as the methodology and principles with which colonialists make policies for controlling and

46   Sinology, Sinologism, and postcolonialism managing their colonies in the Orient. They argue that critics of Sinology and Oriental scholarship share similar problems: they overlook the first category and overemphasize the second and third categories. This kind of counter-­argument is not without its legitimate ground. Indeed, critics of Sinology tend to neglect that Sinology in its narrow sense is a serious, rigorous, and scholarly branch of learning, at least aspiring to be free from utilitarian purposes and political orientations. Anticipating the opposing opinions, Zhou Ning adopts a strategy that challenges the status of Sinology as a legitimate scholarly discipline: “Postmodernism questions the legitimacy of knowledge. Naturally, the legitimacy of Sinology comes under threat.”14 Employing a deconstructive approach to the basic assumptions and institutional system of Sinology, he exposes the “implicit ideology” of Sinology in its narrow sense, and states: “Sinology is not so much a ‘science’ that presupposes objective truth as a narrative endowed with ideological efficacy. . . . Even in its most serious disciplines, Sinology is laden with factors of ‘Sinologism.’ ”15 In his argument, Sinology is Sinologism because it is informed by explicit and implicit political ideology. Zhou Ning’s inquiry displays a gradual process of moving toward politics. At the risk of reduction, a summary of his argument would be that Sinologism is a discourse of Orientalism based on political ideology and power. This leads us to examine a fundamental question: is Sinologism a political form of knowledge? I accept a substantial part of Zhou Ning’s and other scholars’ arguments about Sinologism. Indeed, it shares with Said’s Orientalism a common core and covers a common ground with “Orientalism in Sinology,” a topic of investigation that has recently yielded a study with this putative title.16 However, I venture to differ from this view by saying that Sinologism is not entirely a form of political criticism, like Orientalism or “Orientalism in Sinology.” Here, I will only discuss the difference from the perspective of geopolitics and international politics. In my conception, first and foremost, Sinologism is an integral part of Western efforts to build an international intellectual and material system, quite unlike Said’s narrower conception of Orientalism as “an integral part of European material civilization and culture” in his initial formulation in the book Orientalism. It also differs from Said’s broader reformulation in a later article, “Orientalism Reconsidered.”17 In his reformulation, Said refers to Orientalism as a broad construction of Asia by Europeans and a problematic in Western modernity with politics at its heart: As a department of thought and expertise Orientalism . . . refers to several overlapping domains: first, the changing historical and cultural relationship between Europe and Asia, a relationship with a 4,000-year-­old history; second, the scientific discipline in the west according to which beginning in the early nineteenth century, one specialized in the study of various Oriental cultures and traditions; and, third, the ideological suppositions, images and fantasies about a currently important and politically urgent region of the world called the Orient.18

Sinology, Sinologism, and postcolonialism   47 Even in the second domain, which is supposedly academic, Said still emphasized its political ideology: In so far as it was a science of incorporation and inclusion by virtue of which the Orient was constituted and then introduced into Europe, Orientalism was a scientific movement whose analogue in the world of empirical politics was the Orient’s colonial accumulation and acquisition by Europe.19 In his response to Western scholars’ criticism of his Orientalist theory, Said gave a special prominence to the “large political setting” of Orientalism, and launched a counter-­argument against its routine denial and suppression by his critics. For example, he criticized Bernard Lewis, who, he regrets, “has the effrontery to dissociate Orientalism from its two-­hundred-year partnership with European imperialism and associate it instead with modern classical philology and the study of ancient Greek and Roman culture.”20 Said’s reformulation identified a fresh orientation that future critique of Western scholarship ought to undertake: epistemological critique of scholarship. But his reconsideration does not show significant changes to the political centrality of his Orientalist theory. In his 1995 “Afterword,” Said makes significant moves to tone down the political theme of his book,21 and to atone for his neglect of the scholarly and humanistic achievements of the Orientalists, with the obvious aim of countering the accusation of his thesis as one of “anti-­ Westernism.” Nevertheless, he adheres to his argument: “the guild of Orientalists has a specific history of complicity with imperial power, which it would be Panglossian to call irrelevant.”22 By contrast, I must point out that compared with Orientalism, Sinologism is a much less political and ideological system of knowledge, at least before Western imperialist countries – sensing the increasing decline of the Qing Empire – started to seriously consider colonizing China in the latter half of the nineteenth century. A comparison with Said’s definition of Orientalism will reveal the difference. Said maintains: “Orientalism expresses and represents that part culturally and even ideologically as a mode of discourse with supporting institutions, vocabulary, scholarship, imagery, doctrines, even colonial bureaucracies and colonial styles.”23 We need to take note of several points in Said’s conception, which form a contrast with Sinology. A fundamental point is that Sinology does not have “colonial bureaucracies and colonial styles.” This is a fundamental point that differentiates Sinology from Orientalism. Sinology, as I will show in the next chapter, is not a product of imperialist conquest and colonial expansion; in contrast to Orientalism, which, as Said rightly points out, is essentially a product of imperialism and colonialism. After the European imperialists conquered and colonized the Middle East, the knowledge system established by European scholars was born inevitably with the birthmark of imperialism and colonialism. It is not necessary to repeat Said’s critique, but it suffices to take note of his thesis that despite their claimed objectivity, the Orientalist scholars of Europe were guilty of an overt and covert complicity with imperialism and colonialism, and their Orientalist scholarship was explicitly and

48   Sinology, Sinologism, and postcolonialism implicitly at the service of the colonial agenda. In his book Said identifies a series of preconditions without which Orientalism “could not have occurred.”24 The core of the preconditions is European expansion, which is essentially colonialist and imperialist in nature.25 In simple words Orientalism as an academic discipline and an ideological system grew out of European colonial expansions. By contrast, the matrix of Sinologism, Sinology, was not a product of colonialism at the outset. Throughout human history China has never been a colony of Western imperialist countries, even though many of them held spheres of influence or international enclaves in China and their citizens enjoyed privileges and prerogatives within China. This included the notorious prerogative of extraterritoriality, which simply meant that Westerners were above Chinese laws and that if a Westerner committed a crime in China, he or she was not to be subjected to the judgments or punishments of Chinese law. But despite untold humiliations suffered by the Chinese in its modern history, China never became a colony to Western imperialism, unlike India, Vietnam, Southeastern, Middle Eastern, and African nations. A commonly accepted view of China before 1949 is that it was a semi-­colony. In my opinion this view may be an accurate description of China’s condition in the age of imperialism and colonialism, but serves more pertinently as a politically effective slogan that can mobilize the broad masses of Chinese people to unite themselves under the banner of nationalism and to expel all imperialist countries from China. Because China was never a Western colony, Sinology as a branch of scholarship and a system of knowledge is much less political and ideological than Orientalism. It seldom became a tool at the service of colonial expansion, as it did not have an explicit colonial program to serve in the way Orientalism did. Moreover, except for a small number, most Sinologists are dedicated scholars who have either genuine love for Chinese culture, or deep sympathy for the Chinese people. Even those who produced certain amounts of knowledge about China but cannot be regarded as bona-­fide Sinologists are generally Sinophiles who show admiration for and appreciation of Chinese culture. I personally know a few Sinologists who have expressed regret that they were not born Chinese. The English scholar Galsworthy Lowes Dickinson’s famous remark, “I must have been a Chinese in my previous life,” is the epitome of this sinophilic mentality. Few of the sinophobes who expressed loathing and hatred for China and Chinese culture are bona-­fide Sinologists. The European thinkers and writers who wrote negatively about China were either ignorant of Chinese tradition or motivated by a desire to consolidate their own cultural superiority; but few nursed the intention of using China scholarship to serve colonialist expansion. Moreover, to equate Sinologism with Oientalism overlooks the fact that most Sinologists are serious scholars who have produced a great quantity of admirable scholarship that has broadened our understanding of Chinese civilization and has been highly respected by Chinese scholars themselves. I have in mind Bernhard Karlgren’s contribution to the study of ancient Chinese language, Paul Pelliot’s study of Dunhuang manuscripts, Marcel Granet’s study of Chinese religion and thought, Joseph Needham’s study of Chinese science and logic, John Fairbank’s

Sinology, Sinologism, and postcolonialism   49 study of Chinese history, Burton Watson and Stephen Owen’s studies of Chinese poetry, François Jullien’s study of Chinese thought and art, Patrick Hanan and Andrew Plaks’s studies of Chinese fiction, just to name a few prominent ones. To overlook the serious scholarship by many Sinologists, one would commit an error of politicizing scholarship at the expense of genuine knowledge production similar to that made by some Western scholars and thinkers who have distorted and misinterpreted Chinese civilization. The politicization and ideologization of Chinese scholarship is a dimension of Sinologism. I will conduct an extensive case study of this aspect in another chapter.

Sinologism and Orientalism Sinologism was certainly a conceptual category inspired by Edward Said’s seminal work on Orientalism. This may give the impression that Sinologism is a kind of Orientalism in Said’s conception. This impression seems to be supported by Said’s own expressed opinion that Sinology should fall under the rubric of Orientalism. The scholarly work undertaken by scholars adopting and attempting to enlarge the scope of Orientalism have reinforced this impression. It is therefore highly necessary to acquire a clear recognition of its differences from Orientalism. In significant ways my notion of Sinologism differs from Said’s Orientalism and Orientalism in Sinology. The appearance of Said’s Orientalism has caused much confusion in people’s understanding of Orientalism as a field of scholarship and as a critical theory. As a critical theory, Said’s theory of Orientalism is basically a theory of critique of Orientalism. Many oriental scholars simply view it as a theory of “anti-­Orientalism.” Bernard Lewis adopts this characterization. In a chapter titled “The Question of Orientalism,” Lewis states: “The main exponent of anti-­Orientalism in the United States has for some time past been Edward Said, whose book Orientalism, first published in 1978, was heralded by a series of book reviews, articles, and public statements.”26 Although Lewis’s view is colored by his political and scholarly stand, the anti-­Orientalist position of Said’s critique is not to be doubted and the fact that Orientalism has now become a word with negative connotations affirms the basic orientation of Said’s theory. Compared with Orientalism, Sinologism is not a theory of critique with anti-­Sinology orientation, implicit or explicit. I conceive it to be so because Sinology is a much more complex branch of scholarship. Said identified three aspects of Orientalism: (1) an academic discipline; (2) a “style of thought based upon an ontological and epistemological distinction made between ‘the orient’ and (most of the time) ‘occident’ ” and; (3) a “Western style for dominating, restructuring, and having authority over the Orient.”27 Sinologism dovetails with the first point, is relevant to the second, but is differently connected to the third. But the core of the differences comes from the matrix of origin. Sinologism grew out of Sinology while Orientalism grew out of Oriental studies. The differences in genesis, historical evolution, geocultural politics, and human resources have determined that the two are destined to be different. Oriental studies is an academic discipline pioneered by Western scholars. Its rise was motivated by the

50   Sinology, Sinologism, and postcolonialism West’s desire to learn about the Middle East for the sake of colonial expansion. The Orientalists engaged in Oriental studies from beginning to maturity were exclusively Western scholars; Orientals only served as informants and raw data suppliers. The history of Orientalism may be said to be that of Western Orientalists engaged in the study of the Middle East, and the achievements of Oriental studies largely belong to Western Orientalists. In the areas of Oriental Studies like Egyptology and Assyrian Studies, Western scholars have enjoyed absolute intellectual authority and wielded indisputable power of discourse. By contrast, Sinology is essentially a branch of learning that grew out of hanxue (China scholarship of the Han) pioneered and practiced by Chinese scholars for over 2,000 years. Its initial motivating force was not one that served the agendas of colonial expansion, but that which served the needs of the West to know about China, to define its identity, and to establish a global intellectual system. From the very beginning, Sinologists took Chinese scholars as their teachers, and in the ranks of Sinologists there have been more and more scholars of Chinese origin. And the achievements of Sinology are jointly made by Westerners and the Chinese. Thus, it is reasonable to say that Orientalism in Said’s study is a product of Westerners, whereas Sinologism in my study is not purely a Western invention. Rather, it is a joint product created by Westerners and non-­Westerners, including the Chinese themselves. To a certain extent it is a joint product about China created by intellectuals of numerous geographic origins for the global consumption of China knowledge. In the following sections I will discuss in detail the differences between Sinologism and Orientalism. First and foremost Sinologism differs from Orientalism for geopolitical and geocultural reasons. In Said’s conception the Orient is entirely an outcome of Western imagination, without which the Orient cannot exist: Thus all of Orientalism stands forth and away from the Orient: that Orientalism makes sense at all depends more on the West than on the Orient, and this sense is directly indebted to various Western techniques of representation that make the Orient visible, clear, “there” in discourse about it. And these representations rely upon institutions, traditions, conventions, agreed-­ upon codes of understanding for their effects, not upon a distant and amorphous Orient.28 This is tantamount to saying that the Orient is a pure Western invention. His other observation confirms this idea: “The Orient was almost a European invention, and had been since antiquity a place of romance, exotic beings, haunting memories, and landscapes, remarkable experiences.”29 Although these observations pertain to China as well, for there were indeed many imaginative accounts of China, China in the Western mind is more a cultural reality than a fantastic invention even before the Common Era. Marco Polo’s travels, perilous journeys by missionaries, Columbus’s sea voyage, and Ferdinand Magellan’s circumnavigation of the world, were all intended to reach China for trade and commerce; European imperialist countries like Portugal, Spain, Holland, and England, all

Sinology, Sinologism, and postcolonialism   51 viewed China as a land for potential conquest, commercial enterprise, and religious conversion. Said’s central thesis is that there is no such thing as “a real or true Orient (Islam, Arab, or whatever)” because the Orient “is itself a constituted entity.”30 This may be true to the Orient as a constructed entity covering the Middle East, whether by Westerners or Middle Easterners, but Sinologism has a real, concrete object of study, which is China. Although there are scholars who view China as a constructed entity, their view is as nihilistic as those who deny the existence of the US, England, and France. This is a major geocultural difference between Orientalism and Sinologism. Some scholars have noticed the geocultural limitations in the theory of Said’s Orientalism, and made attempts to account for its precipitating reasons. Zhang Kuan, a Chinese scholar, points out that Said’s Orientalism has its geopolitical limitations because it is exclusively concerned with the Middle East and Near East and does not touch the Far East.31 The limitation in Said’s theory does not constitute a weakness in itself; in fact it leaves much conceptual room for later scholars to explore new avenues concerning the issue. In his study of postcolonialism, Wang Ning makes such an observation: “These kinds of limitations specifically reveal themselves in the dimensions of geography, culture and literature. They, however, have provided the Third World scholars and critics with theoretical starting points for interrogation and reconsideration.”32 This remark has identified the necessity of reconceptualizing Said’s theory and enlarging its scope and explanatory power. Ironically, existing scholarship has taken a direction which, instead of extending the theoretical horizons of Said’s paradigm, veers off into Occidentalism, despite Said’s warning that “the answer to Orientalism is not Occidentalism,” the latter being an inversion of Said’s conception of the Western world’s stereotyped views of the Orient. Despite the controversies, Occidentalism basically focuses on stereotyped and sometimes demonizing views of the Western world, imagined accounts of the West by non-­Western peoples, and locates a counter-­discourse for purposes different from Said’s critical orientation.33 Second, on geopolitical, historical, and cultural grounds, Said’s theory of Orientalism has been found to be incapable of addressing many phenomena and theoretical issues in Sinology and China studies. Nowadays, Said’s theoretical conceptions of Western scholarship on the Orient are widely used in postcolonial studies and cross-­cultural studies including China–West studies, but in their studies, scholars who apply Said’s theoretical insights into Orientalism often find his ideas like square pegs in the round hole of Chinese materials. In Said’s conception, Orientalism represents a paradigm for Western scholars engaging in studies of Middle Eastern cultures, who profess to make scientific and objective observations about Middle Eastern cultures, but turn out to distort the real conditions of the cultures under investigation, with explicit and implicit prejudices and biases, and hence serve the needs of overt and covert colonialist agendas. Out of Said’s critical theory scholars constructed an Orientalist paradigm. The paradigm has provided fond critical approaches for scholars engaging in cross-­ cultural studies. It has also been widely employed by scholars of Chinese culture

52   Sinology, Sinologism, and postcolonialism to deconstruct Western scholars’ studies of Chinese culture, from Hegel to Foucault. In spite of the many successes, the explanatory power of Orientalist paradigm significantly dwindles in the studies of Far Eastern cultures, especially Chinese culture. I have in mind the medieval European scholars’ admiration for China, Leibniz’s study of Chinese philosophy and religion, Voltaire’s idealization of Chinese morals and culture, Fenollosa’s fascination with the Chinese written character, Ezra Pound’s obsession with Chinese language, poetry, and intellectual thought, Galsworthy Lowes Dickinson’s defense of Chinese morals and values, and Bertrand Russell’s idealistic views of Chinese people and culture. Although these scholars’ work fit into the Orientalist paradigm in some ways, that is, characterized by naïve idealization or distortions of Chinese culture due to their limited knowledge of China, generally speaking, these thinkers and scholars do not fit into the Orientalist paradigm predicated on Said’s critique of Western scholars’ study of the Middle East. For although all of them are guilty of distorting the true conditions of China, their distortions were made in the opposite direction of Orientalism. That is: instead of demonizing China, they took the opposite stance to idealize Chinese culture. It is already well-­known that in the mind of eighteenth century European scholars China was an ideal kingdom ruled by sage kings with people living in harmonious bliss. In Leibniz’s study of China he did not hesitate to compare it with the West in terms of cultural superiority and inferiority, but his writing is almost entirely free from the hegemonic prejudices and biases overtly or covertly held by European scholars in their studies of the Middle East and Far East.34 Pound’s and Fenollosa’s fascination with Japan and China does not fit the Orientalist paradigm either. Superficially, both Pound and Fenollosa seemed to be typical colonial scholars in the era of colonialism, studying non-­Western Third World cultures from the vantage point of Western cultural hegemony. As such we should expect to find covert and overt prejudices and biases in their scholarship. But in their works directly related to Chinese culture, we could not find any hint at the inferiority of Chinese culture, characteristic of Western scholars who studied Middle Eastern cultures in the colonial period. On the contrary, what we encounter is their genuine admiration for and appreciation of Chinese culture and literature.35 In his lifetime, Pound translated several Chinese classics into English and unequivocally compared his discovery of China to the Renaissance discovery of Greece.36 And when he was arrested towards the end of World War II, Pound entered his religious belief as “Confucian” in his prison camp registration. Evidently Pound’s fascination with and admiration for China deviated from the Orientalist paradigm, which shows that Western images of its colonial others not only govern the West’s hegemonic policies, but also serve as an instrument of domination. Some readers might retort by saying that some Orientalists also expressed an attitude of appreciation, and were engaged in romantic idealization of Middle Eastern culture. What I want to point out is that the Orientalist appreciation and Sinologists’ appreciation belong to different categories. Although Orientalists

Sinology, Sinologism, and postcolonialism   53 did produce positive descriptions of Middle Eastern culture, their appreciation is predicated on a totally patronizing attitude that exoticizes Muslim culture. When Said’s Orientalism was first published in 1978, a reviewer wrote a passage that adequately describes the Orientalist mentality: The scholar who studies the Orient (and specifically the Muslim Orient), the imaginative writer who takes it as his subject, and the institutions which have been concerned with “teaching it, settling it, ruling it,” all have a certain representation or idea of “the Orient” defined as being other than “the Occident,” mysterious, unchanging and ultimately inferior.37 By contrast, Sinologists’ appreciation of Chinese culture is mostly genuine. Although they were not free from distortion, and exoticization, they romantically idealized Chinese culture, and even considered it superior to Western culture in many aspects. This kind of genuine appreciation was seldom found among Orientalists during the colonial periods. Take T. E. Lawrence, the famous “Lawrence of Arabia” for example. He was conversant in several Middle Eastern languages, familiar with Arabic culture, customs, and was sympathetic to the people of Arabia. For a period he dressed himself like an Arab and mingled with the Arabs intimately, but he did all this with an explicit purpose, i.e., to accomplish the strategic objective of the British Government during World War I to weaken and destroy the Ottoman Empire (a German ally) and to put the Arabic tribal people under British control. Lawrence intended to be a pure Oriental scholar devoted to the archaeological studies of Ancient Middle Eastern culture, but became an instrument of British colonialism. His life story epitomizes a conspicuous difference between Orientalists and Sinologists: the politicization of scholarship for the former, and apoliticization of scholarship for the latter. This marks a fundamental difference between Orientalism and Sinologism. Third, compared with Orientalism, Sinology, the matrix of Sinologism, was endowed, from its humble beginnings to maturity, with a powerful internal mechanism that resists ideological politicization. Said’s Orientalism may be characterized as a book of theory on political criticism in the field of humanities and social sciences, because he himself frankly admits in the Introduction that his objective is to raise a series of “political questions” about Orientalism.38 The strong responses to and reaction against his book, be they positive praises or negative criticisms, are directly related to its political nature and ideological concerns, which completely subverted the academic legitimacy of Orientalism as a scholarly term. Since then, “Orientalist” has become an adjective frequently used to refer to any prejudiced representation of Oriental cultures. If we examine the miscellaneous forms of discontent expressed by Oriental scholars, we can summarize them with one sentence: through Said’s political and ideological processing, Orientalism changed from the guardian angel of Oriental cultures to an imperialist demon. John M. Mackenzie voices this concern and discontent in his book, and directly criticizes Said:

54   Sinology, Sinologism, and postcolonialism For Edward Said, in his highly influential book Orientalism of 1978, far from protecting oriental cultures from overwhelming imperial power, far from permitting eastern cultural forms to survive, Orientalist studies became themselves an expression of intellectual and technical dominance and a means to the extension of political, military and economic supremacy. Orientalism came to represent a construct, not a reality, an emblem of domination and a weapon of power.39 By contrast, neither the traditional brand of Sinology nor the new field of China study has a political and ideological orientation like that of Orientalism. I do not mean to say that Sinology or China study is free from any politicization of scholarship (Chapter 7 addresses this issue), but rather to say that they do not possess an internal motivation toward scholarly politicization. Thus, I dispute the claim by some scholars who view the rise of Sinology as a result of the needs of colonial expansion. I do not wish to support my disagreement by retracing the historical development of Sinology here, as I will present a historical critique in the following chapter, but only want to cite one typical case for analysis. Zhang Kuan, who argues for a direct connection between Sinology and Orientalism, claims in one of his articles that Western Sinology grew out of colonial expansion and has served its needs. He singles out the Cambridge History of China as an illustrative example and points out in particular that its chief editor, John Fairbank, the American Sinologist who founded the modern field of China study, is a testimony to the association of China study to US imperialist expansion.40 True, both Chinese and Western scholars agree that the establishment and development of China study coincided with policies for the US-­led Western neo-­ colonialist expansion following World War II, and may rightfully be regarded as a product of the Cold War. But Zhang Kuan overlooks one fact. As the Amer­ ican Sinologist Ezra F. Vogel points out, few of the scholars engaged in China study during the Cold War period were indignant or enthusiastic Cold War fighters.41 Karl Wittfogel may be an exception, for in the preface to his book Oriental Despotism, he unequivocally expressed his support for the Cold War.42 If, against the stringent background of McCarthyism during the Cold War, Sinologists engaged in China studies refused to serve as tools for imperialism, this fact alone lends strong support to my argument that there exists an internal mechanism within Sinology that resists politics and ideology and differentiates Sinology from Orientalism. Why were there few enthusiastic Sinologists in support of the Cold War? There are many reasons and different explanations. One of the reasons may be the heartfelt appreciation and deep understanding of Chinese culture by Sinologists and China study scholars. Another reason may be attributed to Sinology’s insistent pursuit of non-­political scholarship. For these reasons I believe that non-­political and non-­ideological tendencies are the cardinal differences that set Sinology (and Sinologism) apart from Orientalism. Moreover, this tendency is endowed with a great potential that may transform Sinologism from a deconstructive discourse to a constructive paradigm with promising new approaches to China–West studies.

Sinology, Sinologism, and postcolonialism   55 Fourth, although on a number of occasions Said maintained that Sinology falls under the domain of Orientalism, there is one special factor that sets Sinology and Orientalism apart. As a result of this factor Said’s theory of Orientalism does not apply to sinological studies as well as to Oriental scholarship. In Said’s critique the Orientalists are exclusively Western scholars (mostly English and French) who are “outside” observers engaged in generating essentialist and distorted representations of the Middle Eastern culture and civilizations. To a great extent the notion of the colonial “other” has given Said’s theory of Orientalism its conceptual underpinning and validity. The notion of “colonial other,” however, does not have equal relevance in Sinology, if one takes into account the fact that Sinology has its roots in China’s own study of its culture and civilization, and that the teachers of many Western Sinologists were Chinese scholars. Unlike Egyptology and other branches of Oriental scholarship, which were pioneered by Western scholars and pursued largely by Western scholars until recently, Sinology originated from China’s own study of its culture and civilization, and in the past half century there have been as many Sinologists of Chinese origin as those of Western origin. Nowadays there are more Sinologists of Chinese origin than those of Western origin, at least in the US. Even if we do not count scholars in China whose research focuses on the same areas of scholarship as those of Sinology, the scholars of Chinese origin in the West alone have exerted as much influence as scholars of Western origin upon the formation and maturity of Sinology. The human resources factor of Sinology has blurred the ethnic demarcation line between Sinologists, for there are not only “Westernized Chinese” but also “Sinified Westerners.” In China’s Modernization: Westernisation and Acculturation, the editors speaking on behalf of all the contributors, openly declare: “the contributors, all intellectuals and China specialists, have in the course of their lives been affected by the process of sinification.”43 It stands to reason that some Sinologists argue that Western studies of China and its civilization in the past three generations or so have been spared the pernicious influence of “Orientalism.” While one may not accept this argument in total, we must admit that Said’s theory of Orientalism contains limitations when it applies to Sinology and China studies for historical, geopolitical, and human resources reasons. Some Sinologists simply dismiss Said’s theory of Orientalism and deny its applicability to China studies. Simon Leys wrote a scathing criticism in an article that directly addresses the relationship between Orientalism and Sinology, and dismissed the relevance of Orientalism for Chinese studies.44 Other Sinologists are less dismissive but argue that Said may have written an excellent study on Orientalism, but that the theory he advanced in that book does not apply well to Sinology and China studies. Norman J. Girardot, for example, argues that sinological Orientalism and its derivative form, Chinese Occidentalism, demonstrate very different features from Said’s subject of inquiry, the Indo–Aryan and Islamic Orientalism, and his typological comparison sometimes has “serious historical and cultural deficiencies.”45 Other scholars who criticize Said’s Orientalism and voice concerns over the application of his Orientalist theory to China studies include Robert A. Kapp,46 Peter Gran,47 and Jonathan D. Spence.48 In one

56   Sinology, Sinologism, and postcolonialism Sinologist’s review of the debate on Said’s Orientalism and its relevance to China studies, Hans Hägerdal expresses an opinion held by many Sinologists: “No Orientalism in Chinese studies.”49 The vehement opposition by some Sinologists to the application of Said’s theory of Orientalism to Sinology reflects, at least in fair measure, the inadequacy of Orientalism for China studies. Fifth, the special human resources factor in Sinology prompts us to further consider the limitations of Said’s Orientalism and justifies the proposition of Sinologism as a different conceptual category. In an article that directly relates Chinese history to Said’s thesis of Orientalism, Arif Dirlik points out that Said only considers Orientalism as a construction of Asia by Europeans, and as a problem in Euro-­American modernity, but he fails to pay attention to the fact that, from the beginning, Asians participated in the construction of the Orient. Dirlik suggests that Orientalism should also be considered as a problem in the conceptualization of Asian modernities. To support his argument he cites examples of “self-­orientalization” by Asian intellectuals, including the Chinese.50 Dirlik’s argument supports my proposition of Sinologism. In the worldwide context of Western-­centric power discourse and discursive hegemony, the development of Sinologism has displayed a new turn, which some scholars call “self-­ Orientalization,”51 but in my view it may be more pertinently termed “self-­ otherization” in the discourse of Sinologism. The sinologistic views of China held by Chinese themselves and by non-­Western peoples may take a special form of otherization. Conceptually, otherization has two levels, one social, one political. On the social level, the otherization of any person by a group based upon class, race, ethnicity, gender, or religion, is to differentiate the group from another so as to exclude the latter, whom one wants to subordinate or subjugate. On the political level, the otherization of non-­Western people and culture by Western people and cultures is meant to show the superiority of Western people and cultures. In conventional circumstances, the Westerners treat non-­Western people as others in order to show themselves as different from, and superior to, the latter. But in Sinologism, the Chinese may put themselves in the position of the Westerners and view themselves as others, thereby adding another dimension to Sinologism, which is not to be found in Orientalism. This is why the special form of Sinologism should be called “self-­otherization” or “inverse otherization.” In Said’s observation of Orientalism, the Orientals are not Europe’s interlocutor, but its “silent other.”52 In the Chinese situation we often find the Chinese as the Westerners’ “echoing other.” Last but not least, Sinologism goes even farther than otherization and self-­ otherization. Sinologism is neither solely a Western issue nor a purely Chinese issue. As the international knowledge system is dominated by the West, non-­ Western nations and people tend to look at China and Chinese civilization through the Western lens, and their knowledge of China tends to be mediated via Western knowledge. The great irony is that these non-­Western countries include China itself, for many Chinese in China and ethnic Chinese around the world tend to look at China and its civilization from the Western perspective. This is one of the reasons why I wish to advance a central thesis in my argument that

Sinology, Sinologism, and postcolonialism   57 Sinologism is not a regional issue but an international phenomenon that transcends the boundaries of Sinology and China–West studies. Hence, Sinologism has another and more intriguing dimension. In this dimension, Sinologism may be understood to refer to the responses and reactions to, or acceptance, absorption, and internalization of the Western perspectives, as well as the consumption of knowledge about China produced by the West. The multiple dimensions constitute a Western-­centered ideology in epistemology that guides modern ways of looking at China, and results in a peculiar methodology in the production of knowledge about China and other non-­Western cultures. Hence, Sinologism may possess applicability to Western knowledge production about other non-­Western countries and cultures. This may be the worldwide significance of proposing Sinologism as a theory of cultural studies in the context of globalization.

Sinologism and postcolonial thoughts People may say that if we accept your argument that Sinologism differs from Said’s Orientalism, would it make good sense to say that Sinologism is a form of Orientalism in Sinology? To this question, my answer is still “no.” True, my notion shares some common ground with Orientalism in Sinology, but differs from it in several ways, a few of which I have already addressed. Most fundamentally, Sinologism is not solely concerned with critical analysis of colonial discourse, one of the objectives Said has emphasized: “the reason why Orientalism is opposed by so many thoughtful non-­Westerners is that its modern discourse is correctly perceived as a discourse of power originating in an era of colonialism.”53 Indeed, all existing critical analyses of Orientalist phenomena in China studies are derived from the application of Said’s critical theory to the study of Chinese materials. By contrast, my study comes from the opposite direction of Orientalism in Sinology. It is conceptually oriented and inductively conducted. That is, by examining Western studies of Chinese materials, I intend to theorize on the problematic of Sinology or China studies. It is not just an examination of the Western knowledge about China, but a critique of the ways in which knowledge about China is produced. A comparison of my notion with a recent book, Orientalism in Sinology, will highlight the different orientations. In his book, Adrian Chan employs the insights from Said’s Orientalism, and criticizes Western scholars’ distortion and misrepresentation of Chinese culture and Chinese intellectual thought. Chan’s critique has numerous interesting insights into the problems of Sinology, but as he follows Said’s Orientalist paradigm too rigidly, his critique is not entirely persuasively argued.54 In his attempt to follow the Orientalist paradigm, Chan moves from a critique of cultural universalism to an acceptance of cultural relativism and turns the differences between Chinese and Western traditions into a series of dichotomies with the implication that Chinese and Western traditions have little in common and therefore should be set apart.55 I do not subscribe to the notion that Chinese and Western traditions should be separately examined, but believe that we can have meaningful comparative studies of the two traditions. I wish to make my study serve as a nodal

58   Sinology, Sinologism, and postcolonialism point upon which Sinology, Orientalism, modernity, globalization, and other issues converge. As in globalization, we find in Sinologism contradictory and conflicting ideas, motives, objectives, consciousnesses, movements, practices, conclusions, and consequences. For example, Sinologism is capable of covering a dimension of Occidentalism, the opposite of Orientalism. According to existing studies, Occidentalism, despite its variations, contains two major aspects. The first refers to a mixture of stereotypical biases and prejudices, dehumanizing understanding and demonizing imaginations of Westerners held by peoples of former colonies and Third World nations and regions. This dimension is just the opposite counterpart of Said’s Orientalism, and therefore does not fall under the rubric of Sinologism. The second aspect refers to the exaggeration, beautification, idealization, and veneration of Western cultures by peoples of the Third World, especially the intellectuals. Both dimensions are distortions and misrepresentations of the real conditions of the Western world, and constitute an instrumental counter-­ discourse. However, people who employ Occidentalism have entirely different objectives. Nationalists and conservative people of the Third World nations who view Western ideologies and lifestyles as anathema employ the critical theories of Occidentalism as their powerful weapons. This aspect has little in common with Sinologism. By contrast, liberals, reformers, and modernization promoters in the Third World countries make use of the opposite theories of Occidentalism to endorse political ideas and social systems of the West and to promote their efforts for reform and modernization. For two reasons the second dimension is relevant to Sinologism. The first is that it is related to the Chinese people’s attitudes towards Western cultures, which in their turn exert an impact upon Chinese attitudes towards their own culture. The second is that its epistemology and methodology coincide with those of Sinologism. Some Chinese people’s fetishization of the West and advocacy of complete Westernization are the inevitable outcome of intellectual colonization in epistemology and methodology. Their blind veneration and idealization of Western cultures share the same epistemology and methodology as those of Sinologism, therefore constituting similar representations to Sinologism. My study of Sinologism might be misread as another form of Occidentalism, but in fundamental ways my study is free from Occidentalist position. In Occidentalism, Xiaomei Chen identifies some problems in Said’s book and criticizes him for advancing a form of discourse that leads to Occidentalism.56 In a way her criticism is justified. Said was aware of the problem and said that the way to solve the problem is not to answer Orientalism with Occidentalism. The Occidentalism in Xiaomei Chen’s study refers to Chinese reification of the Occident, in the same way as the Orient is reified by Western Orientalists, and Occidentalism is the very mirror image of Orientalism, with the latter as its epistemological premise. In the case of China–West relations, Chen identifies two strands of Occidentalist discourse: one refers to the official discourse advocated by the government before China opened its door to the world (that misrepresents the  West to justify political repression at home), and the other to an unofficial

Sinology, Sinologism, and postcolonialism   59 Occidentalist discourse upheld by liberal and independent intellectuals that draws positive images of the West to legitimize resistance against oppression. Dirlik is right to point out: “The issue is not orientalism; rather, what is at stake is the implication for power of orientalism in different social and political contexts.”57 Orientalism and its counterpart Occidentalism both have a serious drawback: both are critical theories that have political critique as its ultimate aim and do not offer constructive theories that are conducive to the production of knowledge. The main reason for their being so is that each theory starts from an ethnically oriented position and denies the possibility of objective and bias-­free ways of knowledge production. Their declared or undeclared position is that no knowledge is neutral. Eastern scholars armed with the ideas of Orientalism may accuse Western scholars of distorting and misrepresenting the East due to their failure to examine Eastern materials on their own cultural and historical terms. But when a Chinese scholar proposes to examine Eastern materials on their own terms, he may be criticized for being Sino-­centric. When he does use Western theories he may be charged with imposing Western ideas on Chinese materials. I have received this kind of criticism myself. From the opposite direction, when Western scholars call to examine Eastern materials on their terms, they may again be criticized for adopting an Orientalist position. Thus, both Orientalism and Occidentalism emphasize the politics of ethnicity to the neglect of the relatively neutral nature of knowledge and scholarship.

Sinologization Ontologically, Sinologism is a system of knowledge produced about China, but in its problematic epistemology and methodology, it turns into sinologization, which is essentially a special type of colonization. What is to be colonized is not the land but the mind. And the act of colonization is perpetrated by both the historical colonizers and the colonized. In other words, the colonizers are both Westerners and non-­Westerners, including the Chinese. Colonization takes different forms, both violent and non-­violent. Colonization by force is a thing of the past, but colonization by non-­violent forms disguises itself as various forms of globalization. Sinologism is a kind of non-­violent colonization. It consists of two tendencies which may be respectively called “epistemic colonization” and its resultant form of self-­ colonization. The two forms of non-­violent colonization are found to be prevalent in East–West encounters, and in cultural exchanges between the industrialized world and the developing Third World countries. They are also prevalent in scholarship produced by East–West studies. In the area of China–West studies, the two forms of invisible colonization constitute an institutionalization of Sinologism, for which I wish to coin the term “sinologization.” Like Sinologism, sinologization is driven not by violent force, nor even by the soft power of consumer capitalism, but by something close to Gayatri Chakravorti Spivak’s notion of “epistemic violence,” which is the soft violence of knowledge, or violence of discourse, supported by the complete apparatus of knowledge production.58

60   Sinology, Sinologism, and postcolonialism My inquiry into Sinologism is mainly concerned with its epistemic rationale and manifestations in the academic field of China–West studies. Sinologism, however, is not an exclusively Chinese phenomenon, nor is it exclusively confined to studies of China. It contains a logic that has an international bearing and implies an epistemology that covers a broad spectrum that sweeps across all Third World countries and cultures. When Sinologism reaches its international scale, and its logic penetrates into most aspects of a culture, it develops into a status quo with negative consequences characterized by sinologization. Sinologization finds its manifestations in the field of international politics, economics, culture, social development, and almost all aspects of life. In conceptual terms, sinologization is an epistemological approach to scholarship of non-­Western cultures and societies, predicated on the declared and undeclared assumptions of Sinologism as well as a thinking process through which non-­Western cultures perceive and conceive their relations to China and the world in terms of the epistemology underpinning Sinologism. A common form of sinologization is the blind call for complete Westernization by the intellectuals in various non-­ Western countries, including modern-­day China. Modern Chinese history is characterized by a general trend of Westernization, whether it is in the form of Marxism or capitalism. In terms of its consequences in the Third World countries and regions, sinologization is a form of “self-­colonization,” “intellectual colonization,” and “spiritual colonization.” What is so peculiar about sinologization is that a large number of Chinese people and overseas Chinese would willingly accept the cultural hegemony of the West and admit that the culture of their native land is backward and should be eliminated by natural selection from the surface of the earth. This kind of masochistic self-­denigration is a typical manifestation of sinologization. In the domain of Chinese culture, common phenomena of sinologization include many intellectuals’ views on complete Westernization, and common people’s fetishization of the West. A radical kind of sinologization displays a tendency of reverse racism. For an extreme example, a Chinese intellectual depicts the Chinese people as “flies on a garbage can,” “mosquitoes in a sewer ditch,” and considers the Chinese nation has degenerated into “a horde of animals” and a gang of “thugs and goons,” having possessed “the cowardice of quasi-­Fascism,” and “contaminated civilization and international community.” If one does not know the identity of the author, he or she would think the above descriptions are but racist slurs of old and new fascists in European countries, the Ku Klux Klan in the US, and white supremacists all over the world. Unfortunately, this utterance comes from the pen of a so-­called Chinese intellectual. Such an extremist form of cultural masochism may be unprecedented and unparalleled in the history of humanity. One may dismiss it as an emotional outburst by an intellectual like Lu Xun, who relentlessly criticized Chinese culture because he was so deeply in love with it that he hated its seamy side to the guts. However, nowhere in Lu Xun’s writings can we find such obscenely uttered attacks against the Chinese. Such attacks would not have been tolerated even in the West, where freedom of speech permits the expression of extremist views.

Sinology, Sinologism, and postcolonialism   61 We may recall the Cafferty incident in 2008. Asked to comment on the US’s relation to China, Jack Cafferty, a CNN commentator, made a racist remark, “the Chinese are basically the same bunch of goons and thugs.” CNN was forced to issue an apology under the strong protest and threat of court action by the Chinese and anti-­racist people all over the world. We need to note the similar wording used by Cafferty and the cited Chinese intellectual. It is understandable from the perspective of a racist, who utters a racist slur against people of another race, but for someone to rail against his own people from a racist angle is totally incomprehensible unless we view his remark from the perspective of self-­ otherization and reverse racism. As a Chinese intellectual, he would certainly not put himself in the ranks of “flies,” “mosquitoes,” and “thugs and goons.” He must have examined his own people from the detached position of a superior “other,” in the way the colonizers of the old days inspected the Aborigines of their conquered land. This striking phenomenon is not an isolated case. On the internet we frequently encounter such masochist remarks against Chinese culture uttered by individuals of Chinese origin. Thus, not only do some Chinese people act as the echoing other of the West, under the conditions of sinologization, they unwittingly serve as puppets for neo-­colonialism. This peculiar phenomenon is a special feature that distinguishes Sinologism from Orientalism. In his critique of Said’s Orientalism, Dirlik criticizes Said for saying little about how “intellectuals and others in Asian societies may have contributed to the emergence of orientalism as practice and concept,” and raises the question of “whether orientalism was just the autonomous creation of Europeans, or whether its emergence presupposed the complicity of ‘orientals.’ ”59 His criticism is quite to the point and his question has a direct bearing on Sinologism. My study has demonstrated that Sinologism is both an autonomous product of Western development and a collaborative outcome by Chinese and Westerners. From Chinese intellectuals’ call for complete Westernization (Quanpan Xihua) in the first quarter of the twentieth century, to the widely accepted notion of “making connections with the West” (yu guoji jiegui) at the turn of the twenty-­first century, we can see Sinologism as an ongoing joint project by Chinese and Western peoples from all walks of life. In almost all strata of Chinese society we can observe a powerful trend or movement which may be termed “self-­ Orientalization” or “self-­sinologization.” Self-­orientalization is a concept proposed by Dirlik to refer to two related aspects: (1) Asian views of Asia in terms of European created Orientalism; and (2) Western views of Asia by Westerners who have been sympathetic to, and Asianized by, Asian cultures. In Dirlik’s conception both aspects involve positive outcomes arising from the impact of imported Western ideas. My conception of self-­sinologization is largely of a critical bent. It refers to a complex phenomenon in which the Chinese reluctantly recognize Western cultural superiority and willingly accept the Orientalist role imposed upon them, and then observe and criticize Chinese culture and society from the Western perspective as though they were Westerners. The theoretical foundation of a call for complete Westernization and making connection with the West is self-­sinologization, which is essentially intellectual self-­colonization.

62   Sinology, Sinologism, and postcolonialism Self-­colonization is pervasive in Sinologism but not in Orientalism. In the Middle East and the Islamic world, because of the strength of Islam, seldom do we encounter peoples in the regions covered by Orientalism who denounce their own culture and tradition, and willingly accept Western ways of life. The reaction against Salman Rushdie’s The Satanic Verses is testimony to this difference. Rushdie’s novel was partly inspired by the life of Muhammad, founder of the religion of Islam, and prophet of God. The book’s title refers to the so-­called satanic verses, a group of alleged Qur’anic verses that permit prayers of intercession to be made to three pagan Meccan goddesses. While receiving high praise and winning a series of prestigious awards in the West, the book caused an uproar in the Islamic world, and was condemned as blasphemy. The Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, Supreme Leader of Iran, even issued a fatwa calling on all good Muslims to kill or help kill Rushdie and his publishers. It is unnecessary to discuss the forces working behind the controversy, but the radical responses to Rushidie’s book speak eloquently of how self-­orientalization has been resisted in the Islamic world. By contrast, Confucius, the founder of Confucianism and the most influential thinker in Chinese history and culture, has been subjected to severe criticism, vicious condemnation, and profane attacks since the beginning of the twentieth century. It is by no mere accident that the attacks on Confucius and Confucianism coincided with the large-­scale importation of Western ideas and culture. The iconoclasm that characterized the New Culture Movement is an inevitable measure to remove obstacles to China’s modernization, but, as many scholars have observed, the iconoclasm committed the error of throwing the baby out with the bath water. In my opinion the New Culture Movement has had a strong tinge of self-­Orientalization, and even self-­colonization. This situation forms a striking contrast with that in the Middle East. The people there could not resist gunboat style colonization, but they resisted cultural colonization successfully. In simple terms the situation may be described as: you Western imperialists can colonize our land, but you cannot colonize our mind. In the Chinese situation, it is almost the opposite. The Western imperialists failed to colonize the Chinese land, but they achieved impressive successes in colonizing the Chinese mind. This can be seen clearly in the totalistic iconoclasm in the beginning of the twentieth century, and the eagerness to embrace Western ideas and lifestyles. To the iconoclasts nothing in Chinese culture and tradition is sacred and beyond their relentless attacks. This spirit of iconoclasm prevails all through the twentieth century, and extends to the present. Because of its totalistic nature and its pervasive influence, self-­Orientalization is not adequate enough to describe the all-­pervasive penetration of Western culture into Chinese cultural and social life; nor is the term epistemological colonization. In my opinion nothing short of self-­colonization is adequate to describe the phenomenon of spiritual colonization. The spirit of Western culture has penetrated into every nook and cranny of Chinese culture, and become sedimented into the Chinese consciousness and unconscious so much so that aspects of Western culture are visible in all aspects

Sinology, Sinologism, and postcolonialism   63 of Chinese society and life, from politics to economics, from language to literature, from scholarship to lifestyle, from food to fashion. Nowadays, if one takes a stroll in the main street of any Chinese city, what he or she will encounter is a scene not much different from that of the West. On both sides of the main street are shops, many of which flaunt Western labels – which are believed to be effective in attracting customers. Among them you will have little difficulty in finding American restaurants like McDonalds, KFC, Pizza Hut, or Starbucks. Despite the fact that the food served in these restaurants has been confirmed to contribute to obesity in the US, and is much more expensive by Chinese standards, these restaurants are always full of customers. The street is full of pedestrians who mostly are dressed in Western-­style suits or clothes of Western brands or fashion. Many girls and women have dyed their hair blonde or golden. Several times, I saw from behind a Western girl with blonde hair who turned out to be a Chinese girl with all the Western-­style paraphernalia from head to foot. Occasionally you will see a young couple dressed in Western wedding gowns, or witness a procession of cars hired for a Western-­style wedding. Nowadays, if a young bride does not have a Western style wedding she would regret it for life. Western festivals are celebrated throughout the year, from Christmas, through Valentine’s Day, to Thanksgiving. Many young people have taken a Western name even though their profession or life has no need for it. All these phenomena may be succinctly summed up with a change of the saying, “when in Rome, do as the Romans do,” to “when in China, do as the Westerners do.” All these phenomena may be the outcome of globalization, but they are certainly reflections of self-­colonization. As I will demonstrate in the next section I do not oppose globalization. In fact I wholeheartedly embrace it because I consider it essential for cross-­cultural exchanges and for worldwide modernization. I describe the foregoing phenomena as a way to contrast it with street scenes in other so-­called Oriental countries like India, Saudi Arabia, Iraq, and Egypt, with the purpose of illustrating a fundamental difference between Orientalism and Sinologism. The natural soil for the rise and development of Sinologism is in striking contrast with that of Orientalism. As a result of epistemological colonization most Chinese, subliminally, and some openly, admit the inferiority of Chinese culture and willingly recognize the cultural superiority of the West.

Sinologization and globalization Sinologization represents the most undesirable aspect of Sinologism. It hampers true dialogues between China and the West in particular, and the cultural exchanges between different cultures as a whole. It has been a true obstacle to the process of globalization. Without awareness of this, globalization will take an unhealthy direction and deteriorates into a style of “sinologization,” which is essentially an overt or covert form of Westernization whose ultimate form is Americanization. Despite controversies, globalization nowadays is generally viewed as a positive development in the rapid process of modernization of world cultures. From the perspective of Sinologism, however, I can see why the opponents of globalization are so

64   Sinology, Sinologism, and postcolonialism v­ ehemently opposed to this process. Globalization brings with it the potential for cultural conflicts, which are famously described by Samuel Huntington as the “clash of civilizations.”60 In my opinion the clashes brought about by globalization in the East–West encounter are not so much civilizational conflicts, as ideological conflicts. In East–West studies the conflicts of ideas across cultural traditions are largely in the nature of epistemic conflicts. And the way out of such conflicts is not a civilizational approach, but an epistemological approach. The underlying driving force for cultural conflicts in the East–West encounter is the dominance of Western ideology of epistemology in the West’s approach to non-­Western cultures and traditions. This can be seen clearly in my critical inquiry into Western knowledge production about China. In terms of my conception and critique of the sinologistic approach to knowledge about China, globalization is largely a process of modernization predicated on the Western models of development with little attention to the vast differences between cultures, traditions, and regions, and still less attention to the differences in social conditions, moral consciousness, lifestyles, and cultural values of different societies. Because of this unfortunate situation, aspects of globalization are essentially a form of sinologization because its basic assumptions are determined by Western epistemology, and its models of political, social, economic, and cultural development are basically Western. I am not an opponent of globalization. On the contrary, I believe that it is a positive process, which, if conducted properly, will benefit all humanity as a whole in the long run. However, I also believe that if we do not become aware of the perils of sinologization in globalization, modernization will become essentially a historical movement of Westernization, and in its extreme forms, a process of Americanization. As Tu Wei-­ming, a leading Sinologist, aptly points out, because of the overwhelming presence of the West in all aspects of East Asian life, modernity in East Asia is substantially “Western” and East Asian intellectuals have reluctantly but thoroughly accepted modern Western nations as the initiators, executors, and judges of the international rules of the game in foreign trade, diplomacy, power politics, military confrontation, and transnational communication for so long that they themselves have taken it for granted that modernization, in theory and practice, is synonymous with Westernization.61 In the minds of many Chinese intellectuals, Westernization has universal value and is the right direction for the whole world and for humanity. Liu Xiaobo, the leading Chinese dissident and Nobel Peace Prize winner, once made this declaration: Complete Westernization is humanization and modernization. To choose to be westernized is to live a life of human beings, for the difference between Westernization and the Chinese system is one between human beings and non-­human beings. In other words, to live the life of human beings one must choose complete Westernization. There is no room for prevarication and

Sinology, Sinologism, and postcolonialism   65 compromise. I call Westernization internationalization and globalization, because only when Westernization is implemented can human nature be promoted to its full extent. This is not a choice by a nation, but by humanity.62 Liu expressed this view in an interview in 1988, and more than 20 years later he refuses to withdraw it. It exposes the extremist dimension of Sinologism and may be viewed as the ultimate form of sinologization. Theoretically and practically, it represents an extraordinary case of the type of internal self-­colonization criticized by postcolonial scholars such as Frantz Fanon and Homi Bhabha. In Fanon’s theoretical work on the national agendas of the bourgeoisie in former Western colonies in Africa, he observes how the national bourgeoisie in African countries followed the path of their Western counterparts of the Enlightenment era in pursuit of their national agendas. But they lacked the same initiative, energy, and innovativeness, and were “content with the role of the Western bourgeoisie’s business agent,” engaging in its “historical mission” of “being the transmission line between the nation and a capitalism.”63 The difference is that on their agenda, what Liu and his like intend to transmit is not just capitalism; they set their minds on selling Western cultural values as the universal human values applicable to all cultures and societies irrespective of the historical, social, and cultural conditions of a specific nation. This special form of sinologization has enlarged the scope of Sinologism and added a new dimension to its development in history, which is not to be found in Orientalism.

Concluding remarks I will end this chapter with a brief conclusion. Sinology is not Sinologism; nor is Sinologism variations of Orientalism and other forms of Western-­centrism, still less an anti-­Sinology critical theory. Sinologism is a peculiar cultural enterprise with multiple and often conflicting visions and dimensions, some of which are predicated on politicization and ideologization, while others emanate from problems in serious and rigorous scholarship. The reason why I propose Sinologism as a critical discourse is not to attack Sinology but to criticize the problems inherent in the epistemology and methodology of China studies as well as the negative impact upon the ways of observing China and doing scholarship on Chinese civilization. The ultimate aim in proposing Sinologism is to find inspirations and insights for depoliticizing and de-­ideologizing China scholarship. Depoliticization and de-­ideologization are two fundamental aspects that differentiate Sinologism from Orientalism and other politically motivated critical theories. Thus, the ultimate difference between Sinologism and Orientalism/ postcolonialism is that while the former is a theory of self-­conscious reflection, the latter ones are theories of political critique.

3 Sinologism A historical critique

This chapter studies the history of Sinologism, but it does not attempt to offer a full historical account. In fact, it does not even aim to provide a broad sketch of its historical formation. Rather, it has the modest aim to offer a historical critique of it at some crucial stages of development from its early rise through its maturity to its modern forms. I will critically examine the works of some major thinkers and scholars in Western history, who, I believe, have contributed to the formation of distinctive ways of doing scholarship on China. Through critical analyses, I seek to grasp the pivotal points in the formation of “Sinologism” as a system of China knowledge production with an internal logic, give a brief description of its characteristic features, and locate some epistemological and methodological principles that eventually evolved into its inner logic. Thus, the chapter is not so much a historical review of Sinologism, which would take volumes of work, as a critical examination of how its fundamental principles came to be formulated in history.

The rise of Sinologism Unlike Orientalism, which arose as an accompaniment to Western conquest of its colonies, Sinologism arose from Sinology which came into being as an intellectual by-­product of the Western efforts to build a global intellectual system incorporating China. There is a world of difference between its present and past forms. In the beginning Sinology was very much like Hellenism, initially dedicated to the study of Greek antiquity, then extending to a broad spectrum of ancient, medieval, and modern Greek culture, including such academic disciplines as classical languages, literature, history, philosophy, archaeology, and anthropology, etc.1 I am inclined to regard the early periods of Sinologism as a golden age when knowledge about China was pursued for its own sake, and alienation of knowledge scarcely touched it. At least it was not contaminated by political ideologies of imperialism and colonialism. Clear signs of alienated knowledge did not appear until the turn of the twentieth century and coincided with the spread of capitalist and colonialist expansions. Sinologism in its earliest form, though distorting the real picture of China, was guided by an epistemology relatively free from overt hegemonic motives, because China was then perceived

Sinologism: a historical critique   67 to be the West’s equal, superior in many aspects of life. Sinologism took a benign form that attempted to accommodate the vast differences of Chinese life, religion, and thought, into a broad intellectual system guided by an accomodationist policy. This can be seen in the Jesuits’ efforts to convert the Chinese to Christianity. Faced with a deeply entrenched Chinese culture, early missionaries like Matteo Ricci (1552–1610) adopted an accomodationist approach. Guided by this approach, he did not explain the Catholic faith as something foreign or new, but made use of existing Chinese ideas and concepts to explain Christianity. To bring the Chinese into his conceived Christian system, he argued that the Chinese culture and people had always believed in God, and that Christianity was simply the most perfect manifestation of their faith. He went so far as to identify the Chinese Lord of Heaven with Jesus Christ, and tolerate the Chinese practice of ancestor worship as a religious practice not incompatible with Christianity.2 The accomodationist system was quite successful for a time, but afterwards it was severely criticized by the missionaries of other factions who convinced the Vatican to outlaw Ricci’s approach. The accommodationist policy may be the first Western effort to fit Chinese culture into a Western intellectual system in a way relatively free from Western cultural imperialism. Nevertheless, even Ricci’s accomodationist approach was not entirely free from the Western-­ centric epistemology that was to dominate all Western encounters with China. As he confessed: “I make every effort to turn our way the ideas of the leader of the sect of literati, Confucius, by interpreting in our favour things which he left ambiguous in his writings.”3 Its eventual demise was not an accidental event, but signals the setting in of Western-­dominated ideology and epistemology, and anticipates the rise of what I have termed “Sinologism”: the ideological dominance of Western intellectual habits vis-­à-vis China. But the logic of Sinologism took many years to formulate itself. The accomodationist system pioneered by Ricci was endorsed by Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz (1646–1716) in the late seventeenth century when he attempted to fuse European and Chinese cultures into a global intellectual system in terms of language, religion, science, and metaphysics. In Leibniz’s works concerning China, we can discover clear signs of Western cultural hegemony and intellectual habits. While admitting that China is about equal to the West in the useful arts and practical mastery of natural objects, he considered the West to be superior to China in intellectual pursuits: In profundity of knowledge and in the theoretical disciplines we are their superiors. For besides logic and metaphysics, and the knowledge of things incorporeal, which we just claim as peculiarly our province, we excel by far in the understanding of concepts which are abstracted by the mind from the materials, i.e., in things mathematical, as in truth demonstrated when Chinese astronomy comes into competition with our own. The Chinese are thus seen to be ignorant of that great light of the mind, the art of demonstration, and they have remained content with a sort of empirical geometry, which our artisans universally possess.4

68   Sinologism: a historical critique Here we have observed signs of a tendency in Western knowledge production about China: with a very limited knowledge about Chinese tradition, Western scholars would not hesitate to draw conclusions about China and claim that China lacks this or that. In the mid-­eighteenth century, the endeavor to place China in a Western system of the world became a primary concern in the minds of major Western thinkers. French thinkers like Voltaire (1694–1778) and Montesquieu (1689–1755) made systematic attempts in their intellectual thinking to incorporate China in separate ways. Voltaire carried on the romantic tendency initiated by Marco Polo in his world-­renowned Travels of Marco Polo,5 developed it into an early romantic tradition of Sinologism, and invented an idealized image of China both in his literary work The Orphan of China6 and in his grand work on world history. In perhaps the first universal history, he gave pride of place to China by opening his grand work with two chapters on Chinese civilization. He praised China but presented it as a changeless civilization: “This state has subsisted in splendor above 4,000 years without having undergone any material alteration in law, manners, language, even in the mode of fashion and dress.”7 As one of the earliest European thinkers to inquire into the cause of Chinese retardation in development, he attributed the stagnancy to a reverence for the past and the nature of Chinese language, but he was quite free from the Euro-­ centrism and ethno-­centrisim typical of later thinkers. By contrast, Montesquieu had already gone through the infatuation with China, and became disillusioned. By this time the view of Chinese as an old, stagnant, and exhausted nation resistant to any change appeared and has since occupied the Western thinkers who attempted to bring China into the world system. Along with it we see the intellectual habits that would dominate China– West studies and eventually develop into what I call Sinologism. Being among the first to extend comparative methods of classification to the political forms in human societies, Montesquieu may be the first Western thinker to formulate a sinologistical approach to Chinese civilization. He was a pivotal figure in the transition of Sinologism from its early romantic idealization to realistic denigration in its mature stages. From his youth onwards he devoted a great deal of time learning about Chinese civilization, and even made friends with a Chinese person named Hoange, brought to Europe by a French missionary.8 Characteristic of later Western thinkers’ approach to China, Montesquieu had his interest in China not for its own sake, but for the sake of conceiving and constructing a global political and intellectual system. In his grand work The Spirit of the Laws, the first consistent attempt to survey the varieties of human society, including China, Montesquieu classifies governments of the world into three main categories: monarchies (free governments headed by a hereditary figure, e.g., king, queen, emperor), despotisms (enslaved governments headed by dictators), and republics (free governments headed by popularly elected leaders). Each of them was respectively operated on the principles of honor, fear, and virtue. The three principles determine the nature and functions of each political government. The principle of honor drove monarchical governments to establish a strict hierarchy

Sinologism: a historical critique   69 of institutions. The principle of fear impelled despotic governments to enforce a social order of unquestioned loyalty and submission. The principle of virtue led republics to promote equality among citizens.9 He rejected the missionaries’ characterization of China as an ideal state and put China into the category of despotism in his conclusion to his study of the Chinese empire: “China is a despotic state whose principle is fear.”10 Anyone who has adequate knowledge of Chinese history would agree that the three principles of honor, fear, and virtue were all present in Chinese dynastic governments, but this recognition would make untenable Montesquieu’s constructed grand system. Anticipating challenges to his formulated theory by missionaries who had been to China, he made a pre-­emptive move: “Our missionaries speak of the vast empire of China as of an admirable government, in whose principle intermingle fear, honor, and virtue. I would therefore have made an empty distinction in establishing the principles of the three governments.”11 He mounted his defense and rejected the missionaries’ view by recourse to the realities of Chinese society, which he perceived to lack an idea of honor central to a monarchy in his conception: “I do not know how one can speak of honor among peoples who can be made to do nothing without beatings.” On the matter of virtue that he considered to be paramount to a republican form of government, he thought that China was also deficient, because our men of commerce, far from giving us an idea of the same kind of virtue of which our missionaries speak, can rather be consulted about the banditry of the mandarins. I also call to witness the great man, Lord Anson.12 It was a great irony that he should have distrusted missionaries who stayed for long periods in China and had ample time to observe Chinese society, yet trusted merchants and seamen who came to China to make profits and to conquer. It was a greater irony that he should have cited as a so-­called authority on China George Anson, a British naval commander who was treated badly by Chinese officials for his unauthorized intrusion into China. In a way his calling Anson to witness was not a random act, for Anson, “personified the newly assertive side of an expansionist Great Britain, self-­confident, bellicose, swift to condemn the weak, impatient with delays.”13 In his comparison of Chinese and Western rulers, he wrote: He [Chinese king or emperor] will not feel, as our princes do, that if he governs badly, he will be less happy in the next life, less powerful and less rich in this one; he will know that, if this government is not good, he will lose his empire and his life. Ignorant of Chinese ideas about the next life and retribution, he seemed to have known nothing about the cardinal political principle of government in traditional China: the Mandate of Heaven, by which a virtuous ruler is entrusted with the power to govern and a despotic ruler deprived of his mandate to rule.14

70   Sinologism: a historical critique His analysis of China in terms of his political theory reveals an important dimension of the Western epistemic ideology in the process of being formed: a teleological approach derived from the studies of Western nations. In his formulated theory, the nature of a government is determined by the size of the state: a small territory gives rise to a republic; a medium size territory is a monarchical state; and “a large empire presupposes a despotic authority in the one who governs.”15 Since Chinese states through history are generally large-­scale empires, China must have been a despotic state founded on the principle of fear rather than honor and virtue. According to his theory, “there must be no censors in despotic governments.”16 But here again, China does not fit into his theory, for a distinctive feature of Chinese dynastic government is the system of appointed censors whose primary duty is to criticize the ruler’s wrong policies, and conduct and recommend corrective measures. As a distinct Chinese political institution, the system of censors played a significant role in Chinese dynastic governments and became an integral part of Dr. Sun Yat-­sen’s five-­power constitution for the Republic of China after the republican revolution of 1911.17 The censorate system totally contradicts Montesquieu’s view of Chinese government as despotic. He therefore had to make the concession by admitting that the Chinese case poses some exceptions to the rule. On the issue of punishment by the government, Montesquieu noted the Chinese preference of moral education to punishment because “the more severe the punishments, the nearer the revolution.” He had to make another concession in a note: “I shall show later that China, in this respect, is a case of a republic or a monarchy.”18 Having put Chinese government into the category of despotism, Montesquieu again and again discussed China in the category of monarchies.19 In his comment on Montesquieu’s relation to China, Spence points out: Montesquieu’s numerous comments on China were scattered throughout his lengthy and carefully orchestrated work, but cumulatively they added up to an indictment of China that showed how far he had moved away from the more favorable assessments of the Jesuits on which he had initially drawn, and nearer to the harsher critiques found in Defoe’s fiction – which he may have read – and Anson’s account, which he definitely had.20 A reading of the book seems to support Spence’s comment. On numerous occasions Montesquieu expressed blatant biases. For example, he wrote: “It is strange the Chinese, whose life is entirely directed by rites, are nevertheless the most unscrupulous people on earth. . . . In Lacedaemonia, stealing was permitted; in China, deceit is permitted.”21 After examining all instances concerning China in Montesquieu’s book, I have found a pattern in his characterization of Chinese civilization. His distortion of Chinese things was not made, as some scholars believe, in accordance with the changing trend in Europe from a Sinophilic to Sinophobic stance, but dictated by his desire to construct a grand intellectual system of world civilizations, which necessitated a way of containing the bewildering complexity of

Sinologism: a historical critique   71 Chinese civilization through a constructed theoretical framework and explaining the differences from its Western counterparts in terms of conceived theories. Placing China into the pigeonhole of despotism is a good example. Despite his years of devotion to the study of China, his knowledge of China was not sufficient for him to account for the vast differences between Chinese and Western civilizations. By way of a further example, he noted a power peculiar to the government of China, i.e., the conflation of religion, laws, mores, and manners.22 Although his claim is not totally groundless, it nevertheless reveals his inability to understand the inner workings of Chinese society. He viewed this conflation as a bad thing because “it is almost impossible for Christianity ever to be established in China.”23 He attributes the Christian impossibility of expanding itself in China to the fundamental differences between Christian religion and Chinese rites. While the former requires that everything be united, the latter orders that everything be separate. Here again he shows a contradiction in his view. If China requires that religion, laws, mores, and manners be the same thing, how could he draw a conclusion of separateness in Chinese rites? Then, he further attempts to wrap up his contradiction by recourse to his theoretical framework: “And, as one has seen that such separation is generally linked to the spirit of despotism, one will find in this a reason why monarchial government, indeed any moderate government, makes a better alliance with the Christian religion.”24 With this statement, an ideological pattern in his epistemology is exposed beyond doubt.

The maturity of Sinologism If Montesquieu pioneered the tradition of a grand intellectual system that incorporated China, thereby laying the foundation for Sinologism, Johana Gottfried von Herder (1744–1803) followed suit in the late eighteenth century by producing a grand philosophy of the history of mankind which contained a chapter on China, and further broadened the scope of Sinologism. In comparison with Montesquieu, Herder’s approach evinces some new directions, which are demonstrated in the preface as well as the chapter on China proper. First, he departed entirely from any positive view of Chinese civilization generally embraced by thinkers before him. With the imagination of a poet, and writing in a tone bordering on caricature, Herder filled the chapter with unreliable and erroneous information on almost every aspect of Chinese culture, including geography, population, government, family life, morals, customs, language, arts, inventions, and religions, and even national character. Instead of presenting the information in a factual manner, he could not help but pass judgment on almost every piece of information. It is unnecessary to recount his biased presentations of facts about Chinese civilization, as my aim in this inquiry is not to expose errors and biases. I will only cite the conclusion to demonstrate his value judgments: Swelling with tatarian [Tartarian] pride, she [China] despises the [European] merchant, who leaves his own country, and barters what she deems the most solid merchandize for things of trifling value: she takes his silver, and gives

72   Sinologism: a historical critique him in return millions of pounds of enervating tea, to the corruption of all Europe.25 An overview of his chapter informs the reader that China was ruled by semi-­ barbarian despots; its cultural institution was childish; there was no science or invention; the Chinese had no taste for the arts and beauty; they were vainglory, cupidity, and hypocrisy personified; their morals were dominated by childish submission; their language was but a primitive form of hieroglyphics; and as a whole China “stands as an old ruin on the verge of the World, in it’s [sic] semi-­ mungalian [Mongolian] form.”26 In its mature form, Sinologism became a form of ethno-­centrism and Euro-­ centrism with a heavy tinge of racism. Herder’s approach evinced blatant ethno-­ centric and even racist tendencies that were to develop into Western cultural imperialism. In his magna opus, that collects his thoughts on the nature of humanity and history, Herder attributes the Chinese cultural inferiority to the weaknesses in Chinese national character: “The character of this people is a remarkable point in history, for it shows what a mungal [Mongol] nation, unmixed with any other, can or cannot be rendered by political cultivation carried to the highest pitch.”27 His ethno-­centrism fills the whole chapter and is most tellingly reflected in the images and metaphors that he employs to describe China. He depicts China as “a dormouse in its winter sleep.” He describes the Chinese nations in even more striking images. China is, to him, “an embalmed mummy, wrapped in silk, and painted with hieroglyphics,” governed by “unalterable childish institutions.”28 Perhaps for the first time in Western intellectual thought, the racial inferiority of the Chinese had appeared. In Herder’s opinion, even if the Chinese wished to be culturally superior, they “could never become Greeks or Romans. Chinese they were and will remain: a people endowed by nature with small eyes, a short nose, a flat forehead, little beard, large ears and protuberant belly.”29 Chinese education accentuated the inferiority of national character: “the mode of education pursued by the Chinese conspired with their national character, to render them just what they are, and nothing more.”30 Oddly enough, Herder’s narrow-­minded racism in his analysis of Chinese civilization contrasts with his open-­mindedness in refusing to adhere to a rigid racial theory. He took great pride in Germany’s language, literature, and art, but warned: “National glory is a deceiving seducer. When it reaches a certain height, it clasps the head with an iron band. The enclosed sees nothing in the mist but his own picture; he is susceptible to no foreign impressions.”31 Ironically, this is precisely the way he viewed China, but he did not even notice his biases and prejudices, because he had full confidence in Western knowledge about China. In the preface to his book he wrote: I had read almost every thing [sic], that was written upon the subject, and from my youth every new book that appeared, relative to the history of the man, and in which I hoped to find materials for my grand work, was to me a treasure discovered.32

Sinologism: a historical critique   73 What is ironic is that he regarded his observations on China and Chinese people as free from animosity or contempt, which are nothing but objective knowledge meant to show the true nature of China: “This exhibition of the peculiarities of the chinese [sic] has not been coloured by enmity or contempt: every line is taken from their warmest advocates, and might be supported by a hundred proofs from every class of their institutions.”33 His remark reveals a crucial point: by his time an epistemological pattern in the study of China had already been formed and was on its way to become an epistemic ideology in the West’s knowledge production about China.

A by-­product of globalism Historically, Sinologism is an integral part of West-­initiated globalism. It came into being as a result of Western efforts to bring China into a West-­centered world and knowledge system. Its birth was not a sudden phenomenon but a gradual process that took many twists and turns in a variety of directions, all of which serve the agenda of absorbing China into the Western-­centered intellectual and material system. Thus, Sinologism needs to be understood in the larger context of Western efforts, since the sixteenth century, to build a global intellectual system that incorporates China that has eventually become the ongoing process of worldwide globalization. Globalization is a contemporary process of bringing different parts of the world into an interconnected global system through economic development, human migration, the spread of science and technology, and transnational dissemination of ideas, language, and popular culture.34 Its historical origins are still the subject of ongoing debates, but it is inseparable from China for a number of reasons: geographical, political, economic, and intellectual. While some locate the origins of globalization in the modern era, others trace its origins to the remote ancient past. Andre Gunder Frank, for example, argues that a form of globalization has been in existence since the appearance of trade links between Sumer and the Indus Valley Civilization in the third millennium bc.35 Others have traced the early form of globalization to the trade links between the Roman Empire, the Parthian empire, and the Chinese Han Dynasty (206 bc–220 ad) via the Silk Road, a trade route which started in China, reached the boundaries of the Parthian Empire, and then continued onwards towards Rome. The advent of the Mongol Empire turned the Silk Road into a more viable trade route which made it possible for travelers to journey from one end of Eurasia to the other, and consequently made global integration closer to the current idea of globalization. From the beginning China figured prominently in the globalizing project, and without it the global system would be incomplete. The earliest forms of globalization were essentially different forms of colonization. Whether initiated by the Mongol Empire, the Portuguese Empire, the Spanish Empire, the Dutch Empire, or the British Empire, globalization was by no means a peaceful and painless process. On the contrary, it was  driven by an engine of violence that took physical, material, emotional, and spiritual forms.

74   Sinologism: a historical critique Efforts to bring China into the world system were also characterized by violence, but not entirely of a physical form. For various reasons globalization has always been resisted by regional forces. Among all the resisting forces in the world, that emanating from Chinese culture has been the most enduring and persistent. As a result of such staunch resistance China was never completely colonized though it went through a period of alleged semi-­colonization. Because of this historical and political condition, China successfully resisted attempts to bring it into the global system until modern times. The global system would not have been complete if China was left out of the picture. This is not only because of China’s huge landmass and population, but because historically, geopolitically, culturally, and economically, China, as the greater part of the Far East, has always been viewed as the opposite pole to the West. Just as a globe would not be complete without the two poles, so the global system would be incomplete without incorporating China. In the last quarter of the twentieth century China finally became a part of the global system after it reopened its doors to the outside world and embarked on the road to modernization. Its acceptance into the World Trade Organization in 2001 marked its full absorption into the global system.

Sinologism and grand narrative As an intellectual system Sinologism is inseparably bound with Western efforts to construct a grand narrative called universal history. In constructing the grand narrative for mankind, many Western thinkers made their contributions. Among them leading thinkers include Voltaire, Montesquieu, Herder, Hegel, Marx, and Weber. All of them used Chinese materials to advance their ideas of universal history, but in the formulation of Sinologism, Montesquieu and Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel (1770–1831) may be the most important thinkers, because while the former may be viewed as its founder, the latter was perhaps the theoretical formulator. The former certainly had exerted a visible influence on the latter. In this section I will only discuss Hegel’s view of China at some length because of its conceptual significance. As a major philosopher of his own time and in world history, Hegel’s conceptual inquiry into the human condition laid the epistemological foundation for Sinologism. In the nineteenth century Hegel was the most influential Western thinker who attempted to incorporate China into an intellectual system of the world. In his philosophical inquiries into what he called universal history, he used China either as evidence or as an anomaly to support his system of ideas about historical movements of the world. Although he thought China came onto the world stage earlier than many other civilizations, China had managed to stay outside the main developmental lines of human progress, and was left out of the march of history due to the dominance of the tyranny of its emperor, and its lack of native impulses for individual freedom. He envisioned China becoming part of the world system only after the dynamic forces of the West forcefully brought it into the development of modern history.

Sinologism: a historical critique   75 In his philosophical inquiry into world history, Hegel put his idea of universal history to work, and wrote a philosophical account of world history that devoted a chapter to China. In the chapter, he examined Chinese history, historiography, government, population, family, morality, law, religion, science, language, and art, in terms of his own conception about the freedom of spirit, and Western conceptions of those aspects of life. With the confidence of a Western intellectual armed with a strong sense of cultural superiority, he made observations of, and critical comments on, Chinese civilization that were replete with ignorance, biases, and prejudices. For example, he mistakenly viewed China as a theocracy: “The Emperor, as he is the Supreme Head of the State, is also the Chief of its religion. Consequently, religion is in China essentially State-­Religion.”36 After examining Chinese religion in terms of Western religion, he came to a preposterous conclusion that Chinese religion, therefore, cannot be what we call religion. For to us religion means the retirement of the Spirit within itself, in contemplating its essential nature, its inmost Being. In these spheres, then, man is withdrawn from his relation to the State, and betaking himself to this retirement, is able to release himself from the power of secular government. But in China religion has not risen to this grade, for true faith is possible only where individuals can seclude themselves – can exist for themselves independently of any external compulsory power.37 Clearly, because of his meager knowledge of Confucianism, he totally ignored Taosim and Zen Buddhism, the major Chinese religions that privilege introspection, contemplation, spiritual freedom, and seclusion from secular life. His ignorance of basic facts about Chinese civilization led him to make numerous low-­level mistakes. For example: “They [the Chinese] know nothing of movable types. Gunpowder, too, they pretended to have invented before the Europeans.”38 China was an immoral land with no honor and with ever-­present deception: As no honor exists, and no one has an individual right in respect of others, the consciousness of debasement predominates, and this easily passes into that of utter abandonment. With this abandonment is connected the great immorality of the Chinese. They are notorious for deceiving wherever they can. Friend deceives friend, and no one resents the attempt at deception on the part of another.39 Here, we can see Montesqiueu’s influence as we recall how the French thinker viewed China as a land with no honor.40 Hegel did not know the Chinese language, but he presumptuously regarded himself as a specialist of Chinese and passed value judgments on Chinese language, both written and spoken, entirely in terms of Western theory of alphabetic languages. He contrasted the simplicity of alphabets with the complexity of the large number of Chinese characters, as though Chinese characters were the equivalents to alphabetic letters. He considered

76   Sinologism: a historical critique Chinese language as an immature language, in contrast to the sophistication of Western languages, because the former did not employ letters and syllables, nor use symbols to represent sounds: “The Chinese, to whom such a means of orthoepic development is wanting, do not mature the modifications of sounds in their language to distinct articulations capable of being represented by letters and syllables.”41 He may have been the first to impose Western phonocentrism upon Chinese language. In the domain of art, he observed: “They [the Chinese] have not yet succeeded in representing the beautiful, as beautiful; for in their painting, perspective and shadow are wanting.” To him, to paint without using Western theory of perspective was not to produce painting at all, and the modernist and postmodern paintings that defy scientific perspective and norms of representation would have merited his vehement condemnation. In his conclusion about China, he wrote: This is the character of the Chinese people in its various aspects. Its distinguishing feature is that everything which belongs to Spirit – unconstrained morality, in practice and theory, Heart, inward Religions, Science and Art properly so-­called – is alien to it.42 In his comments on Chinese historiography, jurisprudence, and ethics, Hegel observes: As to the science themselves, History among the Chinese comprehends the bare and definite facts, without any opinion or reasoning upon them. In the same way their Jurisprudence gives only fixed laws, and their Ethics only determinate duties, without raising the question of a subjective foundation for them.43 Here, Hegel’s remarks not only expose his ignorance of the true conditions of Chinese historiography, jurisprudence, and ethics, but also reveal a larger problem in the epistemology of knowledge production: his privileging of subjective manipulation over objective observation and description. In the areas of jurisprudence and ethics, his remarks imply that ancient Chinese had prescribed legal codes and moral codes arbitrarily, without a rationale for those codes, a view that ignores the factual conditions of the legal and moral codes throughout Chinese dynasties. In historical writing, Chinese historians recorded mere facts and expressed no opinions of their own in the documentation of historical facts. This view ignores the tradition of history writings pioneered by Confucius, who employed specific wording to impart his praise and criticism, and further promoted by Sima Qian who did not hesitate to voice his commendation and condemnation of historical figures, including the rulers of his own time. Moreover, Hegel was advocating a method of historical writing which may be characterized as “emplotment” proposed by Haydon White. White argues that historical writings gain their explanatory power by successfully making stories out of mere chronicles through an operation which he calls “emplotment.” By emplotment,

Sinologism: a historical critique   77 White means “the encodation of the facts contained in the chronicle as components of specific kinds of plot structures, in precisely the way that Frye has suggested is the case with ‘fictions’ in general.”44 White argues for essentially no difference between history and fiction because most historical sequences can be emplotted in a variety of different ways that give rise to different interpretation of the same events and endow them with different meanings. White’s view exposes the claimed scientific and objective nature of historical writings and confirms the Chinese method of chronologies as more objective than Hegel’s theory of history animated by subjective opinions and views.

Modern forms of Sinologism By the end of the nineteenth century and early twentieth century, Sinologism developed into its fully fledged form. Leading European thinkers and scholars like Adam Smith, George Macartney, James Mill, John Stuart Mill, Herbert Spencer, Karl Marx, Friedrich Engels, Max Weber, and others, left their mark on its modern forms. Quite a number of scholarly books published in China and the West have touched upon this area in their examination of China’s image in Western imagination and thought.45 A distinctive feature of modern forms of Sinologism is a passionate ambition to build grand systems. This feature can be found in works from Karl Marx to Karl Wittfogel. Among the intellectual system-­builders, Wittfogel is the sole thinker who had a working knowledge of Chinese language, studied Chinese civilization as an academic subject, and went to China to observe Chinese society at first hand. Influenced by Montesquieu, Hegel, Marx, and other Western thinkers, he formulated his own system of universal history and produced his major work, Oriental Despotism: A Comparative Study of Total Power, a book which draws a large amount of material from Chinese civilization and directly brings China into a world system. Infused with a passion to advance a grand theory, his study carries problems symptomatic of numerous modern Western studies of China: the domination of Western ideologies and perspectives. In Wittfogel’s book there is a clearly articulated thesis. Simply put, despotism is primarily a non-­Western phenomenon, and it originated from Oriental societies with a hydraulic mode of production. Wittfogel’s thesis is based on Marx’s theory of “Asiatic mode of production.” In his book Marx’s theory evolves into a fully fledged theory of “hydraulic thesis” that gives rise to “Oriental Despotism.” But as Jack Goody aptly observes, tyranny is not alien to Europe and can even be found in ancient Greece – upon which the West utlilized Athenian democracy as a model.46 Other scholars also noted that “tyranny” was another form of government prevalent in Greek poleis. But these scholars have often attempted to make a distinction between Greek tyranny and so-­called “Oriental despotism,” and claimed that the Greek tyranny was “to prepare the way for democracy.”47 Wittfogel argues in a similar vein. He explicitly suggests that if there existed in history despotism in the West, it was not originally Western but learned from the East. Because there existed a form of quasi-­hydraulic mode of production in prehistorical Greece, he must

78   Sinologism: a historical critique endorse other scholars’ views to distance despotic rule of prehistorical Greece from the Western tradition: “The Minoan civilization was essentially non-­European”; the Minoans were connected through a “few clear and even close bonds with Asia Minor, Syria and Egypt”; and “the sultan-­like life of the kings of Cnossus and Phaestus, their courts, their officials, their economy, displayed features which were similar to those of their opposite numbers in the Near East; they were equally unlike anything Western.”48 With regard to the undeniable despotism in Russia, he simply argued that it was introduced from the Orient into Russia.49 He even suggested that it was learned from China through the Mongol conquerors.50 His equation of Mongol reign with Chinese rule of government is willful distortion to say the least. His distortion is surprising because he completely forgot that the ideal rule of Chinese government is the Confucian idea of renzheng “(benevolent government). True, in Chinese dynastic history there were many despotic rulers, but the majority of dynastic governments were founded on the Confucian concept of benevolent government. Those dynastic rulers who were despots were without exception overthrown by violent peasant uprisings or coup d’états. The short-­lived dynasties of the Qin, Sui, Yuan, and other despotic rules, speak eloquently for themselves against Wittfogel’s characterization of Chinese dynastic rule as the epitome of Oriental despotism. Wittfogel’s application of his ideas to China has been harshly criticized by prominent Sinologists like Joseph Needham, who frankly dismissed Wittfogel’s view of China as based on ignorance of rudimentary Chinese history. Needham convincingly argued that the traditional Chinese governmental bureaucracy was as a whole not despotic, was not dominated by a priesthood, and that Wittfogel’s study does not take into account similar bureaucracy in modern Western civilization.51 Wittfogel was heavily indebted to Marx, who is not the first proponent of the hydraulic theory.52 Taking his cue from economists before him, Marx proposed an Asiatic form of government based on the hydraulic mode of production in a short article “The British Rule in India.” He wrote: “There have been in Asia, generally, from immemorial times, but three departments of Government: that of Finance, or the plunder of the interior: that of War, or the plunder of the exterior; and, finally, the department of Public Works.”53 Clearly Marx is not free from the pitfalls of Sinologism, for he overlooks other functions of dynastic government in ancient China, which include, among other things, the undertaking of cultural projects such as writing histories, compiling dictionaries and encyclopedias, the promotion of agricultural production, and the organization of relief efforts for natural disasters. In Chinese history, every year in spring, the emperor would launch the first plough of land to encourage farming. This symbolic gesture alone is sufficient to question Marx’s reductive description of dynastic government in ancient Asian nations.

Lineage of Sinologism Wittfogel’s case merits special consideration as a specimen of Sinologism, for it is a nodal point of several major Western thinkers’ thoughts on China. Moreover, it is endowed with a significance which allows us to see the continuity from

Sinologism: a historical critique   79 Montesquieu and Herder, through Mill, Hegel, Marx, and other nineteenth century Western thinkers, to the twentieth century thinkers in whose works on China we can find an increasing amount of negative comments on Chinese civilization, especially following the founding of the People’s Republic of China. Wittfogel is well-­known for his proposition of “hydraulic theory” as the core for the rise of despotism. His theory was not entirely his of own invention. In fact he took the core ideas from Marx, and other Western thinkers before him, and added his own conceptualizations. Wittfogel took from Marx the idea of an Asiatic mode of production, which is itself a form of Sinologism based on the idea of otherness and ethnic otherization. The theory of the Asiatic mode of production, to which Asian societies like India and China belong, has continuously aroused heated debates among Marxists and non-­Marxists alike. Some scholars have raised legitimate questions regarding the validity of the concept and provided solid evidence to show that it does not conform to the reality of the societies to which Marx believed his theory applied.54 Some have simply rejected the concept on the grounds that the social and economic conditions of pre-­capitalist Asian nations did not differ substantially from those of feudal Europe.55 Since the term “Asiatic mode of production” is conceived in contrast with the European mode of production, Marx’s effort to otherize non-­Western societies is clear. We are not sure whether he had any value judgment in mind, but sociological theory suggests an affirmative answer. The idea of “othering” has been used by societies and groups to exclude others who do not fit into their society or group. The effort to distinguish themselves from others often has the ulterior motive of stigmatizing and subordinating the latter. Othering is often employed to identify cultural differences of nations, to form ethnic boundaries, and to sustain national superiority. It frequently serves the purpose of demonization and dehumanization of classes, groups, and social strata, and justifies attempts to civilize and exploit those stigmatized others. Although Marx did not, as many colonialists did, have the intention of justifying colonialism, his view on the nature of Oriental government and the ways the East and West adopted different modes of production has unwittingly provided the theoretical underpinnings for such works as Wittfogel’s Oriental Despotism. According to the theory of environmental determinism, the decisive reasons for the rise of an Oriental form of government, with its three departments, were climatic and territorial: artificial irrigation by canals and waterworks were the perceived basis of Oriental agriculture. Marx made a distinction between Western and Eastern uses of water, and regarded it as the economic basis of centralized government of the East: the prime necessity of an economical and common use of water, which, in the Occident, drove private enterprise to voluntary association . . . necessitated in the Orient where civilization was too low and the territorial extent too vast to call into life voluntary association, the interference of the centralizing power of Government.56

80   Sinologism: a historical critique Marx did allude to the centralized government as “Asiatic despotism”; but he also regarded the British rule of India as despotism,57 which is not any better. In fact he found the collapse of the centralized government a curse for the native economy and people, observing: Hence an economic function devolved upon all Asiatic Governments, the function of providing public works. This artificial fertilization of the soil, dependent on a Central Government, and immediately decaying with the neglect of irrigation and drainage, explains the otherwise stranger fact that we now find whole territories barren and desert that were once brilliantly cultivated.58

A romantic dimension Having examined the major dimensions of Sinologism I will examine its other dimension, which is alien to Orientalism, Euro-­centrism, and ethno-­centrism. It is the romantic idealization and utopianization of China and Chinese civilization. This aspect may be traced to Marco Polo’s time, and to the descriptions of China by some Christian missionaries in the sixteenth century and by some European thinkers in the eighteenth century. In modern times, despite the change of trend, the tendency to idealize China has never disappeared totally, and we can find instances in the writings of Western thinkers, scholars, and travelers. What interests me about their idealized accounts is not the truthfulness or inaccuracy, but the way they complement the major dimension of Sinologism. The reason why I term this dimension “romanticist” is because it coincided with the Romantic trend of the eighteenth century in time, content and form. The romantic dimension is marked by an idealistic eulogy of Chinese civilization to an incredible height. For example, Goethe, whose attitude towards Chinese civilization went through a few twists and turns, said in his late years to his personal secretary that when their ancestors were still barbarians wandering in forests, the Chinese had already developed sophisticated fictional works.59 The China “craze” of the eighteenth century is an old story known to the world. It is easy to understand the idealistic eulogy of Chinese culture at that time when the West was ill-­informed about Chinese culture, but it is rather incomprehensible for some Western people to continue the eulogy well into the twentieth century when China’s closed door had already been blasted open by Western gunboats and the gloomy side of Chinese civilization exposed in full to the world. In my view the ungrounded idealization of Chinese culture was not the consequence of ignorance but the natural growth of the inner logic of Sinologism. Among the eulogizers of Chinese civilization, Bertrand Russell is a representative thinker and writer. He went to China as an invited lecturer, stayed there for half a year, and observed Chinese society and people at first hand. He wrote a series of accounts about China and even a book-­length study, The Problem of China.60 Among Westerners’ accounts of China, Russell’s observations and

Sinologism: a historical critique   81 views are perhaps the better informed, more accurate, and well-­balanced. With the far-­sight of a profound philosopher, his predictions about China’s future are more accurate than those of most other Westerners. Around the 1920s, when China, beset with troubles at home and abroad, was at its lowest ebb in modern history, he prophesized: I have no doubt that if the Chinese could get a stable government and sufficient funds, they would, within the next thirty years, begin to produce remarkable work in science. It is quite likely that they might outstrip us, because they come with fresh zest and with all the ardour of a renaissance.61 The accuracy of his prophecy has been largely fulfilled, albeit over half a century later. Indeed, as China began to maintain a stable government and attracted the influx of foreign investment in the late 1970s, it has completed in 30 years the main processes of modernization and industrialization that took Western countries more than a century. Even a profound thinker like Russell cannot escape the epistemology of Sinologism. In his accounts about China we can find ideas, views, and value judgments that fall under the conceptual framework of Sinologism, though often in the opposite direction to most other Westerners’ accounts. Disappointed by Western civilizations, and especially shocked by the devastating consequences of World War I, Russell turned to the East, especially China and India, for inspiration about the future of the world and humanity. He found in Chinese culture the essential human virtues of pacifism, religious tolerance, aversion to extremism, natural insouciance, tranquility of mind, and self-­contentment with life. But his loathing of some Western values made him go out of his way to idealize the Chinese way of life, in so doing misrepresenting China in the other direction, i.e., mystification and idealization. In his comparative study of Chinese and Western civilizations, he places China on a par with Greece and thinks the former has all the good points of the latter but none of the drawbacks characteristic of Western civilization: “Comparing the civilization of China with that of Europe, one finds in China most of what was to be found in Greece, but nothing of the other two elements of our civilization.”62 His hatred of war and militarism, and dedication to pacifism, made him fall in love with the Chinese virtue of unwarlikeness so much so that he wrote: In China, although there were military men who were ready to appeal to force, no one took them seriously, not even their own soldiers. They fought battles which were nearly bloodless, and they did much less harm than we should expect from our experience of the fierce conflicts of the West.63 In his “Eastern and Western Ideas of Happiness,” his idealization of China reached its zenith. In the spirit of science fiction he imagined in which country George Washington would find himself comfortably at home should he be reincarnated. His answer was not England, France, or America, but China:

82   Sinologism: a historical critique There, for the first time in his ghostly wanderings, he would find men who still believe in “life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness”, and who conceive these things more or less as Americans of the War of Independence conceived them. And I think it would not be long before he became President of the Chinese Republic.64 His love of Chinese culture and life led him to view China as a democratic republic dedicated to the ideals formulated by the forefathers of the United States. This sort of idealization is certainly hyperbolic to say the least. Contrary to Hegel’s characterization of China as a land of slaves, Russell describes traditional China as a land of freedom, and exaggerates it out of proportion: “In China, as compared to any white man’s country, there was freedom for all, and a degree of diffused happiness which was amazing in view of the poverty of all but a tiny minority.”65 His reduction of the Chinese and Western differences in attitudes toward life to a dichotomy between the Chinese desire for enjoyment of life and Western craving for power over Nature and fellow men,66 has also drastically simplified a complex array of issues, Chinese and Western. On the issue of human happiness he observes: “It seems to me that the average Chinaman, even if he is miserably poor, is happier than the average Englishman, and is happier because the nation is built upon a more humane and civilized outlook than our own.”67 On the question of religion, Russell, unlike other Westerners who condemn the Chinese as atheist pagans, nevertheless adopted the same approach to knowledge about Chinese religion. He believed that China had no religion: “China is practically destitute of religion, not only in the upper classes, but throughout the population.”68 In a way he contradicts himself, for a few passages earlier he discusses Buddhism and ­recognizes that Buddhism is a religion in the sense in which we understand the word. It has mystic doctrines and a way of salvation and a future life. It has a message to the world intended to cure the despair which it regards as natural to those who have no religious faith.69 Clearly he examines Buddhism in terms of the Western conception of religion and of Christianity and Judaism. To him Buddhism in China is a quasi-­religion or secular religion, while Taoism and Ancestor Worship would not count as religion in terms of the Western conception of religion. “And its ethical instruction is not based upon any metaphysical or religious dogma; it is purely mundane.”70 He seems to have overlooked the metaphysics of Chinese religions and its religious dogmas. The idealization and mystification of China have found a most fascinating account in Fenollosa’s and Pound’s study of Chinese language, poetry, and culture. Neither Fenollosa nor Pound had ever traveled to China and studied Chinese arts first hand, but their fascination with Chinese arts and aesthetics prompted them to make statements and value judgments that are based on shaky

Sinologism: a historical critique   83 scholarship and conceptual grounds. With an admirable awareness of the Western prejudices against Chinese culture and people, unusual for his time, Fenollosa criticized the Western countries’ dehumanizing efforts to degrade and exploit the Chinese people, and called on Westerners to “study and to come to sympathize with their humanity and their generous aspirations.”71 In his study of Chinese language and poetry, Fenollosa followed the Western tradition in the eighteenth century of overstating the universal nature of Chinese written language, and related poetry to philosophy. Contrary to the general debasement of Chinese writing at that time, Fenollosa held Chinese writing to be more scientific than alphabetic language because it “agrees with science and not logic,” and superior to alphabetic language in poeticity and creativity: I believe that the Chinese written language has not only absorbed the poetic substance of nature and built with it a second work of metaphor, but has, through its very pictorial visibility, been able to retain its original creative poetry with far more vigor and vividness than any phonetic tongue.72 On top of this, he exaggerated the visual elements in Chinese writing to advocate a “pictorial thesis” which sees Chinese characters as “shorthand pictures of actions or processes.”73 Pound accepted Fenollosa’s position and ideas wholeheartedly, and extended them to other areas like metaphysics and political economy. He proudly declared himself a “Confucian” and asserted that “China has replaced Greece in the intellectual life of many occidents,” and that Chinese art is “a treasure to which the next century may look for as great a stimulus as the renaissance had from the Greeks.”74 Contrary to Montesqieu’s characterization of China as a land devoid of virtue, in his various treatises and especially his magnum opus The Cantos he portrayed ancient Chinese rulers as virtuous sage-­kings and eulogized Confucius as the quintessential embodiment of the ideal social order based on political virtues and ethical economics. Contrary to Wittfogel and other Western thinkers who view traditional Chinese government as an “Oriental despotism,” he firmly believed that the political administration in ancient China was an ideal form of government that should serve as a model for different cultures, traditions, and societies.75 Pound took the trouble to learn Chinese language, and translated several Confucian classics into English with the aim of propagating their political and ethical ideas to the world. In a preface to his translated version of the Confucian Analects, he wrote: And the study of the Confucian philosophy is of greater profit than that of the Greek because no time is wasted in idle discussion of errors. Aristotle gives, may we say, 90% of his time to errors, and the Occident, even before it went off for seven or more centuries into an otiose discussion of fads and haircuts (vide “The Venerable” Bede), had already started befuddling itself with the false dilemma: Aristotle OR Plato, as if there were no other roads to serenity.76

84   Sinologism: a historical critique In a headnote to The Great Digest, his translation of a Confucian classic, Pound wrote: “The proponents of a world order will neglect at their peril the study of the only process that has repeatedly proved its efficiency as social coordinate.”77 Evidently he idealized traditional Chinese culture, selectively picked Chinese ideas that appealed to his political ideology and ethical theory, and integrated them into an argument in support of his political and moral agendas. Fenollosa and Pound’s scholarship on China has provoked great controversy and aroused entirely opposite responses. While their vision and insights offer the inspiration and motivation for poetic and artistic innovations in Anglo-­American modernism, and were enthusiastically embraced by leading poets and aestheticians of their day, their views on Chinese language, poetry, and culture have generally been dismissed by Sinologists. Even among literary scholars, comparatists differ drastically from Sinologists in their assessments of Pound’s views on China. The totally different responses to their ideas are a testimony to the complexity of Sinologism.

The Chinese dimension Before the coming of the West to China, Sinologism was basically a Western phenomenon. Especially after the Chinese defeat in the Sino-­Japanese War of 1895, Sinologism began to assume a distinctive Chinese dimension. The Japanese successes in modernization, following the Western model, inspired the Chinese intellectuals to launch an all-­out intellectual movement to learn from the West, from science and technology to political and social theories, thereby creating a new dimension for Sinologism. With the appearance of this dimension the inner logic of intellectual colonization by the colonial other, and self-­colonization by the Chinese themselves, was complete in its formation. The Chinese dimension came into being as a consequence of the acutely painful awareness of China’s backwardness, which may be boiled down to a simple resigned admission that China lagged behind the West in all aspects of culture, especially intellectual thought. This awareness brought about an intellectual crisis in the Chinese consciousness. The nature of this crisis has been described by a few scholars as a conflict between intellectual rejection of Chinese values and emotional acceptance of them. Joseph Levenson is the first to articulate this idea. In his monumental work on Chinese thought, he characterizes the modern Chinese intellectual mind as one besieged by a tension between an intellectual commitment to Western values and an emotional attachment to China’s past.78 In C. T. Hsia’s study of Lu Xun, he expresses a similar but more narrowly focused view. He describes an inner conflict in Lu Xun’s consciousness shaped by his Confucian upbringing in his hometown and reshaped by his contact with Western ideologies. Thus the crisis in Lu Xun’s consciousness is characterized by a dichotomy between his “intellectual repudiation of the old Chinese way of life and his emotional or nostalgic attachment to this way of life in spite of his contrary intellectual conviction.”79 In his study of Lu Xun’s thought, Yu-­sheng Lin shares with Hsia the view of the basic dichotomy, but argues somewhat differently that

Sinologism: a historical critique   85 there existed in Lu Xun a tension not between the two spheres of emotion and intellect but within the same intellectual and moral sphere. In other words, this tension inevitably occurred because, owing to rational consideration and moral concerns, Lu Xun both rejected Chinese tradition in toto and found some elements in traditional Chinese culture and morals meaningful.80 He rephrases this tension: “Lu Xun’s consciousness is characterized by a profound and unresolved tension between an iconoclastic totalism and an intellectual and moral commitment to some traditional Chinese values.”81 Whether it is Levenson’s broad focus on Chinese intellectuals in general, or C. T. Hsia’s and Yu-­sheng Lin’s narrow focus on a representative intellectual, they share a basic idea that the crisis in Chinese intellectual thought in modern times is characterized by a tension between a conscious acceptance of Western values and an unconscious rejection of them. In my opinion their views on the nature of the crisis may be true to the conscious Chinese intellectual mind, but do not adequately reflect the conditions of the unconscious dimensions because they fail to take into account the profound impact of the conscious admission of Western superiority and equally conscious admission of Chinese inferiority upon the formation of a culture unconscious in the Chinese mind. The two most well-­ known slogans of the New Culture Movement – “Destroy the Old Curiosity Shop of Confucius” and “Warmly Embrace Mr. Science and Mr. Democracy” – obliquely reflect the unconscious admission of Western superiority and Chinese inferiority, which in effect is the unconscious motivation for intellectuals both then and now for arguing in favour of complete Westernization. I have no intention of questioning the historical significance of the New Culture Movement for China’s process of modernization, or call for a revisionist reassessment of it; what I am concerned with is how the blind acceptance of Western ideas, theories, models, and paradigms created a distinctive Chinese dimension of Sinologism. I argue that as the conscious admission of Western superiority and Chinese inferiority was so self-­consciously promoted and reinforced through propaganda, education, and discourses in the media, it penetrated into the deeper layers of the intellectual mind and became sedimented into a cultural unconscious in intellectual thought. This cultural unconscious is the inner logic responsible for the dazzling array of Chinese misrepresentations and mis­ evaluations of Chinese culture and cultural achievements. Moreover, it is the epistemological and methodological source for the problems in Chinese paradigms, theories, and approaches in all fields of scholarship.

China scholarship and Sinologism In the larger context of international Sinologism, Chinese scholars have created a distinct branch of Chinese Sinologism. This branch is characterized by a trend that had never before appeared in pre-­modern times. It is a tendency to blindly accept Western ideas, concepts, paradigms, and methodologies, irrespective of

86   Sinologism: a historical critique whether they are pertinent or useful to Chinese civilization and Chinese materials. This tendency started with the introduction of Western culture and life at the beginning of twentieth century, and culminated in the call for complete Westernization of Chinese culture, a call which appears repeatedly throughout the twentieth century. It is characterized by a habitual way of observing social realities and the natural world from the Western perspective, a disparagement of the values of any aspect of Chinese culture, be they Confucian, Daoist, or Buddhist, and a willingness to admit the inferiority of Chinese civilization and accept the superiority of its Western counterparts. In extreme circumstances it even developed into a special form of Sinologism, which I call “reverse ethno-­centrism”; some people in China, and overseas Chinese, adopt the standpoint of ethno-­ centrism usually held by non-­Chinese groups, and pass derogatory and even devastating value judgments about Chinese culture which share similar grounds to those of racist prejudices against the Chinese. There are numerous instances of such phenomena which range from intellectual work to ways of life. By this time, China’s scholarship (guoxue) has merged with Sinology (hanxue) and Sinologism became a full-­scale intellectual enterprise with multiple dimensions. The blind acceptance of Western values and belittlement of Chinese ones has its manifestation in many fields. Here I will only examine a few examples in the field of history, literature, and intellectual thought. In the field of history, there was a well-­known scholarly movement in the 1930s. It is the so-­called movement of doubting antiquity, initiated and led by the internationally renowned scholar of Chinese history, Gu Jiegang. At the center of this movement lies a great doubt cast upon the historical materials of China’s antiquity. Scholars subjected China’s antiquity to ruthless scrutiny, and came to a conclusion that almost totally rejected the authenticity and reliability of ancient Chinese records. Gu Jiegang himself wrote in the preface to Debates on Ancient History (Gu shi bian), and drastically reduced Chinese civilization by half.82 In a letter to Zheng Zhenduo, Lu Xun sharply criticized this kind of iconoclasm: Gu Jiegang has destroyed a great deal but constructed little. One only needs to read his Debates on Ancient History (Gu shi bian) to know that he has ‘debated’ ancient Chinese history into nothing. As a consequence, he himself has no road to take but to revert to old ways of doing history.83 History has played a great joke on these doubters. Since the 1930s, archaeological excavations have on the whole confirmed the authenticity and reliability of ancient Chinese history. The confirmation is found in numerous scholarly articles and books in China, and even the Cambridge History of Ancient China, which attempts to offer a balanced view, draws a conclusion in its preface that “the archeological discoveries of the past generation have tended to authenticate, rather than to overturn, the traditional literary record of ancient China.”84 Wang Guowei, the last great traditional literary theorist and the first great modern literary theorist in Chinese history, made pioneering contributions to many areas of Chinese scholarship. His 1904 study of the Hongloumeng (A

Sinologism: a historical critique   87 Dream of Red Mansions) pioneered an original approach to the novel, and has been highly praised by scholars. His achievements were largely derived from a Western approach that integrates philosophy and aesthetics into literary criticism, and especially from Schopenhauer’s aesthetic theory he was reading at the time of writing. Despite its great achievements, his study was marred by his rigid adherence to the German philosopher’s ideas and conceptual grounding. Ye Jiaying published an analysis of Wang’s achievements and shortcomings. She rightly points out: 85

Although his study has all the foregoing merits, it nevertheless has a fundamental and irrevocable shortcoming, which is the mistaken way of completely relying on Schopenhauer’s philosophy to read the novel. . . . When one conducts literary criticism, one should explore the philosophical significance contained in a literary work in terms of the work itself, its author’s life, and his intellectual thought. The philosophical significance worked out of the literary work may well match the ideas of a philosopher, but one should not first choose a philosopher and then rigidly fit the philosopher’s whole system of ideas to a literary work. Regretfully, this is precisely the mistake made by Mr. Wang Guowei.86 Ye Jiaying’s criticism aptly identifies a prevalent problem in many Chinese scholars’ approaches to scholarship: rigid application of Western theories and models to Chinese texts, with little regard for the historicity and context of the materials and passing judgments in terms of Western standards of value. This problematic approach has become an unconscious paradigm for an overwhelming majority of Chinese scholars. In fact, the more Western education a Chinese scholar receives, the more likely he or she is to be influenced by this unconscious paradigm. Even some of the most sagacious and erudite scholars in China are not free from this situation. Zhu Guangqian, for example, is one of the founders of modern Chinese aesthetics. In his influential book, Psychology of Tragedy,87 he adopts Western conceptions of philosophy and tragedy and expresses the idea that because of the simple-­mindedness of philosophy and shallowness of religious feelings, the Chinese tradition never produced any tragedy in the strict sense. By “philosophy” and “tragedy” Zhu Guangqian was referring to Western definitions before the modernist and postmodern revolutions. In terms of the strict, pre-­postmodern Western standard, ancient China may indeed have no “tragedy” and “philosophy.” But modernist and postmodern studies have convincingly demonstrated that there are many definitions of “tragedy” and “philosophy.” His view of the non-­existence of philosophy and tragedy in ancient China was rightfully criticized: Zhu Guangqian also fell into the same pitfall. His Psychology of Tragedy states that the reason why the Chinese did not have tragedy is that there was no philosophy. . . . Evidently, his lopsided view is closely related to his

88   Sinologism: a historical critique method of using the West to explicate China, fitting Western models onto Chinese materials.88 This criticism correctly grasps the epistemic and methodological problems similar to those of Sinologism.

The political dimension After China was forced into the modern era by British gunboats, Sinologism became increasingly politicized. The development of its political dimension went hand-­in-hand with the expansion of Western imperialism and colonialism on the one hand, and with the self-­conscious efforts made by the Chinese to turn China into a nation state on the other, especially after the Republican Revolution of 1911. With the establishment of the People’s Republic of China, Sinologism took a drastic turn and became deeply entangled with different forms of politics, ideological, ethnic, international, and geocultural. During the Cold War period the political dimension of Sinologism became so intensified that it came close to real­politik, which adversely affected the orientations and achievements of China– West studies. In mainland China, in the 30 years from 1950 to 1979, Western-­produced knowledge, with the exception of Marxism, was subjected to increasingly relentless criticism until, during the Cultural Revolution, practically all Western knowledge came to be regarded as bourgeois stuff, inimical to the cause of proletarian revolution and China’s socialist construction. Works of Western thinkers from Plato and Aristotle to Malthus and Freud were consigned to the dustbin of history or even literally to fire and destruction. Politicization also affected the evaluation of China’s own cultural past and thinkers. Amidst all the frenzied anti-­West movements, one Western school of thought was firmly upheld. It was the Marxist theory of historical materialism or dialectical materialism. In his analysis of the distortions of Chinese history, Paul Cohen astutely observes: The Chinese themselves, both Marxist and non-­Marxist, in reconstructing their own history, have depended heavily on vocabulary, concepts, and analytical frameworks borrowed from the West. . . . These perspectives have, until very recently, tended to distort Chinese history either by exaggerating the role of the West or, more subtly, by misconstruing this role.89 This is true of a great deal of scholarship on Chinese history produced by Chinese scholars themselves. For instance, despite the obviously cyclical (or more appropriately, spiral) pattern of historical development, Chinese history was perceived to have followed the Marxist developmental model based on the order of primitive communism, slave society, feudalism, capitalism, socialism, and communism. And the traditional Chinese thinkers were realigned into two opposing camps: the materialist and idealist, or revolutionaries and counter-­ revolutionaries. What is ironic in the frenzied attack on Western modes of knowledge is that people scarcely realized the impact of an inner logic that underlies

Sinologism: a historical critique   89 Sinologism, and no one questioned the fundamentally Euro-­centric nature of the Marxist accounts of a single “World History,” in which, non-­Western Third World histories effectively became complementary perspectives to affirm the correctness of a theory formulated on the historical materials of the West. It was not until after the period of Reform and Openness that Chinese scholars began to challenge the applicability of Marxist theory of history to Chinese civilization. Here I will only analyze a few examples. In his highly influential historical work Studies of Ancient Chinese Societies, Guo Moruo divided Chinese history into four stages: primitive communities before Western Zhou, slave societies of Western Zhou, feudal societies from the Spring and Autumn period up to modern times, and capitalist society in modern times. Each of the four stages was determined by a particular economic mode of production.90 Clearly the conceptual framework of his book was taken from the Marxist theory of historical stages and the theory of political economics. He frankly admitted it. As a path-­blazing work on Chinese history, his work made seminal contributions to the study of ancient Chinese history, and has since enjoyed an enduring value. But its achievement is compromised by the same logic of Sinologism: a blind faith in the efficacy of a Western theory generated from Western European materials. We know that neither Marx nor Engels conducted an in-­depth study of ancient Chinese society. They only vaguely employed the problematic idea of “Asiatic mode of production” to cover many Asian countries, including China. As I have demonstrated in a previous section, the Asiatic mode of production is the least developed and least solid idea of all Marxist theories, and has aroused heated debates with no conclusive answer. But in Guo Moruo’s opinion it refers to the slave society in Chinese history. I am no expert in ancient Chinese history. I am interested in his argument because it is a good illustration of epistemological and methodological problems in Sinologism. In his book, “Section 1” of the introduction is titled “Generality of Social Development.” It presents the conceptual framework for the whole book. As he admitted, the model was borrowed from the West, but he firmly believed in its universality: “The Chinese people were neither gods nor monkeys. The societies organized by them ought not to be any different [from those of the West].”91 This way of fitting Chinese materials into a Western model inevitably leads to “cutting the foot so as to fit the shoe,” as the Chinese saying goes, and gave rise to a great deal of controversy which has not been successfully resolved, even today. The problematic approach of his book resembles the logic of Sinologism, as can be seen in the critical comment made by the well-­known Chinese scholar Li Ji in 1932: “No matter what the actual circumstances were, he would always adopt the method of ‘cutting the foot to fit the shoe’ and put them all into the Marxist formulas.”92 After the Chinese Communist Party became the party that holds political power in China, the political dimension of Sinologism has widened on both domestic and international fronts. Here I will only discuss some manifestations in the literary realm. On the domestic front, Mao Zedong’s Talks at the Yan’an Forum on Literature and Art (1942), a continuation of and contribution to the Marxist and Leninist theories of literature and art, becomes the guiding policy

90   Sinologism: a historical critique for all literary and artistic productions. Because of its Marxist and Leninist lineage, it displays a clear Sinologist logic, and adversely affected the production and evaluation of literature and art in China, especially after the founding of the People’s Republic of China. Talks expounds some principles for assessing literature and art: the political standard and artistic standard, and places the former over the latter. Interestingly, this set of standards was employed both at home and abroad. In mainland China literary critics using the politically dominated yardstick, composed histories and criticism of modern and contemporary Chinese literature that excluded a large number of writers from the ranks of first-­ rate writers. For example, they totally ignored the gifted writer Eileen Chang because of her independent and mild anti-­Communist position. Other liberal and independent writers like Zhou Zuoren, Shen Congwen, Shi Zhecun, Liu Nai’ou, Li Jinfa, Qian Zhongshu, and others, were either totally ignored or given little attention. In Taiwan, the Kuomintang Government was also employing the political yardstick to promote or suppress literary works, but from the opposite direction. For a long period even Lu Xun’s literary works were banned from publication and circulation in Taiwan. Outside China, ideology did not affect scholarship as badly, but literary scholarship suffered from politics as well. C. T. Hsia’s groundbreaking work, A History of Modern Chinese Fiction, succeeded in rediscovering those writers ignored by political ideology on the mainland, but its great achievement was marred by political ideology in the opposite direction. Jaroslav Průšek, for instance, criticized Hsia for failing to build up a systematic picture of modern Chinese literature due to his political prejudices. In a subtle way he implied that Hsia lost the opportunity because he failed to engage in “an honest endeavour to grasp this whole complex process and to present it in an objective and unbiased fashion.”93 Nowadays many scholars agree that Hsia underestimates the achievements of some leftist writers and writers of Communist affiliation, while over-­praising the achievements of some independent and anti-­Communist writers. Among Western scholars not many subscribed openly to political ideology. Wittfogel is an exception. His Oriental Despotism was in fact a direct result of real politics. His case demonstrates more clearly how real-­politik adversely affects the objectivity and disinterestedness of scholarship. In a previous section I criticized him for distorting and misrepresenting Chinese civilization. His problems are partly methodological and partly political. He is honest about his political position and expresses a perceived urgency in helping win the Cold War. In the preface to his book he does not hesitate to proclaim the political objective, which is to fight the threat of Communism: You cannot fight something with nothing. In a crisis situation, any theoretical vacuum, like any power vacuum, invites disaster. There is no excuse for letting the enemy have things his way when our side possesses infinite reserves of superior strength. There is no excuse for letting totalitarian strategists parade their contrived doctrines on ground that is legitimately ours. There is no excuse for letting them win the battle of ideas by default.94

Sinologism: a historical critique   91 In China scholarship, which aspires to be objective and disinterested, Wittfogel’s unabashed political style is rare. On the contrary, politicization often takes much subtler forms, especially after the ending of the Cold War. It is this subtler form that constitutes the mainstream of Sinologism, and is of greater interest for a study of sinologization.

Non-­Western dimensions Contemporary Sinologism is more diverse in form, subtle in implication, dense in richness, and broad in scope, but it does not deviate much from its lineage; nor does it depart from its inner logic, which is based on Western-­centric epistemology and methodology. With rapidly developing globalization, modern Sinologism extends to almost all aspects of Chinese culture, from politics, economics, thought, and diplomacy, to attitudes, lifestyle, ways of behavior, and world outlook. It even extends beyond traditional areas of Sinology and China– Western studies to include the mentality on, observations of, and attitudes toward China and Chinese civilization by peoples of non-­Western cultures all over the world. As a consequence there arose a new orientation in modern Sinologism which involves people and scholars of non-­Western, non-­Chinese origins. Due to the dominance of Western epistemology and discourse hegemony, non-­Western peoples also tend to look at China from the Western perspective and carry out scholarship on China in ways practiced by Western scholars. Consequently, unwitting misunderstanding and distortions of China and things Chinese occur. In his reflections on Japan’s views of China, well-­ known Japanese scholar Mizoguchi Yuzo points out: “Up to the present and especially in modern times, it is a common practice to view China from the perspective of Europe.”95 He also unequivocally confirms that whatever views the Japanese may hold with regard to China, the images of China are invariably constructed from the Western perspectives and with Western standards. As I do not have expertise in this area I will leave explorations of this aspect of Sinologism to scholars who specialize in non-­Western cultures and peoples. Recently, Zhou Ning, a professor at China’s Ximen University, edited a book with the theme of China’s images in the minds and scholarship of non-­Western countries such as Japan, India, Malaysia, the Philippines, and other countries. It contains a good deal of material that can rightfully be subsumed under the rubric of Sinologism.96 Thus, although Sinologism is originally a Chinese and Western topic, with the coming of globalization, it has become a global intellectual enterprise.

4 The ideology of epistemology

In this chapter I am going to examine some typical manifestations of Sinologism in the works of some leading Western and Chinese thinkers and scholars, and hope to be in a better position to study Sinologism in conceptual terms. I suggest that Sinologism is predicated on a subtle ideology or what we may call ideological unconsciousness. This ideology, though intricately related to different forms of politics, is not overtly political in nature, but evolves out of a series of epistemological orientations and positions which are largely unconscious. To get to the roots of this ideology I will examine these questions: as an unconscious ideology, what relationship does it bear with other ideologies pertaining to the study of cultures, especially non-­Western cultures? In what ways does it have affinities to and differ from such conceptual issues as ideology, power, hegemony, discourse, race, and ethnicity? What is the conceptual core of Sinologism? What are its characteristic features? What is its working logic? And how can we define it? These are the issues that I am going to explore in this and the next chapters. In this chapter I will focus on Sinologism as a mentality, an intellectual habit, and an ideology derived from a distinct epistemology, and examine its nature, function, and epistemological rationale.

A prelude to epistemic ideology In simple terms, the ideological unconscious of Sinologism is a cluster of epistemological problems in knowledge and scholarship production. Problems arising from this epistemic ideology are not hard to find in China–West studies, but a grasp of its rationale is not easy to have. In this section I will only focus on some of the problems in Sinology for my initial critical inquiry. Since my specialty is comparative study of language, literature, and intellectual thought, I will analyze a variety of phenomena in these areas to show how Sinologism manifests itself as a result of what I wish to call “epistemic colonization” and “epistemic ideology.” One significant aspect of Sinologism is the imposition of Western paradigms and methodologies upon Chinese materials and the willing acceptance of these by Chinese scholars and people. On the conscious level, this two-­way interaction is not felt to be political or ideological, as it is concerned with scholarship and knowledge. But as it penetrates into the deep recess of people’s

The ideology of epistemology   93 minds, epistemological problems become ideological problems, and the epistemological unconscious turns into a special form of political ideology. This is manifested in the debates over, and practice of, Chinese language reform that involves a large number of scholars, intellectuals, and statesmen, both Chinese and Western. In the section below I will analyze the issues of language reform to illustrate how epistemology turns into ideology. The Chinese language reform started in the late Qing period.1 From the very beginning it came under the powerful influence of Western metaphysics and language theory. Western metaphysics since Plato has conceived the functional relationship between thought and language in terms of a hierarchy involving the order of speech and writing; language is an expression of thought, and writing is a recording of language, which is uttered in sound. Therefore, the written form of a language is sound determined. This may be true of alphabetic languages, as Leonard Bloomfield observes: “Writing is not language, but merely a way of recording language.”2 But many Sinologists insist on the basic affinity between Chinese and Western writings, and their guiding principle is the phonocentrism that is deeply embedded in Western metaphysics and occupies the center of Western linguistics. In Chapter 8 I will conduct a focused examination of how some Sinologists impose Western phonocentrism on Chinese language, but in this section I will conduct a brief analysis of how Western metaphysics and language theory exerted an impact on the minds of those Chinese intellectuals and statesmen who adopted Western views of language, conducted Chinese language reform from the Western linguistic perspective, and elevated a linguistic issue into an ideological and political issue. In common sense, language and ideology are two entirely different categories, but in the historical context of Chinese nationalism and modernity, language and ideology are so closely intertwined that language issues become political issues, and language controversies often turned into what may be called linguistic politics. Under the onslaught of Western imperialist aggression since the second half of the nineteenth century, many Chinese intellectuals who were educated in the West or received Western ideas began to blame almost all Chinese cultural weaknesses on the nature of the Chinese language. They argue that because of its peculiar writing system and grammar, Chinese language, deficient in effective communication, is incapable of meeting the demands of modern times and of advancing science and democracy. Taking Western alphabetic language as the frame of reference, they either openly declared or tacitly admitted that Chinese language, especially its writing system, is an inferior medium for conducting communication, education, and scientific investigation. They therefore demanded that Chinese language be radically changed.3 During the New Culture Movement at the beginning of the twentieth century they started a Literary Revolution, which set as its primary objective a language reform. It succeeded in replacing the venerated classical language with vernacular Chinese.4 In the historical context, the language reform is a necessary measure for Chinese modernization, especially for introducing modern science and technology and social ideas to modernize China. But the attempt to modernize Chinese language was not

94   The ideology of epistemology content with the replacement of classical language with the vernacular; it called for a more radical reform of the Chinese writing system, one which attempts to replace Chinese characters or ideograms with Latinized alphabets in imitation of Western alphabetic languages. This writing reform has been a protracted one that started in the latter part of the nineteenth century and continued throughout the twentieth century. Its repercussions were felt in all strata of social life, and gave rise to what I call “linguistic politics” both in its real-­political sense, and academic sense. The real-­political sense can be grasped in two major aspects. First, a group of radical reformers and iconoclasts declared the Chinese writing system to be the very impediment to progress in Chinese history. They argued that Western thinkers’ and scholars’ views of China as a nation “without movement” and “resisting changes” could trace its origins to the nature of Chinese characters. They further argued that if Chinese writing did not have an overhaul, Chinese culture would be in grave danger of eventual demise under the onslaught of imperialist colonization. Lu Xun’s alarming admonition is an epitome of this radical view of Chinese writing. In an article with an uncompromising tone, he condemns Chinese writing as “an effective tool to turn people into ignoramuses” and as a fatal disease. On the basis of this argument he draws a sensational conclusion, which has been summarized as: “If Chinese writing does not die, then China will die.”5 In the 1930s, Qu Qiubai, a left-­wing writer who later became Secretary General of the Chinese Communist Party in the 1930s, once made even more damning remarks: “Chinese writing is the filthiest, most abominable, and most damnable larine pit of medieval times.”6 Later Chinese Communist leaders including Mao Zedong were all enthusiastic advocates of the replacement of traditional writing with Latinized writing. Thus, at the turn of the twentieth century, a radical reform of Chinese writing was undertaken, culminating in the introduction of a Latinized writing in 1957, now popularly known as the pin-­yin system. As an attempt to replace the writing system of Chinese characters, the alphabetic writing reform met with strong resistance and ended up a total failure as a reform effort, because even with rigorous promotion by the Chinese government, it was eventually abandoned lock, stock, and barrel. The only positive outcome of the Latinized reform is that the pin-­yin system serves as a useful “walking stick” for foreigners to learn Chinese language, as an effective notation system for compiling dictionaries and library cataloging, and for computer input. The last use, however, is not so effective because it is painfully slow compared with other input methods that take into account the characteristic features of Chinese characters. As a consequence, effective input methods still rely on the composition of Chinese characters. The practical failure of the Latinized reform has not dampened the zeal for writing reform. So a writing reform to simplify Chinese characters was undertaken. In 1956 the Chinese government formally introduced the first installment of 260 simplified characters. It introduced a second installment of simplified characters later on, but the second installment was scrapped shortly after its introduction because of confusion arising from it.7 Since the

The ideology of epistemology   95 introduction of simplified characters a linguistic divide has begun to appear. In mainland China the simplified characters are uniformly employed in all areas of social life except in calligraphy, but in Taiwan and overseas, unsimplified traditional-­style characters are still used. The writing divide was soon politicized. Successive governments in Taiwan have resisted the adoption of simplified characters and accused the mainland government of dumping China’s rich heritage. The linguistic politics is still ongoing and there is no immediate possibility of an end. The online debate over whether Chinese language is or is not an advanced language on a par with those of Western languages has been raging on for over a decade. It is hotly contested and sometimes reaches an incredible level of emotional intensity. The background of the language reform is set against the background of Western metaphysics and linguistic theory. In ancient Greece the Stoic philosophers thought that the sign in language is the “voice,” and language is spoken language. This belief initiated what came to be called the debasement of writing. Philosophers like Plato, Aristotle, Rousseau, and some modern thinkers believe that writing is inherently inferior to speech as the latter is closer to thought in the mind. When a hierarchy is established, an issue of superiority and inferiority would inevitably creep into studies of language in general and Chinese language in particular and pave the way for the appearance of what I call “linguistic Sinologism.” Aristotle viewed writing as secondary to speech: “Spoken words are the symbols of mental experience and written words are the symbols of spoken words.”8 In a similar vein, Rousseau declared: “Writing is nothing but the representation of speech.”9 This view of writing as a supplement to speech and of privileging speech over writing has been called phonocentrism. Phono-­centrism is crucial to the Judeo-­Christian Western tradition. Invoking ideograms of Chinese language, Jacques Derrida has criticized ancient thinkers as well as contemporary thinkers like Saussure, Lévi-­Strauss, and J. L. Austin for their privileging of the oral over the written.10 He has insisted that the written word has its own value, and is “not a supplement to the spoken word.” He believed that phonocentrism was just an illustration of Western philosophy’s logo-­centrism, which privileges presence over absence. Phono-­centrism gives rise to an implicit sense of Western language superiority over Chinese language. The biased attitude towards Chinese language can trace its origin to the eighteenth century. We may recall Hegel’s disparagement of Chinese language and writing and Rousseau’s division of world languages into a hierarchy of three levels, each reflecting the degree of cultural sophistication in historical development: savages, barbarians, and the civilized. Chinese language is placed into the secondary category of human civilization because of its ideographic writing system. (I will discuss the relevance of this linguistic theory to Western views of Chinese language later on.) The linguistic politics in China were set in motion by the coming of the West, but it in turn exerts its impact upon language studies in Sinology. In fact it created a Western form of linguistic politics that set in motion a great debate over the nature of Chinese language, a debate that started in the 1930s and has continued ever since. The

96   The ideology of epistemology linguistic politics in the West centers on the so-­called Ideographic Controversy. In the debates, Sinologism in linguistics had its sway and caused the true nature of Chinese language to become blurred rather than clarified. And the ideological approach to Chinese language gave rise to a mentality which may be termed “linguistic Sinologism.” I will give a detailed critical analysis of it in Chapter 8. The present section only serves to show how epistemological problems in scholarship were transformed into epistemic ideology in government policies and people’s lives.

The epistemic ideology My critical analysis of Chinese language reform is only a prelude to my inquiry into the theoretical issues of epistemology and methodology responsible for the problems in Chinese and Western knowledge production about China. I suggest that misunderstandings, misrepresentations, and devaluations of Chinese civilization in scholarship and in the public domain are attributable partly to misinformation, but largely to the problems of Western epistemology in knowledge production. The term “epistemology” came from a combination of the Greek word, “episteme” meaning “knowledge,” and logos meaning “explanation.” It is “the study of the nature of knowledge and justification.”11 In terms of this definition, knowledge is a state of knowing, which is also a way of looking. Ways of looking at the world lie at the core of epistemology; knowledge production is inevitably determined by an epistemology. Conceptually, Sinologism refers to the problems in the ways of looking at China by both Westerners and non-­ Westerners and in the ways of producing knowledge about China arising from specific ways of looking. On the conscious level the sinologistic way of looking has adversely affected the world’s objective observation and understanding of China. On the unconscious level it has continuously posed conceptual obstacles to authentic knowledge production about China and will serve as an intellectual impediment to healthy globalization. Sinologism is predicated on an epistemology that develops into an unconscious ideology. This epistemic ideology started very early, but matured with Hegel. Hegel’s study of China exemplifies a characteristically Western approach to knowledge about China, which developed into an ideology of epistemology. As the Plato or Aristotle of modern Western thought, Hegel laid the theoretical foundation for Sinologism by providing the West with an epistemological approach to China and to the knowledge production about China. His approach is characterized by these underlying features: (1) in inquiries into Chinese civilization one should be armed with an epistemic ideology which serves as the guidance for investigation. In his case, this epistemic ideology is the Spirit of Freedom; (2) the investigator must possess a critical spirit in their investigation of Chinese materials, which is predicated on a Western sense of superiority; (3) in the study of China, one needs to have a vision or perspective informed by Western knowledge and teleology; (4) every aspect of knowledge produced about China needs to be evaluated in terms of Western conceptions

The ideology of epistemology   97 and standards; anything that does not conform to these should be determined either as an anomaly, or as inferior. I wish to point out that if, before Hegel, this epistemological approach was only randomly articulated, by Hegel’s time it had become an explicit ideology in Western knowledge production about China as well as about other non-­Western traditions. This ideology formation found its expression in early Western thinkers on China, and has exerted its impact upon later Western thinkers attempting to produce knowledge about China, from Karl Marx through Max Weber to Karl Wittfogel. As a student of Hegel, Marx saw China as a civilization “without movement” and with a “capacity for resistance” to all social change. In his well-­ known conception of the historical development of humanity in terms of the four main economic modes of production, the Asiatic, Ancient, Feudal, and the Capitalist,12 he placed China into the Asiatic mode of production and attributed China’s failure to develop capitalism to an Asiatic mode of production emanating from tight state control of economic activities. I have already pointed out in an earlier section that of all Marx’s ideas this theory of the Asiatic mode of production was perhaps the least developed, the least convincing, and certainly one that has given rise to the most controversy.13 As a theorist steeped in Western tradition, Marx could not detach his theories from the epistemic ideology of the West’s knowledge production. Edward Said rightly points out that, in formulating the concept, Marx and Engels were the unwitting bearers of a noxious discourse that he termed “Orientalism.”14 Indeed, this theory reflects the Occidental visions of the East which mix fact and fantasy. His theory has exerted a profound influence on thinkers and scholars in, and after, his time, and was adopted by both pro-­Marxist and anti-­Marxist thinkers and scholars. A distinctive feature of modern forms of sinological epistemology is an insistence on approaching China and its cultural materials in terms of Western models and ways of perception, conception, abstraction, and generalization. This intellectual habit is characterized by a refusal or reluctance to examine Chinese things on their own terms. I have examined the case of Karl Wittfogel in my historical critique of Sinologism. A re-­examination of his work will give us insights into how the epistemology in Sinologism is ideologically formulated. Wittfogel’s major work, Oriental Despotism: A Comparative Study of Total Power, draws materials from China directly, and exemplifies how epistemology and ideology interact to produce a scholarship riddled with commonsense errors, poor information, and biased prejudices. Here I will just analyze a few prominent details to reveal the working logic. In Western scholarship it is believed that the modern form of civil service government is based on ideas indebted to China’s civil service examination. Civil service is a branch of modern government bureaucracy in the West. Civil servants working for the government are employed on the basis of professional merits as proven by competitive examinations. But in ancient times government administrators in Europe at all levels were appointed by inheritance or patronage. The appointment to government positions based on merit did not appear until modern times, and as a governmental system is believed to be modeled after China’s imperial bureaucracy

98   The ideology of epistemology based on civil service examination, which can be traced as far back as the Qin Dynasty (221 bc–207 bc). The Chinese origin of a civil service based on meritocracy undermines Wittfogel’s thesis of China as a typical example of oriental despotism, because in fact it suggests a sense of equality and social mobility in Chinese culture. Indeed several years before him, renowned Sinologist Herrlee Creel pointed out that Chinese thought played a role in the development of Western egalitarian ideas during the French Revolution, at least as a catalyst.15 Wittfogel therefore had to demolish this claim. In a long section discussing the Chinese civil service examination, Wittfogel tries to undervalue the system by refuting the claim that Chinese dynastic bureaucracy was staffed by successful candidates in the Chinese civil service examination, which provided an upwardly mobile channel for the commoners to enter into the ruling class. Using unreliable data and biased analysis, he drew the following conclusion: “If the Sui and T’ang emperors established the examination system, in part at least, in order to alter the social composition of the ranking officialdom, then, it must be said that the system failed to achieve this purpose.”16 He admits that the system supplied a varying amount of fresh blood to the ruling officialdom, but he categorically declares that the system did not change the trend toward socio-­political self-­perpetuation by the ruling classes. To support his view of traditional Chinese government as despotism, Wittfogel had to refute what he called a “myth”: the Confucian ideal of benevolence was so powerful that it had conquered the conquerors. In a section titled “The Chinese Did Not Always Absorb Their Conquerors,” Wittfogel set about to refute the myth that the barbarian conquerors of China became civilized conquerors in the history of Chinese civilization. He argued: Comparative analysis shows that none of the four major conquest dynasties of China confirms the myth of absorbing, not even the last. The Manchus had already adopted many Chinese customs prior to the conquest; but in their case, as in the others, basic differences in political and social status were maintained to the end.17 He completely ignored the fact that except for the Mongol aristocracy, who retreated into their desert homeland after their dynastic rule was overthrown, the nomadic tribes and ethnic groups were all absorbed into the melting pot of Chinese civilization. This is the case for the Xianbei nomads who conquered Northern China and founded the Northern Wei Dynasty; the Chitans who founded the Liao Dynasty in the north; and the Manchus who replaced the Ming Dynasty in the seventeenth century and ruled China for nearly 300 years. All the ethnic conquerors of China, throughout Chinese history, have wholly or partially merged into the big family of Chinese culture. In his examination of the relationship between religion and state in the Chinese tradition, Wittfogel drew the following conclusion: To sum up: in the Chinese state religion, the ruler and a hierarchy of high officials fulfilled crucial priestly functions, although in their vast majority

The ideology of epistemology   99 these officials and the emperor himself were primarily occupied with secular matters. The government of traditional China therefore presents a consistent – and unusual – variant of theocracy.18 Despite Wittfogel’s qualifying words he presented traditional Chinese government as a theocracy, which differed from other theocratic governments all over the world only in degree, but not in kind. This view conflicts with another Western view that attributes China’s difference to Europe to the absence of a priesthood. A reader who has some knowledge of Chinese history would have no difficulty in seeing the fallaciousness of Wittfogel’s representation of Chinese state and religion, but for someone who studied Chinese culture and society as an academic pursuit this misrepresentation cannot be accounted for by a lack of knowledge of Chinese history and civilization. Instead it must be attributed to what I call sinologistic approach and practice. As a mature form of Sinologism, Wittfogel’s case is endowed with the significance of an epistemological paradigm that harks back to his predecessors and looks forward to his successors. It merits serious consideration, for it is an epitome of how a skewed way of looking became a distorted vision which eventually evolved into a political ideology. I am profoundly fascinated by Wittfogel’s case, not primarily because I am concerned with the correctness or incorrectness of his view of China. What I am interested in is the following question: how could Wittfogel, a Western thinker who could read the Chinese language, had maintained a lifelong interest in China, and engaged in research into Chinese civilization, express those low-­level fallacious views? In my opinion, there are two basic reasons. One is political and ideological, while the other is epistemological and methodological. Politically and ideologically, Wittfogel’s study came out at time when the Cold War was at its peak. In his preface, Wittfogel himself scarcely hides the political mission of his study, which, in his own words, is to serve as an effective theoretical weapon to fight the threat of Communism.19 Epistemologically and methodologically, Wittfogel’s problem is not that he was ignorant of basic Chinese history, but that he had to force Chinese civilization into a Procrustean bed of a theory guided by an ideology. Wittfogel’s theory is predicated on the ideology of Oriental despotism. He conceived a developed “hydraulic civilization,” one which maintains control over its population by means of controlling the supply of water. He firmly believes that such “hydraulic civilizations” – although they were neither all located in the Orient nor characteristic of all Oriental societies – were essentially different from those of the Western world. In his conception most of the ancient civilizations in world history, including Ancient Egypt, Mesopotamia, India, China and the Native American civilizations before Columbus in Mexico and Peru, were hydraulic empires. His theory was not his own invention. In fact he took the core ideas from Marx and other Western thinkers before him and added his own conceptualizations. He made use of this theory in order to distort and misrepresent the Orient for the explicit purpose of fulfilling his ideological mission. Wittfogel’s case exemplifies how ideology determines epistemology, which in turn feeds into the formation of a new ideology.

100   The ideology of epistemology While endorsing Marx’s idea as the key to the political and religious history of the East, Engels, like Marx, took care not to include China. Like Marx, he criticized the British neglect of irrigation, thereby bringing Indian and Middle Eastern agriculture to complete ruin.20 Adopting Marx’s idea, articulated in the article on India, Wittfogel modified it and imposed it onto all non-­Western societies including China. In order to establish the validity of his thesis he had to tailor materials of other civilizations into his paradigm: Russian totalitarianism is imported from the Orient; the Indus Valley civilization is a hydraulic empire despite a lack of evidence of irrigation, perhaps because its traces had been washed away in the passing of time. Most hydraulic empires arose in desert regions, and China fitted into his theory because water control had been a major concern of Chinese dynastic government. In order to fit China into his theory of hydraulic societies Wittfogel expanded Marx’s theory of public works designed to control water use and distribution through irrigation, into a theory of all public works, including defense networks, palaces, and underground tombs, and still called it “hydraulic despotism.” He argues that Oriental despotism gives rise to what he calls “total managerial states,” and examines the adverse effects on individuals: it brings total loneliness and total suspicion, which embrace not only the emperor but everyone in Chinese society, all of whom are suspicious of each other, colleagues, neighbors, and even family members. Here again, he projects his theory onto different historical periods of China. The large-­scale suspicion of friends, relatives, and family members was present only during the Cultural Revolution. He contrasts the loneliness felt in Chinese society as compared with Western society, and comes to this conclusion: Western “free individuals are lonely in the main because they are neglected and not because they are threatened by a power that, whenever it wants to, can reduce human dignity to nothingness.”21 He completely forgot that modern forms of totalitarianism, be they Stalinist or fascist, came from the West. Ironically he cited Sima Qian, the greatest historian of ancient China, as a victim of Oriental Despotism but thinks the Chinese historian’s fate of being castrated for offending Emperor Wu of Han to be better than those victims of modern despotism because he was not subjected to public humiliation and public confession.22 The great irony in his comparison is that the “total managerial states” are a Western invention, not an Oriental product. For it has its origin in “Panopticon,” first conceived by Jeremy Bentham in his prison design, vividly described by George Orwell in his novel Nineteen Eighty-­Four, and later borrowed by Foucault to serve as a metaphor for the “carceral continuum” that runs through modern Western society. Generally speaking Wittfogel’s study of Chinese civilization exemplifies a tendency in modern forms of Sinologism: it claims to be based on an objective analysis of Chinese data but actually has an ideological underpinning. In his case, it is the belief that totalitarianism is the same irrespective of its appearance in the East or West, in ancient or modern times, but that it has its origin in the East. As Spence aptly points out: “The China that he had been studying for so long now became fused in his mind with the workings of modern totalitarianism,

The ideology of epistemology   101 whether Stalinist or Nazis, but also with the disquieting gullibility of democracies.”23 Because of this conviction he makes no distinction between ancient Chinese despotism and the modern despotism of the West, and claimed that ancient China blurred the lines between mores, manners, and laws, had no independent religions, and the despotism of China was different from the monarchies of West as it replaced the guiding concept of honor with that of fear. Here we see the influence of Montesquieu’s theory of political government and can clearly identify the lineage of sinologistic ideas and patterns of development.

The epistemology of Sinologism Having argued that the problems of Sinologism are largely those of epistemology and methodology, I need to point out that Sinologism is not purely an epistemology. Ontologically, Sinologism is a peculiar form of ideology, because like an ideology, it is a set of ideas, views, beliefs, and values. In knowledge production it is thought of as a comprehensive vision of the world, a way of looking at things non-­Western, supposedly commonsense knowledge about Chinese civilization, and a set of value judgments passed by Westerners engaged in China studies. As an ideology, however, it is a false consciousness and “an imaginary assemblage (bricolage)” in Marx’s and Althusser’s conceptions of the word,24 because it gathers together a cluster of half truths, distortions, biases, prejudices, lopsided views, and value-­laden judgments. In terms of Antonio Gramsci’s reconception of ideology, Sinologism is also a form of cultural hegemony employed by Western and non-­Western scholars who completely accept Western-­centric ideologies to justify their approaches to China and to make the world believe that their representations of, and value judgments on, China, are bias-­free and have universal values to be accepted by all humanity including the Chinese. When Chinese themselves accept the Western ideology in the knowledge production about China, Sinologism takes a special form and becomes internalized as self-­imposed epistemological colonization. In my critical inquiry I have discovered that as an ideology Sinologism is a conglomerate founded on miscellaneous ideological underpinnings. Here I wish to list the major ones: Western hegemony, universalism, cultural relativism, epistemic colonization, otherization, self-­otherization, ethno-­centrism, and reverse ethno-­centrism. The underlying ideas of Sinologism are not always compatible. Indeed they often conflict with one another, as in the case of cultural universalism and cultural relativism, but in the knowledge production about China they share the same or similar orientation and agendas: that is, to confront, explain, and contain the dazzling complexity of Chinese civilization. In knowledge production about China the West will oscillate between paradigms, and move from one idea to another, but the ultimate objective is to attempt to subsume China and Chinese things under the Western system of knowledge. This is true not only of the Sinophobes, in whose ranks we find George Anson, Daniel Defoe,25 Johann Gottfreid von Herder,26 Richard John Seddon, C. W. Doyle,27 Sax Rohmer (Arthur S. Ward),28 John Steinbeck,29 John Marshall

102   The ideology of epistemology Harlan,30 Henry Smith, Karl Wittfogel, and others, who dislike, fear, or hate China, its people, and its culture, but also of the Sinophiles who demonstrate a strong interest in aspects of Chinese culture and tend to view China in a more positive light than it actually is. Among these we have Marco Polo, Matteo Ricci, Oliver Goldsmith, Leibniz, Voltaire, Mark Twain, Anson Burlingame, Paul Claudel, Victor Segalen, Russell, Fenollosa, Pound, Pearl Buck, Galsworthy L. Dickinson, Edgar Snow, Joseph Needham, Derrida, Kristeva, and others. Sinophiles or Sinophobes, they all adopt a subjective position in their views of China that serve their own agendas, and in many cases they consciously or otherwise engage in an endeavor that may be termed “epistemic colonization.” The logic of epistemic colonization may be better understood by referring to a well-­known Chinese folk saying: If a person in power says that you are OK, then, you are OK. Even if you are really not OK, you are still OK. If that person says that you are not OK, then, you are not OK. Even if you are really OK, you are still not OK. This folk saying may be rewritten to capture a working logic of epistemic colonization. In terms of my inquiry into Sinologism, the saying should be rewritten into two slightly different versions: one from the Western perspective, the other from the non-­Western perspective. For some Westerners, the revised version reads: “If we Westerners say that you are OK, then, you are OK. Even if you are not OK, you are still OK. If we Westerners say that you are not OK, then, you are not OK. Even if you are OK, you are still not OK.” For many Chinese, the non-­Western version reads: “If Westerners say that we are OK, then, we are OK. Even if we are not OK, we are still OK. If Westerners say that we are not OK, then, we are not OK. Even if we are OK, we are still not OK.” My parodic revisions may be simplistic and reductive, yet they capture an important logic of Sinologism in academia, and sinologistic practices in East–West relations since ancient times and in the worldwide process of globalization in modern times. It may explain a prevalent phenomenon in China: Chinese scholars will look to Western scholars as the final authority on the value of a scholarly endeavor, and as the arbiter in scholarly controversies, even in areas concerning China studies. To many Chinese scholars, endorsement and approval by Western scholars is the highest honor to be sought and treasured, and Western scholars’ judgment is the last word. Li Ling, a renowned Chinese professor of archaeology, aptly describes this situation in a sharp observation: “We have a strong ‘Nobel Prize complex,’ exceedingly eager to court Western scholars’ citation and endorsement of our scholarship, believing that only their recognition will win honor for China and secure academic distinction among colleagues.”31

The inner logic of Sinologism I have suggested that the inner logic of Sinologism is a cultural unconscious. Because of the impact of culture, the cultural unconscious turns into a cultured

The ideology of epistemology   103 unconscious, which, through repeated historical and psychological conditioning, becomes a cultural consciousness. In its recognizable and recognized form, the epistemological ideology of Sinologism is such a cultural consciousness, predicated on interplay between Chinese consciousness and consciousness about China. The former is concerned with the consciousness of the Chinese, both in its conscious and unconscious dimensions, while the latter refers to the conscious and unconscious mind of Westerners and non-­Chinese foreigners across the world. In this section, I will examine how the two kinds of consciousnesses interact with the theory of cultural unconscious advanced in Chapter 1. The core logic of Sinologism, I suggest, is constructed out of the interaction between the two kinds of consciousnesses, and its formation went through a process that has much affinity to a historico-­psychological process proposed by the Chinese thinker Li Zehou: the theory of “cultural sedimentation,” or “cultural-­ psychological formation.” 32 Li’s conception originally refers to a long-­term development of human aesthetic faculty, but as I demonstrated in Chapter 1, the cultural-­psychological conditioning does not necessarily take a long time for the formation of a cultural unconscious. My reconception will be adopted in the conceptualization of Chinese consciousness and consciousness about China in Sinologism. The Chinese consciousness in Sinologism is, in the final analysis, the modern consciousness of the Chinese people, which has been formulated since the Opium War. The consciousness about China by the West and other non-­Western peoples refers to a historico-­psychological formation that has lasted from the earliest time when China became known to the world. The Chinese consciousness is composed of historical consciousness and real-­politik consciousness. Because of its long history, its status as one of the cultural centers of the world, and its great material achievements in history, the Chinese consciousness was for a considerably long time endowed with a strong sense of cultural superiority. But after the coming of the West, China suffered one defeat after another in the confrontation with Western imperialism. In its real-­political dimension, the Chinese consciousness was gradually seized by an unconscious or subconscious sense of cultural inferiority in the face of Westerners. As a consequence the Chinese consciousness forms a paradoxical antinomy. Emotionally and subliminally, the Chinese refuse to acknowledge the cultural superiority of the West, but rationally and intellectually, they have to accept it. This paradoxical mentality is quite similar to Joseph Levenson’s view of modern Chinese intellectuals’ state of mind, which is characterized by a tension between an intellectual acceptance of Western values and an emotional attachment to China’s past.33 This conflict between historical consciousness and real-­politik consciousness, between the emotional and rational responses, constitutes a cultural antinomy in modern Chinese consciousness. In the interaction between rational acceptance and emotional rejection of Western superiority, the former gradually penetrated into the unconscious strata of the Chinese mind and became a cultural unconscious. It finds its most typical representation in the character of Ah Q in Lu Xun’s famous novella, The True Story of Ah Q. Li Zehou’s theory of cultural sedimentation

104   The ideology of epistemology refers to a long historico-­psychological process that may have lasted for millions of years, but the modern history of China, especially the last 30 years, seems to suggest that my reconception of cultural sedimentation has efficacy for short-­ term development that only takes a few generations. Ah Q’s remark that “my ancestors used to be much better off,” and his facetious admission that he is an insect in the face of overwhelming power, provides a brilliant specimen that condenses the historico-­psychological formation of modern Chinese consciousness via an artistic medium. As a representative of the Chinese psyche, Ah Q is seized by megalomania at one time, but becomes a self-­belittler at another time. His behavior typifies the form that the Chinese cultural unconscious takes: a blending of superiority and inferiority complexes. As many critics have observed, Ah Q’s contradictory behavior is typical of the antinomy between rejection and acceptance that characterizes the modern Chinese consciousness vis-­à-vis the West. The consciousness about China is also replete with ambivalent and conflicting mentalities and responses, but it is rather different from that of modern Chinese consciousness. Instead of the rational and emotional dimensions, it is manifested in the historical and real-­political dimensions. In history, non-­Chinese peoples all over the world held so great an admiration and respect for the glory and grandeur of China in its historical past that many Western thinkers did not hesitate to admit China’s cultural superiority in history. But in the real-­political dimension, Western imperialists scored one victory after another over the Chinese, who had no other choice than to sign unequal treaties, pay exorbitant war indemnities, and even give up land. The repeated successes of imperialist aggression made it inevitable for Westerners and non-­Western foreigners alike to think of the cultural inferiority of Chinese civilization. This gives an ambivalent underpinning to the modern consciousness about China, which is characterized by an antinomy of historical reverence and modern contempt. This antinomy has become the historic-­psychological precipitate, which is largely unconscious, in the modern consciousness about China. The core logic of Sinologism is formulated out of the interaction between modern consciousness and unconsciousness about China. The historically and psychologically formed antinomies have not only penetrated deeply into the ideological consciousness and cultural unconscious of Sinologism, but also formed the working logic of the epistemology and methodology in the knowledge production about China. As the inner logic has so deeply penetrated into the recess of the mind, it is in large measure a cultural unconscious based on an integration of ideological unconscious, epistemological unconscious, and methodological unconscious. This logic, in my opinion, is largely responsible for the problematic of Sinologism. It is capable of explaining the chaotically wieldy phenomena in China studies, which range from romantic idealizations to sinophobic demonizations.

Epistemic ideologization Sinologism is not just an intellectual category concerned solely with knowledge production about China. It comprehensively covers Orientalism in Sinology,

The ideology of epistemology   105 Euro-­centrism in China–West studies, ethno-­centrism and reverse ethno-­centrism in attitudes towards the Chinese, and misrepresentations, misrecognition, and misunderstandings of China and Chinese things by both Chinese and non-­ Chinese. Its core internal logic is epistemic ideologization, which spawns a series of attitudes by people of different classes, groups, and nationalities, covering all aspects of present-­day Chinese culture and society, from intellectual thought and scholarship to economic development and lifestyles. As a comprehensive system of thought, it is a pervasive phenomenon all over the world, not confined to the West and China. We can find its presence in the views of the Third World and the developing countries and regions, and in the attitudes and scholarship of the Chinese themselves. Its effects are found even in the most open-­minded, enlightened, and erudite scholars in the world, not to mention the general public who have no expertise on China. Jack Goody convincingly demonstrates that even Joseph Needham, characterized by his biographer as a man who loved China, cannot escape a sinologistic approach to Chinese materials, which in his case is marked by characteristic traits of teleological and Euro-­centric models of scholarship.34 With the Chinese economy booming, and with Chinese society rapidly going through social transformation, the epistemic ideology of Sinologism is becoming even more complicated. Take the so-­called “Sino-­centrism” for example. Its rise in the 1990s was not first attributable to the Chinese nationalists or conservative intellectuals, but to an American promoter, Paul Cohen, a serious China study scholar. In his influential book, Discovering History in China, he critiques the major approaches to Chinese civilization advocated by Western scholars and calls for scholars of Chinese history to get out of the ghetto of Western-­centric prejudices and biases, advocating a view of Chinese history with China as its center. Since its publication the book has received positive feedback and has recently been printed in a new edition.35 In a similar way another historian, John Schrecker, advocates in his book, The Chinese Revolution in Historical Perspective, a Sino-­centric approach by constructing a self-­contained history of China in terms of traditional Chinese historical theories, and fitting the Western impact into the Chinese story, rather than the other way round.36 The epistemological procedures of these books cannot but add to the complexities of Sinologism. As Dirlik rightly points out, the notion of China-­centered history adopts the same epistemological approach as that of Orientalism, although it insists on differentiating Chinese history and other histories in methodological orientations: “What is interesting about ‘China-­centered history,’ however, is the authors’ explicit positioning of themselves against Eurocentric histories of China.”37 However complicated it is, the core of Sinologism should be focused on the problematic of China studies. Some of the problems come from lack of reliable information, some from politicization and ideologization of scholarship, some from epistemic and methodological limits, and limitations in serious scholarship. The next chapter will explore the ideology of methodology in Sinologism.

106   The ideology of epistemology

Aspects of epistemic ideology Having explored its various dimensions and manifestations I will attempt to define Sinologism in conceptual and global terms. Sinologism is both an (un) conscious epistemology and an unconscious ideology. As an epistemology, Sinologism is a whole way of looking at China and the world. As an ideology, it is a system of ideas, beliefs, attitudes, and values upheld by Western scholars and the non-­Western world in their encounter with China. In the relation between the two, it is not ideology that determines epistemology: epistemology and ideology mutually influence and determine each other. Hence, Sinologism should be conceptually defined as “epistemic ideology.” It has two dimensions: one relating to China and the other relating to the world. In relation to China–West studies Sinologism has two major aspects. One aspect is a whole way of looking at China by Western scholars engaged in the observation and examination of China. It concerns the West’s attempts to come to terms with China, to make sense of its bewildering perception of Chinese culture, to contain the conflicting complexities of China, and to assure the West of its cultural superiority. Because of these consciously or unconsciously made efforts in China studies there is an inherent refusal or reluctance to examine China and Chinese materials on their own terms. The other aspect concerns the way of looking at China by the Chinese themselves. Many Western scholars engaged in the study of China, be they Sinologists or people who show an interest in aspects of China, instead of examining China on its own terms and probing into its own conditions, tend to take a subjective position informed by Western ways of observation and try to make sense of the complexities of China by imposing characteristically Western conceptions and perceptions onto Chinese materials, irrespective of whether the conceptions and perceptions conform to Chinese realities. This way of looking has produced views of China which are often far removed from the reality of China, and yielded a scholarship of China that is not so much an objective study of China as a Westernized account of China. The other dimension concerns the Chinese, especially Chinese intellectuals’ views of China’s relationship to the West. This dimension is a reflection or refraction of the other dimension. The core of this dimension is the Chinese intellectual habit of viewing China in terms of the Western perception, conception, evaluation, and the accompanying way of determining and measuring the values and achievements of their own culture in terms of Western values, endorsement or disapproval. On the worldwide scale it represents a global way of seeing the world through the eyes of the West in terms of Western conception, perception, and evaluation. The apotheosis of this dimension in China is the so-­called quanpan xihua (complete westernization) in the beginning of the twentieth century and yu guoji jiegui (making connections with the world) around the turn of the twenty-­first century. It results in a loss of self-­ confidence in the worth of China’s cultural heritage and achievement, and a desire nursed by many Chinese overtly (and by the majority of the Chinese people subliminally) to determine their own culture’s value by the Western

The ideology of epistemology   107 y­ ardstick. In this sense, Sinologism is a form of hegemony in Gramsci’s conception: a false ideology and a false consciousness that unconsciously accepts the West as the arbiter of cultural values. In global terms Sinologism refers to a type of habitual thinking, a habitual way of looking at the world, and a habitual way of passing value judgment in terms of Western perception, conception, and evaluation, shared by non-­Western people across the globe. Its manifestations can be found in almost every aspect of cross-­cultural relations and exchanges: political, economic, cultural, and academic. My study is confined to a limited academic field with a focus on China– West studies. Despite its multifarious and dazzling manifestations, its operational rationale may be reduced to two interrelated aspects: conscious and unconscious epistemic colonization by the West, and willing or unwitting internalization of the epistemic colonization. An aspect of this rationale is aptly described in Cambridge scholar Jack Goody’s book, The Theft of History. He interrogates the widely-­accepted notion in modern Western scholarship that, in contrast with other non-­Western cultures and traditions, Western Europe has, over its historical development, acquired and formulated certain distinctive ideas and traits that eventually led to the rise and development of democratic capitalism and which has subsequently played the decisive role in shaping the world into what it is today. The central principle is based on a teleological view, which Goody succinctly described in these words: “The past is conceptualized and presented according to what happened on the provincial scale of Europe, often western Europe, and then imposed upon the rest of the world.”38 This teleological conception and approach have been widely used in the study of world history, thought, art, humanities, and social sciences. Major Western thinkers and scholars in modern times, including progressive and liberal thinkers like Karl Marx, Max Weber, Immanuel Wallerstein, and other leading intellectuals like Hugh Trevor-­Roper, Joseph Needham, and Fernand Braudel, have employed this approach, “interpreting the past from the standpoint of the present, projecting contemporary advantage back on to earlier times, and often in more ‘spiritual’ terms than seems warranted.”39 For all their broad worldview and ecumenical interests, they have interpreted the development of modern European history vis-­à-vis that of non-­Western histories from a Euro-­centric perspective. For them, the centrality of Europe to an understanding of world history did not imply any innate European superiority, but they nevertheless assumed that Europe provided a model for the world as a whole. Moreover, this teleological thinking and approach have shaped the conception and methodology of non-­ Western thinkers and scholars, and in the field of China–West studies have evolved into what I call “Sinologism.”

The nature of Sinologism Initially, Sinologism refers to a series of epistemological ideas in the West’s encounter with China, which underlie the West’s ways of looking at the other parts of the world in the centuries-­long process of globalization since Marco

108   The ideology of epistemology Polo’s travels first brought China and the West into direct contact. In the process of globalization, whether ancient or modern, China is an indispensable link as it stands geographically, politically, socially, morally, and spiritually as the ultimate other pole to the West. Sinologism is not an area of scholarship centering on all that is related to China, or a critical engagement with China that sees China as an object of professional academic inquiry, but a way of approach to knowledge about and scholarship of China from the Western perspective. It does not have a definite ontology, but has an epistemology that treats China not on its own terms, nor wholly on scientific, scholarly, objective terms, but consciously and unconsciously on Western terms. In its primary sense Sinologism refers to Western scholars’ insistence on approaching China and its cultural materials in terms of Western ways of perception, conception, abstraction, generalization, and analysis. Predicated on the firm belief that Western values are universal and timeless, and Western value judgments are made in objective and bias-­free ways, Sinologism is characterized by a refusal or reluctance to engage things Chinese on their own terms. In the representations of Chinese culture, Sinologism tends to fit Chinese things into the conceptual models derived from studies of Western materials. In evaluations of Chinese materials Sinologism tends to express value judgments that consciously or unconsciously serve a scholar’s personal agenda or the agenda of ideological domination. In its extreme form Sinologism embodies an explicit and implicit conception of and approach to knowledge that regards Western ways of looking at the world as the only correct ways of looking, and Western systems of knowledge as the only objective knowledge. In its secondary form Chinese scholars and scholars of Chinese origin who have internalized Western perspectives, made conscious and unconscious attempts to adopt Western conceptual models and paradigms as the only viable ones in processing Chinese materials, to fit Chinese materials into the Procrustean bed of Western frameworks irrespective of the historical, conceptual, and cultural conditions of the Chinese materials, and to accept Western scholars as capable or ultimate arbiters and to court Western endorsement and approval. In the worldwide context Sinologism is a kind of mentality, grounded in non-­ Western people’s reluctant admission of the superiority of Western cultures over non-­Western cultures, conscious and unconscious absorption of Western epistemology and approaches to non-­Western materials, and the willing acceptance of the imposed Western models as the only correct ones. This mentality spawns miscellaneous practices including uncritical application of Western paradigms and methodology to Chinese and non-­Western materials, self-­conscious or unwitting use of Western standards in evaluating things both Western and non-­ Western, and a masochistic way of demeaning and devaluing Chinese and non-­ Western materials. The domineering style of imposing models on Chinese materials by Western scholars, and the self-­debasing style of reverence for Western models and endorsement, constitute a special form of Sinologism, which I call “sinologization.” Whether viewed from the Western perspective or non-­Western perspective, Sinologism departs from its intended purpose, which

The ideology of epistemology   109 is the production, dissemination, and consumption of China knowledge. Hence, it is an alienated form of knowledge, or to be more precise, an alienation of Sinology and China studies. As a summing up, I will describe the fundamental features of Sinologism below: 1

2

3

4

5 6

Sinologism is a special system of knowledge. To be specific, it is a system of knowledge about China and Chinese civilization. It comprehensively covers all known knowledge concerning China. In this respect it is a broad term which covers sinological studies, China studies, and any writings by people of any national origin with China as the topic. Sinologism is a system of attitudes towards China and approaches to knowledge production about things Chinese, dominated by Western-­centric ideas, beliefs, values, epistemology, methodology, and standards of judgment. This aspect has orientations in different directions, sinophilic or sinophobic, biased or disinterested, subjective or objective. Sinologism is a problematic in China knowledge production. It is a totality of all problems arising from observing and doing scholarship about China. As such, it addresses similar problems in Orientalism, Euro-­centrism, Western-­centrism, ethno-­centrism, and racist otherization, but at the same time tackles problems not found in these ideologies, Sinologism is an intellectual product, jointly created by Westerners and non­Westerners, including the Chinese. As it satisfies the demands for knowledge consumption by people of different countries and regions in the context of globalization, it becomes an intellectual commodity for global consumption. Sinologism is alienated knowledge and scholarship in China–West studies. Its status of being alienated contains opposite impulses for de-­alienation that may transform intellectual sicknesses into healthy creative energies. Sinologism is a theory of critique. It is endowed with potential for paradigmatic changes that offer insights for the construction of a new paradigm with fresh approaches to knowledge production about China and Chinese civilizations.

Sinologism is, in the final analysis, an epistemic sickness. The fundamental reason why Sinologism is capable of transforming itself into positive creative energy is because it is like a person who suffers from a neurosis due to conflicting and unrecognized unconscious forces. The Greek adage “know thyself ” is the rationale for a cure not only for neurosis, but also for epistemological sicknesses like Sinologism.

The function of Sinologism Having examined the epistemic ideology and working logic that underlie Sinologism, I am in a better position to engage in considerations of its function in

110   The ideology of epistemology r­ elation to other intellectual thought concerning China in the worldwide context of globalization. According to existing views Sinologism seems to be another form of Euro-­centricism, Western-­centrism, or ethno-­centricism in the postcolonial discourse. I, however, must say that it is not so. Sinologism grows out of Western efforts to build an international intellectual and material system, not self-­consciously for colonization from the outset. Nor was it entirely aimed at Western domination, at least in the overwhelmingly large quantity of knowledge produced about China by Sinologists and other China scholars, and in the positive representations of China by many Western writers and thinkers.40 Intellectually as it represents a long-­term large-­scale intellectual endeavor by Western thinkers and scholars to incorporate China and its civilization into their conceived system of knowledge and system of universal history for the world, it is not a system constructed with ulterior and sinister motives. In fact, it was initiated as an early form of globalization. Conceptual considerations of Sinologism’s function should be conducted from a broader perspective, which includes Euro-­centrism, ethno-­centrism, and reverse ethno-­centrism on top of Orientalism. I have argued in previous chapters that Sinologism is neither a form of Orientalism nor a form of Euro-­centrism. But now I will make a paradoxical claim: it is both and neither. In Edward Said’s conception Orientalism refers to a Western academic and cultural tradition that centers on an outsider’s essentialized and prejudiced interpretations of Eastern cultures and peoples. Shaped by the attitudes of Euro-­centrism and colonialism in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, it is characterized by hostile and deprecatory views of the East. Euro-­centricism refers to the practice of viewing the world from a European perspective, with an implicit belief in the pre-­eminence of Europe and European cultures and the inferiority of non-­European cultures and peoples. Through geopolitical extension, Euro-­centrism turns into Western-­centrism. Sinologism contains elements of both, but it is neither. This is not just because, for a considerably long historical period, Europeans recognized the enviable achievements of Chinese civilization, or because it has a component that tends to idealize China and regard Chinese civilization as superior to that of the West, but because it is a much more complex intellectual system that engages both the colonizers and colonized, Chinese and non-Chinese, westerners and non-westerners in confrontation and collaboration, resistance and acceptance, production and consumption, westernization and sinicization, and other forms of interactions. Sinologism is not a form of ethno-­centrism, either, though it contains ethno-­ centric components, too. Ethno-­centrism refers to a belief in the inherent superiority of the “race” or group to which one belongs, and is characterized by a proclivity to interpret or evaluate other cultures in terms of one’s own, and a general contempt for another group’s way of life, values, and patterns of adaptation. As one anthropological view holds: “All human societies display a certain measure of ethno-­centricity which is partly a condition of the personal and social identity of their members. Ethnocentricity, of which Eurocentricity and Orientalism are two varieties, is not a purely European disease.”41 Westerners or Easterners, Indians or Indonesians, Japanese or Chinese, may all express

The ideology of epistemology   111 ethno-­centric views. But there is a major difference between Sinologism and ethno­centrism. While the latter only refers to the expression of racial and group superiority over another race or group other than one’s own, Sinologism contains a dimension in which a considerable portion of Chinese people and people of ethnic Chinese origin may willingly admit their own inferiority and accept the cultural hegemony of the West. Here we have a special phenomenon that seems to be akin to the internal self-­colonization addressed by some of the postcolonial scholars like Frantz Fanon and Homi Bhabha. Once again the Chinese phenomenon exhibits significant differences. On the one hand, China was never a complete colony of the West, and on the other, its national bourgeoisie was never, like its counterparts in African countries, only “content with the role of the Western bourgeoisie’s business agent,” as Fanon observed in his critique.42 Rather, the Chinese self-­ colonization was a form of epistemological colonization. The idiosyncratically self-­deprecating and self-­demeaning attitudes by some Chinese intellectuals towards Chinese culture may be termed “reverse ethno-­centrism.” Generally speaking Orientalism can only be conceived by Westerners, Euro-­centrism by the Europeans, ethno-­centricism by one’s own group against other groups, but Sinologism may be nursed by any ethnic and racial group, including Chinese and people of Chinese origin, against their own cultures. Sinologism has elements of both Orientalism and ethno-­centrism, but differs from both in that it is not always characterized by ethno-­centrism and cultural imperialism. Rather it is an implicit system of perceptions, views, theories, and attitudes vis-­à-vis Chinese civilization, conceived first by Westerners, but then internalized by other groups, and even accepted by Chinese themselves. This is the major dimension in which Sinologism differs from Orientalism, Euro-­centricism, and ethno-­centrism. In its function Sinologism differs from Orientalism in that while the former is conceived as an integral part of the world system, the latter is conceived as a distinct system of non-­Western knowledge, separable from and impossible to be assimilated into the Western system. This distinction is reflected in an implicit understanding that the Chinese can be proselytized, whereas the Muslims cannot. While Sinologism serves the agenda of bringing China and its people into the Western world system through the integration of trade, economy, lifestyle, and spiritual life, Orientalism existed as a branch of knowledge to highlight the differences between the Orient and the Occident. We see since Marco Polo’s time an incessant flow of missionaries, merchants, and soldiers coming to China with the explicit and implicit objectives of territorial, economic, and religious conquests, but we see only colonial conquests in the Middle East, and seldom see successful large-­scale religious efforts made by the Western missionaries to convert Muslims into Christians. And the end result is that while we see large numbers of Chinese converted to Christianity both inside and outside China, there are few reports of successful conversion of Muslims (with the exception of the reconversion of Muslims to Christianity in Spain). The striking difference may partly reflect the different nature and function of Orientalism and Sinologism. It also partly reflects the fact that Sinologism is not always a form of cultural domination, as Orientalism, Euro-­centricism, and ethno-­centrism tend to

112   The ideology of epistemology be, but in many cases a conflicting way of coming to terms with the dazzling complexities of Chinese tradition and society, and an unsophisticated and flawed way of producing and consuming knowledge about China. The worldwide significance of Sinologism lies in the fact that an awareness of it may put people of non-­Western countries and regions on guard against epistemological colonization and self-­colonization, and help thinkers and scholars produce as near objective and bias-­free knowledge about China as possible.

5 The ideology of methodology

Sinologism is founded on a problematic epistemology, which in turn yields a problematic methodology. In a way, the sinologistic epistemology and methodology were exposed by Bertrand Russell who took to Sinologism from the opposite direction, tending to idealize China and Chinese civilization. Russell is a contemporary of Rudyard Kipling, who articulated the notorious saying: “The white man’s burden.” Unlike Kipling, however, Russell was keenly aware of the problematic Western hegemonic approach to China, writing: We are firmly persuaded that our civilization and our way of life are immeasurably better than any other, so that when we come across a nation like the Chinese, we are convinced that the kindest thing we can do to them is to make them like ourselves. I believe this to be a profound mistake.1 His criticism touches upon an ideological underpinning that supports the epistemology of Sinologism and defines the methodology of Sinologism. This ideology of methodology is largely responsible for problems in China scholarship and China–West studies.

The methodological divide Unlike Orientalism, Euro-­centrism, and Western-­centrism and other ideologies with explicit or implicit racist, chauvinistic, or colonialist motivations and agendas, Sinologism started with no consciously ulterior motive, at least up to modern times. Generally speaking, the early period of Sinologism is a golden age when knowledge of China was pursued for its own sake and was not affected by political ideologies and cultural hegemony. Even after clear signs of distortion and misrepresentation appeared in the works of Western scholars in the late eighteenth century, most of them declared that they cherished no ill feelings towards the Chinese and Chinese culture. Among modern scholars who displayed clearly chauvinistic and hegemonic sentiments, most of them still believed that their negative views of Chinese culture were but the inevitable outcome of their objective investigations and evaluations. While we can, in a sweeping generalization, attribute their self-­professed innocence to the work of

114   The ideology of methodology their cultural unconscious, we should also account for their biases, prejudices, distortions, and misinterpretations of Chinese civilization in terms of the methodologies shaped by their intellectual unconscious. Sinologism is based on certain habitual ways of doing scholarship on Chinese civilization. These habitual ways form a variety of methodologies that have been regarded as essential in doing scholarship. Although these methodologies are held to be scientific, objective, bias-­free, and having universal applicability to materials of any cultures, I will reveal their ideologically laden nature and subjectively oriented rationale swayed by politics, power, and ethnicity. As the methodological problems in China studies are often perpetrated without conscious awareness of their inherent biases and prejudices, I suggest that there is a methodological unconscious that motivates and controls the misperception, miscomprehension, and distorted representations of Chinese civilization. In the preface to his highly influential book, The Order of Things: An Archaeology of the Human Sciences, Michel Foucault mentions a hilarious passage in one of Borges’s writings, in which the latter invented a Chinese Encyclopedia. It adopts a strange taxonomy which classifies animals into the following categories: (a) Belonging to the Emperor, (b) embalmed, (c) tame, (d) sucking pigs, (e) sirens, (f ) fabulous, (g) stray dogs, (h) included in the present classification, (i) frenzied, (j) innumerable, (k) drawn with a very fine camelhair brush, (l) et cetera, (m) having just broken the water pitcher, (n) that from a long way off look like flies.2 This passage originally appears in one of Borges’s essays on John Wilkins, an English scholar of the seventeenth century.3 Since Borges is famously fond of mixing erudition with imaginative accounts in his writings, his invention of the Chinese Encyclopedia is not meant to represent the exotic ways of Chinese thinking, still less to poke fun at the absurdities of an alien culture, but to affirm the futility of absolutely accurate taxonomies of things in the world, which he views as a labyrinth constructed on an unknowable mysterious order. Eliciting a good laugh from Foucault, who enjoyed reading the hilarious episode, it gave the French philosopher the inspiration to reflect on new modes of thinking concerning the human sciences: In the wonderment of this taxonomy, the thing we apprehend in one great leap, the thing that, by means of the fable, is demonstrated as the exotic charm of another system of thought, is the limitation of our own, the stark impossibility of thinking that.4 Although a sophisticated reader of Borges’s invention and Foucault’s quotation of the passage would not mistakenly take their actions as a good-­humored censure of an exotic mode of thinking, an unsophisticated reader may regard the passage as a fable for the characteristically Chinese ways of thinking that sets

The ideology of methodology   115 Chinese approaches to scholarship apart from those of Western scholarship. Indeed, in published accounts and unpublished private conversations, it is generally agreed that traditional Chinese ways of doing scholarship tend to be intuitive, impressionistic, unsystematic, and with little attention to speculative analysis, in contrast to Western emphasis on logical reasoning, sustained analysis, and system building. The perceived differences are numerous enough to form a gap between Chinese and Western ways of doing scholarship. The methodological divide is so wide that I will demonstrate with hard evidence that sometimes the two sides can hardly engage in meaningful dialogues due to different ideological orientations, religious positions, and aesthetic preferences. Open discussion of methodological differences and problems in China studies are rare. Rarer still are explicit admonitions by Western scholars of China with regard to what and how to do China scholarship, but there are many implicit statements about doing scholarship on China from Herder and Hegel to Weber and Wittfogel, and explicit approaches to Chinese materials from historiography to literature. In the following sections I will first analyze a common paradigm in the comparative studies of Chinese literature, and then examine some commonly used methodologies in the knowledge production about China and Chinese civilization from the eighteenth century to the present, and critically examine the methodological problems that constitute aspects of the methodological unconscious in Sinologism.

East–West divide In China–West studies a common approach is to conceive of China and the West in terms of an East–West divide. This effectively sets up a paradigm of binary opposition between Chinese and Western traditions, especially in the comparative studies of Chinese and Western literatures. Following this paradigm there appears a series of hierarchical dichotomies with the Western tradition on top and the Chinese tradition at the bottom. In her attempt to re-­imagine the field of Chinese studies in the postmodern era, Rey Chow summarizes what may be seen as a fundamental dichotomy between Chinese and Western literary traditions that posits “a set of binary oppositions” in which the Chinese and Western literary traditions are set apart in metaphysical foundations, essentials of representations, and the use of figurative language.5 She is right in describing the prevalent belief as “a classic example” of a “reactive construction of a fictive ethnicity in literary studies.” This fictive ethnicity occupies the center of ethno-­ centric criticism, and is the inner logic of literary Sinologism. Nevertheless, most of the time these scholars do not consciously realize that their miscomprehension, misrepresentation, and problematic evaluations of Chinese literature were determined by a mentality controlled by an unconscious motivating force and a literary sensibility shaped by a blind acceptance of Western literary theory and approaches as the universal standard of judgment. Hence, I have ample reasons to call this mentality the “literary unconscious.”

116   The ideology of methodology Here I will only confine myself to an analysis of some chosen scholars’ approaches to aspects of Chinese literature, and demonstrate how the literary unconscious adversely affects their views and assessments of Chinese literature, which are salient features of literary Sinologism. In the field of Chinese literature, because of an indiscriminate acceptance of Western literary theory, the study of Chinese literature is characterized by two tendencies. On the one hand, some Western scholars who study Chinese literature insist on studying Chinese literary works and theory in terms of Western ideas, concepts, terms, and theories, and refuse to examine Chinese texts on their own terms. They also tend to measure the achievements of Chinese literary works and poetic theories by the Western standards. On the other hand, many Chinese scholars and scholars of Chinese origin wholeheartedly accept Western ideas of literary theory as universally valid, and uncritically apply them to Chinese literary works. This dual orientation dominated Chinese fiction studies as early as the first quarter of the twentieth century. Scholars of Chinese fiction, using Western fiction theory as the yardstick, implicitly and explicitly viewed characteristic features of Chinese fiction as anomalies or even an art manqué with deplorable limitations. Traditional Chinese fiction displays some distinctive features6 which deviate from Western fiction theory predicated on mimesis and realism before Modernism, and were regarded as shortcomings or limitations. C. T. Hsia, who is the first to give a systematic introduction of the classical Chinese novel to the West, tells us why Chinese fiction is wanting compared with Western fiction: The modern reader of fiction is brought up on the practice and theory of Flaubert and James: he expects a consistent point of view, a unified impression of life as conceived and planned by a master intelligence, an individual style fully consonant with the author’s emotional attitude toward his subject matter. He abhors explicit didacticism, authorial digression, episodic construction that reveals no cohesion of design, and clumsiness of every other kind that distracts his attention.7 Accepting the Western theory of fiction as the norm, he has no other ammunition to defend the artistic achievement of Chinese fiction and must apologize for the “Chinese novelist’s failure to utilize fully the arts of fiction” by recourse to historical reasons.8 Some Western scholars using the Western standard are less charitable in their assessment of Chinese fiction. One Western scholar, who measured the achievement of Chinese fiction by the yardstick of Western realist fiction, came to the conclusion that Chinese fiction has an “undefinable inadequacy” and is “vaguely wanting.”9 What is interesting is that on the same narrative issue, a Chinese scholar and a Western scholar may come to entirely opposite opinions with the expected outcome that while the Chinese scholar’s opinion is positive, the Western scholar’s opinion is negative. More interestingly, the same scholar may come to entirely different conclusions on the same issue depending on whether

The ideology of methodology   117 he adopts or rejects the Western narrative standard of narrative art. Here, I will only cite the assessment of the organizational structure of the Chinese novel Shuihu zhuan (Water Margins) by a Chinese scholar and a Western scholar. Richard Irwin, a Western scholar who wrote perhaps the earliest thorough study of the novel in the West, passed a judgment that it suffers “from the structural weakness,” evinces “uneven narrative quality,” and is “merely a collection of tales.”10 By contrast, Zheng Zhenduo, an authority on Chinese literature in China who wrote a carefully researched textual study of the novel’s evolution, comes to the conclusion that its structural organization is so close-­knit that it deserves to be viewed as “water-­tight.”11 As I will show shortly, however, Zheng Zhenduo did not have a high opinion of Chinese fiction until he stopped assessing its achievements by the yardstick of Western narrative art. In the studies of Chinese literature by Chinese scholars, Sinologism takes an interesting turn, which I wish to call conscious internalization of Western theories and standards by fiction writers and scholars of Chinese origin. Because of their education and training in Western literary theory, some Chinese scholars of fiction denigrated the art of Chinese fiction and even denied the native origin of Chinese fiction. Wen I-­to [Yiduo], a renowned Chinese scholar and poet, expresses such a view. He categorically claims that but for the introduction of foreign literary forms, Chinese literature would have ceased to develop by the Song Dynasty: “By this time, history of Chinese literature might have had no need to be written if two introduced foreign art forms – fiction and drama – had not silently waited on the side to take up the relay baton.”12 He views Chinese fiction as a “foreign form” that came to China with foreign religions in two waves. It first arose with the introduction of Buddhism from India, and then further developed with arrival of Christianity from Europe: “In the first wave, the Indian influence brought in by Buddhism is fiction and drama. In the second wave, the European influence brought in by Christianity is again fiction and drama.”13 In the following statement, he even denied the existence of the native impulse for creating and reading fiction: Stories and embryonic song-­and-dance were not unheard of in China proper before then, but they had never developed into a division of literature. We have always seemed to be less than enthusiastic about telling stories and listening to stories. What we have shown interest in are didactic fables or factual history. We have never cultivated a taste for telling and listening to stories purely for the story’s sake itself. At the least, we may say that it was the translation and preaching of Buddhist scriptures that are charged with a zest for stories which awakened in our native land a budding interest in story and which caused it then to combine with the comparatively advanced foreign forms to produce our own fiction and drama.14 Wen I-­to was practically saying that before the coming of Buddhist tales, Chinese writers were innately deficient in creative impulses for writing fiction. Likewise, the reading public lacked the innate desire to enjoy the pleasure of

118   The ideology of methodology reading and listening to stories. Both kinds of abilities, innate to other nations, were cultivated in China through the introduction of Buddhism. Clearly he completely overlooked historical data about the rise and development of world fiction. In a worldwide context the rise of Chinese fiction was not late in coming. If European fiction could trace its origins to medieval romance in the twelfth century and short stories in prose which did not appear until the fourteenth century,15 Chinese fiction written in prose dates to the Tang (seventh to tenth centuries). Short tales appeared as early as the Wei, Jin, North and Southern dynasties (third to sixth centuries). With the exception of the Japanese novel, the Tale of Genji (c.1010), the first Chinese novel appeared before all its European counterparts. I have always been puzzled by this question: how could Wen I-­to, a sagacious scholar and creative writer, come to such a fallacious view? One can certainly attribute his claim of Chinese fiction as an imported foreign form to his attempt to emphasize the poetic nature of Chinese literary tradition, but in my opinion this is only a superficial reason. The underlying reason for his denial of the native origin of Chinese fiction should be attributed to his unconscious acceptance of Western epistemology and methodology in literary theory, and the Western habit of doing scholarship in terms of binary oppositions. Because of his unconscious acceptance of Western theory he self-­consciously formulated a dichotomous view of Chinese and Western literary traditions. He conceives of the literary traditions of four ancient civilizations, China, India, Israel, and Greece, as forming a dichotomy in their development. Although all four civilizations started with lyrical poetry, in the ensuing development China and the other three traditions followed two different routes. In his attempt to build the dichotomy, he puts India, Israel and Greece into the large category of European civilization, in contrast to Chinese civilization. While those three traditions embarked on a way characterized by the domination of drama and fiction, Chinese tradition followed a way dominated by lyrical poetry. In order to fit Chinese literary tradition into his constructed dichotomy, he must deny the native origin of Chinese fiction. And in terms of the dichotomy, early Chinese xiaoshuo (fictional works) cannot be counted as fictional works and early fictional writing is not a proper category of literature. Despite the pride he takes in Chinese civilization, his ultimate purpose in constructing the dichotomy is stated in his conclusion: Chinese literature must boldly learn from the West and take the Western road of development. In his own words: “Chinese literature needs to develop in the direction of fiction and drama, which is equivalent to saying that we must follow the European road unconditionally.”16 Wen I-­to’s opinion about the development of Chinese literature reflects a view prevalent in his time: the introduction of Buddhism to China exerted a tremendous influence on many intellectual aspects of Chinese culture; and in the field of literature, Chinese drama and fiction would not have arisen without the intellectual stimulus from Indian philosophy and thematic borrowings from Indian sources. This view was held by many renowned scholars including Chen Yinke, Hu Shi, Ch’en Shou-­yi, and others,17 all of whom received a Western

The ideology of methodology   119 education in Europe and the US. It was enthusiastically endorsed and supported by later scholars, Chinese and Western. In 1983 Victor Mair wrote a provocative article “The Narrative Revolution in Chinese Literature: Ontological Presuppositions.” It became the focal point of a debate in a forum on Chinese fiction. In the article Mair further radicalizes Wen I-­to’s view and makes a bold claim: “There is virtually nothing before the T’ang period that can properly be designated as ‘fiction’ (that which is feigned or imagined)”18 and his contention that the introduction of fiction from India was the driving force for a virtual revolution in Chinese narrative. Contested and refuted by many scholars as untenable,19 this case is indicative of the extent to which a total acceptance of Western epistemology in literary studies can lead. In the studies of Chinese literature by Chinese scholars, Sinologism takes an interesting turn, which I wish to call unconscious internalization of Western theories and standards by fiction writers and scholars of Chinese origin. Because of their education and training in Western literary theory, modern Chinese novelists and critics accepted the Western ideas of novelistic art and considered the traditional Chinese novel as a whole inferior to that of the West. As C. T. Hsia observes in his widely influential book: Though as a rule exceptions are made of the greater novels, usually including the six to be discussed here, modern scholars and writers of the pre-­ Communist period are generally agreed that the traditional novel as a whole is profoundly disappointing. This feeling was at first inseparable from a sense of national shame which they shared, but it soon matured into an honest recognition of the artistic inferiority of the old Chinese novel in comparison with the Western novel.20 This self-­deprecating view was held not just by ill-­informed and ignorant scholars and writers, but also by well-­known writers and scholars, at least in their early careers. Mao Dun, arguably the greatest Chinese novelist in the twentieth century, held a low opinion of the traditional novel in his early writing career and claimed that it had nothing valuable to teach him about novel writing. His low evaluation was meted out not just to the popular traditional novels but also to generally recognized masterpieces like The Water Margin and A Dream of the Red Chamber, the latter being the greatest novel of past and present Chinese history, and nowadays internationally recognized as one of the greatest novels in world history. Because he judged the achievements of the Chinese novel in terms of Western narrative art, he considered the narrative techniques of both Chinese masterpieces as too crude to merit imitation.21 This critical evaluation was upheld even by scholars who attempted to promote the study of traditional Chinese fiction. Hu Shi, who exhibited an uncommon interest in the Chinese novel, did not hesitate to profess his opinion on artistic inferiority and express his criticism.22 What is interesting is that since the 1970s scholars of Chinese fiction, both inside and outside China, have discovered the great narrative art and admirable achievements of the traditional

120   The ideology of methodology Chinese novel, and found it not to be inferior to those of Western tradition at approximately the same historical periods.23 Some scholars have even discovered artistic features in the traditional Chinese novel that anticipate the rise of modernism and postmodernism.24 Ironically, the great achievements of traditional Chinese fiction did not get recognized until after Mao Zedong’s call on Chinese intellectuals to recover artistic values in Chinese culture and make use of traditional art to serve the present. As a result the reaffirmation of traditional Chinese literature did not appear until after the repudiation of the Western influence. What is even more ironic is that scholars have almost arrived at a consensus that the modern Chinese novel, which came into being as a result of imitation of Western fiction, is inferior to its Western counterpart and to the traditional fiction. What is responsible for this reversal in evaluation? According to my observations, there are two factors. One is that as Chinese scholars uncritically accepted Western theories of fiction and literary standards, they became blind to the achievements of traditional Chinese fiction and even regarded innovative features of Chinese fiction as limitations and weaknesses. Zheng Zhenduo’s case is most illuminating. I mentioned above his contradictory stance toward traditional Chinese fiction. His conflicting views were expressed in two different periods. His deprecatory view was voiced early in his career when he totally accepted Western theories of fiction. At that time he did not hide his contempt for traditional Chinese novels, openly criticizing them as “shallow and stupid novels of interminable length.”25 His appreciative view was articulated after he modified his biases and studied the merits of Chinese fiction on its own terms. C. T. Hsia’s study is another interesting example. Trained in Western literary theory, he used Western standards as the yardstick and found traditional Chinese fiction wanting. This general attitude permeates his book-­length study of Chinese fiction, and stands out especially in his critical assessment of Jin Ping Mei (A Plum in the Golden Vase), a novel which has nowadays been recognized internationally as one of the greatest novels in the development of world fiction. David Roy, an authority on the novel, writes: “With the possible exception of the Tale of Genji (1010) and Don Quixote (1615), there is no earlier work of prose fiction of equal sophistication in world literature.”26 But before Roy, Andrew Plaks27 and other scholars rediscovered the artistic achievement of the novel, C. T. Hsia’s evaluation of it was rather low. While recognizing the pioneering achievement of the novel in the area of subject matter and narrated materials, he characterizes the book as one written by someone with a “low culture and ordinary mentality,” and dismisses its artistic achievement as “most disappointing . . . from the viewpoint of style and structure.”28 His low evaluation of the novel’s art derives from his judging the novel in terms of Western theories of fiction. Despite the unrealistic and fantastic story frame and narrative elements, he insists on calling the novel a realistic and naturalistic work and finds fault with it for failing to fulfill its realistic potential.29 It must be noted, however, that he changed his view later in life. The habitual way of evaluating Chinese literary works in terms of Western literary theory are symptomatic of a deeper problem in Sinologism. It is the unconscious internalization of Western ways of looking at the world, irrespective of

The ideology of methodology   121 specific situations. It may be viewed as a self-­imposed epistemic colonization, and it stifles the imagination and creativity of non-­Western scholars and people. The blind acceptance of Western theory and ways of fiction writing caused a lowering of artistic achievements in modern Chinese fiction writing. Most modern Chinese writers completely turned their back on the rich tradition of Chinese fiction and poetry, and willingly followed the well-­trodden tracks of Western writers. This was especially prevalent after China started its reforms of the late 1970s. In the area of poetry Chinese poets of the so-­called New Period assiduously imitated Western modernist poetry and accepted Imagism as a model for emulation, scarcely realizing that the underlying theory of Imagism was actually inspired and learned from classical Chinese poetry. In the field of fiction, whatever new literary trend started in the West, most Chinese writers would imitate. They first imitated surrealism and stream of consciousness, black humor, then French new fiction, and later on the magical realism of Latin American writers, and other avant-­garde trends. Ironically they completely forgot that magical realism appeared in the Chinese tradition over 1,000 years ago and was a prominent feature of traditional Chinese fictional works.30 Take the classical Chinese novel for example. Of the six great novels (with the exception of The Scholars, which may be classified as a novel of realism) five are replete with fantastic themes, mythical frameworks, absurd detail, and the utilization of surrealism and magical realism.31

Big theory approach Among various problematic approaches to China studies, a common one adopted by many thinkers and scholars tends to conceive a big theoretical framework or create a big system and then fit Chinese civilization and materials into it. Because of its concern with generality and universality it may be called the “big theory” approach. It is a fond approach for many Western thinkers and scholars. Wittfogel is one of them. In his preface to the second printing of his book Oriental Despotism in 1962, Wittfogel discussed the epistemological principles and methodological approaches that guided his research into Oriental despotism. His preface reveals not only the problematic epistemology and methodology in his own research methods in particular, but also the Western method employed in the study of non-­Western culture in general. He professes his interest in creating big ideas and a large system: “The use of big structured concepts for the purpose of identifying big patterns of societal structure and change.”32 He emphasized the value of this approach because it has been employed by Western thinkers from Aristotle right through to the modern thinkers. But in my opinion this is precisely the crux of matter, where the Western epistemology becomes problematic methodology. Wittfogel’s approach exemplifies the problematic methodology in Western knowledge production about China as well as other cultures. His approach is one guided by preconceptions and predicated on an epistemology informed by Western metaphysics. While emphasizing the value of big ideas he did not see their problems:

122   The ideology of methodology A scientist who thinks he must invent all his tools anew may well enter the research situation with an empty mind – but he will also leave it with an empty mind. Properly applied, the growth potential of a reality-­tested big concept is enormous. Rooted in past experiences and ideas, it has every chance to develop with the new empirical data that it is likely to uncover.33 Wittfogel admits that he was guided by “big concepts” or “macro-­analytical principles” in his research into Chinese economics, society, history, and culture, as well as his comparative study of Eastern and Western despotism, and he believed that through the methodology of raising big concepts and testing them in terms of reality, he was engaged in a “struggle for the clarification of basic scientific truths and human values.”34 Clearly he was advancing a view about the objective truths and scientific observations of non-­Western societies criticized by Said in Orientalism. Wittfogel’s observations of non-­Western cultures, especially those concerning the Muslim world of the Middle East, are typical of Orientalism, but I am somewhat surprised that his view was not criticized in Said’s book. Wittfogel’s study typifies the problems in Western efforts to bring China and Chinese civilization into a global system politically, economically, and intellectually. The problems can be described briefly like this: Western scholars and thinkers tend to construct a model or system based on their observations and investigations of Western societies and materials and will employ the formulated model or system as the guideline for their study of Chinese society and materials. In most cases they simply impose the Western model of analysis on Chinese materials. If the Chinese materials fit their model or system, that is fine. If not, they will either regard the Chinese case as an anomaly or tailor the Chinese materials to fit the Western model or system. They have so much confidence in their model or theory that they regard it as a scientific one that has universal value and universal applicability. Their confident belief in Western models not only does epistemic and methodological violence to non-­Western cultures and materials, but also turns methodological problems into an ideology: the privileging of Western paradigms and approaches over non-­Western research materials in knowledge production.

“Ideal type” approach Max Weber is one of the major Western thinkers who conducted comparative studies of China and the West, but he kept a distance from the social Darwinist paradigm and refrained from making value judgments either to appreciate or deprecate Chinese civilization. Like other Western thinkers his goal was to find reasons for the different developmental paths of the cultures of the Occident and the Orient, but, unlike other thinkers of his time, he tried not to judge or evaluate non-­European civilizations. In his approach to China he adopted a methodology based on his theories of verstehen (known as understanding or Interpretative Sociology) and of anti-­positivism (known as humanistic sociology). Weber

The ideology of methodology   123 seems to be aware of the limitations of a scientistic approach to civilizations. His awareness is reflected in his belief that social, economic, and historical research can never be fully inductive or descriptive, but at the same time he suggests that one should always approach things under investigation with a conceptual apparatus that he termed “Ideal Type.” An ideal type is formed from characteristics and elements of the given phenomena but it is not meant to correspond to all of the characteristics of any one particular case. With this awareness he made a fairly systematic study of Chinese civilization and attempted to explain why capitalism did not rise in China despite its rich resources and favorable material conditions. By examining the interrelationship between Chinese history, society, economy, religion, and government in comparison and contrast with their Western counterparts, he attributed China’s failure to develop capitalism to the rule of Confucianism, imperial bureaucracy, the idiosyncratic nature of Chinese cities, and the nature of spiritual domains. Many of Weber’s insights have stood the test of time and proved valid even after the passage of a century following the publication of the Religion of China.35 In the mid-­1990s the validity of many of Weber’s ideas was reaffirmed despite “the obsolescence of many of his empirical observations.”36 Nevertheless, when we examine Weber’s application of his formulated theory on the rise of industrial capitalism to the Chinese tradition, we find problems characteristic of Sinologism. His assertion that “the impediments to the development of capitalism must be sought primarily in the domain of religion”37 is seriously flawed when it is applied to cultural traditions where there is neither Christianity nor a Protestant ethic. For it is tantamount to saying that in Oriental societies, where the major religions are Confucianism, Buddhism, Hinduism, Islamism, and other indigenous religions, people must embrace Christianity and especially Protestant ethics before the process of industrial capitalism can get off the ground. The successful transformation of some East Asian societies to industrial capitalism in the second half of the twentieth century has rendered his claim rather invalid. The implied absurdity in his assertion reveals a serious flaw in his methodology based on “ideal type.” Among Weber’s many original ideas his notion of “ideal type” is one of the most important concepts in social science, and in Western thinkers’ efforts to construct what they call a “universal history” that embraces all known human civilizations. Yet this theory has some serious drawbacks that characterize the methodological inadequacy of Sinologism. Weber’s “ideal types” refer to analytic constructs, or models, that attempt to give the chaotic actions of real people an artificial consistency that facilitates the working out of a distinctive pattern of behavior. Weber admits that “ideal types” are not pictures or copies of reality, but are “useful fiction,” abstracted from what the investigator regards as culturally significant through one-­sided emphasis of reality.38 Although Weber conceded that employing “ideal types” was an abstraction, he nevertheless maintained that it was essential if one was to understand any particular social phenomena because, unlike physical phenomena, they involve human behavior which must be interpreted by ideal types. Weber himself wrote:

124   The ideology of methodology An ideal type is formed by the one-­sided accentuation of one or more points of view and by the synthesis of a great many diffuse, discrete, more or less present and occasionally absent concrete individual phenomena, which are arranged according to those one-­sidedly emphasized viewpoints into a unified analytical construct.39 To try to understand a particular phenomenon one must not only describe the actions of its participants but “interpret” them as well. But interpretation complicates the matter, because one who interprets has to classify behavior as belonging to some prior “ideal type.” In relation to this theory, Weber was committing an error common to most China scholars; that is, to examine the complex conglomerate of a civilization in terms of an idea, even though that idea is formulated out of an inductive analysis of the phenomena in a European tradition. We are justified in viewing his thesis on the origins of capitalism as an “ideal type” as it was first abstracted out of the analytic data of the West. The subjective nature of it is revealed in its provenance. Even though it is “useful” in the investigation of the issue, it is still a form of “artificial construct” when applied to a society that is alien to the conditions under which capitalism arose in the West. While we may recognize Weber’s attribution of China’s failure to develop capitalism to several sources as a valid method of investigation, we must also say that his identification of the major cause (China’s absence of a particular kind of religious ethic as a motivating force) is seriously flawed. Like other Western thinkers before him Weber still falls into the same trap of formulating a theory and then using it as the conceptual framework to examine Chinese materials. In other words, he was not free from fitting Chinese civilization into the Procrustean bed of Western theory. In The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism, Weber argues against Marxist attribution of the rise of capitalism to economic conditions, instead attributing it to certain Christian ethics which upheld the moral value of hard work and the fulfillment of one’s worldly duties in the service of God.40 It is religious forces, not economic ones, that supplied the mentality characteristic of modern, Western, capitalism. Just as his bold thesis provoked enormous controversy and a barrage of critical attacks, his socio-­religious interpretation of China’s failure to develop capitalism would arouse the same amount of criticism. In identifying the final cause of China’s failure to develop capitalism Weber was fitting the Chinese case into his theory derived from his analysis of Western materials. In a fascinating book The East in the West, the Cambridge scholar Jack Goody examines the studies of several social and economic historians, including Weber, and refutes their view of the fundamental prerequisites deemed as intrinsic to capitalism, arguing that there was in fact little difference between East and West in terms of mercantile activity. In his well-­researched study, Goody offers a systematic critique of Weber’s reasons for China’s failure to develop capitalism.41 It is not necessary to state the main ideas of his critique. I only want to offer a brief critique of my own. In Chinese tradition, Chinese Buddhism is a sinicized form of Indian Buddhism. It was the most widely embraced and practiced religion in

The ideology of methodology   125 Chinese history. If Confucianism and Taoism do not contain what Weber regards as the spiritual essentials for the rise of capitalism, Buddhism certainly does not lack those ideas of predestination, otherworldliness, asceticism, meritorious work (gongde) and the fulfillment of one’s worldly duties, that are the doctrinal backbone of Calvinism and the very same spiritual prerequisites deemed by Weber as necessary for the formation of a mentality suitable for capitalism. As a book on the sociology of religion and capitalism, Weber practically left Chinese Buddhism out of his inquiry, his reason being “the influence of Buddhism in China had relatively little bearing on the matter which is of special interest here, namely, economic mentality.”42 It is rather simplistic to claim that Buddhism has had little influence on the economic mentality of the Chinese. While briefly mentioning Buddhist institutions in his discussion of Confucianism and Taoism, he completely overlooked the role of Buddhism, especially its secular versions in society, in Chinese politics, government, communities, communal affairs, charitable activities, religious organizations, and peasant uprisings. Bearing in mind he compiled a sociology of Buddhism in his book on the religion of India, Weber’s virtual omission of Buddhism and its impact upon the social and economic life of traditional China is odd to say the least. Since Chinese Buddhism contains similar elements to Calvinism, it cannot but make one suspect that his omission was deliberate – to avoid contradicting his general thesis. Even Confucianism, identified by Weber as the arch culprit responsible for China’s failure to develop capitalism, has now been widely recognized by present-­day scholars as an instrumental force in the Far East (Japan, South Korea, Singapore, Hong Kong, and Taiwan) for driving modernization and breathtaking industrial and capitalist growth. And family structure in Asian countries, another obstacle to the rise of industrial capitalism in Weber’s view, has been seen as conducive to nurturing team spirit for capitalist enterprise.43 The question of whether Confucianism has contributed to the rapid development of industrial capitalism in East Asia has attracted a great deal of attention among the public as well as the scholarly community and given rise to the so-­called Confucian hypothesis, that is: The claim that Confucian ethics, as reflected in government leadership, competitive education, a disciplined work force, principles of equality and self-­reliance, and self-­cultivation, provides a necessary background and powerful motivating force for the rise of industrial East Asia.44 Although it is too facile and simplistic to find an equivalent to Weber’s Protestant ethic in Confucianism, it is equally facile and simplistic to ignore the role of Confucian ethics in the process of industrialization and modernization of the Sinic World where Confucianism is a pervasive spiritual presence.

Faith in universal patterns As this chapter is concerned with methodological issues of Sinologism, it is worthwhile to conduct some further examination of Weber’s study of China. I

126   The ideology of methodology wish to make it clear that it is not my purpose to expose errors or criticize Weber’s erroneous views of China. My objective is to identify a pattern of scholarship that characterizes sinologistic approaches to knowledge and scholarship. The chronology of the publication of his series of comparative studies may give us a hint to this pattern. Weber’s seminal work, The Protestant Ethic and The Spirit of Capitalism, was published in 1905. It advances a central thesis that may be phrased as a big question: why did modern industrial capitalism rise as a dominant mode of life only in the modern West? A series of his other books, including The Religion of China, The Religion of India, and Ancient Judaism were, in one way or another, direct responses to this question, but from a negative perspective, which may also be phrased as a question: what are the differentiating social conditions that prevented the rise of capitalism in other cultures? They were published after the seminal work in a period of five years between 1915 and 1920. Weber was adopting the same method that Montesquieu was using in forming ideas of universal history and in constructing worldwide intellectual systems. Both of them formulated a thesis (Weber on the rise of capitalism, Montesquieu on forms of government) and then used other cultural traditions as analytic data to confirm their theses from a different cultural perspective. The comparative approach was meant to give their theses a universal validity. Weber also wrote some other books dealing with European civilizations for the same purpose, but from different perspectives. While the books on European civilizations serve to confirm his thesis, the books on non-­European civilizations serve the same purpose from a negative perspective. Whether from a negative or affirmative perspective, the ultimate objective is to affirm the universal value of his thesis, which he deemed as having a universal applicability to all cultures. An overview of the three books after the seminal work tells us that Weber was consistent in his argument, epistemology, and methodology. The consistency is characteristic of other Western thinkers who studied China, from Herder and Hegel to Marx and Wittfogel, and formed a pattern in Western scholarship on other cultures and traditions. This pattern is predicated on Weber’s idea of “ideal type,” definitely Euro-­centric, and embraced by major European thinkers. Edward Said observes: The precise history of the “type” as it is to be found in early twentieth-­ century thinkers like Weber, Durkheim, Lukács, Mannheim and the other sociologists of knowledge has been examined often enough: yet it has not been remarked, I think, that Weber’s studies of Protestantism, Judaism, and Buddhism blew him (perhaps unwittingly) into the very territory originally charted and claimed by the Orientalist. There he found encouragement amongst all those nineteenth-­century thinkers who believed that there was a sort of ontological difference between Eastern and Western economic (as well as religious) “mentalities.”45 Despite the European origins and culture-­specific nature, thinkers from ­Montesquieu to Wittfogel firmly believed that their theories were based on a

The ideology of methodology   127 s­ cientific method and had universal applicability to non-­European cultures. Weber’s is but another case to confirm this dearly cherished belief. Shortly before his death Weber wrote: Anyone who is heir to traditions of modern European civilization will approach problems of universal history with a set of questions, which to him appear both inevitable and legitimate. These questions will turn on the combination of circumstances which has brought about the cultural phenomena that are uniquely Western and that have at the same time . . . a universal cultural significance.46 As a statement of his overall purpose in his sociological studies of religion, this is also a reaffirmation of his belief in the universality of his conception and methodology. This belief in the universality of European theories underlies the logic and methodological rationale of Sinologism and accounts for the inevitable distortions and misrepresentations of China and Chinese civilization in the Western constructed intellectual system of world civilizations. It may be viewed also as the underlying reason why Sinologism tends to see Western culture and tradition as the “ideal type” against which other cultures are to be measured. The confidence in the universal value of Western theories is founded on a shaky logic. The limitation lies in the fact that it is stuck in a scientistic type of logic: once a scientific discovery is made in a laboratory at one location, it can be verified in laboratories anywhere, irrespective of differences in culture, tradition, and social circumstance. But since knowledge of China is not about scientific discovery, Sinologism is not a scientific approach to knowledge, because it overlooks or does not give adequate emphasis to the differences between human/ social sciences and natural sciences. Knowledge about China is not so much about understanding natural phenomena but more about understanding the social existence and human condition in Chinese culture and society in its historical development. It is problematic to fit Chinese materials of social and human sciences into models constructed out of Western materials in the same areas.

Scientistic approach One major methodological problem in Sinologism may be characterized as a scientistic approach to Chinese civilization. With the predominance of natural science in modern times, Western scholars have adopted a paradigm of natural science that spawns a series of so-­called scientific and objective approaches to China. The problem of this quasi-­scientific paradigm is two-­fold. On the one hand, it does not have sufficient awareness of the differences between natural sciences and social sciences. Few China specialists have paid sufficient attention to the fact that China is a historical, social, economic, and cultural entity that contains so many variables not dictated by objective laws of nature but by subjective choices made by historical persons in the process of historical development. On the other hand, the scientistic approach does not go the whole hog

128   The ideology of methodology methodologically. A fundamental principle of modern science is that one who engages in scientific research must adopt a bias-­free approach to objects under investigation and employ both inductive and deductive methods in examining objects of inquiry. While one should apply the inductive method to generalize abstract principles and models out of the observed objects, the scientist also needs to use deductive methods to test the validity of abstracted principles and models. Furthermore, he needs to modify and refine the principles and models with further observations using both inductive and deductive methods. Many Western thinkers on China, especially in the area of intellectual system and universal history, seldom relied on the inductive method, because few of them can read Chinese language and therefore cannot access Chinese materials at first hand. Their scholarship on China is largely produced via the deductive method, which is mainly a process of applying or imposing already existing Western theories and models of knowledge upon Chinese materials translated into European languages. In consequence the knowledge about China is often a mirror image of western knowledge. Here we see an interesting situation in cultural studies. In the past it was believed that China was the ultimate other to the West, but in the process of knowledge production, China becomes the West’s alter ego. In painting the picture of the alter ego, Western scholars are prone to make value judgments in terms of the Western self-­image. Herder’s approach typifies the scientistic tendency of Sinologism: a belief in scientific objectivity for all branches of learning. He adopted a scientistic approach to human civilization in the same way scientists treat the natural world. Starting with him, Western thinkers who studied China began to see China as an unchanging specimen for Western scientific investigation. We can find this epistemological approach in Herder’s conception of human history: At an early age, when the dawn of science appeared to my sight in all that beauty, which is greatly diminished at the noon of life, the thought frequently occurred to me, whether, as every thing [sic] in the world has it’s philosophy and science, there must not also be a philosophy and science of what concerns us most nearly, of the history of mankind at large.47 Herder believed that metaphysics, morals, physics, natural history, and religion, all followed the same pattern of development in accordance with a large plan, a plan he sometimes called Nature but took pains to explain as “the organic power of the creation” by God.48 Even though he modestly claimed that his book could not be counted as a philosophy of the history of man, he believed that such an endeavor would be accomplished before the end of the nineteenth century. His preface is in fact a conceptual thinking about the writing of human history, and reveals his epistemological contemplation about knowledge production. It conveys to the reader the message that by “philosophy of history” he meant an objective, scientific account of human history. His approach not only conflates human and social sciences with natural sciences but also advocates an objective fallacy in history writing that has been punctured by both Old Historicism and

The ideology of methodology   129 New Historicism. His conviction of locating a general plan for the history of humanity in terms of the grand plan designed by God underlies many Western thinkers’ belief in their efforts to study world cultures both Western and non-­ Western. Herder’s approach to knowledge about China highlights a fundamental dimension in Sinologism in particular, and in most Western scholars’ approach to non-­Western cultures and traditions in general: that is, a scientistic approach to human civilization in the same way scientists treat the natural world. Thereafter, more European thinkers joined efforts to grapple with the problem of how to incorporate China into their “scientifically” conceived system, and between them they produced a sizable number of views on why China had stagnated and placed itself outside the main developmental lines of human history. In England, Adam Smith observed in The Wealth of the Nations: China has been long one of the richest, that is, one of the most fertile, best cultivated, most industrious, and most populous countries in the world. It seems, however, to have been long stationary. Marco Polo, who visited it more than five hundred years ago, describes its cultivation, industry, and populousness, almost in the same terms in which they are described by travellers in the present times.49 Smith attempted to bring China into his politico-­economic system and viewed China’s economic stagnation as related to its huge population. Using very limited resources, Smith drew a conclusion that discounted the tremendous changes in Chinese culture and society since Marco Polo’s time and offered a diagnosis for China’s stagnation based on Malthus’ theory of population. Here, we can see Montesquieu’s influence on him as well, for the French thinker also believed that the nature and condition of Chinese civilization were largely determined by its huge population.

Artificial dichotomies Having analyzed some models and paradigms in the field of intellectual thought on China by some leading Western thinkers’ writings, I will examine some approaches, paradigms, and conceptual frameworks in sinological studies and explore the epistemology, working logic, and rationale behind their theoretical formulations. My objective is not to pass judgment on the correctness or incorrectness of certain views, or to expose their consequences, but to reveal how the cultural unconscious in China–West studies motivates scholars in diverse areas of Sinology to construct imagined dichotomies between China and the West in response to the Western world’s changing perceptions of China through history. In the field of Chinese and Western studies there has been, since the first direct contact between Europe and China, a long lasting ambition to formulate paradigms that may possess total explanatory power and account for the vast knowledge about Chinese history, language, literature, art, religion, and thought

130   The ideology of methodology vis-­à-vis the West. This ambition has attracted numerous scholars, Chinese and Western, and given rise to many hypotheses, speculations, assumptions, and theories, from which some paradigms or conceptual frameworks have arisen. In the field of Chinese and Western studies, the earliest theoretical framework that attempted to account for the vast knowledge about China may be called an “accommodationist paradigm.”50 One of the basic characteristic features of this paradigm is to see similarity and compatibility between Chinese and Western cultures. As Europe’s knowledge about China increased, the paradigm was unable to cope with the cultural differences. The paradigm of compatibility was therefore replaced by a paradigm of difference. In their attempts to deal with the distinctive differences between China and the West, scholars have resorted to the anthropological theory of “cultural relativism,” which spawns a series of conceptual frameworks that conceive of China as the antithesis of the West. Curiously, the irresistible trend of globalization seems unable to dampen the popularity of cultural relativism. In the postmodern age, when cultural relativism turns into a radical form, the paradigm of difference has been radicalized as well and developed into an arch paradigm that sees China as the ultimate “other” of the West. David Buck, formerly editor of the Journal of Asian Studies, observes that cultural relativism is so predominant in East and West studies that “cutting across the disciplines are epistemological and methodological problems involving the issue of whether any conceptual tools exist to understand and interpret human behavior and meaning in ways that are intersubjectively valid.”51 Under the influence of the arch paradigm, various conceptual frameworks arise in different areas of China and Western studies. Ostensibly these conceptual frameworks seem purely academic and innocent of cultural superiority or hegemonic domination, but as I will show, they are by no means innocuous and free of Orientalist biases. This is especially prominent in the area of Sinology. In the sinological studies of Chinese language and literature there appeared a paradigm constructed on a series of dichotomies. It has been adequately summarized by Rey Chow: The assertion of the Chinese difference tends often to operate from a set of binary oppositions in which the Western literary tradition is understood to be metaphorical, figurative, thematically concerned with transcendence, and referring to a realm that is beyond this world, whereas the Chinese literary tradition is said to be metonymic, literal, immanentist, and self-­referential with literary signs referring not to an otherworldly realm above but back to the cosmic order of which the literary universe is part. . . . Accordingly, if mimesis has been the chief characteristic of Western writing since time immemorial, then nonmimesis is the principle of Chinese writing.52 The arch paradigm has produced more dichotomies in other areas of Chinese and Western studies: whereas Western language is highly abstract, Chinese language is barely capable of expressing abstraction; whereas Western literary writings are largely allegorical, Chinese literary writings are generally non-­allegorical;

The ideology of methodology   131 whereas Western poetry emanates from ex nihilo creation, Chinese poetry grows out of immediate responses to real situations; whereas Western literature is founded on imaginative fictionality, Chinese literature as a whole is dominated by historical fidelity; whereas Western art is perceived to be the result of artificial making, Chinese art is the result of natural growth; whereas Chinese aesthetic theory is impressionistic, unsystematic, and lacking clearly defined terms, Western aesthetic theory is profound, systematic, and couched in rigorous categories; whereas Chinese philosophy is predicated on intuitive concretization and sweeping generalization, Western philosophy is rooted in thoughtful abstraction and logical analysis. This oppositional paradigm was not conceived by a single theorist or scholar. In fact, it gradually took shape in the scholarship and metaphysical speculations of many scholars, including philosophers like Leibniz, Voltaire, Hegel, Herder, Weber, and scholars like Marcel Granet, Fredrick Mote, Wittfogel, Benjamin Schwartz, Joseph Needham, K. C. Chang, A. C. Graham, Tu Wei-­ming, David Keightly, David Hall, and many others.53 It has exerted a profound impact upon Chinese and Western studies as well as general studies of human civilizations, but at the same time aroused much discontent and been subjected to critical scrutiny. And in due course most of the dichotomies have been proved to be problematic or simply false and untenable.54 Michael Puett, for example, convincingly argues that the various dichotomies concerning China and the West should not even be “construed as dominant assumptions; they were, on the contrary, consciously formulated claims made within a larger debate.” After a well-­researched study of early Chinese thought, he draws the conclusion: It is not true, then, that early Chinese thinkers assumed continuity between nature and culture, between past and present. Neither is it true that sages were assumed to be inherently linked to the natural world. On the contrary, the very attempt to claim continuity implied a strong concern with discontinuity.55 In another book he addresses the general issues of cosmology, worldview, God, and religion, and comes to the conclusion that “the categorization of early Chinese thought as ‘monistic,’ in opposition to a ‘dualistic’ cosmology of the West, breaks down at every level when we explore the historical contexts and implications of specific statements.”56 Superficially, this oppositional paradigm may have risen under the influence of cultural relativism, but in its deep structure, it grows out of a historical perception of the patterns of human development and metaphysical conceptions of the differences between Chinese and Western thought. In historical development, the Chinese civilization is believed to have followed a pattern of continuity between past and present, while the Western civilization is viewed as following a pattern of rupture. In modes of thinking, it is believed that while correlative thinking is predominant in Chinese thought, analytic thinking is the hallmark of Western thought. Metaphysically, Chinese thought is construed to be wholly

132   The ideology of methodology monistic while Western thought is held to be thoroughly dualistic. While Western tradition is understood to be founded on a disjunction between nature and culture, Chinese tradition is perceived to be based on a continuum between the human and natural world. Whereas there is a creation God in the West, who is viewed as the creator of all things, it is widely believed that in the Chinese tradition, there is no creation God. In consequence, whereas Western worldview displays a tragic tension between God and man, Chinese cosmology features a harmonious collaboration between human and divine beings. What are the problems of these dichotomies? In my opinion it is not whether these dichotomies fit the true conditions of Chinese tradition and materials, but the revelation of an inherent epistemological problem. It has two related aspects. On the one hand, it comes close to what Spivak conceives to be epistemic violence57 done to the Chinese tradition. On the other, it is motivated by what Rey Chow sees as “an a priori surrender to Western perspectives and categories.”58 While the former is committed by Western scholars engaged in sinological studies of Chinese materials, the latter is willingly perpetuated by Chinese scholars and scholars of Chinese origin. In the series of dichotomies we may find a hidden agenda that has been set by the cultural unconscious in China–West studies. The oppositional paradigm may be motivated by cultural relativism, which is meant to counter cultural universalism but often leads to ethno-­centrism and cultural chauvinism, and to challenge Euro-­centric paradigms as well as to correct the imposition of Western views on non-­Western cultures. But as a scholar of Indian culture perceptively points out: whether in the colonialist and imperialist eras of Rudyard Kipling, or in our own time of postcolonialism, those who defend the Eastern difference and those who devalue it “share the most important descriptive presumptions, differing primarily in terms of evaluation,” and even those who “see themselves as struggling against imperialism, racism, and sexism share with their professed antagonists the bulk of relevant ideological beliefs.”59 Indeed, radical relativism is supposed to deflate the sense of superiority in Western cultures in cross-­cultural studies, but the end result often turns out to be the opposite and reinforces Euro-­centrism and Western superiority. In the established dichotomies concerning China and the West, whether the Chinese terms are criticized as negative categories or celebrated as positive values, an implicit and sometimes even explicit bias is inscribed within their internal structure. A closer look at the series of binary oppositions reveals that they implicitly allude to a hierarchy in which the Chinese system always occupies the lower position. This bias is clearly seen in these contrasts: Western artifice, abstraction, figurative tropes, ex nihilo creation, transcendental spirituality, logical analysis, and rational systemacity versus Chinese naturalness, concreteness, literal fidelity, stimulus-­response transcription, immanentist worldliness, random commentaries, and impressionistic generalization. What I find most problematic in these dichotomies, be they predicated on the compatible paradigm or the oppositional paradigm, is not that they have proved to be untrue or inaccurate to the real conditions of Chinese tradition and materials, but that they reveal more serious problems in the deeper dimensions of the

The ideology of methodology   133 West’s encounter with China. In one dimension they represent the West’s habitual ways of looking at China, characterized by ignorance, arrogance, and fantasy. In another dimension they represent the West’s hegemonic approach and imperialistic measures to contain and control Chinese materials and the Chinese mind. From the perspective of global system building initiated by the  West, these dichotomies have at least unconsciously or unwittingly served the West’s agenda of epistemic colonization and brought about non-­Western people’s self-­colonization. It must be admitted that few of the above-­mentioned dichotomies were constructed with the conscious aim of demonstrating Chinese inferiority and Western superiority, but the outcome is precisely the work of the cultural unconscious in methodology.

Intellectual colonization Like the epistemological ideology, the methodological ideology of Sinologism is Western-­centric, ethno-­centric, and global in nature. It is not solely a Western problem, it is a worldwide problem. Its global nature finds its expression in the epistemic colonization in the minds of peoples of the world other than the West, who tend to view China and things Chinese through the Western lens and do scholarship on China using methodologies formulated in the West. In this respect, Sinologism has two major facets. First, Sinologism represents conscious and unconscious attempts by Chinese scholars and scholars of Chinese origins who have internalized Western perspectives, to regard Western conceptual frameworks as the only viable ones in processing Chinese materials, and to fit Chinese materials into the Procrustean bed of Western frameworks irrespective of the historical, conceptual, and cultural conditions of the Chinese materials. In its extreme form Sinologism embodies an explicit and implicit conception of approaches to knowledge that regards Western ways of looking at the world as the only correct ways of looking, and Western systems of knowledge as the only objective knowledge. Sinologism is a way of value judgment in terms of Western values that are presented as objective, bias-­free, universal, and timeless. Thus, for Chinese scholars and scholars of Chinese origin, Sinologism has become a form of epistemological and methodological colonization in the study of the relationship between China and the West. It is deeply embedded in the social and cultural unconscious of not only the West but also of the Far East (the Sinic world which used to adopt Chinese writing as the basis of writing systems). It hinders mutual understanding between China and the West. It is a kind of Orientalism in the Far East. Both Chinese and Western scholars, and the public, are in the visible and invisible grip of it. Unless it is fully recognized neither the West nor China is able to see each other on their own terms. The implications of Sinologism apply to the Far Eastern cultures and traditions. Second, Sinologism is an epistemological inertia that adversely affects methodologies of knowledge production. As inertia, Sinologism is a constricting power that stifles the imagination and creativity of Third World nations and peoples. Peoples of the Third World nations are required by its logic to look to

134   The ideology of methodology the West for models of imitation and emulation, and for approval. The sinologistic methodology implies that Western models and paradigms, political, social, religious, economic, legal, and aesthetic, are the only correct ones, having a universal applicability and value. Even in the area of Chinese scholarship, Chinese scholars need to seek endorsement and approval from Western scholarship. There are too many examples. In this study I can only attend to some representative ones, which are to be found in the areas of language, literature, and culture. All, without exception, evince a blind faith in the efficacy of Western theories and approaches, irrespective of the conditions in which those theories and approaches are created, and with little regard for the distinctive differences of Chinese materials. Along with the impressive achievements in the 30 years of openness and reform, the explicit and implicit belief in the efficacy of Western epistemology and its resultant theories has reached a new height in Chinese history, culminating in the apotheosis of the so-­called trend of “worshipping the West” that started at the turn of the twentieth century. A brief review of modern Chinese history informs us that from the “Self-­strengthening” movement at the end of the Qing Dynasty and the Republic revolution in 1911, through the May Fourth New Culture Movement of 1919, the Nationalist revolution, and the Communist revolution, to the founding of New China in 1949, the New Period of Openness and Reform in 1979, and the post-­New Period since 1989, China has continuously preoccupied itself with how to assimilate, digest, and wrestle with Western ideas, views, and theories, and tirelessly racked its brains over the question of what are the most effective ways to deal with the issues of Westernization. This cultural anxiety is deeply rooted in the minds of leading Chinese intellectuals, and their formulated ideas, from Zhang Zhidong’s famous idea of “Chinese learning as substance, Western learning as function” (Zhong ti Xi yong), through Lu Xun’s proposed “grabism” (nalai zhuyi) and Mao Zedong’s call for “things foreign to serve China” (yang wei Zhong yong), to Li Zehou’s proposal of “Western learning as substance for Chinese application” (Xi ti Zhong yong). As a consequence of this protracted intellectual wrestling, many Chinese no longer use their own eyes to look, their own ears to listen, their own minds to think, and their own intelligence to create. Instead, they completely rely upon Western eyes, ears, minds, and wisdom. As one Chinese observer aptly puts it: Look at the past hundred years or so. China has from the beginning to the end borrowed the eyes and minds of outsiders to identify and grope for its direction and future, and relied on the assistance of a Western “walking stick” before even making a step.60 It may be said without exaggeration that the past 100 years represent a period of epistemological and methodological self-­colonization in terms of Western ways of perceiving and conceiving the world, which is essentially cultural self-­ colonization.

The ideology of methodology   135 This cultural colonization is exemplified in the words of Liu Xiaobo, a leading Chinese dissident. In an interview with a Hong Kong reporter, who asked him under what conditions China could accomplish a truly historical reform, Liu gave an unequivocal answer: Three hundred years of colonization [by the West]. It takes Hong Kong a hundred years to change to its present day situation. China is so big that it will certainly take three hundred years to become today’s Hong Kong. I even doubt whether three hundred years are long enough.61 Liu may be an extreme case, but unconscious self-­colonization has exerted its impact upon the minds of many Chinese intellectuals who do not share and may even oppose Liu’s radical views. Internalizing Western epistemology through direct or indirect Western education, many Chinese scholars not only willingly accept the cultural superiority of Western civilizations but also trivialize and trash ancient China’s great contributions to world civilization. Here I will only cite a few radical examples. Some have questioned the value and contributions of the Four Great Inventions in ancient China (paper, compass, gunpowder, and printing). Some have regarded Chinese language as an inferior language because it is not alphabetic (a view that is totally rejected by Western scholars) and called for the alphabetization of Chinese writing. In a much publicized case, a sizable number of Chinese intellectuals launched a passionate attack on traditional Chinese medicine even though it has been clinically proven to have devised effective remedies for the past 2,000 years.62 A campaign was begun to abolish Chinese medicine, and in a series of sensational articles published on the internet in 2006, a university professor called on people to sign a petition to strike Chinese medicine off the Chinese curriculum and deprive it of any governmental support. His chief arguments were collected in a book that contains these radical remarks: I can say responsibly that traditional Chinese medicine is neither a positive culture nor a kind of science; it does not even qualify as a “pseudoscience.” Rather, it is a swindle carefully designed by ancient Chinese scholars who failed in the civil service exams and exploited the mentality of people pressurized by illnesses to search for cure.63 The campaign gained considerable momentum and won the support of intellectuals, including a senior member of the Chinese Academy of Sciences who told a reporter that Chinese medicine should be gradually abolished.64 The campaign is typical of those whose minds have been colonized by ideological epistemology of the Western knowledge production. It is their firmly held belief that whatever cannot be accounted for by Western science is not scientific and should be rejected for having no value. Because Chinese medicine is based on a theoretical system that is entirely different from that of Western medicine, and because its clinical efficacy cannot be explained by Western medical theory,

136   The ideology of methodology they have good reasons to dismiss it as “false science” and “quackery.” What needs to be mentioned is that their attack represents the rekindling of an old debate over traditional Chinese medicine fueled by the many Western-­trained Chinese scholars of the 1930s who attempted to employ governmental power to abolish traditional Chinese medicine in Chinese society. Needless to say their attempt met with complete failure. In a similar manner, the recent campaign to abolish traditional Chinese medicine fared even worse and ended with widespread ridicule and condemnation.

A hermeneutic approach to the great book of China My foregoing analysis of the methodological problems reveals a curious phenomenon: even though those scholars set their minds on processing Chinese materials in as objective and scientific a way as possible, their produced knowledge about China is subjective and heavily permeated with biases and prejudices. What are the possible and practical ways of producing objective knowledge and scholarship about China? The first and foremost thing to do is to recognize the unconscious nature of epistemological and methodological colonization. With this realization we need to recognize the inevitably subjective, and often personal, nature of knowledge production. In this aspect Oswald Spengler displayed an admirable sagaciousness. Unlike most Sinologists and Western scholars, Spengler frankly admits to the subjective nature of a thinker’s philosophy of history and the distinct personal mark his background impresses upon his view: Truth in the long run is to him the picture of the world which was born at his birth. It is that which he does not invent but rather discovers within himself. It is himself over again: his being expressed in words; the meaning of his personality formed into a doctrine which so far as concerns his life is unalterable, because truth and his life are identical. He also recognizes that the truth that he has discovered in the development of human history is invariably colored or even determined by his own being: I can then call the essence of what I have discovered “true” – that is, true for me, and as I believe, true for the leading minds of the coming time; not true in itself as dissociated from the conditions imposed by blood and by history, for that is impossible.65 He further rejects the objectivity of history by pointing out the one-­sided nature of any history: “Let no one expect to find everything set forth here. It is but one side of what I see before me, a new outlook on history and the philosophy of destiny – the first indeed of its kind.”66 A truly scientific process of knowledge production about China should be similar to that of the hermeneutic circle. This is because in many ways, China,

The ideology of methodology   137 like other civilizations, is not a static object for scientific observation, but a great book with profound meanings, which is to be read and interpreted. In reading the book of China, one invariably starts from a subjective position that would affect reading and interpretation, and therefore needs to adopt an approach of hermeneutics based on the idea of a hermeneutic circle. A hermeneutic process, of course, cannot be free of biases, either. In fact, as Gadamer observes, a hermeneutic endeavor starts with initial ideas that he called “prejudices,” which are necessary conditions of understanding.67 In Heidegger’s inquiry into historical hermeneutics, “prejudice” is the “fore-­structure of understanding” for the purpose of ontology.68 It is a form of foregrounding or pre-­understanding. Gadamer justifies the concept of prejudice by arguing that “the recognition that all understanding inevitably involves some prejudices gives the hermeneutical problem its real thrust,” and that prejudice “does not necessarily mean a false judgment.” But he also observes that prejudice “can have either a positive or a negative value”69 and there are legitimate and illegitimate prejudices.70 He ­recommends Schleiermacher’s hermeneutic circle reconceived by Heidegger: [T]he understanding of the text remains permanently determined by the anticipatory movement of fore-­understanding. The circle of whole and part is not dissolved in perfect understanding but, on the contrary, is most fully realized. The circle . . . is neither subjective nor objective, but describes understanding as the interplay of the movement of tradition and the movement of the interpreter.71 In Western production of knowledge about China, scholars and thinkers seem to have believed too much in the “legitimacy” of their “prejudices” and overlooked Gadamer’s insight that “modern science is following the rule of Cartesian doubt, accepting nothing as certain that can in any way be doubted.”72 Too often they have forgotten that what is valid in a truly hermeneutic process is that the “prejudice” or “pre-­understanding” gradually gets modified and refined until what comes at the end becomes an authentic view of the text. Moreover, Western knowledge of China tends to start with a prejudice or pre-­understanding, which is based on already-­produced Western knowledge about itself. Too often there is no hermeneutic circle in reading the Great Book of China. Without the hermeneutic circle, even though those thinkers believe they are using a scientific method in studying China, their method is not truly scientific. When their belief in the validity of their methodology reaches a critical point, the epistemology turns into an ideology. In knowledge production about China the only viable way out of Sinologism is a hermeneutic approach to knowledge that requires one to constantly modify and refine one’s knowledge of China. China is more complex than a great book. In reading and interpreting the Great Book of China, the hermeneutic theory, classical or modern, is somewhat insufficient. Take Gadamer’s hermeneutic theory for example. In my opinion, in itself it may have contained the epistemological problems in Sinologism. By suggesting that the hermeneutic circle of part

138   The ideology of methodology and whole can be “most fully realized,” his view implies a sense of completeness, which is further corroborated by his proposition that the circle has the “fore-­conception of completeness,” a “formal condition of all understanding.”73 But the Great Book of China is never conceived and composed in its entirety. It is constantly completing itself with new historical discoveries and new developments. This is even more so in the present, after China has been absorbed into the global system. In the larger context of globalization one needs to be self-­ consciously aware of the necessity of going beyond Sinologism and rejecting sinologization. Cleansed of sinologistic tendencies, China studies can truly become a branch of learning in the international intellectual system and promote globalization in salutary directions.

6 The intellectual unconscious

Compared with Said’s Orientalism, Sinologism has a distinct difference in human resources. It is the plain fact that scholars engaged in Sinology and China studies are composed of those who are Chinese and those who are Western in ethnic origin. Due to this factor of ethnic origin, the politics of scholarship covered by Sinologism is much more colorful and complex. In his study of problems of historical writings on China, Paul Cohen observes that the “[s]upreme problem . . . has been one of ethnocentric distortion.”1 One source of the problem is attributed to the West, another to the Chinese. He also uses the terms “insiders” and “outsiders” to characterize Chinese and Western scholars respectively. The ethnic factor exerts an impact on the mentality of scholars in the field, which sometimes develops into what may be called identity politics in scholarship, and adversely affects conceptions and uses of paradigms of scholarship. Since few scholars entangled in the identity politics are consciously aware of ethnic identity at work, or willing to acknowledge it, the mentality responsible for the impact on ways of doing scholarship may be called the “ethnic unconscious” or “intellectual unconscious.” In this chapter I will conduct some case studies to show how the ethnic unconscious operates, how it develops into an intellectual unconscious, what adverse effects it produces on scholarship, and how it is repressed even though it is clearly identified.

Ethnic misreadings The ethnic unconscious in Sinology may take different forms, and can be found in the opinions, views, and scholarship of Sinologists of both Chinese and Western origins. Edward Schaffer, for example, identifies a popular fashion among literary critics of Chinese literature in the 1980s. He criticizes some Sinologists of Chinese origin for making the ethno-­centric claim that only Chinese scholars or scholars of Chinese origin can have a genuine understanding of Chinese literature, while Western Sinologists’ criticism of Chinese literary works can rarely penetrate into the deeper structures of Chinese literary tradition. He calls this claim “ethnic criticism” which, in his opinion, is the assumption that only the Chinese can interpret their own literature. A corollary is the belief that anything that the Chinese of past ages thought

140   The intellectual unconscious about the nature and quality of literature is of much greater value than the most acute observations of modern Western critics.2 Although Schaffer did not identify any scholars’ names, it is indeed true that some scholars of Chinese origin hold this idea in private or sometimes express it openly in public. I personally know of a case at a talk given by a well-­known Western scholar of poetry in a Chinese university. A question raised to the speaker almost explicitly expressed the following idea: how can a non-­Chinese scholar who can hardly speak proper Chinese have a deep understanding of Chinese poetry? The absurdity of such a question is apparent in its logic, according to which no Chinese reader or critic is capable of having an adequate understanding of Shakespeare, a view few of us would accept. This kind of ethnic-­centric attitude has naturally provoked strong resistance and reaction from scholars of non-­Chinese origin. Sometimes the reaction is so strong that it works in the opposite direction to that meant to cleanse China scholarship of ethnic biases and prejudices, and in some circumstances unwittingly create a false perception that divides the scholars engaged in China studies into two camps: scholars of Chinese origin as “cultural insiders” and scholars of non-­Chinese origin as “cultural outsiders.” The ethnic orientation leads scholars of both Chinese and non-­Chinese origin to conduct ethnicized readings of knowledge and scholarship on China, creating a kind of misreading which should be more appropriately called ethnic misreading. Sometimes, highly ethnicized readings may reach the level of ethnic politics and culminate in politicization of scholarship. In 1995 Wu Hung, an internationally renowned scholar of Chinese origin at the University of Chicago, published a book, Monumentality in Early Chinese Art and Architecture (Stanford, 1995). The book was reviewed by scholars in Western journals and newspapers. Most of them wrote negative reviews. Among them was Robert Bagley, a well-­known scholar of early China at Princeton University. Bagley wrote a long review of 36 pages and had it published in the Harvard Journal of Asiatic Studies. In spite of its unusual length, it does not have a single word of praise for the book. The review criticizes practically every aspect of Wu Hung’s book, from conceptual framework to details of presentation, from research methodology to interpretation of research data. Because of the stature of the two scholars in the field, and as the review raises a host of crucial issues concerning Chinese history, art, archaeology, and Chinese studies as a whole, it gave rise to a major controversy in the field of Chinese art and archaeology and attracted attention from scholars both in China and in the international circles of Sinology. It is not my intention to assess the fairness or unfairness of Bagley’s review; my purpose is to show how ethnic origin brings about misreading, and that ethnic misreading evolves into identity politics in scholarship. In Bagley’s review, one major criticism is that in his book, Wu Hung assumes the position of a “cultural insider” and criticizes Western scholars as “cultural ­outsiders” who impose external models on Chinese tradition and artifacts. This

The intellectual unconscious   141 c­ riticism may be regarded as the central theme of Bagley’s review and it reverberates throughout. In the early part of the review he points out: “Adopting the pose of a cultural insider, Wu professes to avoid imposing alien values on ancient objects.”3 Half way through the review he criticizes Wu Hung for adopting a series of steps to give himself an insider’s authority on Chinese artifacts: And the third step is a claim that the texts give Wu an “insider’s perspective” on “ancient Chinese culture,” a perspective that allows him to escape conventional biases (usually equated with Western views) and to find in the objects a ‘monumentality’ that is uniquely “Chinese.”4 In this statement we can already see clear signs of an ethnic divide between Chinese scholars as “cultural insiders” and Western scholars as “cultural outsiders.” As though the ethnic divide was not clear enough, Bagley further states: Wu asserts not just that his texts are competent sources for the Neolithic and Bronze Age but also that they give his approach to ancient artifacts special authority, the authority of the cultural insider (pp. 18–19). To establish this claim he notes that other scholars have imposed “external classifications” on the artifacts, classifications alien to the ancient users of the artifacts.5 He concludes his review: It [the study of ancient China] should be open to the possibility that the experience of other people in other parts of the world might shed light on the experience of people in East Asia. To begin by declaring that ancient China is a phenomenon to be understood only on its own terms, by cultural insiders, is to forfeit all claim to the attention of cultural outsiders.6 There is no doubt that Bagley believes that Wu Hung’s book is tainted and marred by ethno-­centrism. A reader who has not read Wu Hung’s book would believe that Wu is guilty as charged. But to our surprise, Wu Hung’s response to Bagley’s review not only refutes the latter’s review as an attack full of willful distortions but also counter-­ argues that Bagley’s charge of ethno-­centrism is based on groundless fabrications. Wu states in his rebuttal: Even more serious than these misrepresentations and irresponsible allegations, Bagley reframes my discussion of early Chinese art into an opposition between “cultural insiders” and “other scholars.” The two terms “cultural insiders” and “cultural outsiders” appear repeatedly in the review (pp. 226, 231, 233, 234, 256). These are Bagley’s terms, but he never spells out their meaning. His way of using them, however, makes clear that they refer not only to the ancients but also to contemporary scholars’ ethnic identities, as we read in the concluding sentence of the whole review.7

142   The intellectual unconscious Wu points out that Bagley’s accusation emanates from a misreading of his use of basic anthropological concepts, “two basic ways in which social phenomena are classified: ‘internal classifications’ made by contemporary members of a society and ‘external classifications’ pursued by people outside the society,’ either from alien cultures or from later periods.”8 A check of Wu’s book seems to confirm that Bagley’s accusation of ethno-­ centrism is largely a misreading. This is reaffirmed by Tian Xiaofei, a scholar who intends to provide an objective and unbiased review of the controversy. I will refer to Tian’s review later on. After refuting Bagley’s distortions and misrepresentations point by point, Wu turns the table on his critic and accuses the latter of artificially dividing scholars into “two opposite camps”: The division is drawn between Chinese and Western scholars [and] Bagley’s problem is that he must distinguish, either consciously or unconsciously, a scholar of non-­Western origin from Western scholarship, even when this scholar is trained in the West and is active mainly in the Western academic world. Only such a mentality can explain his grouping and separation of “cultural insiders” and “cultural outsiders.”9 In the conclusion to his response Wu accuses Bagley of turning scholarly issues into academic politics and inventing a fictional confrontation between two camps: “By inventing the fiction of a unified ideological and political body of ‘Chinese archaeologists,’ Bagley posits himself as a representative of a fictional front of ‘Western archaeologists.’ ”10 Both Bagley’s review and Wu’s response were translated into Chinese and published in a Chinese journal, Zhongguo xueshu (China Scholarship).11 They aroused a great deal of interest from Chinese scholars, especially those of early China. Some of their responses almost reproduce Wu’s position. Among them, Li Ling, a well-­known professor of Chinese archaeology at Beijing University, published an article, “Scholarly Kosova: A Debate Centering on Wu Hung’s Book” in the same issue of the same journal. The metaphorical use of NATO’s bombardment of former Yugoslavia reveals, at least implicitly, the author’s recognition of the political and ideological nature of the debate. Indeed, this recognition permeates the article. Li Ling’s article is mostly an examination of the debate from an academic perspective, but it also touches upon the explicit and implicit ethnic and ideological dimensions. What merits attention for our consideration of Sinologism is that he does not hide the consequences of politicization of scholarship by both Chinese and Western scholars. His conclusion is that both Chinese and Western scholars are guilty of political and ideological considerations, and that they consciously or unconsciously nurse certain biases. The already-­complicated controversy became even more complicated by another scholar’s review of the whole affair. Tian Xiaofei wrote an article that was published in the same journal in 2001. In it she unequivocally criticizes Bagley’s review as an unfair and biased misreading of Wu’s book.12 While praising Wu’s response for correctly pointing out Bagley’s artificial division of

The intellectual unconscious   143 scholars into two camps (of Chinese scholars as cultural insiders and non-­ Chinese scholars as cultural outsiders), she criticizes both Wu and Li Ling for falling into Bagley’s mistaken logic and misreading Bagley’s distortion as a challenge by Western scholars against Chinese scholars, thereby reinforcing the wrong impression of a confrontation between Chinese scholars and their Western counterparts. In her opinion one should not mistakenly extend a Western scholar’s criticism of a Chinese scholar’s work into a general criticism of Chinese academia.13 She therefore takes to task each of them: Bagley, Wu, and Li Ling. In her opinion all three scholars have committed the error of making the mountain of ethno-­centrism out of the molehill of misreading. She makes an appeal for non-­ethnic and apolitical approaches to scholarly differences: Although different approaches to scholarship exist as a fact, they are determined by each scholar’s individual preference, not by his or her ethnic origin and cultural identities. We should not employ the confrontation between “Chinese” and “foreign” scholars to cover the confrontation between different approaches to scholarship. A scholar is a scholar; one is not and should not be a soldier rallying under a banner.14 As one who believes in disinterested scholarship I share Tian Xiaofei’s position. However, I will show below that there is indeed a tendency in sinological circles to divide scholars engaged in China studies into groups based on their ethnic origin, and evaluate scholarship in terms of ethnicity. I call this unhealthy tendency “ethnicization of scholarship.” It artificially divides scholars into ethnic groups and is detrimental to objective scholarship. Moreover, it stifles a genuinely critical spirit and distracts attention from scholarship to scholarly politics, which is the bane of disinterested scholarship. Tian Xiaofei’s call to distance scholarship from politics is laudable, but, I must say, she adopts an ostrich policy and acts as though the scholarly controversy itself is not contaminated by politics and ideology, be it scholarly or ethnic. This denial of ethno-­centric approaches to scholarship is to shut one’s eyes to the adverse effects of ethnicization of scholarship in China studies, which in some circumstances explodes into blatant ideologization and politicization of scholarship. For this reason, I prefer Li Ling’s lay-­it-on-­the-table approach to scholarly differences between scholars of different ethnic origins: Although one should not vent one’s prejudices and insult the other side, one should not shun differences and hide the truths. For though neither Chinese scholarship nor foreign scholarship is monolithic, it is a clear fact that Chinese and non-­Chinese scholars hold different views on many issues. Otherwise, how can there be so big a controversy?15 Pretending that ethnic identity is a non-­issue doesn’t solve problems; a correct attitude is to confront the existing ethnic differences and probe its roots. Only then can we hope to rid scholarship of ideological and political interference. For

144   The intellectual unconscious this reason I will critically analyze some more cases in sinological studies to reveal the extent to which the ethnic unconscious is at work in Sinologism.

Ethnic politics in methodology Sinology is an area of China study which has been recognized by both Chinese and Western scholars as having originated from Chinese scholarship (Hanxue). As a result there appears what I would call a two-­way hegemony in China studies. On the one hand, there are indeed some Chinese scholars who regard themselves as “cultural insiders” who enjoy a “natural” scholarly superiority because of their linguistic command and familiarity with Chinese tradition and materials. On the other hand, as evidenced by the innovative approach adopted towards Chinese materials by such distinguished Sinologists as Bernhard Karlgren, Marcel Granet, and Henri Maspero, all of whom have made admirable contributions to Sinology, some Western Sinologists tend to think that Sinology as practiced in the West is a wholly independent scholarship superior to its original provenance in China. The hegemonic views of some Chinese scholars were complicated by the Western monopoly of discourse power in the arena of international scholarship. Li Ling vividly describes the situation: while some Chinese scholars are eager to receive recognition and endorsement from Western Sinologists, at the same time they do not have a high regard for Western sinological scholarship. He sardonically observes: Some of us Chinese scholars tend to have a low opinion of our Western counterparts’ scholarship. Despite cordial formalities of hand-­shaking and hugging at the time of meetings, no sooner had the visiting Western scholars left than an opinion is uttered: ‘How can they engage in sinological research as they can hardly speak and write in Chinese?’16 Interestingly, despite a much larger number of Chinese scholars engaged in early China studies, the scholarly hegemony in Western Sinology, especially in early China studies, is more powerful. Li Ling’s article has a detailed account of this aspect. He summarizes what Western Sinologists consider to be the inadequacies of Chinese Sinology, and analyzes their content. His conclusion is an ambivalent one: while recognizing some merits of their criticism, he nevertheless suggests that it is heavily tinged with biases, prejudices, and narrow mindedness. Among Western Sinologists working on China’s high antiquity, most of them take a critical stance towards Chinese scholarship, problematize commonly accepted tenets in Chinese academic circles of high antiquity (for instance Wang Guowei’s dual confirmation by two pieces of evidence, one historiographical and the other archaeological), and only endorsed Gu Jiegang’s approach and scholarship. Regarding this, Tian Xiaofei asks a question: why do Western Sinologists of high antiquity endorse Gu Jiegang only? Her answer is that Gu Jiegang’s way of thinking has lasting efficacy. In his response to Tian Xiaofei’s review, however, Li Ling provides a different answer. In his opinion Gu Jiegang

The intellectual unconscious   145 was a student of Hu Shi, who was educated in the West, and one should not overlook the Western influence in epistemology and methodology on Gu mediated through his teacher.17 Although Tian Xiaofei does not specify what it is that constitutes the lasting value of Gu’s way of thinking, I presume that it is radical skepticism. Gu Jiegang, starting from the 1920s, adopted a highly skeptical approach to China’s early history, which came to be known as “yigu” (doubting Chinese antiquity). The scholars who worked with Gu Jiegang’s proposed principle cast great doubt on the early historical records of China. To them, the legendary age of early Chinese history is a Han fabrication: the Three Dynasties of Xia, Shang, and Zhou might as well be the fictional constructs of later generations, and written historical records about China are only reliable after Han. All these claims dovetail with those of Western scholars sharing similar ideas. But since the 1930s archaeological excavations have overturned many of Gu’s views and largely reconfirmed the reliability of ancient historical records. For example, Gu passed the judgment that the early text of the Laozi is a product no earlier than the Qin and Han dynasties, but the newly excavated text shows that it existed much earlier than that date. In his overall assessment of the length of Chinese civilization, Gu Jiegang made this well-­known statement in his preface to the first volume of Gushi bian (Debates on Ancient History): As is well known, the history of China is generally considered to be five thousand years old (or 2,276,000 years according to the apocryphal books!). Actually it is only two thousand years old if we deduct the history recorded in spurious works and also unauthenticated history based on spurious works. Then we have only what is left after a big discount!18 Nowadays, not only has Chinese civilization been definitively confirmed to have a 4,000 year history, even the legendary account of 5,000 years is being supported by some archaeological discoveries. In the 1930s Gu was ridiculed by Lu Xun for his conclusion that Yu, the legendary king of China’s antiquity, was an insect.19 Gu’s doubting of antiquity was inspired by Hu Shi’s philosophy of history, which serves the immediate needs of iconoclasm central to the New Culture Movement of the beginning of the twentieth century. While archaeological excavations in the second half of the twentieth centry proved that Gu’s doubting of antiquity was on shaky grounds, Western Sinologists’ approval of Gu’s theory seems to have different set of reasons. First of all, it serves the scholarly belief held by many Western scholars: China as a single and unified culture is simply a myth in high antiquity; Xia never existed, Shang was only a small state among many; Zhou was not any bigger; China’s historical records are only useful for the study of later historical periods.20 Second, it serves an implicit hegemonic agenda: some Western Sinologists of early China set their mind on destroying the myth of a monolithic and “eternal” China so as to condemn what many of them believe to be the ever-­present Chinese nationalism, and in many cases Chinese chauvinism, that many Western scholars believe has hindered the healthy development of Chinese archaeology in particular and Chinese scholarship in general.

146   The intellectual unconscious When nationalism and chauvinism become an issue affecting the production and evaluation of China scholarship, politics rears its ugly head in a field that is supposed to be pure scholarship. Western Sinologists’ endorsement of Gu Jiegang’s doubts about early history, and their criticism of Chinese scholarship’s inadequacy, exemplify the political aspect of my conceived Sinologism in several ways. First, it has a heavy dose of politicization of scholarship that finds its concentrated expression in Wittfogel’s work. Any Chinese scholarship that shows China to have a long and enduring history must be suspected of promoting Chinese nationalism and chauvinism. Second, it shows an epistemic hegemony. Whatever pertains to China and things Chinese, whether judged to be positive or negative, the value judgment is to be made by the West, and Western scholars are the ultimate judge of the value or lack of it in the studies of Chinese materials. This imperialistic attitude finds its expression in many areas of Chinese studies: Western scholars are the legitimate arbiters of the correctness or incorrectness of scholarship, even if it is scholarship about China, even if it is scholarship by the Chinese, and even if Chinese scholarly views are backed up by recent archaeological discoveries. This, in my opinion, and in the opinion of Li Ling and other scholars, is the unacknowledged reason for many Western Sinologists’ endorsement of Gu Jiegang. Gu’s historical skepticism certainly had its value and impact in its day, and contributed to the advance of studies of early China. However, it shows symptoms of an aspect of Sinologism: the willing internalization of Western perspectives and epistemology, which culminated in the call in Chinese society by many Western-­trained Chinese intellectuals for a complete Westernization of Chinese culture in the early decades of the last century. It is still present in practically all academic fields in China. It is so pervasive that sometimes even far-­ sighted scholars are not immune to it. Here I will only cite a few examples. In historical and archaeological studies conducted in China, there is a methodological principle widely accepted by Chinese scholars. It is Hu Shi’s famous motto for scholars: “Be bold in raising hypotheses, but careful in investigation and confirmation.” This methodological principle came into being under the strong influence of Western epistemology in knowledge production. It owes its theoretical insights not just to skepticism inherent in Western thinking; it shares with Western thinking the same epistemological orientation in knowledge production. It in turn has exerted enormous formative impact upon the epistemology and methodology of Chinese scholars. The so-­called Yigu pai “Ancient History Doubters” headed Gu Jiegang have regarded Hu Shi’s principle as the inviolable guiding principle in their research on ancient Chinese history. Little did they realize, however, that this principle is not entirely sound in epistemology. It is problematic not because of its absolute skepticism, but because of its preconception. It behoves scholars to conceive a notion about ancient history in their heads and use that preconception, rather than existing historiographical records, as the guideline. Due to the complexity of ancient Chinese materials one can always find materials and evidence to support a hypothesis. Moreover, even in natural science, it is recognized that ways of observation will affect the results of objects

The intellectual unconscious   147 under investigation. Using the preconceived hypothesis that most ancient Chinese historical documents were fabricated by the later scholars of the Han, the Ancient History Doubters have rejected many transmitted historical views and documents as inauthentic, and many recorded historical events were redetermined to have happened at later dates than historical documents recorded. But since the 1930s archaeological excavations have tended to confirm the authenticity of ancient records rather than disprove them. This resulted in a reaction against the Ancient History Doubters and the rise of a school of scholars who relied on archaeological discoveries to back up their call to move out of the age of skepticism about ancient Chinese records.21 Li Ling observes that Western Sinologists have regarded the reaction against the Ancient History Doubters as signs that Chinese scholarship has gone “crazy,” lost its critical sagacity in handling written documents, and has regressed to a time before the Age of Antiquity Doubters. For them, what has brought about the regression is the intervention of ideology and nationalism into research, coupled with Chinese scholars’ ignorance of international commonsense and scholarly regulations.22 From there they adopt an attitude of cultural hegemony typical of Western scholarship, questioning the reliability of all Chinese scholarship. There are good reasons to call this attitude hegemonic. First, in criticizing those who cast doubts on Antiquity Doubters, those critics, both Chinese and Western, do not realize that their mentality is totally opposite to the main spirit of scientific investigation: skepticism. The logic of the critics who criticize those who doubt the doubters may be spelled out thus: it is alright to doubt antiquity, but it is not right to doubt the doubter’s views. If one doubts the Antiquity Doubters’ view, he or she would be guilty of the charges listed above. And the most effective weapon employed by those critics is a charge of ideological interference and nationalistic sentiments. Second, the Western Sinologists who criticize Chinese scholars for having an ideological and nationalistic orientation, do not realize their own ideological orientations in scholarship. Third, even though some Chinese scholars may be affected by ideological interference, one should not dismiss all Chinese scholarship as ideologically dominant. Li Ling aptly points out: [T]hough Chinese scholarship is subject to the hegemony of ideology and nationalism (just as the West is bound by “universalism”), this should not be used to prejudice against all aspects of Chinese scholarship. In fact, in the past three decades or so, the attempt to reflect on and understand Chinese scholarship through discussion has been a response to fresh archaeological findings rather than a manifestation of a blind faith in ancient Chinese history.23 Li Ling’s view on the progress made in Chinese approaches is confirmed at least partially by some more recent Western sinological work. The Cambridge History of Ancient China, an authoritative history that collects the works of the best-­known scholars in the field and reveals the different opinions of Chinese

148   The intellectual unconscious and Western scholars, was edited by two scholars who did their utmost to bring different views into a collection, an example of a serious attempt to be as impartial as possible. A passage from the introduction summarizes the diametrically opposite views on early Chinese texts: This archeological verification of some received texts has given rise, especially in China, to a scholarly view which affirms the antiquity of most significant aspects of Chinese culture. This view is now referred to as that of the Xingu pai (Believing in Antiquity School), in conscious distinction from the Yigu pai (Doubting in Antiquity School) which had contributed to the Gu shi bian series of the 1930s. In some of its expression this belief in antiquity is doubtless exaggerated, owing as much to contemporary cultural chauvinism as to scholarly evidence: but such opinions are probably no more biased than those of many Western attempts to negate this view, and each of its proposals needs consideration on its own merits. Despite all these reservations, it is hard to deny the conclusion that the archeological discoveries of the past generation have tended to authenticate, rather than to overturn, the traditional literary record of ancient China.24 Interestingly, we can notice an ambivalent attitude in this passage. On the one hand they criticize the Xingu pai (mostly Chinese scholars) for exaggerating the authenticity of early Chinese texts due to national sentiments and cultural chauvinism, while on the other hand they draw the conflicting conclusion that archaeological discoveries of the past half-­century in China tend to affirm rather than disprove the authenticity of ancient Chinese records. One may say that their contradictory stance is the result of their attempt to adopt an open approach to existing scholarship and to present a balanced account, but it touches upon an ideological issue explicitly and implicitly embraced by numerous Western Sinologists: that is, that since the founding of the People’s Republic of China nearly all academic projects have been funded by the Chinese government and consequently all academic projects in China serve the government’s objective of enhancing national pride. Their scholarly validity is therefore to be doubted to say the least, and in many cases should be repudiated as instruments of nationalism and chauvinism. From a bias-­free perspective we should seek truth through hard facts, and examine whether the currently adopted Chinese scholarly approaches to high antiquity are more objective and scientific than the critics hold them to be, or whether they have regressed to a deplorable state due to the interference of politics and ideology. Despite its complexity the reigning Chinese method, to drastically simplify it, is to take a view in existing historical accounts and use both archaeological findings and textual evidence in other historiographical records to confirm or deny it. This is a method first advocated by Wang Guowei under the name of erchong shizheng (dual confirmation by historiographical and archaeological evidence). It is more scientific because it conforms to a fundamental principle of scientific investigation: the validity of a claim must be confirmed by reliable evidence, and the more reliable the evidence is the more correct the

The intellectual unconscious   149 claim is. But as I will demonstrate below even this approach, as adopted by Chinese scholars, is subjected to relentless criticism.

Methodological hegemony My foregoing critical analysis reveals a scholarly hegemony consciously and unconsciously held by some Western Sinologists. In Li Ling’s article he mentions another Western scholar’s article, which, translated into Chinese, hurts the feelings of many Chinese scholars, including Li Ling himself, who claims to be a personal friend of this Western scholar. The article mentioned is titled “On the Historical orientation of Chinese archaeology,” written by Lothar von Falkenhausen, published in Antiquity. According to the author’s own account the article is meant to be an introduction of Chinese archaeology to Western academia. People may wonder: how could an introduction unwittingly offend Chinese scholars? Having read the article I realize that it is more than an introduction; in fact, it is an evaluation of the methodologies of Chinese archaeology and historiography. In passing value judgment on the status of Chinese scholarship it is endowed with an implicit hegemonic tone and near Orientalist attitude that have hurt the sentiments of Chinese scholars. At the risk of reduction I may summarize the central offending sentiments thus: historiography and archaeology, it is claimed, should be two separate academic disciplines, each having its own objectives and rationale. But in the hands of Chinese scholars archaeology has become the “handmaiden” of historio­ graphy, which is conscripted into the service of politics, resulting in a deplorable condition of both archaeology and history. Falkenhausen’s thesis is representative of Western criticism of Chinese archaeology and historiography. To be fair it is not without its insights and reasonable claims. For example, his criticism of the politicization of scholarship before and during the Cultural Revolution is sound. Indeed, certain criticism of Gu Jiegang’s doubting of antiquity went so far as to describe him as an “unwitting lackey” who helped the Japanese invaders in their attempts to conquer China. This kind of criticism is symptomatic of the politicization of scholarship that this study argues against. But due to its hege­ monic epistemology and methodology, the article is characterized by conflicting attitudes, contradictory claims, and at times biases emanating from an Orientalist mentality. One of Falkenhausen’s critical remarks reads: The transformation of archaeology into the virtual handmaiden of antiquarianist historiography coincide [sic] with an increasingly reactionary political climate. “Doubting the ancients” soon became tainted as unpatriotic as the Nationalist regime became more dictatorial and the country rallied in the face of the Japanese threat in the 1930s.25 It is true that historiography, as is the case anywhere in the history of the world, serves as a handmaiden to politics, but Falkenhausen’s statement makes it sound as though this were a phenomenon throughout Chinese history and is unique to

150   The intellectual unconscious the Chinese tradition only. Moreover, as his statement covers Chinese archae­ ology since its inception, he calls into question the scholarly integrity of practically all Chinese archaeologists. What is ironic is that even though he, like most Western scholars, approves of Gu Jiegang’s radical questioning of the historical records of China’s antiquity, he has to admit that Brilliantly showing how archaeology could substantiate historical accounts, these excavations legitimized the discipline in Chinese academia. Archaeology was accepted because, on its maiden voyage so to speak, it provided a tool for refuting the ‘Doubters of antiquity’ and which could be used for sustaining tradition.26 He charges that due to nationalistic orientations, Chinese scholars have become conservative, retrogressive, and narrow-­minded. This judgmental criticism is reinforced by these words: “Historical scholarship since the World War II – both on the Mainland and in Taiwan – has become considerably more conservative in its outlook and methodology than it had been during the May Fourth era.”27 This is a judgment few Chinese scholars would accept. The mention of the New Cultural Movement reveals his endorsement of the totalistic iconoclasm during the May Fourth era. Li Ling retorts: Even though Western scholars say that Chinese scholarship has retrogressed by big strides, anyone without biases and prejudices will have little difficulty in perceiving that whether in determining the dates and formats of ancient texts or in the understanding of the overall structure and minute details of archaeological culture, Chinese scholarship has, instead of moving backwards, made much more progress than before (By contrast, the ideas of our Western counterparts are rather “conservative,” if not “outmoded,” though their skeptical attitude is much bolder).28 What Falkenhausen and other Western Sinologists find most deplorable is the Chinese scholars’ abandoning of the skeptical position advocated by Gu Jiegang and his doubters of antiquity, but ironically he has to admit that the discrediting of the so-­called yigu (antiquity doubting) is not without grounds: “To be fair, the blame for the virtual discrediting of yigu historiography must be partly ascribed to its own strident over-­confidence, but the lack of a critical attitude of many younger historians towards their sources is worrying.”29 Here we notice a clear contradiction. On the one hand, he accepts the reason for discrediting Gu Jiegang’s yigu historiography, but on the other he explicitly criticizes the late-­ comers after Gu for abandoning Gu’s paradigm, thereby causing considerable anxiety over the fate of early China scholarship. Here it is understood that those who become worried were mostly Western scholars and Gu Jiegang followers. Interestingly, he does not mention the fundamental reason for the doubting of Gu Jiegang’s yigu historiography: hard archaeological discoveries that overturned his radical claims.

The intellectual unconscious   151 His judgmental attitude towards Chinese archaeology is many-­folded, but it is full of conflicting claims and biases. In epistemology and methodology he is very dissatisfied with Chinese scholars’ moves to link archaeology and historiography and to use the former as a tool for the latter. One can understand his criticism of conscripting archaeology as a means for serving the political agenda, but one cannot understand why archaeology and historiography cannot work together to broaden and deepen our knowledge about Chinese civilization, especially the hazy past of high antiquity. Because Chinese archaeologists refuse to detach archaeology from historiography he criticizes them for lacking scholarly inquisitiveness: “Such limitation of scholarly curiosity is symptomatic for the narrowly historiographical orientation of Chinese archaeology.”30 This criticism is incomprehensible, for if Chinese archaeologists set their minds on exploring whether the historical records of high antiquity awere reliable or not, the act of simply wanting to uncover the truth displays a strong sense of inquisitiveness. After all, what could be more intriguing than confirming or disproving a historically accepted view about China’ remotest past? If, as Falhenhausen points out, for a considerable period Chinese archaeology suffered due to “a mixture of patriotic wishful thinking and historiographical dogma,”31 the evaluation of Chinese archaeology by Western scholars becomes even less convincing because of an archaeological dogma which may be succinctly described thus: archaeology should be liberated from the confines of historiography; what is seen is more reliable than what is written in historical texts. As Falkenhausen puts it: “Liberating archaeology from its present narrowly historiographical agenda would allow archaeologists to concentrate on their data and to become bolder in suggesting new interpretations.”32 Ironically this claim itself is dogmatic, for it completely ignores the fact that human understanding of our remotest past must be pieced together through different ways of investigation. A blind faith in archaeology is like the attitude vividly conveyed in the fable “Six Blind Men and the Elephant.” Each blind man mistakenly believes his own perception of the elephant through his own touch to be the complete knowledge about the animal; none of them realizes that his perception is only partially correct. The dogmatic attitude against combining archaeology with historiography also ignores the hermeneutic nature of knowledge production about the remote past. Historiographical knowledge about the past may not be reliable, but it can at least serve as an initial lead for further exploration, or as the “prejudices” in Gadamar’s conception, which are necessary conditions of understanding.33 Heidegger’s idea of “pre-­understanding” and “prior knowledge” further justifies Chinese scholars’ move to use historiography as a lead for the investigation of high antiquity. According to Heidegger the very notion of inquiry presupposes circularity and foreknowledge, because a lack of prior knowledge of what one seeks would practically prevent any possibility of questioning. Heidegger presents this idea at the very opening of his Being and Time as “a knowing search.”34 He further asserts: “Inquiry, as a kind of seeking, must be guided beforehand by what is sought.”35 By using historical records as ­possible leads and employing archaeology as an effective tool to confirm or

152   The intellectual unconscious d­ isprove a historiographical view, Chinese scholars have been adopting a sound hermeneutic approach to high antiquity. By constantly modifying the “prejudices” or “pre-­understanding” in historiography, they can, in theory and in practice, come ever closer to an objective truth about the past. Moreover, the historiographical leads make more sense than Hu Shi’s so-­called “bold hypo­ thesis,” which frequently turned out to be sheer subjective speculation.

Identity discourse in scholarship Falkenhausen’s article seems to impart a message that Chinese scholarship is only local knowledge, and has not yet risen to the status of universal knowledge. At one point he criticizes the “centrality of text-­based knowledge to traditional Chinese learning.” In his opinion, and in the view of some other Western scholars, ancient texts, including inscriptions on ancient artifacts, are not reliable. He therefore criticizes the Chinese way of classifying objects in terms of text-­based criteria: Li Ji . . . stands almost alone in opting for neologisms unburdened with the traditional connotations (e.g., dingxingqi, “tripod-­shaped vessel” instead of ding, “tripod”); . . . other scholars have not realized the methodological importance of classifying the material record on the basis of their inherent physical attributes rather than by imposed, text-­based criteria. On account of their complacency, Chinese archaeology today, although highly descriptive, lacks universally accepted typologies for most major artifact classes.36 While one can hardly see in what way “tripod-­shaped vessel” has more universal quality than “tripod” as a classifying category, one cannot see what is wrong at all with classifying tripod-­shaped vessels in terms of the age-­old word ding. If one objects to “imposed” terminology, ding does not fall into such a category. After all, ding is a pictogram found in inscriptions on such vessels, which still show a concrete shape. The very concept of “universally accepted typology” is a typical imposition of an artificial category upon native materials. Understand­ ably, “universal” is but another term for “western standard.” The Chinese word, ding, is an appropriate classifying category, for it covers pods with more than three legs. By contrast, the English translation “tripod” leaves out pots with four legs and is an imposed concept. In the concluding passage that ends his article, Falkenhausen imparts a clearer message: What Chinese archaeology lacks most is not fashionable theory. It is more important that archaeologists become more self-­confident about their own discipline and cease defining the goals of their research in terms of the prestige criteria of pre-­modern scholarship. If this can be achieved, one may be optimistic that methodologies proper to the Chinese situation will emerge, as they have elsewhere in the world, in the course of research.37

The intellectual unconscious   153 In this concluding passage we can detect the tone of a teacher lecturing his students, a condescending attitude by an arbiter of academic standards characteristic of many Orientalist scholars who founded Egyptology and Assyrian studies. A sensitive reader would have little difficulty in hearing this message: archae­ ology is an academic discipline invented by the West. So we Western scholars know the correct way of going about archaeological research, while Chinese scholars are still groping in the dark and have yet to formulate the right approaches. So long as Chinese scholars heed our advice, Chinese archaeology will embark on a correct path with the right methodologies adopted “elsewhere,” which is implicitly meant to be the West. This implicit message brings a new perspective to examine Western views of archaeology and Sinology. Modern archaeology originated in the West and has been dominated by Western scholars. But modern Chinese archaeology, though pioneered by Chinese scholars who were trained in the West, has departed from the Western model of archaeology. Given the abundance of historiographical materials available, Chinese scholars are justified in establishing a distinctly Chinese model of archaeology: one that integrates archaeology with historio­ graphy. This is because the Chinese have elaborately kept historical records dating back several thousand years. Some Western scholars do not think highly of this model. Falkenhausen states: A serious consequence of the centrality of the Marxist doctrine is that the concept of a problem-­oriented research design, until very recently, did not exist in Chinese archaeology. Testing hypotheses concerning past human behavior has been regarded as unnecessary because researchers have been led to believe that they already knew what happened; the goal of archeology was merely to demonstrate the correctness of an already-­accepted view.38 It is fair to criticize the adverse impact of Marxist doctrine of historical development upon Chinese history and archaeology, especially its teleological model. In fact, after the ending of the Cultural Revolution, some Chinese scholars have reacted against the teleological model of history based on Marx’s theory of historical development. But it is quite baffling to state that Chinese archaeology did not have “problem-­oriented research design.” This claim implies that Chinese archaeologists were only interested in collecting data and were incapable of designing a research project with clearly defined goals and hypotheses. What is more, Falkenhausen expresses the implicit idea that because Chinese archaeology was led by Chinese scholars this was not a positive thing: In contrast to most other countries with ancient civilizations, however, archaeology in China did not become a monopoly of foreign expeditions. Anderson [who conducted the first modern archaeological fieldwork in China in early 1920s] himself worked under the auspices of the Chinese Geological Survey in Beijing, and it was principally Chinese specialists who introduced and established archaeology in the country.39

154   The intellectual unconscious Elsewhere he notes: These preoccupations of the traditional historians constitute the background of archaeology in China. Excavated materials can be connected with populations known also from books and inscription; the perceived continuity of the Chinese historical experience . . . directly links the archaeological data to the present in a relation of ethnic and national identity. To a much greater degree than, e.g., archaeological fieldworkers in Europe or the United States, therefore, Chinese practitioners sympathetically identify with the objects of their research.40 His idea recalls other Western scholars’ views that Chinese scholars, because of their ethnic origin, are not disinterested enough to conduct scientific, objective, archaeological research into the past. Here a division between Chinese insiders and non-­Chinese outsiders is reaffirmed, and methodology becomes entangled with ethnicity.

Compulsion to speak for the Other Although the division between “insiders” and “outsiders” has been criticized by scholars, both Chinese and Western, the fact remains that it does exist and has given rise to covert and often overt contentions between the so-­called Chinese “insiders” and the Western “outsiders.” I have heard both Chinese and Western scholars say in private that some of the major differences between Chinese and Western scholars emanate from a covert contention for academic leadership in the field and for the control of discourse power. In his reflections on Orientalism, Dirlik observes: Europeans, placed at the pinnacle of progress, were in a better position than the natives themselves to know what Asians were about, since they had the advantage of a more prodigious (and panoptical) historical hindsight . . . orientalists did not just speak about Asia, they also spoke for Asia. While this points to perturbations within orientalism, it also raises the question of power: power to speak for the Other.41 The power relationship between Chinese “insiders” and Western “outsiders” has been complicated by the fact that in the field of Sinology, Chinese scholars as political subalterns have been speaking for themselves for millennia and as teachers exercising a scholarly power for centuries, quite unlike the situation in Egyptology in which Western scholars’ control of scholarly power is indisputable and seldom challenged. In my critical analysis of the various contentions between Chinese and Western scholars I have observed sufficient evidence to warrant an argument that there is a strong Western compulsion to speak for the other in sinological scholarship. Here I will critically examine a few cases in the study of Chinese intellectual thought, and show how the compulsion to speak for

The intellectual unconscious   155 the ethnic other leads to repeated Western “inventions” and “discoveries” of Chinese ideas and things. In 1997 Lionel M. Jensen published a book, Manufacturing Confucianism, which contains a thesis that aroused much controversy among scholars. In his universalist approach to Chinese intellectual thought Jensen proposes a rethinking of the studies of Confucianism in terms of his radical premise that “Confucianism is largely a Western invention, supposedly representing what is registered by the complex of terms rujia [ru family], rujiao [ru teaching], ruxue [ru learning], and ruzhe [the ru].”42 He does acknowledge the historical Confucius as the source of the Western-­invented thought system, but he unequivocally declares: I propose that we resist the reflex to treat these entities, Confucianism and ru, as equivalent and consider rather that what we know of Confucius is not what the ancient Chinese knew as Kongzi [Master Kong]. I suggest instead that Confucius assumed his present familiar features as the result of a prolonged, deliberate process of manufacture in which European intellectuals took a leading role.43 Thus his radical thesis involves a contention over leadership of what is regarded as the most essential core of Chinese culture, Confucianism: whether it is viewed as a philosophy, religion, or scholarship. To be fair he does acknowledge the role of Chinese intellectuals in the invention of Confucianism to a certain extent, but he unequivocally declares: In this century in China, Confucius, the largely Western invention, inspired a re-­creation of the native hero, Kongzi, who was then absorbed into Chinese intellectuals’ font of mythological material and proved critical to their endeavor of making a new Chinese nation through historical construction.44 Thus, the invention of Confucius is described as a joint venture, with Western scholars as the major partner. One may ask: what exactly is the role that Chinese intellectuals played in the joint venture of inventing Confucianism? Jensen’s description of his book’s objective gives an answer: The joint quality of this invention is the main concern of this book: how the sixteenth-­century Chinese supplied the raw material with storied forms of Kongzi that inspired the Western celebrity of Confucius and lent novel form to a contested European representation of science and theology; and how the imported nineteenth-­century Western conceptual vernacular of nationalism, evolution, and ethos lent dimension to the nativist imaginings of twentieth-­ century Chinese, who reinvented Kongzi as a historicized religious figure.45 The answer is loud and clear: the Western intellectuals are the masterminds of  the invention, while the Chinese intellectuals are only the second-­order

156   The intellectual unconscious r­ e-­inventors. The above passage articulates a hegemonic view in the field of China studies in the West, which frequently finds echoes and resonances in the views of some prominent Sinologists. This view consists of several elements: first, Chinese scholars play the role of informants who supply Western scholars and thinkers with “raw materials” as analytic data for them to systematize and conceptualize into new ideas and theories. Second, Western thinkers are creators of key ideas and theories for the Chinese tradition and purvey them to Chinese intellectuals, who buy them. Third, Chinese intellectuals are only recreators of their own cultural heritage, even in the core dimension of their cultural tradition. Jensen is not unaware of the possibility that people may charge him with cultural imperialism, for he apologetically cautions the reader that one “should not conclude that to establish a Western provenance for Confucius suggests some kind of fraud. . . . Nor does it imply that there can be no native heroes, only foreign-­ made ones, or attack the hegemony of Western culture.”46 In spite of his declared universal nature of Confucius in terms of “ecumenical impulse or spirit” and “universal civilization,” his dichotomy between Confucius [Western] and Kong Fuzi [Chinese], “the native Kongzi and the foreign Confucius” reaffirms the Confucius and Confucianism as a Western invention. And throughout his book he again and again declares that Confucianism as a cultural tradition is only a “three-­hundred-year-­old tradition,”47 manufactured by Western intellectuals: “The Confucius and Confucianism to which we have granted a compelling authority are conceptual products of foreign origin, made to articulate indigenous qualities of Chinese culture.”48 His argument for, and defense of, Western “manufacturing” of Confucius and Confucianism replicates the colonialist mode of production of both knowledge and commodities: the colonized Third World countries supply the raw resources (both material and spiritual), Western colonizers (capitalists and intellectuals) process them and turn them into material and spiritual goods to be sold and purchased at the commercial and cultural markets of the colonized Third World countries and regions. In the study of Chinese religion there is another strong impulse to speak for the Other in Daoist studies, which conforms to the colonial logic of cultural production. Daoism is one of the three most important intellectual schools of thought in the Chinese tradition. Like Confucianism and Buddhism, Daoism is an intellectual tradition that integrates metaphysics, religion, and ways of life into a holistic system that has developed since the Warring States period to the present day. Since the second century ad there has existed a conceptual way of categorizing Daoism into two large schools, which are respectively called Daojia (philosophical Daoism) and Daojiao (religious Daoism). Feng Youlan [Fung Yu-­lan], arguably the most influential Chinese philosopher in the twentieth century, states: “As for Taoism, there is a distinction between Taoism as a philosophy, which is called Tao chia [Daojia] (the Taoist school), and the Taoist religion (Tao chiao) [Daojiao]. Their teachings are not only different; they are even contradictory.”49 As though afraid that the reader may confuse the two branches, he cautions the reader in the chapter on the origins of different philosophical schools: “The sixth school is the Tao-­Te chia [Daodejia] or School of the Way

The intellectual unconscious   157 and its Power . . . . As pointed out in the first chapter, it should be kept carefully distinct from the Taoist religion.”50 For a long time the consensus that Daojia and Daojiao are two different categories of thought has been accepted both inside and outside China, but towards the end of the twentieth century the consensus was overturned by some Western scholars, who claimed that the division is not only unnecessary but also incorrect. Kristofer Schipper, believed by some to be the first Western scholar to call attention to the study of religious Daoism in the West, is an early challenger of the accepted view. In his valiant efforts to question the appropriateness of using Western conception of religion to understand Chinese religion, he states: Such a negative appraisal has led many to view Taoism’s philosophical thought as something quite separate from its religious practice and even to view them as two distinct historical and social realities! This opinion is nowadays so widespread that it is important to consider it here, especially since the so-­called opposition of the “two Taoisms” has for a long time been an argument in the campaigns against China’s own religion, with the terrible results we know.51 In his conclusion Schipper makes this claim: “This is what must have inspired Chuang Tzu to describe Taoism as a religion without doctrine, without dogma or institutions, whose transmission is not inscribed in the history of the world.”52 We should note a few problems in this claim in relation to the whole book. First, his whole book is basically a thick description of the theology, institution, and liturgical practices of religious Daoism. It contradicts the view of Daoism as a religion without doctrine, dogma, and institution. Second, there is no citation showing where and under what circumstances Zhuangzi articulated the idea. The lack of a citation is not just a miss in scholarship; it is in large measure a deliberate attempt to reject the separation. Third, his statement marks an attempt to conflate philosophical and religious Daoism and has exerted a big impact on later studies of religious Daoism. Following Schipper’s questioning of the accepted view, Isabelle Robinet, a recognized scholar on religious Daoism, stated in her highly acclaimed book, Taoism: Growth of a Religion: During this account we shall often have to consider the question of the relationship between what are called ‘philosophical Taoism’ and “religious Taoism.” . . . Much ink has been spilled on this matter, but usually, it must be admitted, by people who have not studied the texts of “religious Taoism.” We shall see again and again that this division has no significance. I share the view that this is a nonexistent problem arising from only an apparent difference, one that exists in all religions and mystical systems. . . . Although some Westerners have used such differences to distinguish two separate currents in Taoism, this conclusion seems to me to derive from the fact that few in our culture are actively familiar with techniques that lead to mystical experience.53

158   The intellectual unconscious Although she categorically argues against the accepted view, she does not supply any convincing argument in conceptual terms. Her resort to other people’s unfamiliarity with techniques of religious Taoism is a rather weak argument. Russell Kirkland, a younger scholar of Daoism, criticizes existing scholarship on Daoism in Sinology and argues even more vocally against the division: For generations, most writers – both Asian and Western – maintained, often quite dogmatically, that the so-­called philosophical Taoists of antiquity were – and logically must be – distinguished from the so-­called religious Taoists of later times on the basis of the alleged fact that the latter were devoted to achieving “physical immortality.”54 Now, he confidently declares: “Most scholars who have seriously studied Taoism, both in Asia and in the West, have finally abandoned the simplistic dichotomy of tao-­chia and tao-­chiao – ‘philosophical Taoism’ and ‘religious Taoism.’ ”55 Having read his book carefully I have come to the realization that part of his problem precisely emanates from his abandonment of the division. For in his preface, he criticizes: [U]ntil nearly the end of the twentieth century, virtually everyone who wrote or [spoke] about Taoism – including scholars, Asian and Western alike – maintained, sometimes with irrational vehemence, a definition of “Taoism” that excluded virtually all of the Taoist thinkers of the last two thousand years, along with virtually all of the practitioners of Taoism over that period.56 Clearly he is confounding philosophical Daoism and religious Daoism first, and then criticizing the hierarchical practice in the mainstream scholarship for excluding thinkers and practitioners of religious Daoism from philosophical Daoism. Kirkland and other scholars who share his view are justified in their criticism of the discrimination against religious Daoism and should command our deep respect for underscoring the importance of religious Daoism as a legitimate subject of study and for their contributions to the study of religious Daoism, a very much undervalued branch of Daoism. But their argument against the separation of philosophical Daoism from religious Daoism is based on the confused and often interchangeable uses of the terms Daojia and Daojiao in early China, and does not withstand conceptual and evidential analysis. Although people may offer different definitions of religion and philosophy, there are some commonly accepted conceptual grounds to distinguish a school of philosophical thought from a school of religious thought. A basic dictionary definition of “philosophy” reads: “the rational investigation of the truths and principles of being, knowledge, or conduct.”57 By contrast, the same dictionary defines “religion” as “a set of beliefs concerning the cause, nature, and purpose of the universe, esp. when considered as the creation of superhuman agency or agencies usu. involving devotional and ritual observances and of then containing a moral code for the conduct of human affairs.”58 The essentials of a religion include, but are not limited to, a personal God or gods, a theology, a congregation

The intellectual unconscious   159 of worshippers, a site of worship, and a body of administering priests. Anyone with an elementary knowledge of philosophical and religious Daoism will be able to tell that the former lacks all the requisites while the latter has all of them. The three works by the three scholars have certainly made admirable contributions to our understanding of religious Daoism, but in themselves they do not lend support to the argument against the separation of philosophical and religious Daoism. A fair reading of the three works tells us that apart from an account of how theologians and practitioners of religious Daoism appropriated notions, ideas, works, and records, as well as some masters of philosophical Daoism like Laozi, Zhuangzi, and Liezi et al. expounding and enriching a religious system, they basically deal with the rise and genesis, historical evolution and theological formation of, the biographies of its masters, Pantheon, the liturgical practices, and the rites and rituals of religious Daoism. The reading would support rather than reject the separation. Therefore, one question inevitably arises: why do those scholars insist on rejecting the division and even believe that the rejection is a fait accompli? A critical examination of the views held by those scholars may shed some light on this enigma. Brooks, the translator of Robinet’s book, writes: “It has taken the dedication of a few scholars scattered around the world (in China itself, in France, Japan, the United States, and elsewhere), to start the rediscovery of the one native Chinese religion, Taoism.”59 After the Ming dynasty, religious Daoism gradually sank into oblivion in Chinese scholarship due to various political, ideological, and intellectual factors. The atheist campaign against superstition after 1949 and the fanaticism of the Cultural Revolution in 1966 almost stamped out any interest in religious Daoism in mainland China. Like Confucianism and Buddhism, religious Daoism saw a revival in the late 1970s. It is in this context that the revival is viewed as a “rediscovery,” the same word used to describe Columbus’ rediscovery of the American continent. Brooks further states: “And to talk of Taoism only as a ‘way’ of thought’ or a philosophy is to deny its nature as a religion offering the adept a pathway to salvation.”60 Again, she has committed the error of confounding philosophical and religious Daoism. The argument against the separation of philosophical and religious Daoism, and the claim that the few Western studies of religious Daoism in the last quarter of the twentieth century signifies that “Taoist studies have finally come of age,”61 contains a logical contradiction that cannot be resolved. The logical contradiction is revealed in Norman Girardot’s statement: [I]t may be said that the actual study of the Taoist religion as distinct from the scholarly fetish for the “philosophical Taoism” of Lao Tzu and Chuang Tzu, is almost entirely an accomplishment of the latter half of the twentieth century and stems in large measure from Kristopher Schipper’s findings in Taiwan in the sixties.62 This statement is an adequate acknowledgement of the fact that philosophical Daoism has been a popular topic of scholarly study while religious Daoism has been relegated to the periphery of China studies. If we accept philosophical and

160   The intellectual unconscious religious Daoism as one, how can we justify the view that the study of Daoism is only a recent phenomenon, since philosophical Daoism has been a major subject of study since the former Han Dynasty (206 bc–ad 25)? Girardot, a staunch champion of rejecting the separation of philosophical and religious Daoism, also considers the revival of religious Daoism as a rediscovery by a few Western scholars. He attributes this rediscovery to the work of one scholar, Schipper: Hidden amidst the everyday ways of Chinese people peripheral to both the People’s Central Kingdom and the modern industrial world of the Chinese diaspora, the insular corporation of the Taoist religion has started to reveal itself publicly to the whole world just when it seemed that it had totally expired. The special, though perhaps fitting, curiosity of this unexpected occurrence is that the public manifestation of the Taoist religion in the modern world is due to the fortuitous discoveries (italics by the current author) of Kristofer Schipper, a young Dutch scholar.63 While I agree with Girardot’s appreciation of Schipper’s role in furthering our understanding of Daoism, I think he has exaggerated the importance of the latter’s achievements and underestimated the work of Chinese, Japanese, and other Western scholars throughout history. Religious Daoism has been recognized as one of the three major religions in Chinese history, and has been sustained by priests and practitioners, against all odds, through various dynasties. Daoist studies began very early in Chinese history and have continued to the present-­ day, despite interruptions due to war, politics, persecution, and ideological interference. In terms of history, the characterization of Western studies of religious Daoism as a “discovery” overlooks the original source of religious Daoism and smacks of the colonial mode of knowledge production, as practiced by those Western anthropologists who went to study the Aborigines and discovered their inner logic of life and religions. The claim to Western initiation of the study of religious Daoism overlooks the fact that those scholars entered a field that was by no means virgin land. Chinese and other Western scholars have assiduously tilled the scholarly field for centuries. Chinese scholars began to study religious Daoism as early as the fourth century ad. Chang Qu, a historian of the Eastern Jin Dynasty, wrote a detailed account of how the Five Peck of Rice Daoism was created in the last period of the Eastern Han Dynasty in his Huayang Guozhi (Records of the Lands South of Mount Hua) (ad 348–354). His account was viewed by some as the first historical account of religious Daoism in China. Since then scholarly interest in religious Daoism has never disappeared. It witnessed an upsurge in the early part of the twentieth century. Lu Xun was among the early scholars of religious Daoism. His view that religious Daoism constitutes the root of Chinese culture and tradition is highly influential. In a letter to his friend on August 20, 1918, Lu Xun said: “I have voiced the opinion before that the roots of Chinese culture lie in Daoism. This view has recently become widely popular. To use this approach to

The intellectual unconscious   161 Chinese history, numerous problems would be readily resolved”64 It does not concern me whether Lu Xun’s view is a positive appraisal or negative criticism. What matters is that there was a prevalent scholarly interest in religious Daoism in China in the first half of the twentieth century, and many leading scholars of Chinese tradition engaged in studying religious Daoism from both appreciative and depreciative perspectives. In 1934 two books on religious Daoism appeared: Xu Dishan’s History of Religious Daoism (Daojia shi) and Fu Qinjia’s Introduction to History of Religious Daoism (Daojiao shi gailun). Fu Qinjia published a more systematic study of religious Daoism, History of Chinese Religious Daoism (Zhongguo Daojiao shi) in 1937. Although some scholars regard Chang Qu’s records of the Five Peck of Rice Daoism in Huayang guozhi as the first history of religious Daoism, Fu Qinjia’s study is widely accepted as the first history of religious Daoism in the modern sense of scholarship. Early scholars of religious Daoism were divided into two camps: one relentlessly dismissed it while the other adopted a positive evaluation of it. Liang Qichao studied religious Daoism from a dismissive perspective, arguing that it was a shame to include religious Daoism in Chinese history, but he admitted that as it is so central to Chinese tradition the writing of Chinese history cannot but give some narrative space to it.65 From the opposite direction, Chen Yinke highly praised religious Daoism as an open-­minded intellectual school of thought which, while assimilating foreign ideas, maintained its native core and created a form of intellectual thought superior to sinicized Buddhism. In 1933 he completed a manuscript, Celestial Master’s Daoism and its Relation to the Coastal Areas, which employs carefully documented historical materials to show the centrality of religious Daoism to the intellectual and everyday life of the societies south of the Yangtse River.66 In an article that systematically surveys the 100-year history of the studies of religious Daoism in China (both mainland and Taiwan), Qing Xitai, an authority on religious Daoism in China, divides the development of religious Daoism scholarship into three major periods: (1) Foundational Period I (1900–1949); (2) Foundational Period II (1950–1978); and (3) Contemporary Period (1979–2009). He regrets that due to ideological interference and intellectual prejudices, studies of religious Daoism were voluntary acts by scholars until the third period. But his survey shows that even in the first period, about 160 scholars engaged in studying various aspects of religious Daoism, producing approximately 200 research papers and a dozen monographs. The prominent scholars include Liu Shipei (1884–1920), Weng Dujian (1906–1986), Tang Yongtong (1893–1964), Wang Ming (1911–1992), Meng Wentong (1894–1968), Chen Guofu (1912–), Chen Yinke (1890–1969), Chen Yuan (1880–1971), Xu Dishan (1893–1941), Fu Qinjia and others.67 In the period of the 1930s alone, there appeared a host of monographs and treatises on religious Daoism. The scholarly achievement of this period alone is sufficient to refute the claim that the study of religious Daoism is a “discovery” by Western scholars, a view that reveals clear signs of unconscious Orientalism and Sinologism.

162   The intellectual unconscious

The scholarly unconscious In the above-­mentioned Western studies, the authors were right to criticize the Orientalist mentality and approach to Daoism as being responsible for the oblivion of religious Daoism in Western Sinology, but the irony is that those same scholars have unwittingly engaged in Orientalist approaches to Daoism by opposing the separation of philosophical and religious Daoism and their claims of a Western “discovery” or “rediscovery” of religious Daoism. This irony shows another aspect of the difference between Said’s Orientalism and my conception of Sinologism, and testifies to the complexity of Sinologism. This new aspect may be characterized as a scholarly unconscious driven by the “anxiety of originality.” Having criticized the unwitting connivance of modern scholars in perpetrating sinologistic tendencies, I must hasten to add that a great deal of the distortions, prejudices, and misrepresentations by some Western scholars were not entirely motivated by Orientalist inclinations, consciously or otherwise, but by a mentality fostered by Western scholarly training, which is characterized by an overriding concern with originality of scholarship. This gives the ethnic unconscious a new twist. A fundamental requirement for western scholarship is that one must have something new to say if one wants to have what he or she says published and respected in academia. But when modern Western scholars enter the scholarly field of Sinology and China studies, they encounter a situation that is totally different from that of Oriental studies. That is, while in the latter field many branches of learning like Egyptology and Assyrian studies were virgin fields with Western scholars themselves as pioneers, in the former, they have entered a field that has been crossed and recrossed by Chinese scholars for centuries and even millennia, with little or no virgin land left to reclaim and cultivate. To push forward the boundaries of learning they will have to raise fresh ideas, locate new patterns of development, and say things that have never been said before. Driven by the anxiety of originality, many scholars consciously and unconsciously resort to the construction of new approaches that do not fit Chinese materials, apply new theoretical frameworks and hypotheses drawn from the study of Western materials, and in some circumstances resort to ways of doing scholarship that distort, misread, and misrepresent Chinese materials. In a way this approach marks an important aspect of Sinologism, which is the alienation of China knowledge. Driven by the desire for originality and new ideas, some Sinologists deviated from the first goal of scholarship: to produce genuine knowledge. As a consequence, their produced scholarship became alienated China knowledge meant to advance their new-­fangled ideas and to attract attention. The scholarly view against the separation of philosophical Daoism from religious Daoism is just such a case in point. The three books on Daoism critiqued in the foregoing section are excellent studies of religious Daoism in their thick descriptions of its origin, rise, historical development, and liturgical practices, but when the scholars attempt to voice new ideas to overturn accepted opinions, they unwittingly came under the influence of sinologistic

The intellectual unconscious   163 logic, resulting in the alienation of their scholarly achievements made through rigorous research. The radical claim of Confucius as a Western invention, with raw materials supplied by the Chinese, is an epitome of the alienation of China knowledge and scholarship in Sinology and China–West studies. Jensen wrote a section in his book entitled: “In Defense of a Title: The Meaning of ‘Manufacture.’ ” The section discusses the original and derived meanings of “manufacture” in both Western and Chinese traditions, his self-­conscious awareness of himself as a late-­comer who suffers from the anxiety of originality, and his defense of why he considers Confucius as a Western invention. He states: “By ‘manufactured’ I mean created, invented, fabricated, each of which is consistent with the Chinese word zuo, which they are meant to represent.”68 In claiming that his book is “a defense of creative impulses,” he conducts research, the end result of which is not so much a scholarly account as a fictive narrative. His epilog reveals this purpose beyond doubt: I come to the end of this study of texts, traditions, communities and constructions with thoughts more ethico-­political than scholarly, oddly enough, and more contemporary than archaic. This episodic history has enabled me to recognize that I also am an inventor, despite a natural reluctance to imagine myself in what is in our culture a heroic role. Furthermore, my study of the Jesuits among the Chinese and the Chinese among themselves . . . has made me intimately aware of my complicity in the construction of a narrative of ru/Confucianism and has also revealed the extent to which such endeavor is personal rather than academic.69 This confession unabashedly admits to a transformation of scholarship into a fictive narrative in the service of a definite personal agenda. With this confession, the alienation of knowledge about Confucius is complete and total.

From ethnic identity to identity politics The ethnic unconscious in Sinologism is deeply hidden. Indeed, even when symptoms of it are clearly visible, they are rigorously denied as having nothing to do with ethnic identity. The debate between Wu Hung and Bagley over the former’s book, and the ensuing exchange of opinions on the debate between Li Ling and Tian Xiaofei, are a forceful testimony to my view. Neither Wu Hung nor Bagley admits that their debate was motivated by ethnic differences. In Li Ling’s review of their debate, he frankly points out that a major reason for the quarrel between Wu Hung and Bagley is a difference in epistemology as manifested by the former’s Chinese approach and the latter’s Western approach. But he regards the difference as one between different scholarly traditions, not one between scholars of different ethnic origins. When Tian Xiaofei expresses her concerns over Li Ling’s confounding scholarly issues with ethnic origins and cultural identity, the latter rigorously denies the former’s charge of ethnic

164   The intellectual unconscious p­ rofiling in his response.70 Tian Xiaofei further emphasizes that the different approaches adopted by Chinese and Western scholars do not constitute an ethnic-­centered opposition between Chinese and Western scholars, and criticizes Li Ling and his like for adopting an ethnic approach to scholarly issues. Ironically, although Li Ling firmly believes that there exist two very different approaches to scholarship held respectively by scholars of Chinese and Western origins, he nevertheless rigorously denies ethnic difference as the cause of the controversy: “I do not think differences between scholarly traditions come from ethnicity.”71 Falkenhausen does not mince his words when he openly admits to the differences between Chinese and Western traditions of scholarship, and even openly considers the Chinese approach problematic and wanting in comparison to its Western counterpart. But he does not attribute the root cause of the problem to ethnicity either. Instead he attributes it partly to different scholarly traditions and partly to ideology and politics. The fact that all those involved in the controversy rigorously deny having anything to do with ethnic identity testifies to the unconscious nature of ethnic politics. There is only one step between ethnic identity of scholars and identity politics in scholarship. Ethnic politics inevitably leads my inquiry to another aspect of Sinologism: the politicization of scholarship.

7 The political unconscious

In Chapter 1 I argued that Sinologism differs from Orientalism in that it is much less political and ideological, because Sinology from the outset was equipped with an internal mechanism that resists political interference and politicization of scholarship. Does this mean that Sinologism is immune to politics and ideology? As I have already shown politics is an important factor in knowledge production about China and Chinese civilization, especially after the establishment of the People’s Republic of China, a declared socialist state viewed by the West as belonging to the communist camp during the Cold War period. This recognition introduces something new to China studies in the West: a political dimension that has gradually evolved into a politics of scholarship and politicization of China knowledge. Of course, this political dimension is not overtly visible. Indeed, it takes a subtle and less invasive form than that in Orientalism and postcolonial studies. Oftentimes, people scarcely realize its political nature, or even if it becomes visible in scholarship people tend to ignore it or refuse to recognize its true nature. Hence, this dimension should be viewed as constituting a political unconscious in scholarship. My conception of the political unconscious has a basic affinity with Fredric Jameson’s conception but differs in some important ways. I agree with Jameson that all cultural artifacts are “socially symbolic acts,” with political meanings and implications, and all interpretations of literary texts are predicated on a political perspective consciously or unconsciously chosen. Jameson conceives the political perspective “not as some supplementary method, not as an optional auxiliary to other interpretive methods . . . but rather as the absolute horizon of all reading and all interpretation.”1 His conception may be true to readings and interpretations of literary texts, but is not entirely applicable to knowledge and scholarship, which are relatively neutral and objective. The political unconscious conceived by Jameson is essentially a false consciousness, which is largely class consciousness generated by the class struggle between the oppressor and the oppressed in the process of economic production: “The prior moment of class consciousness is that of the oppressed classes (whose structural identity – whether a peasantry, slaves, serfs, or a genuine proletariat – evidently derives from the mode of production.)”2 My notion of the political unconscious also refers to a false consciousness, a political ideology, but in this study of knowledge and scholarship

166   The political unconscious production, class consciousness is irrelevant. The core of my conception is a political ideology based on ethnic consciousness, national consciousness, and inter-­national consciousness. While I share the basic premise of Jameson’s, which is “to assert the specificity of the political contents of everyday life and of individual fantasy-­experience and to reclaim it from that reduction to the merely subjective and to the status of psychological projection,”3 my aim is to show how the false consciousness pertaining to ethnicity, nationalism, and inter-­national difference affects the production and evaluation of knowledge and scholarship. Basically, my idea of the political unconscious has two aspects. One aspect may be called “academic politics” while the other is “politics of scholarship.” The former is the same as academic politics anywhere in any academic discipline, only it is often sharpened by the fact that scholars engaged in China studies are composed of people of Chinese origin and people of Western origin. Since this is a form of politics mostly concerned with: who should be hired? Who should get tenure and promotion? Who should receive a grant or fellowship? Who should be awarded a prestigious prize? etc., it has more to do with minority policies over political correctness and administrative decisions in academic institutions and does not fall into the purview of this book, which is wholly concerned with problems of a scholarly nature in China–West studies. What I am going to explore in this chapter is the second category: scholarly politics or politics in scholarship. Briefly defined, politics of scholarship is concerned with the conditions of China–West studies from the perspective of politics, which include real-­politik, international politics, geocultural politics, identity politics, and ethnic politics. Simply put, it explores how these forms of politics affect and influence the orientations and outcome of scholarship on China–West studies.

Politics of ethnicity The political dimension of Sinologism is closely related to ethnic politics in scholarship, and finds its partial expression in the politicization of scholarship involving scholars of different ethnic origin. This is most clearly revealed in the controversy surrounding Wu Hung’s book, which I have already examined in the previous chapter. But in that chapter I only dealt with the ethnicization of scholarship centering on that book. Now I will probe the political dimension in that controversy. Although the criticism of Wu Hung’s book is largely concerned with ways of doing scholarship on early China, a critical analysis of the controversy reveals that behind the façade of scholarly controversy lurks an unrecognized political dimension pertaining to international, ethnic, and scholarly politics. The Sinologists’ harsh criticism may be grouped into two related categories. First, they were dissatisfied with the way Wu Hung used the concept of “monumentality” as an “organizing concept” to structure apparently disparate bodies of historical artifacts and materials into a unified system of historical knowledge of ancient China. Second, they charged that Wu Hung’s appropriation of the Western concept of monumentality more seriously reveals a discursive effort to construct the myth of a monolithic and “eternal” China, thereby

The political unconscious   167 implicitly promoting Chinese nationalism and indirectly showing traces of Chinese chauvinism. Li Ling summarizes the criticism thus: Western sinologists have a common objective in their criticism of Wu: to “deconstruct the myth of Eternal China,” that is, to demystify the accepted view that China has a “monolithic” and “united” culture. Wu’s notion of “monumentality,” they say, highlights the “unique” development of a “unique” China and manifests a chauvinistic view that Chinese culture is independent of the Western mode of inquiry.4 While acknowledging the validity of Western Sinologists’ criticism of Wu Hung’s book in specific scholarly issues, Li Ling deplores a tendency in their criticism, which I may call “politicization of scholarship.” In his review of the main points of criticism, Li notes: Of the above four points of criticism, the first three, though failing to take into consideration the main objective underlying Wu Hung’s project, are not totally ungrounded. The fourth one concerning Wu’s idea of “China” is, however, just one-­sided. It is noticeable that the criticism of Monumentality is often extended to its author in relation to his academic training, his intellectual background and his research habits, and to the studies conducted by the Chinese scholars, whom Wu frequently acknowledges. The ‘inadequacy’ of Chinese scholarship is, I believe, the very target that has inspired criticism of Monumentality.5 In Li Ling’s opinion, many scholars, Chinese and Western, believe that Wu Hung was subjected to a concerted barrage of harsh criticism because he had created a fictionalized account of early China based on Chinese ideology and habits in doing scholarship. Bagley’s long review cannot but reinforce this impression. Tian Xiaofei, who had read both Wu Hung’s book and Bagley’s review, makes three points concerning Bagley’s review: First, the review is radically lopsided and makes one feel uncomfortable; Second, it is replete with misreading and distortions; Third, feeling uneasy, a reader would feel regrettable that despite the fact some of Bagley’s opinions are not without reasons, they were expressed in a manner full of animosity and lacking the fair and disinterested attitude required of a scholar who puts scholarship first, independent of the influence of possible biases arising from one’s cultural identity.6 Tian did not probe the question of why all these points appeared. It is not far wrong to speculate, as Li Ling does, that Bagley’s “biased” and “prejudiced” opinions may have come from his perception of Wu Hung’s manifested methodological problem arising from the “pernicious Chinese habits.”7 This criticism was echoed by another scholar, who, in a less harsh tone, criticized Wu Hung’s book for manifesting problems that are “distinctively Chinese.”8

168   The political unconscious Thus, apart from controversies over the content, the criticism of Wu Hung’s book involves epistemology, methodology, and above all ideology. Epistemologically, Wu Hung ignored the unwritten Western law of looking at China and Chinese materials through the perspective defined by the Western Sinologists, who believe that China as a political and cultural entity is vague, fuzzy, and indeterminate; the geographical locale of present-­day China is divided into different cultural regions and has been ever-­changing through various historical periods; China as a single and unified culture is simply not feasible especially in its high antiquity; the legendary age in Chinese history is a fabrication by later dynasties, and the three dynasties of Xia, Shang, and Zhou are largely fictional constructs, and historical records of high antiquity were largely invented in later periods. By viewing Chinese art and architecture as going through a unified development in history, Wu Hung clearly violated the epistemological tenets held dearly by some Western Sinologists, and unwittingly helped promote Chinese nationalism and chauvinism. In methodology, Wu Hung also violated some dearly held Western sinological approaches. For example, Sinology, as it originated from Hanxue (Han scholarship), emphasizes kaoju (investigating evidence) rather than the grand comprehensive narrative of historical development animated by a single, unified theme. Wu Hung’s book professes to be a thematic study, which shifts from his early study of a localized topic supported with detailed analysis and turned from descriptive approach to conceptual approach. Here there is an irony. What is ironic is that kaoju (evidential investigation) is a kind of scholarship originating from traditional China that has been viewed as conservative and even outdated by younger scholars. But after it was embraced and endorsed by most Sinologists in the West it has become an inviolable methodological tenet held dearly, and sometimes even dogmatically, by some Sinologists in the field of pre-­modern China studies. I was told by an editor at a well-­known journal of Sinology that his journal only welcomed submissions with scholarship done in the traditional methods, and that any submission using approaches influenced by contemporary theories would be refused. He particularly pointed out that his journal often receives submissions by young scholars from China who adopt contemporary theoretical approaches informed by deconstruction and postmodernism. Needless to say, he rejected all of them and did not even bother to review them. Wu Hung, trained in the West and influenced by Western theories in fields other than Sinology, adopted a comprehensive thematic approach learned from his Western training. Western Sinologlists’ dismissal of Wu Hung’s Western approach and upholding of Chinese kaoju scholarship conform to the pattern in my conception of Sinologism: it does not matter whether it is Chinese or Western approach; what matters is whether that approach is endorsed by Western scholarly consensus in a field, which in the present case is early China. This is especially prominent in other areas of Sinology. Younger scholars, both Chinese and Western, have been harshly reprimanded by older Sinologists for embracing contemporary theoretical approaches informed by modernist and postmodern theories. As a consequence more and more young scholars have

The political unconscious   169 been driven out of pre-­modern Chinese studies into the field of modern Chinese studies, a field which welcomes new and innovative studies informed by contemporary theories and approaches. In this respect Sinologism is very conservative in epistemology and methodology.

Politicization of Chinese antiquity Politics only plays a minor role in Western scholars’ criticism of Wu Hung’s book. A prominent case of politicization of scholarship is exemplified by some Western Sinologists’ responses and reactions to a large academic project undertaken by hundreds of Chinese scholars in mainland China to clarify the dating of China’s high antiquity. The project is internationally known as The Xia Shang Zhou Chronology Project, a multi-­disciplinary project commissioned by the Chinese government in 1996 to determine with relative accuracy the location and time frame of the Xia, Shang and Zhou Dynasties. It employed nearly 200 specialists who used multiple methodologies including radiocarbon dating, archaeological dating, historical textual analysis, astronomic study, and other interdisciplinary methods, to achieve temporal and geographic accuracy. It also consulted and incorporated the views of non-­Chinese scholars, notably those of Japanese and Korean origin. The project results were released in November 2000. According to the report: The project consists of nine research tasks and 40 special research subjects involving history, archaeology, documentology, historical geography, epigraphy, astronomy, calendrical calculation, dating techniques. Its aim is to determine the dates of the three Chinese dynasties – the Xia, the Shang and the Zhou.9 As is characteristic of any research project concerning a civilization’s high antiquity, controversy is both expected and inevitable. What complicated the controversy surrounding this project was the political factor. In his review of the controversy over Wu Hung’s book, Li Ling briefly touches on its relationship to the Xia-­Shang-Zhou Chronology Project and the political dimension: In my opinion, the real focus behind the controversy [over Wu Hung’s book] concerns Western scholarly views of Chinese scholarship and the long-­enduring controversies behind the two great academic traditions. For example, in view of the news briefing on the Xia-­Shang-Zhou Chronology Project outcomes and the journalistic report in New York Times, I believe that real controversies are yet to come, and moreover, the debates will not be focused on the differences between Sinology and sub-­Sinology, but between Sinology and China scholarship. I feel concerned that due to the interference of political factors, many scholarly issues that could be clarified through the exchange of ideas will be glossed over and the situation will further deteriorate from there.10

170   The political unconscious As Li Ling had predicted, political factors indeed gave rise to a huge scholarly storm. Although the project investigators expected criticisms, some Western scholars’ vehement responses to the project and its results took them by total surprise and stunned Chinese academia as a whole.11 Simply put, the responses outside China may be reduced to a value judgment: the project is not an academic endeavor but a gigantic political movement to shore up the legitimacy of the Chinese government and to promote nationalism and Chinese hegemony in the world. Shortly after the announcement of the project outcomes, Bruce Gilley, an American journalist, quoted Barry Sautman, a political scientist studying politics and ethnicity in China, as saying: “It should be a concern that Asia’s fastest­growing power is promoting this kind of nationalism . . . I’d see this project as more of a bad thing than a good thing.”12 Gilley himself reports even more alarming concerns and compared the project to the Japanese militarists’ use of invented history in the 1930s to justify imperialist expansion and aggression during World War II: That could have major implications for the future. Analysts worry that the study could provide volatile new fuel to a growing fire of ethnocentric nationalism in China that could result in a more belligerent foreign-­policy stance on issues such as Taiwan and China’s leadership role in Asia. The claims about the Xia are already being promoted in China as evidence of the country’s “sacred” past – a revealing echo of the claims Japan made in the 1930s about its own history, paving the way for its aggression in World War II.13 Gilley also quotes an anonymous but “prominent Western scholar of ancient China who has followed the project closely” as saying: “There is a tremendous emotional investment in the truth of a Chinese historical tradition in which China is the grandest, oldest and most glorious of nations.”14 There was no cited source to identify those in China who have the audacity to declare China to be the “the grandest, oldest and most glorious of nations.” If Gilley’s report, which obviously aims at newsworthy sensationalism, is not scholarly, some Western scholars of early China and history voiced passionate political criticism of the project. Among the criticisms a prominent one accuses the project of attempting to provide academic support to a nationalistic and even chauvinistic concept of a 6,000-year, unbroken, and homogenous history of China, which is meant to put China on a par with Egypt, Mesopotamia, and India. In the following section I will critically review the passionate reactions at the time (when the results of the project were formally announced), and examine the critical claims in relation to reliable scholarship to find out how an academic project became politicized, to what extent the criticisms are justified, and what caused the politicization. At the time of the project’s announcement a reporter from the New York Times interviewed a few American scholars of early Chinese history and subsequently published an account in the newspaper. Like the news report cited above, this report is not intended for scholars but for the general

The political unconscious   171 public. What merits our attention is the reporter’s account of two internationally renowned scholars’ responses to the project.15 One of the scholars interviewed by the newspaper’s reporter is reported to have rejected the academic nature of the project and described it as a political one with a chauvinistic agenda: “There’s a chauvinistic desire to push the historical record back into the third millennium bc, putting China on a par with Egypt,” reported the article. “It’s much more a political and a nationalistic urge than a scholarly one.”16 However, in one objective assessment of the project, Yun Kuen Lee, a scholar of Chinese archaeology and then an Assistant Professor of Anthropology at Harvard University, wrote: One of the major criticisms of the project is that it was clearly motivated by a new wave of nationalism in China. However, study of the past has an intrinsic relationship with contemporary politics all over the world. Nationalistic-­inspired studies of the past are not necessarily biased. I cannot find any indication that the chronology project ever tried to push back the dates of early Chinese civilization; all of the proposed dates have some reasonable supporting evidence, although the evidence is not always strong.17 This assessment forms a striking contrast with the political judgment. David S. Nivison, Emeritus Professor of Chinese Studies at Stanford University, adopted a similarly political value judgment of the project, dismissing it as a Chinese government project. About the dating of Chinese dynasties of high antiquity, he is reported as saying: “These are going to be seen as the dates pronounced to be correct by the Chinese government.”18 What an extraordinary evaluation of the work of 200 Chinese scholars! Moreover, he added that “international scholars were likely to tear the report ‘to pieces.’ ” One can find in these remarks a distinct note of intellectual Sinologism, for one can hear a voice loud and clear: that the Chinese scholars’ results do not count and must be authenticated and approved by Western scholars, who are the ultimate arbiters. Nivison’s reported criticism of the project outcomes was, according to the report, kindled by a personal grievance with regard to the dates of the Zhou conquest of the Shang. According to the news report, “he was outraged by the selection of 1046, which he said contradicted research he had submitted to the project. His favored date is 1040, but whoever is right, he says, insisting on a single date now is intellectually dishonest.” The last remark is certainly a sound opinion, but it ignores the tentativeness of the project report. Mr. Li Xueqin, the Project Director, is quoted as saying: “Our findings are, I believe, the best that can be obtained at present. That doesn’t mean there can’t be further progress.” Li himself points out that the close of the project does not mean that a definitive conclusion has been drawn; on the contrary, it only serves as the beginning of a new phase in the chronological study of the three dynasties.19 Li’s opinion is confirmed by Yun Kuen Lee’s review: “The project’s claim that the dates are the best dates given the presently available data is justifiable. It has definitely generated a chronological table that is more reliable than the previous chronological studies.”20

172   The political unconscious Li Xueqin reaffirmed the tentativeness of the dates at a much publicized panel organized by Yun Kuen Lee for the Association for Asian Studies Annual Meeting held in Washington DC between April 4 and April 7, 2002. The panel, titled “The Xia-­Shang-Zhou Chronology Project: Defense and Criticism,” was organized with the explicit purpose of tackling the controversy surrounding the project. It brought together the major scholars in the controversy, including Li Xueqin, David S. Nivison, and their colleagues.21 The panel was attended by a huge audience and I myself was among them, observing with my own eyes how the panel members presented their views on the project and exchanged their ideas. The panel adopted a format in which American scholars prepared a list of questions on the project and Li Xueqin and his colleagues answered them one by one. Although the atmosphere was somewhat tense, the audience was impressed with the defense of the project’s outcomes. The panel was strictly one of scholarly nature, free from political and ideological controversy. The project’s alleged intention to promote Chinese nationalism and chauvinism was not even mentioned, still less criticized. It was a surprise to me that the scholars who had criticized the alleged political and chauvinistic agendas of the chronology project did not make use of the opportunity to voice their political concerns. It is rather ironic that in politicizing an academic endeavor some scholars do not seem to have been conscious of how politicization of scholarship may hurt scholarship itself, and still less aware of their own scholarly chauvinism, a special form of Sinologism. In a paper presented to a meeting of the American Oriental Society–West Branch, at Boulder, Colorado, in October, 1997, Nivision practically said that he had single-­handedly clarified all the dating problems for the Xia-­Shang-Zhou Chronology Project and that his scholarship was more reliable than and superior to that of the Chinese team of over 200 specialists. According to his article he had written a book in 1995 (the result of 15 years of research) to solve the dating of an early Chinese text known as the Bamboo Annals. He confidently declared that he had solved the riddle and moreover, by using the reign lengths and dates in the Bamboo Annals as the basis of his analysis, had solved all the dating problems that the Xia-­Shang-Zhou Chronology Project had been commissioned to resolve: My book – I claim – solves all of the chronological problems addressed by the Chinese project, and more. I have an exact chronology of reigns from 1189 bc (my death date for Wu Ding) to 841 bc (year 1 of Gong He). I also put forward an exact chronology for earlier reigns, back to 2037 bc, encompassing all of Xia and Shang, and more.22 This case exemplifies the workings of the political unconscious in Sinologism. While it reverberates with cultural hegemony and scholarly chauvinism, its perpetrators were scarcely aware of them. The tone expressed in the dismissal of Chinese scholarship and self-­glorification sounds surprisingly confident. How can one man’s scholarship based on his study of a single document (whose authenticity has been subjected to ongoing controversy) be superior to that of a

The political unconscious   173 team of 200 serious scholars who employed multiple and interdisciplinary approaches to determine the chronology of Chinese antiquity? Unless one accepts the belief that all the project scholars were totally incompetent or the results were totally dictated by the Chinese government, there is no such a possibility. Given the present-­day openness of Chinese society there is zero possibility that the government dictates the results of scholarship, and the project participants were adamant about the conclusions “having been drawn fairly and cautiously, through a form of ‘academic democracy.’ ” To even contemplate that the government had decided the result in advance not only reveals vestiges of the Cold War mentality, but is also a great insult to the scholarly integrity of the 200 scholars participating in the project. The only factor that seemingly justifies those Western scholars’ criticism of the project is that it was commissioned by the Chinese government. Song Jian, a senior Chinese government official who oversaw science and technology policies in China, was the initiator of the project. In a booklet he recalled how he was embarassed during a trip to Egypt to see that Egyptian history had a precise chronology of its high antiquity, whereas Chinese high antiquity only had a vaguely imprecise chronology. To nurture Chinese people’s pride in their country’s history and culture, and to cultivate patriotic sentiments, he mustered enough support from within various ministries of the Chinese government to enable him to succeed in having the project included in the government’s ninth Five Year Plan.23 That a Chinese government official initiated and praised the project seemed to have given Western scholars the ammunition they needed to blast the project as political propaganda. As one Western journal article stated: When a Chinese official, Song Jian, was impressed by Egyptian royal genealogy during a trip to Egypt and called for the Xia-­Shang-Zhou Chronology Project to reconstruct an accurate timeframe for early Chinese history (Lee, 2002), this project was apparently a kind of political propaganda.24 I find very problematic the argument that because an academic project is initiated by a high-­ranking government official in charge of China’s science and education policies, its nature should be determined as political propaganda. It should be noted that Song Jian himself is an internationally renowned scientist who received his Ph.D. in engineering from a Russian university, won several prestigious national and international awards in the sciences, and is a foreign Fellow of several academies of science and engineering in the USA, Russia, Sweden, and elsewhere, in addition to being a Fellow of the Chinese Academy of Sciences and the Chinese Academy of Engineering. We know most scientific and educational projects in the US and Europe are funded by governments. Can we draw the conclusion that since they are funded by government money, they are political propaganda, not scholarship? Lu Xun, the father of modern Chinese literature, once made a remark about the difference between literature and propaganda: “All literature is propaganda, but not all propaganda is literature.” I want to vary Lu Xun’s remark by saying: “All scholarship is propaganda, but no

174   The political unconscious p­ ropaganda is scholarship.” The nature of an academic project should be determined by its content and research results, not by its sponsor or undertaker. Since all big projects in China are government sponsored, can we draw the conclusion that all scholarly projects in present-­day China are political propaganda, not scholarly endeavors? An affirmative conclusion would be ludicrous. The very fact that this kind of conclusion was drawn by some Western scholars and Western-­trained Chinese scholars demonstrates how profound an impact the sinologistic epistemology has exerted upon the mentality of China studies’ scholars, inside and outside China. History has been inextricably entangled with politics in the annals of humanity, especially in modern times. China is no exception. Two Western scholars, Diaz-­Andreu and Champion, after studying the development of archaeology, draw the convincing conclusion that archaeology as an academic discipline owes its rise to the appearance of nationalism, and that it has served as an effective tool in stimulating national pride and justifying racial, ethnic, and cultural biases and prejudices against other nations.25 One should make two distinctions. The first is a distinction between nationalist chauvinism and cultural pride. All nations or peoples are justified in taking pride in their history, tradition, cultural heritage, and achievements, but no nation or people can use their cultural heritage and historical achievements as the means to justify their cultural superiority and to discriminate against, oppress, persecute, and subjugate other nations and peoples. In modern history, Western nations made great cultural achievements in human civilization, and it is legitimate for them to take pride in their achievements. But since the sixteenth century Western imperialism and colonialism made use of these great cultural achievements to argue for Western cultural superiority and to justify Western domination in the form of a series of ideologies, which evolved from Kipling’s “white man’s burden” to Hilter’s fascist belief in “Aryan Superiority” – an ideology that eventually led to the Holocaust. If the Xia-­Shang-Zhou project had been used in ways that argued for the superiority of Chinese culture over other cultures, it should rightly be viewed as chauvinistic propaganda in need of condemnation. But so far there is no indication of this sort. The second distinction to be drawn is one between pure scholarship and politicized scholarship. Even if the Chinese government employs the project outcomes in chauvinistic propaganda, this cannot be used as evidence to argue against the scholarship of the project. After all, any scholarship can be put to political and ideological use. The crucial matter is that we should draw a line between scholarship and politics. The inevitable relationship between the study of the past and politics does not necessarily mean that the chronology project is but another form of the Chinese government’s political propaganda. Yun Kuen Lee makes a sensible observation when he points out that the unavoidable relationship between politics and study of the past does not justify the efforts to denounce the Chronology Project simply because it was motivated by national pride and funded by the Chinese government. According to his objective study of the project:

The political unconscious   175 In general, political interference in academic pursuits has become increasingly infrequent in the last two decades in China. My personal observation of the Xia-­Shang-Zhou Chronology Project is that governmental influence on the project was administrative rather than ideological.26 Moreover, his study shows that with government funding for the Chronology Project, radiocarbon laboratories in Beijing saw significant technological improvement, thereby making archeological dating of excavated materials more accurate and contributing to more precise research outcomes.27 It should be noted that when he wrote the article examining controversies surrounding the project, Yun Kuen Lee was a scholar in the Department of Anthropology at Harvard University. He was not insensitive to potential nationalistic sentiments in constructing a chronology for the three dynasties, but as he reiterated, scholarly objectivity was his first and foremost concern. In his article, Lee points out a most crucial matter: whether the Chinese government interfered with the operation and outcome of the project, and how the researchers were able to maintain scientific rigor and scholarly integrity.28 The Western scholars’ dismissal of the project holds that because of ideological interference and nationalism, Chinese scholars tend to extend the dating of Chinese antiquity further back into history than they should. James Cuno, for example, writes: Previously, the earliest date in Chinese history for which there is sufficient archeological and textual evidence had been 842 bc. Using new scientific analyses, Li’s project has established an earlier date of 1046 bc. But this is only a start. The Chronology Project is preparing for a new initiative on the origins of Chinese civilization, which it expects to be able to date much further back.29 The accusation has been denied by the project’s participants. In a strong refutation, the Project Leader insisted: “But this isn’t true. We just want to figure out how China developed. It’s no different from studying ancient Greece, or Egypt, or Israel.”30 This has been confirmed by Yun Kuen Lee, whose opinion I have already quoted above.31 Far from pushing dates further back into the past, there are several instances of the project revising the dating of historical events later than the historical records. In one prominent case Chinese scholars rejected three “firsts” in world history. One ancient Chinese historical document that had been accepted as historical evidence suggests that China was the first to record a solar eclipse, a solar eruption, and a moon eclipse. But Chinese scientists, using historical geography, astronomy, calendrical calculation, and other dating techniques, ruled out these three firsts. It is difficult to treat this result as promoting nationalism, for it deprives China of the honor of being the first to observe the solar eclipse, solar eruption, and moon eclipse in recorded human history. In their criticism of the Xia-­Shang-Zhou Chronology Project, some Western scholars scarcely seem to realize that it is they who have shifted their attention

176   The political unconscious from the objectivity of scholarly research and turned academic issues into political ones. Moreover, their criticism entails a logic like this: Chinese scholars and people should not celebrate their long history or take pride in their ancient heritage – if they do, even when they refer to hard facts authenticated by historical records, historical relics, and archeological discoveries, that would constitute nationalistic sentiment and should be condemned as chauvinistic expression. To vary one of Spivak’s central ideas: the Chinese as subalterns should not talk, even if they can talk. If they talk, then they should be chastised and rebuked. If they celebrate their cultural achievements, they should be reprimanded for showing nationalistic and chauvinist sentiments.

The irony of political unconscious Some Western scholars in China studies firmly believe in the politically motivated nature of any Chinese government sponsored academic projects and deplore the government’s hands in scholarly issues. David Nivison laments the government’s role in the Xia-­Shang-Zhou Chronology Project: “For the government of China to be in this position may poison scholarship for generations.” It seems that he is arguing for the separation of politics from academics. This is of course a laudable view. A separation of politics from scholarship, however, should require those who review the project to be concerned with these questions: did the Chinese government give any directives or prescribe an agenda that the research should follow? Did any government official force or encourage any researchers to adopt certain prescribed approaches or to confirm certain views? Did any researchers show signs of permitting ideology to interfere with their independent research work in the years of investigation? Is there any evidence that shows that the final outcome of the project has been tampered with by any government official or governmental agency? And last, but not least, does the outcome stand rigorous scrutiny by the commonly accepted standard of evaluation? To the doubters of the project, the above questions seem rather irrelevant. What is relevant is simply the fact that the project is financially supported with funds from the Chinese government. Given the fact that in China at that time (and still largely so) there are no independent educational foundations, and that the financial support from the government was the only available resource, the doubters’ position is akin to saying that all research projects that receive financial resources from the Chinese government are subject to government control and that their research outcomes are not to be trusted and therefore have no value. This kind of thinking has two major problems. First, it entails a corollary that since most first rate research universities in the US and in the West receive a large proportion of their research funds from government sources, their research results are not independently obtained and are also of doubtful value. Second, since this attitude confounds politics with scholarship, it is itself a politicization of scholarship, an outcome that they deplore and often condemn. Unwittingly, in their efforts to separate politics from scholarship, they have adopted a highly political approach to scholarship. This is a great irony: those who criticize political

The political unconscious   177 approaches to scholarship are deeply entangled in the politicization of scholarship. The irony reveals how deeply hidden the political unconscious is! The inner logic of politicization entails other ramifications and implications: because some scholars are of Chinese origin, their scholarship must be characterized by ethno-­ centrism or Sino-­centrism; because a research project is funded by the Chinese government, it is inevitably dominated by ideology and nationalism. James Cuno, the director of the Art Institute of Chicago, and a highly influential figure in the museum world in the US, follows this logic in his book Who Owns Antiquity? He, however, adopts a different way to question the credibility of the Chronology Project. In order to show that it is one dictated by a political agenda and motivated by nationalism and chauvinism, he adroitly presents Li Xueqin, the director of the project and a renowned scholar of early China, as a political agent of the Chinese government and even the military. His narrative begins with an anecdotal account of the political movements before and during the Cultural Revolution. It first narrates the story of Chen Mengjia, an American­trained Chinese scholar of ancient bronzes and writing, who was first attacked during the anti-­Rightist campaign of 1957, and later committed suicide during the Cultural Revolution. Then, Cuno shifts to Li Xueqin, a young scholar who once worked with Chen but turned against the latter by publishing an article in 1957, and denouncing Chen’s scholarly work on oracle bones. By stating that Chen committed suicide while “Li remains a major figure in Chinese archaeology and early history,”32 Cuno implied that Li played a role in the death of Chen. Then, Cuno relates Li’s role in the Xia-­Shang-Zhou Chronology Project and presents Li as head of an advisory committee to a private museum, which Cuno describes as having “ties to the People’s Liberation Army.” In the middle of the presentation, he sandwiches information on the Chronology Project. In order to show a semblance of fairness, he presents Li’s opposite view on the project. The way he presents both views, however, merits special attention. He first presents: “The project is controversial inside and outside China. While it funds important archaeological work, it is thought to be politically motivated and many of its conclusions are judged spurious at best.”33 Having presented the critical view, Cuno has to present Li’s refutation of the argument that he and his group were attempting to push back Chinese history for political reasons.34 Since he had already presented Li Xueqin as a scholar with a questionable past and as an agent of the Chinese government and the military, who would now believe what Li said? By linking Li Xueqin’s academic career to political movements in China, and to the Chinese military, Cuno scarcely hides his motive to discredit Li as a serious scholar of Chinese antiquity, and the Chronology Project as an academic venture. What an ingenious way to question the credibility of a scholar! What an effective way to discredit the project!

Geo-­cultural politics in the Olmec controversy I have already mentioned that in their criticism of Chinese scholars’ scholarship, some Western Sinologists openly divide scholars in the field into “insiders,”

178   The political unconscious which refers to Chinese scholars, and “outsiders” which refers to Western Sinologists. Moreover, they firmly believe that as outsiders they are superior to the Chinese insiders because they are located at a vantage point of outsiders, possessing a disinterested motive and detached attitude, free from the biases and prejudices of an insider. To a certain extent this claim may have an element of truth, as is testified in the Chinese saying: “An insider may be muddle-­headed while an outsider may be clear-­headed.” But when it comes to scholarship in a field where the roles of insiders and outsiders are reversed, Chinese outsiders do not possess any advantages or a favorable position. Moreover, if the Chinese “outsiders” dare to voice their opinions on a scholarly issue involving the Western “insiders,” they should be reprimanded for showing arrogance and chauvinism. Here, I will examine a case that is related to Sinology, with the aim to see how some Western scholars would respond to a scholarly issue when the roles of insiders and outsiders are reversed. This issue concerns the possible intercultural relationships between ancient China and native American civilizations. The Olmec civilization is the earliest known native civilization on the American continent. It is believed to have flourished in a historical period of 1200 bc–1000 bc, overlapping with the last phase of the Shang Dynasty in China. The origin of the Olmec civilization remains a subject of controversy, with two opposing views. While the dominant view held by independent inventionalists regards the civilization as arising independently on American native soil, another view held by diffusionists argues that the civilization originated from Europe, Asia, or Africa. In China, as early as the 1970s, some scholars became interested in the amazing similarities between ancient Chinese and native American artifacts and have since conducted elaborate comparative studies. Based on these studies they have produced a sizable number of scholarly articles and book-­ length studies.35 In 1996, Xu Hui, a Western-­trained young Chinese scholar, publicized his views on the origins of the Olmec civilization in America, based on Chinese scholars’ research results. The argument holds that about 3,000 years ago the Shang Dynasty was overthrown by King Wu of the Zhou Dynasty. A group of the defeated Shang people crossed the Pacific Ocean and arrived at the mid American continent and exerted an important impact upon the development of the Olmec civilization. Xu Hui’s article created an immediate stir and became sensational headline news, and was reported in major international media including US News and World Report, Chicago Sun-­Times, Atlantic Monthly, Discovery, National Geographic.com, ABCNews.com, the leading Japanese newspaper Yomiuri, the Xinhua News Agency in mainland China, and the leading magazine in Taiwan Taiwan Panorama. While most Chinese scholars in the field of high antiquity expressed an attitude of interest, appreciation, and encouragement, most American scholars in the field of archaeology expressed doubts, criticism, and downright dismissal. The view caused much controversy in the field because it challenged the Western mainstream view: that native Americans crossed the Bering Strait as emigrants from northeast Asia over 10,000 years ago, and then

The political unconscious   179 spread to all parts of North and South America, and that since then the Americas had been totally isolated from other parts of the world – and that before the arrival of Columbus native Americans developed their civilization independent of any other world civilization. Whether the challenging view is able to stand on solid ground is not a concern of mine in this study. As I have no expertise in Olmec civilization, I leave it to specialists in that field. I am interested in the topic for a few reasons related to my conception of Sinologism. First, the challenging view is supported by comparative study of the symbols found in Olmec relics and Chinese oracle bone inscriptions. The latter topic is a fond subject of study for Sinology. According to Chinese scholarship, Xu Hui’s view was not new; in fact it had been proposed and elaborately pursued by scholars in China as early as the 1980s. Second, the topic is directly related to the ongoing project of globalization. The interconnection of the Americas before Columbus’s time falls into the global subject of world system building. Third, by analyzing the passionate and sometimes emotional reaction of some American scholars to the challenging view, we can locate another dimension of Sinologism: the impact of geo-­cultural politics upon scholarship on China–West studies. Academically, it is perfectly understandable for the mainstream scholars in American archaeology and history to dispute the challenger’s view, because their disputation is only a natural reaction of scholars to defend their already produced views and scholarship. But what puzzles people is the emotional intensity and politicized attitudes of some American scholars. Michael D. Coe, a professor from Yale University and an authority on the Olmec civilization, not only dismisses the challenging view but also lodges a political charge against Xu Hui, reprimanding the latter for “insulting the Mexican natives.”36 What is of direct relevance to Sinologism is the strident tone of criticism by two Sinologists whose scholarly work is discussed elsewhere in this study. William Boltz, a professor of classical Chinese at the University of Washington, examined Xu Hui’s comparative deciphering of Olmec symbols and Chinese Shang oracle bone inscriptions and dismissed Xu’s readings as “rubbish.” Robert Bagley, professor of Chinese art specializing in Chinese bronze vessels, wrote in an email to an interviewer of Xu Hui, that the challenging view could be dismissed as one of the “silliest theories,” and that it was the “work of crank” on which one should not waste time. Among the critics, Coe seems less impassioned and admits that it is not impossible for ancient civilizations and American civilization to have interconnected, but that the evidence in support of the challenger’s view is superficial and unconvincing. Although other scholars questioned Coe’s hasty dismissal by raising the question of whether he understands ancient Chinese scripts, nevertheless, his kind of criticism is fair enough and still falls within the scope of scholarship. But Coe’s accusation of the challenging view as “racist” is wide of the mark. The accusation turns a scholarly issue into a racial issue, which inevitably becomes a political issue. An overt politicization of an academic controversy is found in William Boltz’s criticism as well. He thinks that the challenging view was advanced in order to “satisfy their (Chinese scholars’) national

180   The political unconscious pride.” Bagley did not provide detailed criticism, but his dismissive attitude is no surprise. What surprises me is that now his view on the advantages of “outsiders” no longer applies. The passionate reaction by Western scholars reveals a deep-­seated epistemological problem in Western scholarship. In Xu Hui’s interview with a newspaper reporter he said that he did not insist on the correctness of his view and that his main purpose was to let American scholars see evidence of the possible cultural exchanges in high antiquity between two ancient civilizations and to make connections between Chinese scholars and American scholars. But American scholars refused to look at the evidence, nor did they think they needed to look, still less have any desire to look, because they had already formed their conclusion: Native American civilization was independently formed, free from any outside influence. Even if there was any influence, it was negligible, or it may have been fabricated.37 These American scholars’ refusal to engage in scholarly exchanges in the field of Native American Studies is the same as that of some Sinologists who declined to exchange ideas with their Chinese counterparts. Their refusal reflects a colonialist attitude: Western scholars, endowed with their Western identity and superiority, are the subjects who are destined to study the colonial others who form their objects of study.

Neo-­colonialist apology The intention of those who criticize the Xia-­Shang-Zhou Chronology Project may have been aimed at separating politics from scholarship, but the outcome is just the opposite: a highly politicized approach to scholarship. This gives rise to a phenomenon that may be called “apolitical politicization.” It is a phenomenon easily found in produced knowledge about China. In the following section I will demonstrate that some Western scholars, in their original intention to decouple politics from scholarship, have unwittingly committed political acts of politicization for advancing their highly political agendas. What is more ironic is that in their accusation of non-­Western people’s “political” moves in scholarly investigations, they articulate their own ideological motives. In the colonial age numerous historical sites of formerly colonies were pillaged, and numerous objects of antiquity stolen or looted; ending up in Western museums. Since the start of decolonization, former colonies have been pressing for the return of their national relics to their homeland. There has been a protracted contention between Western museums and former colonies for the ownership of those objects. In a recently published book, Who Owns Antiquity?, James Cuno attempts to answer the question of who owns cultural relics that were stolen or plundered from former colonies but are now preserved in Western museums. With the seemingly idealistic rhetoric of preserving humanity’s common legacy, he proposes that: “We should all work together to counter the nationalist basis of national laws and international conventions and agreements and promote a principle of shared stewardship of our common heritage.”38 His universalist, humanistic, approach to the world’s shared cultural treasures sounds

The political unconscious   181 extremely noble and laudable, but after one reads the book one finds that under the cloak of noble claims there is a scarcely hidden aim to safeguard the colonialist legacy by using the strategy of arguing against nationalism. He argues that modern nation states have at best a tenuous connection with the ancient cultures in question, and their interest in antiques is politically rather than scholarly motivated. He criticizes what he views as narrow-­minded “nationalist retentionist cultural property laws” sanctioned by UNESCO, and advocates a proposal, which is tantamount to a conclusion that those cultural relics should stay in Western museums.39 To be fair, Cuno’s proposal is not without its merits in its advocacy of the establishment of an international trusteeship under the auspices of a non-­governmental agency, but his highly political approach to the preservation of cultural relics reveals its true motives and agendas. His vehement argument against “nationalist retentionist cultural property laws” is based on his understanding that these laws are frequently used by nation states for political motives, but his book is one dominated by just such a political agenda, and displays only rudimentary knowledge of other cultural traditions. In the chapters and sections relating to Chinese cultural relics, his political agenda is reflected in his own statement: I argued against the Chinese request before the U.S. State Department’s Cultural Property Advisory Committee in the spring of 2005. The Chinese request included, but was not limited to, all metal, ceramic, stone, painting and calligraphy, textile, lacquer, bone, ivory, and horn objects from the Paleolithic period to the Qing dynasty – in other words, millennia of human artistic production within the geographic area of today’s Chinese borders. The request stated that the pillaging and smuggling of cultural artifacts (it did not distinguish between archaeological and cultural ones) is rampant and destructive to Chinese heritage. . . . I argued before the CPAC that the Chinese request was really an attempt to have the U.S. government help enforce China’s nationalist rententionist cultural property laws.40 In keeping with this political motive are a host of politically oriented ideas, views, biases, and story-­telling. Throughout his book there is little condemnation or even mild criticism of Western cultural colonialists and the bandits who stole and looted the cultural relics of former colonies. It is full of whitewashing efforts that have practically turned looters of other traditions’ cultural artifacts into heroes that saved that cultural heritage for all humanity. I will only examine a few blatant examples. I begin with Cuno’s account of Langdon Warner (1881–1955), an art historian and professor at Harvard University, and a controversial figure in the history of art, and archaeology. His work in China in particular has aroused heated controversy among art historians. He has been viewed, on the one hand, as a pillager of Asian historical sites and artwork, and on the other as an Indiana Jones-­type hero who acted to save valuable art of Asian civilizations for posterity. In Cuno’s book, he discusses Warner’s expedition to Dunhuang in 1924, and its legacy. According to his account Warner found evidence

182   The political unconscious of vandalism by exiled Russian soldiers fleeing the Bolshevik Revolution in 1917. He negotiated with the local people to purchase and remove frescoes so as to preserve them in an American museum. But the fact is that Warner brought with him a special chemical solution for detaching wall paintings, with which he peeled a dozen Tang dynasty masterpieces from four caves. The removal process not only destroyed the frescoes but also caused damage to the site itself. Ironically, Warner’s destructive damage greatly surpassed the vandalism by Russian soldiers who were tentatively detained there. According to one scholar “several of the wall paintings were so damaged by Warner’s removal method that they could no longer be exhibited.”41 The murals he removed are preserved at the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston. Today the caves damaged by Warner are sites that testify to the Chinese view that the Americans pillaged their heritage and the removed murals should be returned.42 Even some members of Warner’s family have requested that the Museum return the pieces to their Dunhuang caves home. In Cuno’s book, however, Langdon Warner is sympathetically portrayed: Langdon Warner, the Harvard professor of Chinese art, traveled to Dunhuang in 1924 on an expedition precisely to retrieve for Harvard an example of the art from the Mogao caves. . . . While at the caves, Warner negotiated for the purchase of a Tang dynasty, painted stucco sculpture of a kneeling, attendant bodhisattava from Cave 329. He would also remove, rather awkwardly, some painted wall fragments.43 We should pay attention to Cuno’s carefully chosen words. Langdon is portrayed as going to “retrieve an example of art” from a cave that had nothing to do with Harvard as though he was going to take back a piece of art originally belonging to Harvard University. Warner was not destroying Dunhuang treasures using a destructive method that would be condemned today by archaeologists worldwide; no, he was only “awkwardly” removing “some fragments.” But the hard fact is that Warner removed 26 murals using the chemical. As for Wang Yuanlu, the Chinese Daoist who accidentally discovered a hidden cache of ancient manuscripts and was deceived into selling Dunhuang treasures to Stein and Pelliot at dirt-­cheap prices for selfish motives, the description reads: “We broke to see a small out building with photographic displays documenting the history of the caves, the noble work of the Daoist abbot Wang Yuanlu, and the ‘discovery’ of the caves and their contents by Stein and Pelliot.” With these magic words, Wang Yuanlu’s ignoble act becomes noble; and the cultural pillage by Stein and Pelliot reaches the respectable status of a “discovery” on a par with Columbus’ discovery of America. According to his own narrative Cuno taught art courses to American college students using the Chinese sculpture of a bodhisattava that Warner removed from the Dunhuang cave. Often students would voice the opinion that it was inappropriate for the statue to be kept at Harvard. Cuno tried to neutralize this line of questioning with a series of spurious questions of his own, questions

The political unconscious   183 c­ hallenging China’s right to the statue and to other cultural relics plundered from China. Here I will only quote a few of them. One of them reads: Why do the Chinese claim the Mogao caves and their contents as Chinese cultural property, when for many of the centuries since the caves’s founding, the political authority of China did not extend as far as Dunhuang and where in addition to Han Chinese culture one finds evidence of Tibetan, Uighur, and Khotanese cultures?44 The facetious logic is comparable to that of someone declaring that because the modern day countries of the North and South American continents were not established until a few hundred years ago, they have no right to the cultural heritage created by Native American Indians. Moreover, he completely ignores the historical fact that Dunhuang has consistently been under the jurisdiction of various Chinese dynasties, established by various ethnic groups. There are even more childish questions: “Does everyone in the People’s Republic of China agree with what is said to be Chinese culture?” And some other questions follow a different logic: because Chinese themselves destroyed many Chinese cultural relics during the Cultural Revolution, they have no right to such cultural heritage. What is most deplorable is that Cuno even resorts to downright ethnic politics to advance his argument: “In every respect but politically, China is multi-­cultural. Politically, China is Han Chinese. What does this mean for its cultural property laws and attitudes toward ‘Chinese’ antiquities?”45 Cuno’s overt political agenda is revealed in this question: “In both the far west and the far east of China today, one is surrounded by cultural objects. But are they equally Chinese? That is the question.”46 Cuno admits that “any simple answer only cheapens our understanding of China and Chinese culture,” but throughout his book, he conveys an implicit answer: [W]hen antiquities are counted as cultural property – Western Zhou bronzes together with Qing dynasty bronzes – they are being used for the same purpose: to legitimize the current government by reference to an ancient Chinese culture, as if the People’s Republic of China were the rightful, indeed natural, heir to Chinese dynasties of millennia past.47 If Cuno’s argument against the Chinese people’s right to antiquities from the territories of China is made with high sounding rhetoric (“Antiquities are the cultural property of all humankind”), at times he does not even need that cloak and comes out into the open to criticize China’s efforts to recover, and even buy back, those cultural relics looted by invading foreign troops. Yuanmingyuan, also called the “Old Summer Palace,” or “the Imperial Gardens,” was a large complex of palaces and gardens, built by the rulers of China’s last dynasty. But it was destroyed and looted by invading soldiers from a coalition of eight imperialist countries. It was plundered and burned twice, first in 1860, during the Second Opium War, and the destruction was completed in 1900. When news of

184   The political unconscious the first looting reached Europe, it was condemned by Europeans with a conscience. Victor Hugo, the French writer, wrote in his “Expédition de Chine”: “Two robbers breaking into a museum, devastating, looting and burning, leaving laughing hand-­in-hand with their bags full of treasures; one of the robbers is called France and the other Britain.”48 In one of his letters Hugo expressed the hope that one day France would feel guilty and return what it had plundered from China.49 In Cuno’s book he mentions the destruction of Yuanmingyuan, but his position contrasts sharply with that of Hugo, and even with his own position when he condemns the “senseless destruction” of the Bamiyan Buddha by the Taliban and the pillage of the Kabul’s Museum’s collection. There is no condemnation of the destruction and looting of the palace; nor is there any hint at a return of the looted Chinese objects. Instead one reads his criticism of China’s State Bureau of Cultural Relics and of a museum for buying back the looted relics at international auctions. He views the buying back as politically motivated efforts at promoting Chinese nationalism.50 At this point Cuno’s politics is fully revealed. The destruction of Yuanmingyuan is still widely regarded by the Chinese as a vivid symbol of imperialist aggression and national humiliation, and by other peoples as an epitome of barbaric crimes committed by imperialism. Cuno’s criticism of China’s efforts to buy back looted relics would inevitably be viewed by the Chinese and others as a defense of colonialism and imperialism, even though he argues in favour of the high sounding rhetoric of keeping cultural relics for all humanity. The same could be said of his argument concerning cultural relics looted from other Third World countries. A most eloquent justification for Westerners to collect, remove, and even pillage cultural artifacts from colonized countries in the early twentieth century was the assertion that “significant cultural heritage was best preserved within Western institutions where it could be physically secured, scientifically studied, and suitably admired for its aesthetic characteristics.”51 But behind this assertion is a politically motivated purpose of strengthening Western superiority and justifying colonial hegemony. Some Western scholars have already published convincing accounts of how European and American looting and collection of Chinese cultural objects, and the accompanying destruction of historical sites, serve as a means of asserting Western cultural superiority and justifying the civilizing mission of the West.52 Other scholars have extensively discussed how much power European and American museums wield in constructing, generating, and determining the nature and condition of a culture or nation through their possession of that culture’s relics.53 This kind of scholarship exemplifies a practice that puts scholarship to political use, and should be condemned. One would imagine that since the process of decolonization started after World War II, and especially after former colonies established their own museums and apparatuses for the preservation of cultural relics, a colonialist apology in the form of above-­mentioned assertions had all disappeared in the present age of postcolonialism, but little did one expect to find in Cuno’s recent book (published in 2008) a different sort of colonial apologist who uses the

The political unconscious   185 political rhetoric of anti-­nationalism to whitewash or even justify the heinous plunder of cultural treasures of Third World nations, and the refusal of Western museums to return looted cultural artifacts. Cuno is justified in criticizing some nations’ tenuous claims to ownership of certain cultural relics, but he deliberately mixes cultural relics of known and unknown origins, and completely overlooks the role a nation state plays in protecting cultural relics for the whole of humanity. The large-­scale pillage of museums in Iraq, and the Taliban’s destruction of cultural relics, are precisely the consequences of a collapsed nation state. Cuno’s proposed approach to antiquities is utopian at best because it confounds humanity’s common heritage with ownership. Idealistically, cultural relics are the common wealth of the whole of humanity, but realistically their ownership cannot be shared by all, in the same way as Cuno’s ownership of a piece of antiquity (if he has one) cannot be shared by others. While I admire the seemingly noble intention of his proposal, I consider it as impractical as calling on Microsoft and other high-­tech companies to abandon their property rights to software and other inventions. Moreover, the utopian proposal hides behind and beneath its anti-­nationalist rhetoric a neo-­colonialist apology in the age of postcolonialism. In a way, his kind of anti-­nationalism may be viewed as “reverse nationalism.”

Beyond politicization of scholarship My critical analysis of the issues in this chapter should offer some insights into the political dimension of Sinologism: the more one tries to decouple politics from scholarship using a political approach, the more seriously scholarship is adversely affected by politics. Just as it is not right to counter Orientalism with Occidentalism; so it is not proper to counter politicization of scholarship with a political approach. We ought to adopt a simple and commonsense approach to depoliticization: scholarship is scholarship; politics is politics, be it real-­politik, or ethnic politics. We should never mix the two categories together. In knowledge production about China, all scholars, Chinese and non-­Chinese, are having their own versions of ideological unconscious, which adversely affect truly scientific and objective production of knowledge. While engaged in knowledge production about a civilization, no one should think that he or she is free from a definite form of political unconsciousness, and therefore everyone should be on guard against the conscious and unconscious interference of ideologies within their work. Only with a keen awareness of the pervasive presence of a certain political ideology can we hope to keep the interference of political unconsciousness to a minimum. In the foregoing analysis I have demonstrated that politicization in Sinologism has a great deal to do with ethnic traditions in Sinology. In a seminal article, “New Ethnicities,” Stuart Hall argues that we are all ethnically located and that our ethnic identities are crucial to our sense of self. In his discussion of ethnic differences, while recognizing ethnicity as a contested category, he offers the notion of new ethnicity with some meaningful and credible implications. He suggests:

186   The political unconscious We still have a great deal of work to do to decouple ethnicity, as it functions in the dominant discourse, from its equivalence with nationalism, imperialism, racism and the state. . . . What is involved is the splitting of the notion of ethnicity between, on the one hand the dominant notion which connects it to nation and ‘race’ and on the other hand what I think is the beginning of a positive conception of the ethnicity of the margins, of the periphery.54 In a like manner, China–West studies have a long way to go before they can detach themselves from nation state, nationalism, government intervention, and other issues of real-­politics, and rid themselves of the adverse impact of scholars’ own race, ethnic origins and political unconscious upon their scholarship. In the West, prejudices and discrimination against colored people necessitated the concept of political correctness and a call for color blindness in consideration of issues related to race and ethnicity. In our approach to scholarship production about China and the West we need to adopt a similarly ethnic blind approach: the value of scholarship should be measured on its own strengths irrespective of the ethnic origin of its producers. For this purpose we need to desensitize awareness of a scholar’s ethnicity and intensify the necessity of scholarly objectivity in producing and evaluating knowledge about China and the West, even though it is impossible to totally separate scholarship from politics. Despite his pessimism regarding academic freedom from political and ideological interferences, Li Ling expresses a positive hope: I hope that one day our scholarship can extricate itself from the terrible curse of [political] nightmares. Whether writing in English or Chinese, ­everyone will voice his or her opinions on the strength of scholarship only, and on an equal footing.55 This fond hope, I believe, is not too utopian to be realizable.

8 Linguistic Sinologism

Sinology is most intimately concerned with Chinese language, both classical and modern. Sinologists have turned out a vast array of ideas, views, and arguments on Chinese language and writing. The dazzling variety is characterized by a unifying logic that fits into my conception of Sinologism: conditions of Chinese language are to be investigated from the Western linguistic point of view and the nature of Chinese writing is to be determined in terms of Western alphabetic languages. Not many have investigated the problems from the Chinese perspective and scholars who study Chinese language on its own terms, Chinese and Western, are generally dismissed or ignored. This chapter attempts to probe the conditions of Sinologism in language studies. I will re-­examine the enduring controversy over the nature of Chinese language, especially writing, with the aim of seeing how scholarly issues may develop into discourse wars, which underlie the deep structure of Sinologism, and how phonocentrism and logo-­ centrism in Western metaphysics have evolved into a logic of the linguistic unconscious that dominates studies of Chinese language.

Sinologism and phonocentrism Chinese culture and civilization have been viewed by more than a handful scholars as fundamentally different to their Western counterparts. The root cause of the difference has often been traced to the difference in language and writing, which has been further narrowed down to the nature of the written sign. The difference of the written sign has, since medieval times, been viewed as a conceptual divide that separates Chinese and Western Languages. This view seems to find support in linguistic science. In his Course in General Linguistics, Ferdinand de Saussure divided world’s languages into two large groups: the ideographic system and the phonetic system.1 Identifying Chinese as an ideographic system of language,2 he further pointed out that in an ideographic system, “each written sign stands for a whole word and, consequently, for the idea expressed by the word.” Saussure was a clear-­headed theorist who knew where his strengths lay, and when he should stop. He limited his linguistic study to the phonetic system and Western alphabetic languages. Saussure considered Chinese writing as having a graphic quality that makes the substitution absolute. In a

188   Linguistic Sinologism subtle way he implied that the Chinese written sign has a visual quality that sets it apart from phonetic systems of writing.3 On this subtle point Western scholars engaged in a dispute that totally overlooked the true nature of Chinese writing. On one side, the visual element was exaggerated by Fenollosa, Pound, and others, into a much-­disputed “pictorial nature” of the Chinese written sign.4 On the opposite side, a group of Sinologists totally deny not only the visual quality of Chinese writing, but also the semantically based nature of Chinese written signs, arguing that Chinese writing has the same nature, and functions in the same way, as alphabetic languages. In praising the pictorial quality of Chinese characters, Fenollosa and Pound look rather quixotic and somewhat whimsical. Because of their insufficient knowledge of Chinese language they often distorted the real conditions of Chinese characters and came to erroneous conclusions. In dismissing their quixotic views, some Sinologists went to the other extreme and totally ignored the characteristics of Chinese writing that are different from those of alphabetic language. Thus, they have committed another form of distortion and fallen under the influence of Western metaphysics. Western metaphysics since Plato has conceived the functional relationship between thought and language in terms of a hierarchical order: language is an expression of thought, and writing is a recording of language that is uttered in sound. Because speech is only once removed from thought, it is privileged over writing. This is what has been criticized by Jacques Derrida as “phonocentrisim;” the idea that spoken language is inherently superior to, or “more natural” than, written language and sign language. Phono-­centrism is a form of logo-­centrism in Western metaphysics, which privileges presence over absence. Adherents of phonocentrisim believe that spoken language is the primary, fundamental, way of communicating, and writing is merely a “second-­rate” attempt to capture speech. Although most Sinologists may not have accepted phonocentrism or logo-­centrism, their views on the nature of Chinese language and writing correspond pretty well with ideas of phonocentrism and logo-­centrism. Under the influence of Western metaphysics and linguistic theories that emphasize the primacy of sound, many Sinologists not only deny any visual quality to the Chinese written words, and reject the ideographic nature of Chinese characters, but also go so far as to declare that Chinese is a phonetic system of writing. Du Ponceau may be the first Western thinker to argue against the ideographic nature of Chinese writing. In his argument he raised a question that is based on Western phonocentrism and logo-­centrism: which came first, writing or language? This is a chicken–egg question that can never be satisfactorily answered because it depends on what constitutes writing symbols. If we count the cave paintings of primitive peoples as early writing symbols, writing might have preceded language as a system. Moreover, there is the possibility that spoken words and writing symbols arose and developed simultaneously in the remote past. Giambattista Vico, a philosopher and philologist who spent his whole scholarly career studying language and culture, is a proponent of this view. Based on long-­term and arduous philological research, he advances the

Linguistic Sinologism   189 idea that the first human language was mute and consisted of gestures and symbols: For speech was born in the mute age as a mental language, which Strabo in a golden passage says existed before any spoken or articulated languages: this is why in Greek logos means both word and idea. . . . [T]he first language employed by the nations in their mute age must have originated with signs, gestures, or physical objects which had a natural relation to the ideas expressed.5 He therefore argues for the simultaneous appearance of language and writing in his magna opus, New Science, and resolutely repudiates scholars who hold different opinions. He states: “The unfortunate reason for their error is obvious: they simply assumed that nations developed languages first, and then letters. Yet languages and letters were born as twins and developed at the same pace through all three kinds.”6 As I will show later on, some Chinese scholars hold similar views. Du Ponceau seemed unaware of Vico’s view. In asking a loaded question, he meant to turn the ideographic view of Chinese writing into an indefensible fallacy that “a language was invented to suit the written characters after they were formed.”7 With the question and implied answer, Du Ponceau seemed to think that he had completely disputed the ideographic view. Among the most vocal contemporary supporters of Du Ponceau’s view are Peter Boodburg, John DeFancis, and William Boltz. Boodberg, a renowned Sinologist, insisted on seeing Chinese writing as not any different from Western languages.8 Although a few clear-­headed Western scholars of Chinese philosophy like Creel and Hansen insist on the correctness of the ideographic view of Chinese writing,9 they constitute a minority in sinological circles, and their views are dismissed as belonging to the same quixotic group of scholars that includes Fenollosa and Pound. As recently as 1995, William Hannas declared in no uncertain terms: We can dismiss the fanciful notion that the units are icons of objects and concepts in the real and psychological worlds, i.e., that the symbols are pictographic. We also reject the untenable assumption that Chinese characters are “ideographic,” that is, relate to meaning directly without the intervention of language.10

Revisiting an old controversy Concerning the nature of Chinese language, there are basically two opposing views: while one views Chinese as a distinctive language with unique features alien to alphabetic languages, the other views Chinese as essentially the same as all other languages. These diametrically opposite views emanate from two opposing views on the nature of Chinese writing. One view argues that Chinese writing is a pictographic or ideographic language whose linguistic symbols

190   Linguistic Sinologism r­ epresent ideas or things. This is an age-­old view that can be traced to medieval times. A number of prestigious philosophers, linguists, and writers, including G. W. Leibniz, G. W. F. Hegel, A. V. Humboldt, Saussure, Fenollosa, Pound, and others, either adopted or favored this view. The other view rejects this characterization of Chinese, criticizing it as a silly and intolerable misrepresentation, and asserting that Chinese writing is basically the same as that of other languages: a phonetic system of writing. Here I would just quote a few of the most vocal scholars in the debate. John DeFrancis, a noted Sinologist, dismisses the “ideographic” view of Chinese as a myth in his book-­length study of 1984.11 In 1989 DeFrancis reiterated his view: It is simply intolerable that Chinese writing continues to be misrepresented as “pictographic,” a level of intellectual muddle-­headedness on a par with discoursing about astronomy in terms of astrology. It is also intolerable that the nature of writing – of all writing – continues to be misunderstood in large part because of the misrepresentation of Chinese.12 To clinch his argument he declares: “It should be apparent that there is much justification for considering the Chinese script to be basically – that is, more than anything else – a phonetic system of writing” [italics mine].13 William Boltz, another scholar of ancient Chinese, accepts Du Ponceau’s view wholeheartedly, and states in his review article of DeFancis’s book: [T]he old drawing-­room favorites about the quaintly quixotic and “ideographic” nature of Chinese character are so much eyewash, and can no longer be countenanced. . . . Silly and untenable notions about the Chinese script are not limited, regrettably, to the bemused proposals of the “ideographs” of the 1930s.14 Their argument against the ideographic view has, in turn, been subjected to criticism. Chad Hansen, a scholar of Chinese language philosophy, cannot understand why the ideographic view of Chinese writing has been subjected to relentless attack.15 He launches a counter-­attack and mounts a rigorous defense of the “ideographic” view in an article published in the Journal of Asian Studies in 1993: “[T]he ideographic character of Chinese explains a sound insight found in the Chinese view of language. We have good reason, therefore, to reject this prohibitionist analysis of ‘ideograph’ and to continue to call Chinese language ‘ideographic.”16 In correspondence published in the following issue of Journal of Asian Studies, J. Marshall Unger expressed his dismay that a serious journal should have published Hansen’s article, and dismissed the latter’s claim that “Chinese characters are ideograms” as on a par with “scientific creationism.”17 In his reply, Hansen criticizes Unger and those who advocate the scrapping of the use of ideograph as “prohibitionists.”18 This recent debate is in fact a revival of a heated debate between two renowned Sinologists, Herrlee Creel and Peter Boodberg, in the late 1930s.19

Linguistic Sinologism   191 Despite the differences, the recent debate and its precursor are essentially overshadowed and determined by still another older debate over the nature of Chinese language; between the detractors who view Chinese as an inferior language, and the upholders of Chinese as a language richer than Western alphabetical languages. In the ranks of the detractors are found such venerable Western philosophers and linguists as G. W. F. Hegel, A. V. Humboldt, Friedrich Schlegel, F. Bopp, A. Schleicher, H. Humphreys, and W. A. Mason. Among the upholders, there are G. W. Leibniz, Athanase Kircher, John Wilkins, Ernest Fenollosa, Ezra Pound, and Ernest Cassirer. We may even include Derrida in the rank of defenders.20 The shadow of the older debate is clearly visible in the background of the 1930 debate. Creel, who started the debate, expressed in no uncertain terms that his purpose was to correct the Western prejudice with regard to the ideographic nature of Chinese: It is a further and even more curious fact that we Occidentals have come, by long habitude, to think that any method of writing which consists merely of a graphic representation of thought, but which is not primarily a system for the graphic notation of some sounds, in some way falls short of what writing was foreordained to be, is not indeed writing in the full sense of the word.21 In Creel’s statement we can hear a distinctive note that anticipates Derrida’s deconstruction of phonocentric and logo-­centric views of writing.

Sinologistic approaches to Chinese writing The controversy over the nature of Chinese writing is a topic that has no conclusion and will be revisited again and again. A most recent revisit occurred in late 2009.22 What merits our attention in the debates, present and past, is the fact that many Western scholars adopt the Orientalist approach employed by many Western anthropologists in colonial times – anthropologists who, armed with ideas formulated in the West, imposed their ideas on native materials while ignoring the nature and cultural conditions of a tradition. In the scholarly war over the nature of Chinese writing, while the two sides are engaged in earnest battle, the Chinese scholars are onlookers whose views are almost completely ignored except by one or two philosophy scholars. What fits into my conception of Sinologism is that Chinese language has been used as either an exotic foil, or an alien frame of reference, for Western thinkers in their investigation of the nature of European languages in particular, and world languages in general. Moreover, their investigations were conducted in terms of certain political, intellectual, or academic agendas. In history, studies of Chinese language first served as an instrument to advance a utopian idea that attempted to promote Chinese language as a universal written language. In their early encounters with Japanese, Koreans, Vietnamese, and other peoples of Asian and Southeastern countries, Western missionaries and scholars found that those peoples, despite the fact they did not

192   Linguistic Sinologism understand Chinese language, could nevertheless read books written in Chinese characters. This phenomenon made them believe that Chinese writing was a system that employed an ocular method of communication, which, entirely independent of speech and without the intervention of words, conveyed ideas directly through the sense of vision to the mind. As a result of this belief the nature of Chinese language was decided to be “ideographic” in contradistinction to “phonographic” or alphabetical European languages. This belief naturally led to the conviction that Chinese writing was a universal writing system which might be promoted and used by all peoples on earth who could read books written in Chinese ideograms; in much the same way that numerical figures or algebraic signs might be considered universal to Western script. Some missionaries even believed that the Chinese language should be promoted throughout the world, and that the Bible should be translated into Chinese so that people all over the world could read it without the need to learn spoken Chinese. The utopian perception of Chinese as a universal language has proved to be wrong, but a concept-­script view of Chinese writing survived. It was believed that, in contradistinction to Western alphabetic languages whose aim is to imitate/record speech, Chinese language is one using ideograms to represent ideas; hence the basis of Chinese is a script that represents meaning, rather than the dominance of sound within alphabetic language. This concept-­script view is derived from the traditional Chinese view, and has a long history in the West. Its earliest articulation may be traced back to the seventeenth century. Francis Bacon, the English philosopher, may have expressed the earliest concept-­script view of Chinese writing in the West.23 Bacon’s idea was further extended by missionaries who went to and stayed in China and had direct contact with Chinese language. Father Cibot, a French missionary who stayed in Peking, published a controversial essay in the first volume of the Mémores concernant les Chinois, which proposed in effect an ideographic and pictographic view of Chinese writing: The Chinese characters are composed of symbols and images, unconnected with any sound, and which may be read in all languages. They form a kind of intellectual, algebraical, metaphysical and ideal painting, which express thoughts, and represents them by analogy, by relation, by convention.24 Since the fifteenth century, and until modern times, this idea had developed into an exotic view that unlike other writing systems, Chinese characters resemble mathematical symbols and represent directly ideas and concepts and only incidentally represent pronunciations. This view was taken seriously even by well-­ known linguistic theorists. In his study of the relationship between language and intellectual development (1836), Wilhelm von Humboldt, the German linguistic philosopher, refined the exotic view into a philosophically rigorous observation: “Nobody can deny that the old style Chinese reveals . . . a simple grandeur because, by discarding all useless secondary designations, it seems to take recourse in depicting pure thought via language.”25

Linguistic Sinologism   193 About the same time, however, an entirely different view concerning the nature of Chinese language started to emerge, and has eventually developed into a movement nowadays. In a letter to Captain Basil Hall, dated July 7, 1828, Peter S. Du Ponceau, president of the American Philosophical Society, described how he came upon the ideographic view of Chinese, became skeptical, engaged in rigorous investigation, and finally began to dispute it through logical and linguistic analysis.26 He later published his findings as A Dissertation on the Nature and Character of the Chinese System of Writing in 1838, which appeared as a volume of the Transcriptions of the Historical and Literary Committee of the American Philosophical Society. In his treatise he argues that the concept-­script premise of Chinese is a misconception based on inadequate knowledge of Chinese language, that it cannot stand close scrutiny, and that a purely ideographical language independent of speech cannot exist. The Chinese system of writing, like all languages in the world, can be nothing less than “a servile representation of the spoken language, as far as visible signs can be made to represent audible sounds.” In his letter to Captain Basil Hall, he succinctly sums up the basis of his argument: Chinese characters represent the words of the language, and are intended to awaken the remembrance of them in the mind, they are not therefore independent of sounds, for words are sounds. It makes no difference whether those sounds are simple and elementary, as those which our letters represent, or whether they are compounded from two or three of those elements into a syllable. There are syllabic alphabets, like that of the Sanskrit and other languages, and it has never been contended that they do not represent sounds. And it makes no difference that the Chinese syllables are also words, for that does not make them lose their character of sounds. But, on account of this difference, I would not call the Chinese characters a syllabic, but a logographic system of writing. This being the case, it seems necessarily to follow, that as the Chinese characters are in direct connexion with the Chinese spoken words, they can only be read and understood by those who are familiar with the oral language.27 Du Ponceau’s criticism of the exaggerated total separation of speech from Chinese writing is certainly reasonable, but his criticism of Chinese script as ideographic (that is, it represents ideas and things) in nature is not convincing; even less so are his view that Chinese characters represent sounds in the same way as alphabetic languages, and his insistence that “it is impossible that the Chinese character should be understood, unless the spoken language of China be understood at the same time.” On practical grounds I find unconvincing his argument that “if the Chinese writing is read and understood in various countries in the vicinity of China, it is not in consequence of its supposed ideographic character; but either because the Chinese is also the language or one of the languages of the country, or because it is learned, and the meaning of the characters is acquired, through the words which they represent.”28 This argument simply cannot explain

194   Linguistic Sinologism the fact that numerous Japanese, Koreans, and Vietnamese before modern times could read Chinese texts without the ability to speak Chinese, or without ever making any effort to learn Chinese. I wish to argue that although Du Ponceau’s treatise laid the theoretical ground for his supporters in later generations, his disregard for the visual (or pictographic) quality and the ideographic nature of Chinese script is incapable of silencing contrary views and leaves his argument vulnerable to criticism. Most unconvincing is his view that Chinese characters are handmaidens to sounds. Contrary to the view that Chinese writing is a handmaiden to spoken Chinese, I argue that Chinese writing is in fact the master that controls speech. For those who have some knowledge of the historical development of Chinese language, Du Ponceau’s view does not conform to historical fact: spoken Chinese has consistently been placed in a servile position to written Chinese, and the same is true of the relationship between classical Chinese and vernacular Chinese. In China there is a view that Chinese writing and speech were separate from the very beginning. Even if we accept the view that in the beginning the corresponding relationship between spoken Chinese and written Chinese may have existed in the early stages of Chinese language development (for example, in the Han Dynasty, or much earlier, when Chinese language was standardized by the government), there is ample evidence to show that since then Chinese language has split into two separable but related systems: classical Chinese and vernacular Chinese. Although the two share basic characteristic features, they are so different that the uneducated could hardly understand what the educated write even when what is written is read aloud to them. That is why during the Literary Revolution of the early twentieth century the basic aim was to replace classical Chinese with vernacular Chinese. During the revolution one of the slogans was: “To write what my mouth speaks” (wu shou xie wo kou). If, as Du Ponceau observed, the Chinese writing system was like European languages, “in direct connexion with the Chinese spoken words,” only to “be read and understood by those who are familiar with the oral language,” there would not have been that huge gap between classical Chinese and vernacular Chinese; there would have been no need for language reform to replace the former with the latter. The huge gap between classical Chinese and vernacular Chinese was not brought about solely by language development in the same way that modern English is so different from Old English. Rather, the major factor for the gap has much to do with the characteristic features in the Chinese writing system; Chinese has a more enhanced visual quality than alphabetic languages and is essentially semantically based rather than phonetically based. Simply put, it was brought about by the stability of the Chinese characters, or ideograms, that represent meaning as well as sounds. One fundamental achievement of traditional Chinese linguistics is the understanding that Chinese linguistic discourse is character-­centered rather than grammar-­centered. There is an inexact but sensible argument that Chinese has no grammar; the exact view should be that Chinese has a weak external grammar but has a fully developed internal grammar which is known to native speakers through (un)conscious assimilation.

Linguistic Sinologism   195 This has been borne out by Chinese records in history. Chinese linguistic study produced many works like Shuowen jiezi, but there was no book on Chinese language comparable to Western “grammar” textbooks until modern times, when Ma Jianzhong compiled the first Chinese grammar book using the theories and methodologies of Western grammar. The semantically based Chinese language system is endowed with an internal impetus to override speech. This inner tendency may be reworded as an idea: writing does not necessarily depend on speech; indeed, historical development has shown that classical Chinese is so different from vernacular Chinese that they practically formed two independent, albeit related, systems. The two systems might have started from the same origin but, as I will cite from Chinese scholarship to show, they may have been two separate but related systems from the start. Even if they were one system from the outset, they followed two different routes of development. While classical Chinese develops through the route from ideas to writing, vernacular follows the route from thought to speech. Because of the gap between the two systems a few Western scholars were disposed to treat classical Chinese as a notational system rather than a fully developed language system. Because of their phonocentric view, Marcel Granet was the first to cast doubt on the nature of the Chinese writing system as a language, and suggests that it may be just a system of notation [T]he great difficulty for a systematic study of Chinese stems from the disparity between the spoken and the written language. This disparity is so strong today that one can ask oneself whether the written language is a true language at all, whether it is an exact representation of the thought (the only difference compared with our languages being that this representation is achieved by a graphic representation and not a phonetic one), or whether it is just a mnemotechnic notation which permits the reconstruction of a verbal expression for the thought.29 From a different perspective, Granet affirms the semantically based nature of Chinese writing and the separation of Chinese speech and writing. In 1974 Henry Rosemont argued in a similar vein that written classical Chinese is a notational system that is only very indirectly related to a spoken language.30 Though their expressed doubt about classical Chinese as a language system is lopsided, it nevertheless confirms from the negative direction the fact that classical Chinese and vernacular Chinese are two independent systems and that the former is not a handmaiden to the latter. On the contrary, Chinese writing is a master while speech is a serf in view of the power exerted by writing over speech. Many scholars do not seem to appreciate the difference in representational value that Chinese and European languages emphasize. For Chinese, its major function is not to effectively record details of speech but to effectively communicate ideas. Because of the function to record speech, in a way alphabetic language is once removed from thought. By contrast, because Chinese characters aim at transmitting ideas, they bear a direct relation to thought. Perhaps for this

196   Linguistic Sinologism reason some European thinkers considered Chinese language as a natural language, a language closer to God. John Webb may be the first Western scholar to give an account of the exquisite naturalness of the Chinese language: Besides they are not troubled with variety of Declensions, Conjugations, Numbers, Genders, Moods, Tenses and the like grammatical niceties, but are absolutely free from all such perplexing accidents, having no other Rules in use than what the light nature has dictated unto them; whereby their language is plain, easie and simple as NATURAL speech ought to be.31 Leibniz simply regarded Chinese as a language taught by God: “If God had taught man a language, that language would have been like Chinese.”32 Here we can see clear signs of the romantic dimension of Sinologism. I have mentioned Du Ponceau’s chicken–egg question: which came first, writing or language? With this question and implied answer, Du Ponceau seemed to think that he had completely disputed the ideographic view. But things are not as simple as that. Even if we take language as appearing before writing, there are still more than one possible ways for writing to develop into mature forms. In view of the development of Chinese writing and Egyptian hieroglyphics, it is safe to speculate that at the very beginning all writing systems were ideographic in nature. After all, ideograph is a word Champollion invented to characterize the nature of Egyptian hieroglyphics, even though he later found out that the word is not entirely appropriate, because many seemingly ideographic images of hieroglyphics turned out to represent phonemes rather than morphemes. But in my opinion Egyptian hieroglyphics is already a sophisticated language that has undergone phoneticization. Based on the ideographic remnants, it is safe to speculate that in its early stages, hieroglyphics must have resembled ancient Chinese characters which stand for meaning, rather than for sounds. The historical developments of Chinese characters and Egyptian hieroglyphics suggest that all ancient writing systems must have first followed the single route of ideographic development and then diverged; while one followed a phonetic route (as in alphabetic languages), the other continued in the ideographic direction and at the same time added a phonetic dimension. The Chinese writing system is the result of the second development. There might have been many reasons why Chinese language development followed the second route. Xunzi once said that in high antiquity there were many who engaged in creating writing systems, but only Cang Jie’s system survived.33 This view should enable us to speculate why Chinese followed the second route, and why the Chinese writing system was indeed separate from spoken language. Since there existed several writing systems in high antiquity, while people at that time spoke a variety of speeches, it is reasonable to believe that people adopted the most sophisticated and convenient writing system to represent the language. Since the language had different dialect forms, the writings could not but represent meaning instead of sound. The first Chinese emperor Qin Shihuang’s standardization of the Chinese writing system is a case in point. Because the various kingdoms subjugated by the Qin spoke different dialects,

Linguistic Sinologism   197 the standard scripts could not represent sounds, because there would be total chaos. Therefore, the imposed writing system had to represent meaning. Thus, it is not a case in which “a language was invented to suit the written characters after they were formed,” but rather a case in which a writing system was adopted to represent the meaning of a language system with different dialects. This case can find further support in the case of Japanese language. In ancient times Japanese people spoke a language, but did not have a writing system. They adopted the Chinese writing to represent their language. Since the Chinese writing characters were pronounced differently from those of Japanese words, the adopted Chinese writing system could only represent meaning. Only when Chinese words were borrowed to represent ideas that did not exist in Japanese language, can we detect similarity in sounds. Having elaborated on the relationship between the Chinese writing and language systems, I wish to make clear a few points. First, Chinese characters were separable from spoken words. Second, even when the Chinese writing system is adopted to represent language (as in the case of Japanese), the representational route is different from that which happens in alphabetic languages. While in alphabetic language, representation proceeds from thought through sound to written words, in Chinese and Japanese languages, representation goes from thought through meaning to sound. This is the fundamental difference between Chinese and alphabetic representations. Many historical factors were responsible for this fundamental difference, and they are lost, perhaps never to be retrieved. But the decisive factor seems to be the preference for the visual and semantic qualities over the phonetic qualities in writing symbols. There are quite a few speculations as to why Chinese writing did not follow the phonographic route and develop into an alphabetic language as most modern languages do. Humboldt’s speculation supports my view. In his study of the linguistic variability of different languages, both alphabetic and non-­alphabetic, Humboldt discusses the reasons why Chinese did not develop into an alphabetic language (like most present-­day languages have done). He cites two reasons, both of them based on the actual conditions and development of Chinese language, and both of them arguing against those scholars who treat Chinese language as one that fits into general language theory abstracted from the studies of alphabetic languages. And both of them support my argument for the visual emphasis and semantic orientation. The first reason is that Chinese language’s writing system relies on a minimal pictorial representation. Humboldt speculates that in the historical development, the odd Chinese linguistic structure stems indisputably from the phonemic peculiarity of the people in earliest times, from their custom of keeping syllables rigorously apart in pronunciation, and from a deficiency in the motility with which one tone acts to modify another.34 In this observation we notice a weak role phonemes play in the sophistication of language system. Humboldt then argues that in order for the language to develop

198   Linguistic Sinologism along a philosophical and scientific route based on reflections, inventions, and reason, it had to resort to a way of treatment that had to retain the isolation of the tones in the speech of the people, but at the same time establish everything and distinguish precisely what was required in the more elevated use of the language for the clear presentation of an idea, even though it would be divested of accent and attitude or gesture. He considers such a treatment had begun in early history because it “is revealed also in the slight but unmistakable traces of pictorial representation in Chinese writing.”35 After language development entered scientific stages of development, pictographic writing cannot survive long, and the Chinese people would have been led into developing an alphabetic language as most peoples have done – but this alphabetic turn did not occur for two reasons, in Humboldt’s opinion: the weak role of phonemes, and the preference for visual representation of ideas.36 Humboldt’s speculations make good common sense, the pictographic quality is still observable in Chinese characters, and the semantic oriented feature of Chinese characters is accepted without any controversy by Chinese linguists. Oddly enough, in the debates over the nature of Chinese script, seldom do both sides take into account the expert opinions prevalent in Chinese linguistic circles.

Is Chinese writing script independent of speech? In contemporary sinological and comparative studies of language and language theory, Du Ponceau’s view has been accepted by some Chinese language scholars in the West. What differentiates Du Ponceau and his contemporary supporters is that while the former was rather defensive about his view, his supporters are on the offensive, trying to discredit the ideographic concept of the Chinese writing system once and for all. Ostensibly they seem to set their minds on overturning the widely accepted linguistic view about the nature of Chinese language. But in fact they seem to cherish a more ambitious objective: to bridge the gap between Chinese and Western conceptions of language by overturning the division between the phonographic alphabetic language and the ideographic Chinese language. Theirs is certainly a laudable endeavor. However, by fitting the ideographic square pegs of Chinese into the phonographic round holes of Western alphabetic language, they have fallen into the well-­beaten track of Sinologism. Among the most vocal contemporary supporters of Du Ponceau’s view are Boodburg, DeFancis, and William Boltz. Boltz, accepting Du Ponceau’s view wholeheartedly, attempts to bridge the gap by first attacking a weak side of the ideographic conception of Chinese – the utopian claim that Chinese writing is independent of Chinese language, especially speech. He argues: Du Ponceau’s conclusion, that “Chinese characters (when used to write Chinese, and not another language) can only be read by someone familiar

Linguistic Sinologism   199 with the oral language,” stands, when seen in this light, as a reasonable and unremarkable observation. But in fact we still find respectable expressions of the mistaken conviction that Chinese characters are somehow unrelated to language.37 Conscious of the fact that the utopian view is accepted by only less knowledge­ able persons, he attacks a pillar in the ideographic conception by using a concrete example. A five-­character poetic line in Chinese is readily comprehended by some Japanese and Korean readers. Boltz offers a lengthy analysis of how the Chinese poetic line is understood: Advocates of the concept-­script premise, undaunted, might insist that nothing is really wrong with their claim, rather that we have misrepresented the test, and that Japanese or Koreans, for example, could read these characters without any knowledge of the Chinese language. And so they could. But when they do, they are reading them in their own Japanese or Korean language. And even then they are reading a string of five isolated words. If they happen to know the meaning of these five characters taken together as a single sentence, it is either because they have learned something of the Chinese language, or because the whole pattern has been borrowed into their language as an ossified and syntactically unanalyzable unit with its original Chinese meaning intact. In any of these cases the Japanese or Korean readers are having recourse to a linguistic entity that correlates Japanese or Korean words with these characters, and meanings only in association with those words. This means no more than that these characters are used to write certain words in Japanese or Korean, having been borrowed from China at some point in the Chinese Middle Ages for just this purpose. It has nothing to do with concepts, as reflected in a script or otherwise.38 We must admit that Boltz’s statement is not devoid of sensible insights, but his concluding sentence: “It has nothing to do with concepts, as reflected in a script or otherwise,” is not convincing, simply because if the Japanese or Korean reader did not learn Chinese but happened to know the meaning of the five-­ character line through their knowledge of their own languages, the fact itself lends strong support to the argument that Chinese writing can be somehow unrelated to language, at least the Chinese language. By arguing that Japanese and Koreans understand the five-­character poetic line because they relate the characters to the Japanese and Korean language only underscores the separable quality of Chinese characters. There is also the possibility that the Japanese and Koreans who understand the poetic line may not relate the Chinese characters to their own language but to the ideas or things represented by those characters, as is common to a child who begins to learn language. The other fact, that in China people from different dialect regions cannot understand each other’s speech but are able to read texts in Chinese characters, strongly supports the hypothesis that  Chinese writing and Chinese speech can be somehow separated. To most

200   Linguistic Sinologism Mandarin Chinese speakers including me, Cantonese is almost a foreign language and we cannot understand each other even though we can read Chinese texts in Chinese script. This fact lends further support to the idea of possible separation between script and speech. Boltz might have been aware of the weight carried in the incontrovertible fact that people can read Chinese scripts but do not know the language. So, he argues: Whatever validity that notion may have in other contexts, it does not pertain to Chinese characters, modern or ancient. In fact, it cannot pertain to any kind of writing system, as we shall show, because it denies the relation between writing and language, i.e., between script and speech. Writing is, in its turn, a spoken thing. The claim that it is possible to read, i.e., to understand, a script while at the same time denying that one must know, i.e., understand, the language that the script is used to write, is inherently contradictory. The notion of any kind of a script as independent of language seems on the face of it to be a sheer impossibility, and yet this is an explicit claim of the “concept-­script” advocates.39 Boltz thinks he has made a strong argument against the concept-­script premise, but his argument has already been proven to be wrong in my above analysis. Moreover, his idea is based on a false premise. For he has made the error of conflating speech and language, and confusing script with writing system. In the case of a Japanese or Korean’s ability to read Chinese characters, he seems to have made a cognitive error. He considers Japanese and Korean peoples’ ability to read Chinese script as a translation issue, but language learning is not simply a translation issue; it is first and foremost a cognitive issue. We need to consider how a Japanese person learns to recognize a Chinese character. When a Japanese first starts to learn a character as a child, most likely, he is not relying on Japanese language but on his cognitive understanding of what that character means. Take xue (learn) for example. When he encounters it, he is not relying on the sound of the word in the Japanese language, but on the cognitive action of learning. After he understands what the character “learn” means, what he remembers in his mind is not the phoneme of “learn” in Japanese but the cognitively mental representation of what “learn” means. This is even clearer in a large discourse block. When a Japanese reader reads a string of characters, he may not necessarily rely on the Japanese language as an aid of translation; he may directly appeal to the cognitively remembered representation of each character’s meaning in the storehouse of language in his mind. Boltz’s error is the result of the impact of Western linguistic theory upon language learning. In alphabetic language it is believed that writing does not come directly from ideas in the mind but is mediated first through speech. In Boltz’s conception of a Japanese person’s learning Chinese characters, his approach clearly reflects the mediation theory. Of course, now it is not through the mediation of speech, but through the mediation of one’s native language. Boltz’s conception is essentially a translation approach to foreign language learning. Both

Linguistic Sinologism   201 foreign language theory and practice tell us that such an approach is an ineffective way of language learning because the mediation of one’s native language will never enable one to master a foreign language. One has to think in the foreign language that one is learning. This means that one must reject the translation approach and adopt cognitive approaches including the direct pedagogic method that has proven to be successful all over the world. Having critically examined Du Ponceau’s supporters’ argument against the concept-­script view, I may draw a tentative conclusion with regard to the approach to the relationship between Chinese script and speech. My conclusion is that we must make a distinction between language and speech. The claim that Chinese writing is unrelated to Chinese language is certainly wrong, but the idea that Chinese writing can be independent of speech is certainly correct, because it has been proven not only by the fact that Japanese and Koreans can understand Chinese characters but also by the fact that Cantonese and Fujianese cannot understand the speech of Mandarin speakers but are able to understand written Chinese. Moreover, the separation of speech from writing, and classical Chinese from vernacular Chinese, are facts that have been convincingly proven by philological studies of archaic Chinese by both Chinese and Western scholars.

Phonocentrism vs. ideographism Du Ponceau’s contemporary supporters have made some apt observations of Chinese language in relation to Western language. However, in their attempts to bridge the gap between Chinese and Western languages, they have overlooked the characteristic differences inherent in Chinese language. As they tend to examine Chinese language in terms of Western language theory, they have demonstrated a theoretical orientation, for which I wish to borrow the term “phonocentrism.” It is commonsense that a linguistic sign consists of three related but theoretically analyzable aspects, which I call three S’s: shape, sound, and sense. But in different language systems representational emphasis is given to one or two aspects of the components. While alphabetic language places much more emphasis on the representation of sound and sense than shape, Chinese language puts more emphasis on the representation of shape and sense than sound. Among the anti-­ideographic view-­holders, they only take account of two factors. Boltz, for example, makes such an emphasis: “For any word we can identify two aspects: sound and meaning.”40 He obviously overlooks the important element of “shape” in the three essential elements of a linguistic sign. His neglect is not difficult to understand. In alphabetic language the shape of a linguistic sign is not as important as for a Chinese written sign. Saussure once remarked that so long as a linguistic sign is written in recognizable shape, and not confused with other signs, it is fine. But in a Chinese linguistic sign, shape plays a significant role. Indeed, all through Chinese history, the fascination with shape has given rise to the calligraphic art and the primacy of the written over the spoken word. Among the three aspects, sound, shape, and sense, they are not equal in importance in the Chinese language system. People may not know how to pronounce a word,

202   Linguistic Sinologism but they may recognize its shape and know its sense. It is common for many Chinese to recognize some characters and know their meanings but not know how to read them. In my view, of the three factors that make a word for a Chinese character, shape and sense are the more important. Phonetic value is not as important as the visual and semantic values. Shape is the base on which a word stands, sense is the source of meaning, sound is an orally communicative means. Both shape and sound are carriers of meaning. While one performs the function of communication through auditory means, the other does so through visual means. In 80 percent of Chinese characters made with the ideograph-­ making method of xingsheng (sound-­shape combination), the sound radical seldom carries meaning. Shape is more effective in imparting meaning than sound. Hence the visual value is more important than the auditory one. By contrast, in alphabetic language auditory value is given more emphasis because of the Western metaphysical tradition that emphasizes the transcendental values of the ethereal and unseen. Derrida describes the Western emphasis on sound in Western language theory as “phonocentrism.” Some Western scholars began their study of Chinese language precisely from this phonocentric point of view. The phonocentric orientation in the study of Chinese was initiated by Du Ponceau, who uttered this remark: “It seems therefore evident, that the characters were invented not to represent the Chinese words, and not the ideas which these represent, abstracted from the verbal expression.”41 Boltz expresses a similarly phonocentric view regarding Chinese language: “[W]riting of any kind is no more and no less than a graphic representation of speech.”42 As though afraid he does not make clear his idea, Boltz further claims: If, on the other hand, we recognize that when we say “the purpose of writing is to communicate ideas” what we really mean is that “the function of writing is precisely to communicate what is communicated by the speech that the writing represents,” we restrict the scope of writing to those visual signs the meaning of which is mediated by language.43 Here, Boltz makes a subtle turn. He substitutes speech with language, thereby putting forward a phonocentric claim: “We may thus define writing very simply as the graphic representation of speech; and a writing system, then, as any graphic means for the systematic representation of speech.”44 Anticipating counter-­argument, Boltz has to admit: “Like all definitions, this definition expresses a judgment. It would be possible, of course, to define writing differently, as, for example, any visual sign or mark that conveys or communicates meaning irrespective of its relation to language.” However, he privileges his phonocentric definition: “In my judgment such a definition does not clarify the nature or history of what we intuitively think of as writing any better than a definition that restricts writing to those graphic signs that have a direct representational relation to language.” The word, “intuitively,” reveals his bias as a native speaker of an alphabetic language, in which speech is privileged over writing.

Linguistic Sinologism   203 In his emphasis on the phonographic feature of language, Boltz overlooks the communicative function of language and downplays the consistent emphasis that Chinese thinkers of language theory have put on the communicative function of language since high antiquity. Here I will only mention two thinkers’ views. In his advocacy of direct communication, Zhuangzi tells the famous parable of “fish-­traps and rabbit-­snares”: The fish-­trap is a tool to catch fish. Once the fish is caught, the fish-­trap is forgotten. A rabbit-­snare is a tool to catch rabbits. Once the rabbit is caught, the snare is forgotten. Language is a tool to hold ideas. Once ideas are conveyed, language is forgotten. Where on earth could I find a person who has forgotten words to have a word with him?45 Zhuangzi’s parable serves his purpose of advocating direct communication or wordless communication. This parable has a great impact upon Chinese language theory. To a large extent it sets the pattern for discussions of language representation for later generations. In Zhuangzi’s advocacy, language signs are mere tools to communicate ideas in the same way fish-­traps and rabbit-­snares are tools to catch fish and rabbits. In a way it was partially responsible for the semantic orientation of Chinese language representation. During the Wei-­Jin period, there were heated debates on the nature of language representation. Wang Bi is one of the debaters who emphasized the semantic representation of signs and language. In his famous discourse, “Elucidations of Hexagram images,” Wang Bi’s discourse begins with a discussion of the relationship among xiang (image), yi (thought), and yan (language): The image is that which brings out the thought; language is that which elucidates the image. To fully express ideas, nothing is more effective than images; to fully convey an image nothing can excel language. Language is born of images; therefore, one can observe images by following language. Images are born of thought; therefore, one can observe thought by tracing images. Thought is fully conveyed through images; images are made explicit through language.46 This opening shows clearly that Chinese language theory would not be the same as Western alphabetic languages that emphasize sound. In employing Zhuangzi’s parable, Wang Bi’s discourse further emphasizes the semantic orientation of Chinese sign representation: Thus, language is what illuminates the images; once one gets the image, the words are forgotten. Images are what preserve the ideas; once one obtains the ideas, the images are forgotten. In like manner, a snare is what serves to catch rabbits; once one catches the rabbit, the snare is forgotten; and a fish-­trap is what serves to catch fish; once the fish is caught, the fish-­trap is forgotten. If it is so, then, language is the snare for images; the images are the fish-­traps for ideas.

204   Linguistic Sinologism Both Zhuangzi’s parable, and Wang Bi’s and other scholars’ further elucidation of the parable, indicate that the emphasis in Chinese language philosophy is on thought, ideas, and meaning, rather than on acoustic images as in the West. Ignoring this idea-­oriented tradition, started by Zhuangzi and Chinese thinkers, anti-­ideographic scholars, by privileging speech over concept, make the same mistake as those satirized by Zhuangzi’s parable, who stick to the fish-­traps and rabbit snares but neglect the fish and rabbits: the communicated ideas in a speech act. They have made the error precisely because they employ the language theory of alphabetic language to impose a phonocentric view on Chinese language. This is clear in Boltz’s further argument, in which he de-­emphasizes the language’s function of communication and emphasizes its function of sound recording: The communication aspect of writing is, by the above definition secondary, existing only as an automatic consequence of the fact that the speech that the writing represents serves to communicate meaning. Moreover, whether or not an individual sign in a writing system communicates meaning depends on the level at which that sign represents language. Letters of an alphabet, for example, do not typically carry meaning, only sound, because in most languages written with alphabets most individual sounds do not have any associated meanings. . . . But to be considered writing they need not communicate meaning, only sound. The communication of ideas in writing is, as we have said, entirely a function of the fact that the writing represents speech.47 Clearly, Boltz thinks the phonographic nature of alphabetic language is the universal order for all languages. He overlooks the fact that in Chinese language, which uses characters rather than letters, each character signifies meaning as well as sound. In fact, even the component parts of a character, the radicals, also carry meaning. After his citing English letters as examples to support his phonocentric view, he uses the derived idea to refute the “concept view” concerning Chinese language: But the association with meaning, i.e., the communication aspect of the characters, exists only as a consequence of the association with sound, that is, with words of a language, or what we may call simply “speech.” What has often happened is that academic analysts and casual critics alike have emphasized the link between character and meaning at the expense of the primary and essential link between character and sound.48 Boltz reveals a clear phonocentric view in his statement. He takes for granted that the Chinese characters express meaning because of their association with spoken language through the mediation of sounds. In no way would he consider the possibility that a Chinese character may be created from the outset to represent meaning rather than sound. He has arrived at his conclusion through the

Linguistic Sinologism   205 Western frame of reference, and through the hypothetical reasoning that Chinese characters must function in the same way as Western letters, whose function is to record sounds that in turn convey meaning. This can be seen clearly in his further statement: “The essential and indispensable feature that must be present for a graph or system of graphs to qualify as writing is phonetic representation. That is, writing must represent speech.”49 His reasoning is contrary to evidence in Chinese language theory and language practice. Historically, classical Chinese may not have been a spoken language from the outset. As Ames and Rosemont humorously put it: “Classical Chinese . . . is like the good little boy: it was primarily to be seen and not heard.” Before them, Karlgren gave a similar description: “The literature is a product for the eye, and not for the ear and tongue, as a spoken language. It lives its own life as a kind of independent phenomenon that is parallel with the spoken language.”50 On a more serious note, Ames and Rosemont continue to observe: [S]poken Chinese is and was certainly understood aloud; classical Chinese is not now and may never have been understood aloud as a primarily spoken language; therefore spoken and literary Chinese are now and may always have been two distinct linguistic media, and if so, the latter should clearly not be seen as simply a transcription of speech.51 In another area of their study the two scholars express a view that directly counters Boltz’s view, and they point out its consequence: “[A] belief that classical Chinese writing is fundamentally a transcription of speech can not only obscure our perceptions of their dissimilarities, it may also lead us down barren research paths in Chinese philosophy.”52 Philosophically, Zhuangzi’s parable and Wang Bi’s theorizing provide conceptual grounds to dispute Boltz’s claim. In the studies of other well-­respected linguists of ancient Chinese language, we can find eloquent arguments that dispute the phonocentric view of classical Chinese. The famous linguist and Sinologist Bernhard Karlgren was one of the earliest scholars to conduct systematic studies of the phonetic aspects of ancient Chinese language, but he nevertheless emphasized the pictorgraphic, ideographic, feature of classical Chinese in its early stage of development: In this way the Chinese script in its first stage was not phonographic, analyzing how the word sounded in its different components, but ideographic, picture writing, in which a sign indicated a whole word, and moreover not its pronunciation but its meaning.53 In so saying, he is subtly expressing a visual primacy of ancient Chinese, which is expressed more bluntly by Fenollosa and Pound. In the same study he un­equivocally identifies the separation between spoken and written Chinese: Thus China has, on the one hand, for many centuries had a literary language which is short and terse and understandable, only through the ideographic

206   Linguistic Sinologism script which clearly keeps every single word distinct from all others, a language which, on the whole, remains just as it was formed before the beginning of our era. On the other hand, China has a spoken language or, more correctly, many languages, based on different dialects which in their characteristics differ considerably from the language of literature.54 In a brief study of the oracle bone inscriptions written in the earliest Chinese language identified to date, Ames and Rosemont reiterate a view confirmed by other research that “many of the thousand-­plus characters that have been identified thus far . . . are importantly pictographic and ideographic in construction” and draw the conclusion: “Consequently, we have morphological as well as phonetic support for considering the early written forms to have their own communicative function without having been transcribed speech; at this stage, much information was communicated visually.”55 In language practice phonocentrism cannot exist in Chinese. Mandarin Chinese has 21 initials, 38 finals, which, through combination, can only produce little over 400 syllables. Even with the variations made possible by adding four tones, there are altogether less than 1,300 syllables. With such a small number of syllables to represent one of the largest vocabularies among world’s languages, a large number of homophones are inevitable. It often happens that people do not know the meaning of a word without a clear context. As a result there appear intended and unintended puns. But once a character is written down, even without a context, the meaning is unequivocal. The existence of a large number of homophones rules out the feasibility for Chinese characters and words to represent sounds in the way that alphabetic languages do. It has also made it impracticable for Chinese language to be alphabeticized. The attempt to Romanize Chinese language was not only made in more modern times. In fact, it was considered and put into practice much earlier. As early as the Song Dynasty, Zheng Qiao, after his encounter with Sanskrit, became aware of the unwieldiness of Chinese characters and the facility with which alphabet script recorded speech. Several hundred years later the Jesuit missionary Matteo Ricci used the Roman alphabet to write Chinese language and published the first book in Romanized Chinese, The Miracles of Western Letters (Xizhi qiji). Other Western missionaries made similar attempts to write Chinese language in Roman script, but none of their efforts proved to have had any impact on the Chinese as their books were meant for Westerners to learn Chinese language and culture.56 Then in the late Ming and early Qing, a scholar-­official, Fang Yizhi (1611–1671), undertook one of the first serious efforts by Chinese scholars to evaluate Chinese writing in relation to Western alphabetic languages. Although he criticized the cumbersome nature of Chinese writing, and contrasted its complexity with the economy and ease of Western writing, his contrastive criticism reveals precisely the non-­phonographic or ideographic nature of Chinese writing: The confusion of characters is due to their interchangeability and borrowing but, if a concept pertained to a single word and each word had a single

Linguistic Sinologism   207 meaning, as in the distant West where sounds are combined in accordance with concepts, and words are formed in accordance with sounds, so that there would be neither duplication nor sharing, wouldn’t that be superior?57 It took another 200 years before the first potentially viable system of Romanized script for Chinese language was created in 1892 by Lu Zhuangzhang, commonly viewed as the father of script reform in China. In his preface to the book, Yimu liaoran chujie (A Primer at a Glance), he contrasted the low literacy rate in China with the high literacy rate in Western nations and Japan, and attributed the disparity to the difference in scripts. Why was the literacy rate high in other nations? His answer: “It is because they spell their words, because the written and the spoken word are the same, and because the strokes of the letters are simple.” How could China improve its literacy rate? His answer was that China should adopt a Romanized spelling of Chinese language: “Because [in Romanized spelling] the written and spoken are the same, when they read with their mouths they comprehend in their hearts.”58 His contrastive evaluation again testifies to the separation between writing and speech in Chinese language before modern times. The close connection between speech and writing is a phenomenon less than a century old. Since the late Qing alphabetization of Chinese has been promoted by numerous Chinese statesmen, thinkers, scholars, and various governments. But from Ricci’s use of Romanized Chinese for Western missionaries, to the present­day use of pin-­yin to help foreigners learn Chinese, the near 500-year-­old effort to alphabetize Chinese language has come full circle. The full circle testifies to the phonocentric language cognition of Westerners and the non-­phonographic, ideographic, nature of the Chinese writing system.

Linguistic Sinologism In contrast to the phonocentrism of Western alphabetic language, the Chinese emphasis on the correlation between graph and meaning may be called ideographism. Each came from a long tradition that put different emphases on sound and shape of the script. Western phonocentrism originated from the linguistic development of alphabetic languages, and was promoted by philosophical conceptualizations of language practice. By contrast, Chinese ideographism originated from the ideographic use of Chinese language in history and was underscored by metaphysical conceptions of the relationship between humans and the universe. Each has a different philosophical basis. In Western metaphysics the earliest source of phonocentrism may be traced to Plato’s conception of the distinction between essence and appearance. But Aristotle may be the first to conceive a notion of phonocentrism. In the relationship between speech and script he expressed a view on the primacy of the spoken over the written: “What is spoken is a symbol (symbolon) of states (pathēmata) in the soul; what is written is a symbol of what is spoken.”59 Aristotle’s remark may be viewed as the start of Western phonocentrism. The phonocentric

208   Linguistic Sinologism emphasis of language by Western scholars is deeply ingrained because of the phonographic prominence in letter-­based languages. In modern language philosophy all language theorists emphasize the primacy of sound over meaning in both spoken and written language. As early as 1933, Leonard Bloomfield stated that writing must bear a “fixed relation” to linguistic form.60 George Trager defines writing as “any conventional system of marks or drawings . . . that represents the utterances of a language as such.”61 In direct relation to Chinese language, Serruys defines the graphs of true writing as necessarily “integrated in a system,” and “resulting in a visual representation of a language.”62 Jacques Derrida has pointed out that Western phonocentrism emanates from Western metaphysics since Plato that emphasizes the disjunction between appearance and essence, transcendental ideas, and concrete reality. I am disposed to think that the graphic and semantic oriented Chinese characters are determined by the nature of Chinese language and language use over history. Phono-­ centrism is appropriate for describing Western alphabetic languages, but is not suitable for describing Chinese language. Ideographism in Chinese language is not only decided by the special graphic quality of the Chinese characters but also by Chinese metaphysical thinking concerning humanity’s relations with the universe, which views the interrelatedness of myriad things in the universe, and the immanence of transcendental ideas in things of the lived world. Perhaps it is not inappropriate to say that the graphic and semantic nature of Chinese characters and the transcendence-­in-immanence nature of Chinese metaphysical thinking about the universe are inherently related. In his study of the relationship between language and poetics, Jakobson identified two related problems in structural linguistics: “Voegelin has clearly pointed out the two most important and related problems which face structural linguistics, namely, a revision of ‘the monolithic hypothesis of language’ and a concern with ‘the interdependence of diverse structures within one language.’ ”63 This insight should offer us further insights into the nature of Chinese language and writing. Jacobson also points out: No doubt, for any speech community, for any speaker, there exists a unity of language, but this over-­all code represents a system of interconnected subcodes: each language encompasses several concurrent patterns which are each characterized by a different function. We should draw a lesson from structural linguistics in studying Chinese language. Chinese has a total and totalizing nature that has developed through the millennia and is endowed with an inclusive tendency that would permit the adoption of new and alien features. It would be over-­simplistic to define Chinese as a wholly phonographic language, or as a wholly ideographic language. It encompasses the characteristics of both phonographic and ideographic factors with a primacy of the latter. A lopsided emphasis on one factor to the neglect of the other would inevitably result in linguistic Sinologism.

Linguistic Sinologism   209 According to my observations, in the debates over the nature of Chinese script, seldom do both sides take into account Chinese language scholars’ opinions prevalent in Chinese linguistic circles. It was as though the Chinese linguistic view on the nature of Chinese writing did not exist or is irrelevant. Records from China’s high antiquity, and studies by modern Chinese scholars, lend support to the paralleled separation between spoken and written Chinese. There was no writing in high antiquity and people first used rope knots as a mnemonical device, later to be replaced by carved symbols. The Xicizhuan of the Book of Changes states: “In high antiquity, rope-­knots were used for ruling. In later times, sages replaced them with carved symbols.”64 The carved symbols on earthenware and oracle bones were the earliest form of Chinese writing. Thus, there is sufficient anthropological and archaeological evidence to show that Chinese characters were not first meant as a record of spoken language. Chinese characters were first invented as carved symbols, gradually evolved into words, and formed a system of writing. It might have been a long time later that it became linked to spoken language. Modern Chinese scholars reaffirmed the separate development of Chinese writing and spoken language. The renowned Chinese scholar Liang Shuming observes: “Chinese language and writing developed in their separate ways. At the beginning, writing did not depend upon language, but language came to be dominated by writing.”65 The foremost Chinese thinker, Li Zehou, has done a great deal of evidential research to prove that Chinese characters were not the written records of spoken discourse. He also points out: “Chinese language does not give precedence to sound but emphasizes meaning. . . . From the very beginning, the function of Chinese characters is to control, dominate, and regulate language, and not to record language.”66 After analyzing both views in the controversy over Chinese language, I have realized that even though the upholders and rejecters of the ideographic view come from opposite directions, they share a common orientation; their studies of Chinese writing are not so much concerned with Chinese language itself as with their own scholarly and aesthetic agendas. Pound and Fenollosa and other ideograph upholders were concerned with advancing their intellectual and artistic agenda of advancing new and innovative approaches to philosophy and art. The ideography rejecters are preoccupied with their agenda of examining Chinese language in terms of Western theories of language and rule out the uniqueness of Chinese writing by fitting the ideographic square pegs of Chinese into the phonographic round holes of Western alphabetic languages. Both sides are oriented by their Western preconceptions and preconceived agendas. Only a few scholars of Chinese are free from sinologistic biases and recognize the distinctiveness of Chinese writing and language. In my view the ideograph deniers have totally ignored the distinct differences between Chinese and alphabetic writing and paid little attention to the fact that the pictographic quality is still observable in Chinese characters, and the semantically oriented nature of Chinese characters is accepted without any controversy by Chinese linguists. From the opposite direction, ideograph upholders have exaggerated the pictographic quality of Chinese writing and universalized the

210   Linguistic Sinologism value of Chinese writing, thereby romantically ignoring the distinctiveness of Chinese language. Despite their different orientations, their ways of doing scholarship find a common ground in their Western-­centric scholarly habit. As a consequence they have unwittingly created a linguistic form of Sinologism that distorts the real conditions of Chinese writing, even though their original intention is to offer scientific and objective knowledge about Chinese language.

The inner logic of linguistic Sinologism In a recent article in the Journal of Asian Studies (November 2009), Edward McDonald revisits the controversy over Chinese language and acknowledges its “highly ideologically loaded” nature within Chinese and Asian studies – and believes “many of the current understandings about Chinese characters to be mistaken.”67 In his article he states his aim to be an examination of various discourses within Chinese studies exhibiting the particular form of Sinologism that I have dubbed character fetishization (hanzi chongbaizhuyi) – that is, an exaggerated status given to Chinese characters in the interpretation of Chinese language, thought, and culture. This status is used to buttress ideological claims about the Chinese language that basically come down to posting the uniqueness of the Chinese worldview and its incommensurable differences from a supposed Western worldview.68 While relating “character fetishization” to Orientalism and Occidentalism, and considering it a form of Sinologism, he criticizes both sides for falling into the trap of “a discursive process, the creation of a kind of ‘uniqueness’ for the Chinese situation that both operates through and reinforces a series of half truths.” His critique of the controversy covers two groups of scholars: James Liu, Chad Hansen, Roger Ames, and Henry Rosemont on one side, and George A. Kennedy, A. C. Graham, and William G. Boltz on the other. Although he claims not to take sides, he eventually ends up siding with the latter group, who are ideograph rejecters. His side-­taking is revealed in his critique of two half-­truths, which constitute what he dubs “character fetishization.” He finds one half-­truth in Chad Hansen’s study of Chinese language and logic: “[T]he first half-­truth, as expressed by Hansen, is that in traditional China, as in China today, people speak different languages but write and read ‘the same.’ ”69 The second half-­ truth, he believes, is related to Bacon’s formulation of Chinese written symbols as “characters real, which express neither letters nor words in gross, but Things or Notions,” and he finds a concentrated expression in James Liu’s statement: Western philosophers, with their logocentric bias, have usually regarded Chinese written characters as arbitrary signs. Even Saussure, who recognized that the Chinese written system is not phonetic, still thought that each written character was a sign that represented a spoken word. This opinion is

Linguistic Sinologism   211 demonstrably incorrect and also contradicts traditional Chinese views. . . . In general, whereas Western thinkers concerned with the nature of language conceived of writing as a representation of spoken language, which was in turn conceived of as an intermediary between the world and human beings, the Chinese saw a direct relationship between writing and the world, without the necessary intermediacy of spoken language.70 James Liu is criticizing the phonocentric and logo-­centric tendencies in studies of the Chinese writing system, which, as I have pointed out, constitute an aspect of Sinologism. He is also expressing a commonly accepted truism in Chinese language theory: in contrast to alphabetic writing systems that represent spoken language (In Chinese terms, it is biaoyin wenzi, which literally means “a writing system representing sounds”), Chinese characters form a writing system that represent meaning (biaoyi weinzi). What is interesting is that McDonald turns the table on Liu and all Chinese scholars of both the mainland and Taiwan who hold this view, and criticizes them for perpetrating a form of Orientalism, or Sinologism, or “character fetishization,” to use his special terminology. While criticizing Liu, Hansen, and others, for fetishizing Chinese characters, he is endorsing the phonocentric and logo-­centric view of Chinese writing. Of course, he admits, Chinese characters are endowed with a pictographic quality, but he argues: [A]s soon as this picture came to be used as a graph – that is, a visual form that is part of the writing system – in order to function as part of that writing system, it must represent some unit of a language. In other words, it must refer in the first instance not to the outside world, but rather to a particular sound-­shape and/or word-­shape.71 What distinguishes his view from other linguists is that while he views a Chinese character as referring to “sound-­shape” or “word-­shape,” other linguists regard a Chinese character as referring to a spoken word in the Chinese language. People may wonder what a “sound-­shape” or a “word-­shape” may look like and how a Chinese character may not refer to a thing in the outside world but to a “sound-­ shape” or a “word-­shape?” We may get a clue in his endorsement of Boltz’s objection to the view of Chinese characters as ideographs that represent meaning: Boltz states his own position very strongly: “at no time did any of the graphs that were invented stand for ideas directly; they always primarily represented the sounds of a language, and meaning only as it was associated with those sounds” (1994, p. 59) – a nice reversal of Liu’s priorities.72 His leaning towards Boltz’s position is more clearly revealed in the conclusion: “If Boltz’s argument is accepted, it has the effect of demonstrating that Chinese characters do not, after all, constitute a special case, because they clearly followed the same principles as all the other writing systems in the world.”73 Here,

212   Linguistic Sinologism other writing systems, understandably, refer to writing systems that employ alphabets and whose principles have been formulated by Western linguists and scholars. Thus, it clearly expresses a sinologistic approach: if other writing systems are sound based, then the Chinese writing system must be sound based, too. At the center of the controversy there is a key point that ideograph rejecters have almost completely sidestepped, but the ideograph upholders always rely on. Hansen points out: “What is important for the present argument is that Chinese themselves view their own written language as conventional representations of the semantic content, that is, pictures or diagrams.”74 Curiously, few ideograph rejecters have referred to this conventional view; they do not even bother to attack it. They have just treated it as though it did not exist. McDonald is an exception. He is clearly aware of what he is doing: [I]t could be claimed that what scholars such as Liu and Hansen are arguing for is simply an acknowledgement of traditional Chinese views about the nature of the characters. . . . I think we should be skeptical as to whether the ‘traditional Chinese views’ were in fact as Liu represents them, at least across the board; what scholars such as Liu and Hansen fail to do, however, is draw a distinction between describing and mythmaking, either in their sources or in their own work.75 In order to discredit the traditional Chinese view he cites Kennedy’s study of a few Chinese compound words and implies that the accepted Chinese view is largely a “myth.”76 He launches a frontal attack by pointing out that the Chinese mentioned in Hansen’s statement do not include Xu Shen, because his liushu “six graph-­ formation method” would only be reduced to three methods. But he overlooks the fact two of the six graph-­making methods, zhuanzhu and jiajie, as many Chinese linguists have pointed out, are only extended uses of the four basic character formation methods. James Liu, for example, states: Although traditional Chinese etymology postulates “six scripts” (liushu) [i.e., six different principles of graph, or character, formation], two of these concern variant forms and phonetic loans, so that actually there are only four kinds of characters: simple pictograms, simple ideograms, composite ideograms, and composite phonograpms.77 I do not think Liu’s English wording for the fourth method “xingsheng” as “composite phonogram” is an apt one, for the method is a combination of sound and shape, in which the shape stands for meaning. A literal translation would have “image-­sound combination,” which adequately reflects the nature of the script. Thus, as I have argued in an article, all the four basic graph-­ making methods are imagistically based, with the fourth having a sound base.78

Linguistic Sinologism   213 To find conceptual support, he cites A. C. Graham’s words to refute Liu and Hansen’s views. The quoted Graham’s saying reads: The [Chinese] script is not, as used to be supposed, ideographic; different monosyllabic words, however near they approach synonymity, are written with different graphs, and particles like other words have their own graphs. The combination of the graphic wealth with phonetic poverty has the result that the etymology of a word and its relation to similar sounding monosyl­ lables is displayed in the structure of the graph rather than of the vocable.79 Graham’s denial of Chinese script as ideograph qualifies him to be in the ranks of ideograph rejecters. So, McDonald thinks he has found strong support for the phonocentric argument. But a close reading of the citation informs that ­Graham’s description of “graphic wealth” and “phonetic poverty” not only shows that in history the privileging of graphic meaning over phonetic sound has been continuously practiced, but also lends strong support to the ideograph upholders with their so-­called “character fetishization.” Despite his wide reading on Chinese writing, McDonald misses my article on the nature of Chinese writing, which offers an alternative view on the debate. I argue that the ideograph upholders and ideograph rejecters were both holding one end of the sound-­meaning stick and forgot that the stick is made of both phonemes and morphemes. After subjecting the six graph-­making principles to a rigorous examination in terms of linguistics, semiotics, and neuroscience, I explain why the upholders of the “ideographic” view of the Chinese character and rejecters of it are both partially correct: Since the Chinese linguistic sign is both visual and aural, both imagistic and conceptual in nature, the Chinese writing is both ideographic and phonetic. The extent it is ideographic or phonetic, depends on how one looks at it. If one stresses the phonetic part, he would agree with Karlgren (and Boodberg) and say: nine tenths of Chinese characters are phonetic. If one stresses the imagistic part, he would side with Creel and say: nine tenths of Chinese characters are ideographic. Or if he accepts Zheng Qiao’s view that all six writing principles evolved from pictographic imitation, he may even say that all Chinese characters are ideographic.80 McDonald professes not to take sides in the debate, and instead attempts to offer an alternative way out of the stalemate. But by criticizing James Liu, Chad Hansen, Roger Ames and Henry Rosemont, and endorsing the views of Boodberg, DeFrancis, Boltz, and other ideograph rejecters, he shows clearly that he is on the side of those who view Chinese language as no different from other languages. His move to contrast the “grand claims of Liu’s and Hansen’s ‘Sinologism’ ” with “the careful and nuanced explanations of Kennedy’s and Graham’s ‘sinology’,”81 reveals his position beyond doubt. The title of his essay “Getting over the Walls of Discourse: ‘Character Fetishization’ in Chinese Studies” is

214   Linguistic Sinologism also revealing. By criticizing the ideographic view as “character fetishization,” he is not sitting on the fence as he claims, but getting over the walls of discourse to the side of the character bashers. What is ironic is that he does not seem to notice the Sinologism in Sinology; nor does he realize that like all ideograph rejecters, he falls into the trap of Sinologism head over foot: the failure to examine Chinese materials on their own terms and impose Western theories on Chinese materials. Relying on the rhetoric of postcolonial studies, McDonald offers a critique that challenges the claim to uniqueness by some Western scholars with regard to Chinese writing, but there is no trace of an alternative way out of the controversy, and the muddy water of Chinese writing has become even muddier as a result of his critique. The linguistic politics concerning Chinese language will continue and the controversy over the nature of the Chinese writing system will not be easily resolved. There are many reasons for this situation. A most obvious one has to do with my conception of Sinologism. In my readings of theories of Chinese language, I have yet to encounter a Chinese scholar who, born and brought up with a native mastery of the Chinese language in China, rejects the conventional view that Chinese characters constitute a writing system that represents meaning and possesses a distinct graphic quality. This observation contrasts with the situation in Sinology, in which some Western Sinologists reject the accepted Chinese view. In their argument against the graphic and ideographic nature of Chinese characters, those Western scholars seldom, if ever, cite the widely accepted view of the Chinese writing system in China as though the Chinese view did not exist. It is hard to speculate on the reasons for their oversight, but it is perhaps not far wrong to say that it does not deviate far from an implicit principle of Sinologism: a Chinese view does not matter, nor is it vitally relevant; the ultimate criterion in determining the correctness or error of a view is the conceptual framework formulated out of Western materials. This may explain all the sound and fury over the linguistic politics of Chinese language. Another reason is deeply embedded in an aspect of the inner logic of Sinologism, which is related to the human resources factor in China knowledge production. Noam Chomsky once proposed the well-­known concept of the Language Acquisition Device (LAD), which forms an essential part of the nativist theory of language. According to this theory humans are born with the “innate facility” for acquiring language. Although Chomsky gradually abandoned the idea in favor of a parameter-­setting model of language acquisition, linguists who hold the critical period hypothesis believe that the LAD becomes unavailable after a certain age, beyond which an individual will never be able to achieve full command of a language or a native sense of that language.82 This theory may offer a new insight into the controversy. Few Western Sinologists learn Chinese from infancy in the same way as Chinese people; still fewer have acquired a native sense of Chinese language possessed by a Chinese with native proficiency. Just as a Chinese scholar who does not have a native sense of English cannot fully appreciate the phonetic niceties of English language, a ­non-­native Sinologist is unable to fully appreciate the graphic value of Chinese

Linguistic Sinologism   215 characters. As a Western Sinologist is born and brought up in an alphabetic language environment, it is natural for him or her to perceive Chinese characters from a phonocentric and logo-­centric perspective, either self-­consciously or sub-­ consciously. We can attribute Bernhard Kalgren’s admirable contribution to the understanding of phonetics of ancient Chinese to many factors, but we cannot but say that it has a great deal to do with his alphabetic language background and with the large background of phonocentrism. Despite Derrida’s critique, phonocentrism in this study is not a negative term. Nor do I think the centrality of Chinese characters in Chinese culture is a fetishization. Chinese language and European language have their own respective historical rise and evolution, and each has its own distinctive nature and features. Neither Orientalism nor Occidentalism has anything to do with character-­based or letter-­based languages. Only when one imposes theories derived from a letter-­based language to a character-­based language, or vice versa, does Sinologism come into being. In his study of the agency of the letter in the unconscious, Jacques Lacan illustrates his reconception of the Saussurean algorithm of the sign with an anecdote. Two children, a boy and a girl who are brother and sister, ride in a train, sitting opposite each other by the window. When the train arrives at a railway station, it happens to stop at a place by the platform where a bathroom building is located. Through the train window the boy sees the sign for “Ladies” and says, “We are at Ladies!” But the girl sees the sign for “Gentlemen” and retorts, “Idiot! Can’t you see we are at Gentleman.” This fable-­like anecdote imparts a profound message not only about the relationship between the signifier and signified, but also about the difficulty in understanding the other in terms of gender, race, and culture. As Lacan aptly puts it: For these children, Ladies and Gentlemen will be henceforth two countries towards which each of their souls will strive on divergent wings, and between which a truce will be the more impossible since they are actually the same country and neither can compromise on its own superiority without detracting from the glory of the other.83 This may explain why the controversy over the nature of Chinese characters has been so enduring and why it will find no solution that can satisfy both sides. If, however, we are aware of its logic, we might locate a way out of the war of discourse on Chinese language and avoid linguistic Sinologism.

Conclusion A theory of self-­conscious reflection

Sinologism as alienated knowledge All human knowledge is, to varying degrees, conjectural or hypothetical in nature, and is produced by the creative imagination of human beings who encounter certain needs that have arisen in specific historical and cultural settings. This is the fundamental reason why I deem knowledge about China and scholarship in China–West studies as intellectual commodities. As intellectual products created by the human imagination, they are invariably subjective in nature. The subjectivity of Sinologism was intensified after China was brought into the global system of capitalism in modern times. The commodification of knowledge has caused China knowledge to deviate considerably from its original purposes. Nevertheless, scholars in the field do not self-­consciously realize the subjectivity of their scholarship. This gives rise to sinologization. As intellectual commodities, both Sinologism and sinologization are derivatives of Sinology, and neither of them is Sinology per se. Rather, they are alienations of Sinology, China knowledge, and knowledge production. For this reason, Sinologism should be redefined as alienated knowledge in general and alienation of Sinology and China–West studies in particular. In what way is Sinologism an alienation of knowledge? “Alienation,” according to Raymond Williams, is “one of the most difficult words in the language,” and has multiple denotations and connotations. In intellectual thought, alienation in its general sense refers to a process whereby “man is seen as cut off, estranged from his own original nature”1 and “the world man has made confronts him as stranger and enemy, having power over him who has transferred his power to it.”2 My redefinition of Sinologism as alienated knowledge takes the line of thought developed by Hegel, Feuerbach, and Marx. In Hegel’s theory of alienated culture, human beings created a culture through their activities, but the created culture becomes an alien force that confronts them.3 In Feuerbach’s theory of alienated religion,4 human beings create the idea of God, which becomes an alien force that makes them worship it, thereby controlling them. Influenced by Hegel’s and Feuerbach’s theories, Marx posits his theory of alienated labor: [M]an creates himself by creating his world, but in class-­society is alienated from this essential nature by specific forms of alienation in the division of

Conclusion   217 labour, private property and the capitalist mode of production in which the worker loses both the product of his labour and his sense of his own productive activity, following the expropriation of both by capital.5 In the Economic and Philosophical Manuscripts of 1844, Marx elaborates on what is not alienation and how alienation comes into being as a result of private labor and capitalist mode of commodity production: Let us review the various factors as seen in our supposition: My work would be a free manifestation of life, hence an enjoyment of life. Presupposing private property, my work is an alienation of life, for I work in order to live, in order to obtain for myself the means of life. My work is not my life.6 In Hegel, Feuerbach, and Marx, alienation is essentially self-­alienation, and to be alienated is to be separated from one’s own nature and one’s work. In fundamental ways my conception of Sinologism as an alienated intellectual product is related to Marx’s idea of alienated labor and commodity fetish. In labor, the original objective of work is to create products that satisfy human needs so that human beings can lead a more fulfilled life. But because of the capitalist mode of production, which aims at making profits as its sole goal, the original human purpose is forgotten and the created product becomes something which no one except the market has control over. In a similar way, Sinology and China studies originally aim at producing scholarship and knowledge on China for information and education. But due to various forces, political, ideological, ethnic, and academic, knowledge and scholarship on China become intellectual commodities that deviate substantially from the original purpose, which is to inform and educate people about China and Chinese culture. And the knowledge and scholarship produced frequently contradict and compromise the producer’s original intentions. Marx views the appearance of alienation as a result of capitalism. In my view it is not by sheer coincidence that Sinology began to deviate from its original aim at producing knowledge, and embarked on its way to Sinologism, at approximately the same time as the capitalist mode of production sought to expand the world market and to turn everything into commodities. According to Marx, alienation can be overcome by restoring the truly human relationship to the labor process; with employment as a way people can express their human nature and as a way they can fulfil their human potential. In a similar vein Sinologism as an alienated form of Sinology and China–West studies is endowed with the great potential to restore China knowledge production and scholarship to a healthy state of true knowledge and scholarship. My inquiry into Sinologism is basically a cultural critique that deals with alienated knowledge of China–West studies. Just as Hegel, Feuerbach, and Marx have shown that the history of human culture is explicitly marked by alienation, and alienation is largely unconscious in nature, the inner logic of Sinologism is largely unconscious in two fundamental ways. First, the problematic of Sinologism is beyond our conscious awareness. Few scholars engaged in sinologistic

218   Conclusion practices are aware of the fact that they come under the sway of an unconscious motivating force that controls the epistemology and methodology of their scholarship. Second, even though we are consciously aware of its presence in the various problematic manifestations, for various reasons (ethnic, political, and academic) we tend to ignore them or consciously deny them, because no one would admit that he or she is engaged in epistemological and methodological colonization in terms of Western-­centric cultural theories and models. What is paradoxical is that oftentimes, misperception, misconception, and misrepresentation in China–West studies are self-­consciously made without the scholars’ awareness of their biases, prejudices, and false consciousnesses. I have provided ample analyses of such cases. In this sense, the inner logic of Sinologism, which is a form of cultural unconscious, is both conscious and unconscious. It is conscious in its manifestations, but unconscious in its motivations. Like a psychological complex, it is essentially a compromise formation incorporating conflicting and contradictory motives, desires, causes, rationales, and goals. It is relatively easy to repudiate its manifestations, but hard to get at its root causes. As alienated knowledge, Sinologism poses an obstacle to scientific, objective, and reliable knowledge and scholarship in China–West studies, and hinders healthy and meaningful exchanges and dialogues in cross-­cultural studies. We must go beyond it. But how? Sinologism operates on an inner logic, which is the cultural unconscious. As unconscious can be made conscious by special procedures, the most effective way to deal with the problem is to adopt a strategy similar to psychoanalytic procedures that are based on the rationale of making one aware of unconscious desires and fears, phobias and anxieties, depressions and compulsions. The foregoing chapters have been preoccupied precisely with this central objective. The analyses have mainly focused on how to recognize the inner logic as well as criticize the dazzling manifestations of Sinologism in a variety of scholarly fields. In this concluding part, I wish to make some further reflections on Sinologism and offer some thoughts on where studies of Sinologism should be heading and how we can turn alienated symptoms of Sinologism into healthy creative energies in knowledge production.

Making the unconscious culture conscious Sinologism is, in the final analysis, an unconscious culture operating on the logic of a cultural unconscious that alienates the production of knowledge and scholarship. To de-­alienate Sinologism I think we need, first of all, to start a process of de-­sinologization and de-­ideologization, and engage in critical reflections on how to make the cultural unconscious conscious and how to turn Sinologism from a deconstructive theory to a constructive theory of academic criticism. To accomplish de-­sinologization, the first move is to adequately recognize the consequences of sinologization. I have discussed the various phenomena of sinologization in a previous chapter, but did not define the concept in rigorous terms. Now, in this concluding section, I will attempt to provide a clear definition. Sinologization is an undeclared but tacitly administered institiutionalization of

Conclusion   219 the ways of observing China from the perspective of Western epistemology that refuses, or is reluctant, to view China on its own terms, and of doing scholarship on Chinese materials and producing knowledge on Chinese civilization in terms of Western methodology that tends to disregard the real conditions of China and reduce the complexity of Chinese civilization into simplistic patterns of development modeled on those of the West. Sinologization has serious consequences in almost every aspect of Chinese culture and society. I have dealt with a broad spectrum of them in earlier chapters and do not need to tackle them further. As a scholar of literature and culture, my study is mainly concerned with Sinologism in the domains of literature, language, thought, and other areas of human science. Since the logic of Sinologism is a cultural unconscious that has penetrated deeply into people’s minds, it exists in practically all areas of scholarly research and knowledge production. Hence, future studies of Sinologism ought to extend to other fields of social and natural sciences. The manifestations of Sinologism in those fields have scarcely been touched. Inquiries into those areas will surely produce new findings and insights that will give us inspiration to go beyond Sinologism. De-­sinologization is to self-­consciously de-­ institutionalize the sinologistic ways of observing China and doing scholarship on Chinese materials. It involves two major aspects: one pertaining to Chinese scholars, the other relating to non-­Chinese scholars. De-­sinologization for Chinese scholars is to be aware of the drawbacks and shortcomings of sinologistic ways of doing scholarship, to recognize the limits and limitations of Western concepts and conceptualizations, to overcome a blind faith in the efficacy of Western theories, and to self-­consciously reject the intellectual habit of doing scholarship in terms of the culture-­specific models and methodologies of the West. In the final analysis it is a process of intellectual emancipation of a mind shackled by Western perception, conception, and generalization, a spiritual restoration of the faith in one’s own abilities and creative power, and a resuscitation of one’s zeal for original creation. De-­sinologization for non-­Chinese scholars is to have a clear awareness of the inevitable subjectivity of one’s perspective of observing China, to be on guard against doing Chinese scholarship on Western terms, and to strive to produce knowledge and scholarship on China in as objective and scientific a manner as possible. People may say that my idea of depoliticization of knowledge is an illusion. After all, Terry Eagleton, Frederic Jamesson, and many other theorists have convincingly argued that all criticism is political criticism and that all knowledge is ideologically laden.7 Does this mean that it is impractical to call for apolitical ways of knowledge production about China? I don’t think so. On the contrary, I believe that precisely because of the pervasiveness of political influences, depoliticization of knowledge production is highly necessary for objective ways of doing scholarship on China. To a great extent the success of de-­sinologization depends on depoliticization of knowledge and scholarship. The fundamental issue that differentiates my conception of Sinologism from Orientalism and Occidentalism is a drive at depoliticization of scholarship and knowledge production. Although it is not entirely possible to separate politics

220   Conclusion from scholarship, we should strive for disinterested production of scholarship, and set as an ideal the practice of striving for knowledge production for knowledge’s sake, not alienated knowledge at the service of any ideological agenda. It is likely we cannot completely cleanse scholarship of political influence, but we should do as much as possible to strive to depoliticize scholarship and advocate scholarship for scholarship’s sake. A practical way to come close to the idea would be a hermeneutic approach to knowledge production and scholarship, based on the recognition that China is a great book that requires repeated reading and fresh interpretation.

Whither Sinologism? Sinologism is largely a new conceptual category. Its studies have not yet formed a complete system. With the tentative exploration in this inquiry, where should our future exploration of Sinologism lead us? By way of conclusion I will offer some further reflections. First and foremost, we should continue to explore the rise, origin, historical evolution, characteristic feature, present-­day condition and inner logic, and extend that exploration beyond the fields of the humanities and social sciences. The current study has its focus on language, literature, thought, and culture. Future inquiries should be broadened to include the diverse fields of politics, economics, diplomacy, medicine, society, technology, and natural sciences, and other areas directly related to China knowledge production and cross-­ cultural studies. Second, studies of Sinologism should not be limited to goals that set out to expose biases and prejudices against China, correct errors and misrepresentations concerning Chinese civilization, and dispute misperceptions and misinterpretations of Chinese materials: although all these objectives are legitimate in the process of analysis. A significant direction we should take is to get behind and beneath all the identified problems in order to uncover the motivations, mental frameworks, attitudes, and rationales for all those phenomena. In other words, a more important objective is to discover the inner logic responsible for the problems arising in scholarship on China–West studies. In conceptual terms, the fundamental goal should be to discover the epistemological and methodological sources of the dazzling phenomena under the rubric “Sinologism.” Third, we should raise people’s awareness of the pitfalls of sinologistic knowledge production, and show its grave consequences in the context of globalization, which, among other things, includes obstructing cross-­cultural exchanges and causing epistemic inertia and the atrophy of the original creativity of non-­ Western peoples. Sinologism should contribute to the clarification of scholarly issues in the application of Said’s theory of Orientalism to Sinology and China– West studies. Last, but not least, as it is preoccupied with knowledge and scholarship, critiques of Sinologism should offer a new paradigm in China–West studies. It should compel us to reflect on the status quo, problems, and future improvement in China knowledge production in the worldwide context of globalization.

Conclusion   221 ­ pecifically, Sinologism should engage in reflections on the existing paradigms S and approaches constructed on Western-­centric theories and teleology of scientism, and initiate a viable shift in the existing paradigm of China studies from Western-­centric models and pseudo-­scientific teleology to genuinely scientific ways of knowledge production about China. The ultimate aim for studies of Sinologism is to encourage and promote the production of objective knowledge about China, free from bias, prejudice, subjective attitudes, and political interference of any kind. This last aim may seem rather utopian, given the widely accepted view that knowledge is constructed and truth, even in natural sciences, is not free from subjectivity. Nevertheless, I wish to insist that even though there is no absolutely objective knowledge, it is always a sublime endeavor to strive to make our produced knowledge as free of subjectivity as possible. In the non-­academic dimension, Sinologism is an intellectual commodity, created by a diverse array of people including Westerners, Chinese, and others, to meet the demand for Chinese knowledge by different countries and regions of the world. Just as a commodity requires modification and improvement in content, form, quality and packaging in response to market needs, Sinologism as an intellectual commodity changes in accordance with the demand for China knowledge in different historical periods and by different geographical areas. In one historical period, it took on a romantic picture of Khan’s empire described by Marco Polo; in another historical period, it is represented as the ideal state ruled by philosopher-­kings in Leibniz’s and Voltaire’s accounts; in still another historical period, it was bleakly presented as a fossilized civilization like a mummy; in modern times, it assumed the scary image of Red China with the menacing power of the Yellow Peril in history. Recently, against the backdrop of an economic boom and impressive industrial achievement, there have appeared two opposite images of China: a blindly optimistic view that predicts the twenty-­first century to be China’s century; another pessimistic view that forewarns of the imminent implosion of the Chinese economy and the collapse of its government. Although its packaging constantly changes, the invariable constant in Sinologism is the inner logic that operates at its core: the unconscious logic of Western-­centric intellectual consumerism. How can we get out of the prevalent intellectual consumerism? I have redefined Sinologism as an alienation of Sinology and knowledge production. This redefinition contains insights for going out of Sinologism as alienated intellectual commodity and for restoring the original purpose and function of Sinology and knowledge. But how can we overcome alienation in Sinologism? A viable way out of Sinologism is to get off the beaten track of sinologistic thinking and engage in epistemic and methodological reflections on how to approach China– West studies from a genuinely academic perspective. As a critical theory Sinologism inevitably overlaps with Orientalism and postcolonialism, but, as I have already discussed in this study, it has some distinctive differences. Orientalism has its strengths in critiquing Western imperialism and colonialism, but it has little to say about the role of colonized people in the creation of Orientalism. Postcolonialism has made up for some of its inadequacies, but it remains an

222   Conclusion ideology-­dominant political criticism. In my view the theory of Sinologism should not become a theory of ideological criticism, but should strive to be a theory of critical reflection on how to do scholarship and how to produce knowledge in ways relatively free from the interferences of politics and ideology. For example, through critical analysis of the problems in produced knowledge about China since Marco Polo’s times, and the problematic views, attitudes, and evaluations of Chinese civilization by the Chinese themselves, Chinese and Western scholars engaged in China–West studies might self-­consciously conduct reflections on the guiding principles, methodologies, conceptual paradigms, and research outcomes as part of their efforts to locate more scientific, objective, and fair ways of doing China scholarship. In so doing they may find inspiration and insight for decolonizing, depoliticizing, and de-­ideologizing Chinese scholarship.

A theory of self-­conscious reflection The ideology of Sinologism has obstructed Chinese and Western scholars in their perception and representation of China. It has in turn blurred Western and non-­Western people’s own vision and understanding of their own cultures, because a true understanding of one’s own culture requires the mirror image of another culture. Consequently there is an urgent need for self-­conscious reflection on the part of both Westerners and non-­Westerners alike. There is also a pressing need for the Chinese to understand their own culture. As Sinologism has penetrated almost all strata of Chinese academia and all aspects of Chinese social life, it has become an obstacle to the healthy development of Chinese society. The inundation of Western ideas and scholarship into China in the 1970s during the initial stage of Reform and Openness made it possible for Chinese academia to emancipate its mind, but it has also intensified the cultural unconscious centering on intellectual colonization, and strengthened the epistemological and methodological inertia of the Chinese mind and caused the atrophy of scholarly creativity and originality. It has become the consensus that the present­day prosperity of Chinese scholarship is based on introduction, imitation, reproduction and duplication. Numerous scholars deplore the low degrees of originality and creativity in Chinese academia. Almost all academic fields are content with low-­level duplication of Western academic achievements. This is especially so in the social sciences and humanities. To introduce popular Western theories into China has become an assuredly successful way to fame and honor in Chinese humanities and social sciences. The appearance of a new Chinese coinage, shanzhai8 (literally, a fortified mountain village, figuratively, copy, counterfeit, fake, duplicate, copycat, etc.) vividly reflects the scholarly status quo and a social mentality, which shows little interest in original creation but is only content with copycatting. It has confirmed from the linguistic perspective my identified problems of epistemic and methodological inertia, which is also endemic in the fields of natural sciences and technology. If a field of science and technology can rely on Western expertise, Chinese scholars seldom produce original work and achievements. Only in those areas where Western

Conclusion   223 expertise is not available, Chinese scholars have produced original and creative work. Chinese society has a strong predilection for the Nobel Prizes, but it can be safely said that so long as the mentality of Sinologism is not eliminated, Chinese science and technology have no hope of reaching the height worthy of a Nobel Prize, because sinologistic thinking is the natural enemy to originality. Chinese academia is in need of a second mental emancipation since the beginning of Reform and Openness. The critical theory of Sinologism and its paradigm of reflection may contribute to this second emancipation. From another perspective, Sinologism has hampered fruitful dialogues between China and West in particular and the cultural exchanges between different cultures in general. Sinologization is even more devastating for other third-­world cultures, as it is capable of causing epistemic inertia and atrophy of original creativity of non-­Western countries and peoples. In the worldwide context, the critical theory of Sinologism may contribute to the global enterprise of intellectual and mental de-­colonization. It may help people of Third World countries become aware of grave consequences of “spiritual colonization” and “self-­colonization,” overcome intellectual and academic inertia, and produce original and creative work in academic as well as in cultural domains. Ultimately, it may help overcome alienations of Sinology, China knowledge, and knowledge production in cross-­cultural studies. The core of Sinologism in China–West studies and cross-­cultural studies is the cultural unconscious arising from the false consciousness of ethnic, national, inter-­national, inter-­cultural differences, and ideological programming. In his study of the political unconscious, Jameson argues that “the neo-­Freudian nostalgia for some ultimate moment of cure, in which the dynamics of the unconscious proper rise to the light of day and of consciousness and are somehow ‘integrated’ in an active lucidity about ourselves and the determinations of our desires and our behavior” is a “myth,” and “the Marxian ideological analysis: namely, the vision of a moment in which the individual subject would be somehow fully conscious of his or her determination by class and would be able to square the circle of ideological conditioning by sheer lucidity and the taking of thought,” a “mirage.”9 I accept the ever-­presence of politics in all discourses, but I do not subscribe to the idea that there is no disinterested approach to the production of knowledge and scholarship. Here, I will analyze a case to show why I think this is so. In her influential article, “Can the Subaltern Speak?” Spivak expresses a concern over “the possibility that the intellectual is complicit in the persistent constitution of the Other as the Self ’s shadow.”10 She cites the British outlawing of sati, the Hindu practice of sacrificing a widow by burning her on her husband’s funeral pyre as an example. While the British intervention was for the most admirable humanitarian reasons, the act serves to reinforce the perception of the difference between British “civilization” and Indian “barbarism,” thereby justifying the British colonial rule and Kipling’s famous (or notorious) saying that it is “the white man’s burden” to civilize the colonized peoples. As Hindu culture was written out of law, going underground due to the British intervention in colonial

224   Conclusion history, Spivak worries lest present-­day intellectuals may commit similar acts of condescension to those of the British colonists when they represent the oppressed. I wish to relate this to a similar historical practice in China. Foot-­ binding was a tortuous custom imposed on Chinese girls in pre-­modern times by the male-­dominated patriarchal society. It was finally abolished as a result of the concerted efforts of Chinese and Western missionaries. The anti foot-­binding campaigns were initiated by the Chinese, but were inspired by Western ideas, and Western missionaries played a significant role in it. Western missionaries supported the campaign because they considered foot-­binding as running counter to Christian beliefs. Although their position was colored considerably by Western-­centric beliefs, because the missionaries did not view the practice as a case that demonstrated Western cultural superiority over Chinese cultural inferiority, their intervention was seldom, if ever, viewed in the same light as that for the British abolition of sati. The British humanitarian intervention was accompanied by negative reactions, precisely because the British colonialists made use of their humanitarian acts to strengthen their political control of India. If the British had not contaminated their intervention with political motives, the abolition of sati would have been a most praiseworthy act. Recently a friend of mine who has read my articles on Sinologism published in Chinese journals, had an extended conversation with me. He found no problem with my analyses of Sinologism, but took issue with my advocacy of depoliticization and de-­ideologization of scholarship and knowledge. He posed this question: how can you engage in a disinterested scholarly study of issues that are by nature and function, ideologies? As an example, he cited Marxism in China. My answer is: it is true that Marxism is an ideology and a reigning ideology in China, but it does not mean that one cannot study it from an apolitical and non-­ideological perspective. I agree that there is no absolutely ideology-­free scholarship, but there is relatively disinterested scholarship. In Edward Said’s rebuttal of the attacks on his Orientalism, he repudiates Bernard Lewis’s charge of “a violation of the very idea of disinterested scholarship.”11 I have demonstrated in Chapter 2 that though he and Lewis argue from diametrically political positions, both of them in effect agree on one thing: there is disinterested scholarship.12 I, too, firmly believe that there is disinterested scholarship and there are relatively neutral, objective, and bias-­free approaches to knowledge production. My whole study has shown that Sinologism is an unconscious culture with the logic of a cultural unconscious. As the cultural unconscious is deeply hidden in China–West studies, Sinologism will not be a short-­lived phenomenon. Recognition of its logic and rationale will be the first step to going beyond it, but its ultimate disappearance will rest upon the emergence of a truly human, rather than ethno-­centric, mentality, based on the understanding of different cultures in terms of our common humanity and a bias-­free reverence for facts, truths, intellectual equality and integrity. Once freed from the unconscious logic of Sinologism, cross-­cultural studies will no longer rely on Western theories as universal paradigms, but use them as reference frameworks to study the historical ­conditions of non-­Western cultures and societies, and there will appear truly

Conclusion   225 s­ cientific and objective approaches to non-­Western materials, resulting in bias-­ free knowledge about non-­Western cultures. In the field of China–West studies, so long as we become fully conscious of the logic of Sinologism and guard against its appearance in knowledge and scholarship, we will eventually be able to usher in a “golden age” when knowledge about China and other cultures is pursued for its own sake, free from the interference of the political ideologies of colonialism, Western-­centrism, ethno-­centrism, and other political and ideological agendas. And there will appear genuine understanding and appreciation of traditions and cultures other than one’s own, which will facilitate the fostering of peace and harmony in the world and contribute to the healthy development of globalization. Conceived and pursued for this ultimate goal, the conception of Sinologism is not a theory of ideological critique but a critical theory of self-­ conscious reflection.

Notes

Introduction: Orientalism and beyond   1 Arif Dirlik, “Chinese History and the Question of Orientalism” in History and Theory, 35:4, 1996, p. 112.   2 Gayatri C. Spivak, “Can The Subaltern Speak?” in Vincent Leitch et al. (eds.), Norton Anthology of Theory and Criticism, 2nd edition, New York: Norton, 2010, p. 2114.   3 Homi Bhabha, The Location of Culture, London: Routledge, 1994, pp. 71–5.   4 Robert Young, White Mythologies: Writing History and the West, London: Routledge, 1990, pp. 127–40.   5 Ziauddin Sardar, Orientalism, Buckingham and Philadelphia: Open University Press, 1999, pp. 54–76.   6 Aijaz Ahmad, In Theory: Classes, Nations, Literatures, London: Verso Books 1994, pp. 159–220.   7 H. Bhabha, The Location of Culture, p. 70.   8 Li Zehou, “An Outline of the Speech on Practical Aesthetics” in Li Zehou jinnian dawen lu (A Collection of Li Zehou’s Interviews in Recent Years), Tianjin: Tianjin shehui kexue chubanshe, 2006, p. 44.   9 Theodore Huters, “Introduction” to Wang Hui, The Politics of Imagining Asia, Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2011, p. 2. 10 Ibid., pp. 2–3. 11 Wang Hui, The Politics of Imagining Asia, Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2011, p. 67. 12 Bob Hodge and Kam Louie, The Politics of Chinese Language and Culture: The Art of Reading Dragons, London and New York: Routledge, 1998, pp. 12–13. 13 Adrian Hsia, Chinesia: The European Construction of China in the Literature of the 17th and 18th Centuries, Tübingen: Max Niemeyer Verlag, 1998, p. 7. 14 Zhou Ning, “Hanxue or Hanxue zhuyi” (Sinology or Sinologism) in Xiamen daxue xuebao (Journal of Xiamen University), 1, 2004. 15 “Sinologism” as a new coinage seems to have appeared in the late 1990s. Whether in the West or China, its meaning is exactly the same, defined as “Orientalism in sinological studies.” See Bob Hodge and Kam Louie, The Politics of Chinese Language and Culture, pp.  12–17; and Zhou Ning, “Hanxue or Hanxue zhuyi” (Sinology or Sinologism). 16 By “hot” intellectual commodity, I refer to a curious phenomenon that has been observed by some Chinese intellectuals: when the research results accomplished by Western Sinologists were introduced into China, they would immediately become popular and even be promoted as ideal models for study; and, oftentimes, some Western Sinologists whose scholarly work was not that great were eulogized like intellectual stars. Wen Rumin, a professor of Chinese from Beijing University, regards this phenomenon as motivated by what he calls “Sinologist Mentality.”

Notes   227 17 In the past few years I have published five Chinese articles that focus on explorations of Sinologism as a critical category. They include two articles in the Journal of Nanjing University (January 2010, May 2011), one in Wenxue pinglun (Literary Review) (July 2010), one in Xueshu yuekan (Academic Monthly) (December 2010), and another in Journal of Tsinghua University (March 2011). 18 Rey Chow, preface to Modern Chinese Literary and Cultural Studies in the Age of Theory: Reimagining a Field, Durham and London: Duke University Press, 2000, p. 5. 19 See Edward Schafer, “What and How Is Sinology?” Inaugural lecture for the Department of Oriental Languages and Literatures, University of Colorado, Boulder, October 14, 1982. 20 Samuel Huntington, The Clash of Civilizations and the Remaking of World Order, New York, NY: Simon and Schuster, 1996. 21 Matthew Arnold, “The Function of Criticism at the Present Time” in Norton Anthology of Theory and Criticism, p. 703. 1  Knowledge and cultural unconscious   1 See Gordon G. Chang, The Coming Collapse of China, New York: Random House, 2001, 2nd edition 2003.   2 See Ted C. Fishman, China, Inc.: How the Rise of the Next Superpower Challenges America and the World, New York: Scribner, 2005.   3 Lester R. Brown, Who Will Feed China: Wake-­Up Call for a Small Planet, Washington DC: Worldwatch Institute, 1995.   4 In an interview with a Chinese reporter in March 2008, Brown changed his mind. It was reported in a TV series, Five Thousand Years of Chinese Writing, Beijing: China Science and Culture Audio-­Video Press, 2009, Part VIII.   5 See Gordon G. Chang, “China: the world’s next great economic crash” in Christian Science Monitor, January 21, 2010.   6 See David Barboza, “Contrarian Investor Sees Economic Crash in China” in New York Times, January 7, 2010.   7 Raymond S. Dawson, The Chinese Chameleon: An Analysis of European Conceptions of Chinese Civilization, London and New York: Oxford University Press, 1967.   8 Steven W. Mosher, China Misperceived: American Illusions and Chinese Reality, New York: Basic Books, 1990.   9 Xin Jianfei, Shijie de Zhongguoguan: Jin liangqiannian shijie dui Zhongguo de renshi shigang (The World’s perceptions of China: A history of the knowledge about China over the past two thousand years), Hong Kong: Sanlian Shudian, 1991. 10 Julie Ching and Willard Oxtoby (eds.), Discovering China: European Interpretations in the Enlightenment, Rochester: University of Rochester Press, 1992. 11 Adrian Hsia, Chinesia: The European Construction of China in the Literature of the 17th and 18th Centuries, Tübingen: Max Niemeyer Verlag, 1998. 12 Jonathan Spence, Chan’s Great China: China in Western Minds, New York: Norton, 1998. 13 Colin Mackerras, Western Images of China, New York: Oxford University Press, 2000. 14 Rupert Hodder, In China’s Image: Chinese Self-­Perception in Western Thought, New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2000. 15 David Martin Jones, The Image of China in Western Social and Political Thought, New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2001. 16 Zhou Ning wrote a series of books on China’s images created by people of the world. They include: Zhongguo xingxiang: Xifang de xueshuo yu chuangshuo (China’s Images in Western Scholarship and Legends), Beijing: Xuewan chubanshe, 2004; Xiangxiang Zhongguo (Imagining China), Beijing: Zhonghua shuju, 2004; Shijie zhi

228   Notes Zhongguo – Yuewai Zhongguo xingxiang yanjiu (China in the Eyes of the World: A Study of China’s Images Abroad), Nanjing: Nanjing daxue chubanshe, 2009. In addition to the book-­length studies, Zhou Ning has also had published in several journals, articles on China’s images: “Xifang de Zhongguo xingxiang shi: Wenti yu lingyue” (A History of China’s Images in the West: Problems and Field) in Dongnan xueshu (Scholarship in Southeastern China), 1, 2005; “Wutuobang yu yishi xingtai: Qibainian lai Xifang Zhongguoguan de liangge jiduo” (Between Utopia and Ideology: Two Radical Positions in Western Views of China in the Past Seven Hundred Years) in Xueshuo yuekan (Academic Monthly), 8, 2005. 17 Wang Hui, The Politics of Imagining Asia, Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2011. 18 John Fairbank, The United States and China, New edition, Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1958, p. 321. 19 See relevant sections in Huang Xingtao’s book, Wenhua guaijie Gu Hongming (Gu Hongming: A Cultural Eccentric), Beijing: Zhonghua Book Company, 1995. 20 Said, Orientalism, p. 204. 21 Fredric Jameson, The Political Unconscious: Narrative as a Socially Symbolic Act, Ithaca and New York: Cornell University Press, 1981, p. 20. 22 Ibid. 23 About the reactions by Oriental scholars, we may read Bernard Lewis, Islam and The West, New York: Oxford University Press, 1993; John M. Mackenzie, Orientalism: History, Theory and the Arts, Manchester and New York: Manchester University Press, 1995. For responses by Sinologues, see Simon Leys, The Burning Forest: Essays on Chinese Culture and Politics, New York: Holt, Rinehart, and Winston, 1985, pp.  95–9. Other Sinologues who hold a critical attitude towards Said’s book include Norman J. Girardot, The Victorian Translation of China: James Legge’s Oriental Pilgrimage, Berkeley and London: University of California Press, 2002, p. 530; Robert A. Kapp (ed.), “Review Symposium: Edward Said’s Orientalism” in Journal of Asian Studies 39:3, May 1980, pp. 481–517; Peter Gran, “Review of Orientalism by Edward Said” in Journal of the American Oriental Society 100:3 (July–October 1980), pp. 328–31; and Jonathan D. Spence, Chinese Roundabout: Essays in History and Culture, New York and London: Norton & Company, 1992, p. 90. 24 For an account of how the term was abolished, see Bernard Lewis, Islam and the West, New York: Oxford University Press, 1993, pp. 103–4. 25 Said states in his book: Marx’s economic analyses are perfectly fitted thus to a standard Orientalism undertaking, even though Marx’s humanity, his sympathy for the misery of people, are clearly engaged. Yet in the end it is the Romantic Orientalist vision that wins out, as Marx’s theoretical socio-­economic views become submerged in this classically standard image. . . . Marx is no exception. The collective Orient was easier for him to use in illustration of a theory than existential human identities. (Orientalism, pp. 154–5) 26 For warnings against scholarly colonization of Chinese scholarship see Zhou Ning, “Hanxue yu Hanxue zhuyi” (Sinology or Sinologism) in Xiamen daxue xuebao (Journal of Xiamen University), 1, 2004. For warnings against nationalistic tendencies in Chinese scholarship, see Tao Dongfeng, “Jingti Zhongguo wenxue yanjiu zhong de minzu zhuyi qingxiang” (Guard against the Nationalistic Tendencies in Literary Studies in China” in Tansuo yu zhengming (Inquiry and Contention), 1, 2010. 27 See Wang Gungwu, China and the Chinese Overseas, Singapore: Times Academic Press, 1991; Rey Chow, Women and Chinese Modernity: the politics of Reading between West and East, Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1991; Writing Diaspora: tactics of intervention in contemporary cultural studies, Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1993; and Rey Chow, “On Chinese as a Theoretical

Notes   229 Problem” in Rey Chow (ed.), Modern Chinese Literary and Cultural Studies in the Age of Theory: Reimagining a Field, Durham and London: Duke University Press, 2000, pp. 1–25; Tu Wei-­ming, “Cultural China: The Periphery as the Center” in Daedalus, 120:2, Spring 1991, pp. 1–32. 28 Tu Wei-­ming (ed.), “The Living Tree: The Changing Meaning of Being Chinese Today” in Daedalus, 120:2, Spring 1991. 29 See Allen Chun, “Fuck Chineseness: On the Ambiguity of Ethnicity as Culture as Identity” in Boundary 2, 23:2, 1998, pp. 111–38; Ien Ang, On Not Speaking Chinese: living between Asia and the West, London and New York: Routledge, 2001; Sharon A. Carstens, Histories, Cultures, Identities: studies in Malaysian Chinese worlds, Singapore: Singapore University Press, 2005; Shu-­mei Shih, Visuality and Identity: Sinophone Articulations across the Pacific, Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press, 2007. 30 Petrus Liu and Lisa Rofel, “Introduction,” in Positions: east asia cultures critique, 18:2, 2010, p. 281. 31 Allen Chun, “Fuck Chineseness”, p. 138. 32 Gellner, “The Mightier Pen” in Times Literary Supplement, February 19, 1993, pp.  3–4, and the ensuing correspondence published in the same newspaper from March 19 to April 9, 1993. 33 John M. Mackenzie, Orientalism: History, Theory and the Arts, Manchester and New York: Manchester University Press, 1995, p. 36. 34 Jacoby, “Marginal Returns: The Trouble with Post-­colonial Theory” in Lingua Franca, September–October 1995, p. 32. 35 Mackenzie, Orientalism: History, Theory and the Arts, p. 16, note 24. 36 Peter Conrad, “Empire of the Senseless,” in Observer, February 7, 1993, p. 55. 37 Bart Moore-­Gilbert, Postcolonial Theory: Contexts, Practices, Politics, London and New York: Verso, 1997, p. 13. 38 Bernard Lewis, Islam and the West, p. 114. 39 Said, “Afterword” to Orientalism, 25th anniversary edition, London: Penguin Books, 2007, pp. 343–4. 40 These critics include Robert Young, Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak, Homi Bhabha, Ziauddin Sardar Arif Dirlik, Aijaz Ahmad, and other postcolonial and left wing critics. 41 Aijaz Ahmad, In Theory: Classes, Nations, Literatures, London: Verso Books 1994, p. 13. 42 Ibid., pp. 159–219. 43 Aijaz Ahmad, In Theory: Classes, Nations, Literatures, p. 218. 44 See Bernard Lewis, “The Question of Orientalism,” in New York Review of Books, June 24, 1982. 45 Ahmad tacitly accepts Lewis’s scathing questions to Said (p. 173): His [Lewis’s] attack was unseemly on many counts, but the substantive point which Lewis raised was one of competence. What authorized Said to speak of Arab history and Orientalist disciplines? What degrees did he have? Did he know such-­and-such medieval Arabic dictionary? Did he know the meaning of such-­ and-such a word in the whole range of Arab lexicography over ten centuries? Etc. 46 For a brief account of how Said’s Orientalism and postcolonial theories sparked heated, and sometimes acrimonious, exchanges of intellectual fire in the Culture War, the reader may read Mastapha Marrouchi’s article, “Counternarratives, Recoveries, Refusals,” in Boundary 2, 25:2, 1998, pp. 205–57. 47 Said, “Afterword” to Orientalism, p. 343. 48 Ibid., p. 349. 49 Ibid., p. 343. 50 J. L. Henderson, “The Cultural Unconscious,” in J. L. Henderson (ed.), Shadow and

230   Notes Self: Selected Papers in Analytical Psychology, Wilmette, IL: Chiron Publications, 1990, pp. 103–13. 51 M. V. Adams, The Multicultural Imagination: “Race,” Color, and the Unconscious, London and New York: Routledge, 1996, pp. 46–7; Adams, The Mythological Unconscious, New York and London: Karnac, 2001, 106–7. 52 M. V. Adams, “The Islamic Cultural Unconscious in the Dreams of a Contemporary Muslim Man,” a paper presented at the 2nd International Academic Conference of Analytical Psychology and Jungian Studies at Texas A&M University, July 8, 2005. 53 Thomas Singer and Samuel L. Kimbles (eds.), The Cultural Complex: Contemporary Jungian Perspectives on Psyche and Society, New York: Routledge, 2004, pp. 4–6. 54 Vincent Leitch et al. (eds.), The Norton Anthology of Theory and Criticism, New York: Norton, 2010, p. 6. 55 “The Cultural Unconscious,” an article posted on the internet by Jennifer F. Armstrong. Available at: www.unsanesafe.blogspot.com/2005/cultural-­unconscious.html (accessed January 3, 2011). 56 Raymond Williams, Keywords: A Vocabulary of Culture and Society, Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1983, p. 322. 57 D. H. Lawrence, Psychoanalysis and the Unconscious, Harmondsworth: Penguin Books, 1974, pp. 205–6. 58 Williams, Keywords, p. 87. 59 Raymond Williams, Culture and Society, Harmondsworth, England: Penguin, 1963, p. 16. 60 Ibid., p. 321. 61 See the synoptical account of Williams’s book at the back page of the Penguin edition of 1963. 62 Williams, Culture and Society, p. 320. 63 Ferdinand de Saussure, Course in General Linguistics, translated with an introduction and notes by Wade Baskin, New York: McGraw-­Hill, 1966, pp. 66–7. 64 Jacques Lacan, Écrits: A Selection, translated by Alan Sheridan, New York: Norton, 1977, pp. 153–4 65 Sigmund Freud, “Repression” in Peter Gay (ed.), The Freud Reader, New York: Norton, 1989, pp. 569–70. 66 Freud, “The Unconscious,” in The Freud Reader, p. 573. 67 Freud, Papers on Metapsychology, standard edition, Volume 14, 1915, p. 154. 68 Williams, Keywords, pp. 321–2. 69 Li Zehou and Jane Cauvel, Four Essays on Aesthetics: Toward a Global View, Lenham and New York: Lexington Books, 2006, p. 88. 70 Quoted from the online Webster’s Unabridged Dictionary. Available at: www. merriam-­webster.com/dictionary (accessed January 3, 2011). 71 Williams, Keywords, p. 322. 72 Said, “Figures, configurations, transfigurations” in Race and Class, 32:1, 1990, p. 14. 73 Edward Said, “Between Worlds” in London Review of Books, May 7, 1998. 74 Matthew Arnold, Culture and Anarchy: An Essay in Political and Social Criticism, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1969, p. 6. 75 J. Hillis Miller, “The Critic as Host,” in Critical Inquiry, Spring 1977, pp. 439–47. 2  Sinology, Sinologism, and postcolonialism   1 See Schafer, “What and How Is Sinology?” Inaugural lecture for the Department of Oriental Languages and Literatures, University of Colorado, Boulder, October 14, 1982.   2 Harriet Thelma Zurndorfer, China Bibliography: A Research Guide to Reference Works about China Past and Present, Leiden: Brill Publishers, 1995, p. 4.   3 Marco Polo, The Travels of Marco Polo, Harmondsworth: Penguin Classics, 1958.

Notes   231   4 I borrowed this term from what came to be called the “accomodationist” position in the seventeenth century Roman Catholic Church’s debates concerning the conversion of the Chinese to Christianity.   5 See G. W. Leibniz’s “Preface to the Novissima Sinica” in Writings on China, translated by Daniel J. Cook and Henry Rosemont, Chicago: Open Court, 1994, pp. 45–59.   6 Bob Hodge and Kam Louie, The Politics of Chinese Language and Culture: The Art of Reading Dragons, London and New York: Routeledge, 1998, p. 12.   7 Ibid., p. 13.   8 See Ji Jin, “Sinology Abroad: Another Voice – An Interview with David Wang” in Wenyi lilun yanjiu (Theoretical Studies of Literature and Art), 5, 2008, p. 10.   9 Zhou Ning, “Hanxue yu Hanxue zhuyi” (Sinology or Sinologism), in Journal of Xiamen University, 1, 2004, p. 10. 10 Ibid. 11 Ibid., p. 6. 12 Ibid., p. 7. 13 Zhang Xiping, preface to Li Xuetao’s Ri’erman xueshu puxi zhong de Hanxue –Deguo Hanxue zhi yanjiu” (Sinology in the German Linage: A Study of Germany Sinology), Beijing: Foreign Language Teaching and Research Press, 2008. 14 Zhou Ning, “Hanxue,” p. 8. 15 Ibid. 16 See Adrian Chan, Orientalism in Sinology, Bethesda and Dublin: Academica Press, 2009. 17 Edward Said, “Orientalism Reconsidered” in Francis Barker et al. (eds.), Literature, Politics and Theory: Papers from the Essex Conference 1976–84, London and New York: Methuen, 1986, pp. 209–29. 18 Ibid., p. 211. 19 Ibid., p. 215. 20 Ibid., p. 220. 21 For example, in “Afterword” to Orientalism, p. 338, Said states: So while I would accept the overall impression that Orientalism is written out of an extremely concrete history of personal loss and national disintegration . . . I would also like to add that neither in this book nor in the two that immediately followed it . . . did I want only to suggest a political program of restored identity and resurgent nationalism. 22 Ibid., p. 342. 23 Said, Orientalism, p. 2. 24 Ibid., pp. 116–20. 25 Ibid., p. 3. 26 Bernard Lewis, Islam and the West, New York: Oxford University Press, 1993, p. 107. 27 Said, Orientalism, pp. 2–3. 28 Ibid., pp. 21–2. 29 Ibid., p. 1. 30 Ibid., p. 322. 31 Zhang Kuan, “Sayide de Dongfang zhuyi yu Xifang de Hanxue yanjiu (Said’s Orientalism and Chinese Studies in the West” in Liaowang (Observation), 27, 1995, pp. 36–7. 32 Wang Ning, “Quanqiuhua shidai de houzhimin piping jiqi dui women de qishi” (Postcolonialism and Its Inspirations for Us in the Era of Globalization) in Wenxue lilun qianyan (Frontiers of Literary Theory), Beijing: Beijing daxue chubanshe, 2004, p. 46. 33 See Chen Xiaomei’s Occidentalism: A Theory of Counter-­Discourse in Post-­Mao China, New York: Oxford University Press, 1995; Ian Buruma and Avishai Margalit,

232   Notes Occidentalism: the West in the Eyes of its Enemies, New York: Penguin Press, 2004; Alastair Bonnett, The Idea of the West: Culture, Politics and History, New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2004. 34 Leibniz, Writings on China, p. 51. 35 Pound’s views on Chinese culture are scattered in introductory notes to his Chinese translations, correspondences, creative writings, and literary essays. We cannot find any negative comments or biased opinions. On the contrary, his praises for Chinese art and intellectual thought tend to be highly idealistic and somewhat exaggerated. 36 Ezra Pound in T. S. Eliot (ed.), Literary Essays of Ezra Pound, London: Faber & Faber, 1969, p. 215. 37 See Albert Hourani’s book review, “The Road to Morocco” in The New York Review of Books, March 8, 1979. 38 Said, Orientalism, p. 15. 39 John M. Mackenzie, Orientalism: History, Theory and The Arts, Manchester and New York: Manchester University Press, 1995, p. xii. 40 See Zhang Kuan, “Said’s Orientalism and Western Sinological Studies” in Liaowang (Outlook), 27, 1995. 41 Ezra F. Vogel, “Contemporary China Studies in North America: Marginals in a Superpower” in Hsin-­chi Kuan (ed.), The Development of Contemporary China Studies, Tokyo: The Center of East Asian Cultural Studies for UNESCO, 1994, p. 190. 42 Karl Wittfogel, Oriental Despotism: A Comparative Study of Total Power, New Haven and London: Yale University Press, 1957, see his preface. 43 Kurt Werner Radtke and Tony Saich, China’s Modernisation: Westernisation and Accultration, Stuttgart: F. Steiner, 1993, p. 1. 44 Simon Leys, The Burning Forest: Essays on Chinese Culture and Politics, New York: Holt, Rinehart, and Winston, 1985, pp. 95–9. 45 Norman J. Girardot, The Victorian Translation of China: James Legge’s Oriental Pilgrimage, Berkeley and London: University of California Press, 2002, p. 530. 46 Robert A. Kapp (ed.), “Review Symposium: Edward Said’s Orientalism” in Journal of Asian Studies 39:3, May 1980, pp. 481–517. 47 Peter Gran, “Review of Orientalism by Edward Said” in Journal of the American Oriental Society, 100:3, July–October 1980, pp. 328–31. 48 Jonathan D. Spence, Chinese Roundabout: Essays in History and Culture, New York and London: Norton & Company, 1992, p. 90. 49 While acknowledging the usefulness of Said’s Orientalist theory for cross-­cultural studies, Hans Hägerdal (“China and Orientalism” in IIAS Newsletter, 1996, p. 31) asks a plain question and answers it: But is there a widely embracing sinological style, akin to or rather part of an Orientalist discourse? The answer provided by modern Sinologists themselves largely seems to be negative. “There is no Orientalism in Chinese studies,” a prominent representative in the field once assured me. 50 Arif Dirlik, “Chinese History and the Question of Orientalism” in History and Theory, 35:4, 1996, pp. 96–118. 51 In a review of Said’s Orientalism, Sadik Jalal al-­’Azm observes self-­Orientalization and describes it as “orientalism in reverse.” See his “Orientalism and Orientalism in Reverse” in Khamsin, 198, pp. 5–26. 52 Said, “Orientalism Reconsidered,” p. 215. 53 Said, “Afterword” to Orientalism, 1995, p. 347. 54 See Adrian Chan’s Orientalism in Sinology, Palo Alto: Academica Press, 2009, pp. 41–52 and pp. 123–32. It seems to me the lack of persuasiveness may be attributable to following the Orientalist paradigm too mechanically and dogmatically. 55 Ibid., pp. 55–73.

Notes   233 56 Xiaomei Chen, Occidentalism: A Theory of Counter-­Discourse in Post Mao China, Lanham, MD: Rowman and Littlefield, 2002, pp. 1–22. 57 Dirlik, “Chinese History,” p. 110. 58 Gayatri Chakravorti Spivak, “Can the Subaltern Talk?” in Vincent B. Leitch (ed.), Norton Anthology of Theory and Criticism, p. 2197. 59 Dirlik, “Chinese History,” pp. 100–1. 60 Samuel P. Huntington, Clash of Civilizations and the Remaking of World Order, New York: Simon and Schuster, 1996. 61 Tu Wei-­Ming (ed.), Confucian Traditions in East Asian Modernity: Moral Education and Economic Culture in Japan and the Four Mini-­Dragons, Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1996, p. 9. 62 See Jin Zhong, “A Dark Horse in Literary Circles – Liu Xiaobo’s Interview with A Hong Kong News Reporter” in Jiefang yuebao (Emancipation Monthly), 12, Hong Kong, 1988. 63 Frantz Fanon, The Wretched of the Earth, quoted from Vincent Leitch (ed.), Norton Anthology of Theory and Criticism, p. 1578. 3  Sinologism: a historical critique   1 See George Boys-­Stones et al. (eds.), The Oxford Handbook of Hellenic Studies, Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2009.   2 For information on how Ricci accommodated Chinese culture and thought into his Christian system, see Vincent Cronin’s The Wise Man from the West: Matteo Ricci and his Mission to China, New edition, London: Harvill Press, 1999; and Jonathan D. Spence’s The Memory Palace of Matteo Ricci, New York: Penguin Books, 1985.   3 Quoted from Paul K. T. Rule, K’ung-tzu or Confucius? The Jesuit Interpretation of Confucianism, Sydney: Allen and Unwin, 1986, p. 1.   4 See G. W. Leibniz, Writings on China, translated by Daniel J. Cook and Henry Rosemont, Chicago: Open Court, 1994, p. 46.   5 Marco Polo, The Travels of Marco Polo, translated by Ronald Latham, London: Penguin Books, 1958.   6 Voltaire’s play was adapted from a Chinese play, The Orphan of Chao written by Chinese playwright Ji Junxiang in the Yuan Dynasty of the late thirteenth century.   7 Voltaire, An Essay on Universal History, The Manners and Spirit of Nations from the Reign of Charlemaign to the Age of Lewis XIV, Volume 1, Dublin, 1759, p. 9.   8 See Montesquieu, “Geographica,” in André Masson (ed.), Montesquieu, oeuvres completes, Paris, 1955, Volume 2, p. 927.   9 Montesquieu, The Spirit of the Laws, translated and edited by Anne M. Cohler et al., Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 1989, Book 3, “On the principles of three governments”, pp. 21–30. 10 Montesquieu, The Spirit of the Laws, p. 128. 11 Ibid., pp. 126–7. 12 Ibid., p. 127. 13 Jonathan Spence, Chan’s Great China: China in Western Minds, New York: Norton, 1998, p. 54. 14 The Mandate of Heaven was a political and social philosophy that explained the legitimacy of rulers and the success and failure of a dynastic government. Simply put, Heaven would give authority to a just ruler, but would withdraw its mandate from a despotic ruler. The concept originated from high antiquity and was first used to justify the overthrow of the Shang by the Zhou. A well-­accepted political theory among the common people, as well as scholars and statesmen in traditional China, it argues for the removal of incompetent or despotic rulers, and urges rulers to rule wisely and justly. It was often invoked by officials and scholars in ancient China as an effective way to curtail the abuse of power by rulers.

234   Notes 15 Montesquieu, The Spirit of the Laws, pp. 124–6. 16 Ibid., p. 71. 17 In the five-­power constitution, there are legislative, executive, and judicial branches (yüan), modeled after the US Constitution, and two additional branches modeled after traditional Chinese Government: the examination yüan, which was to administer merit-­based selections of candidates for the bureaucracy, and the censorate yüan, which was to check up on the honesty and efficiency of the government. Dr. Sun hoped that these divisions would help safeguard the rights of the people. 18 Montesquieu, The Spirit of the Laws, p. 82, and note 25. 19 Ibid., pp. 116, 209. 20 Spence, Chan’s Great Continent, p. 92. 21 Montesquieu, The Spirit of the Laws, p. 321. 22 Ibid., p. 318. 23 Ibid., p. 319. 24 Ibid. 25 Herder, The Outline of a Philosophy of the History of Man, translated by T. Churchill, London, 1800, p. 298. 26 Ibid., p. 297. 27 Ibid., p. 294. 28 Ibid., p. 296. 29 Ibid., p. 293. 30 Ibid., p. 294. 31 Quoted from Rohan d’Olier Butler, The Roots of National Socialism, 1783–1933, New York: AMS Press, 1985, p. 28. 32 Herder, Preface to The Outline of a Philosophy of the History of Man, p. vi. 33 Herder, p. 297. 34 Jagdish Bhagwati, In Defense of Globalization, Oxford and New York: Oxford University Press, 2004. 35 Andre Gunder Frank, ReOrient: Global Economy in the Asian age, Berkeley: University of California Press, 1998. 36 Georg W. F. Hegel, The Philosophy of History, translated by J. Sibee (New York: Willey Book co., 1944), p. 131. 37 Georg W. F. Hegel, The Philosophy of History, pp. 131–2. 38 Ibid., p. 137. 39 Ibid., p. 131. 40 Montesquieu, The Spirit of the Laws, pp. 126–7. 41 Hegel, The Philosophy of History, p. 135. 42 Ibid., p. 138. 43 Ibid., pp. 135–6. 44 Hayden White, “The Historical Text As Literary Artifact” in Vincent Leitch (ed.), Norton Anthology of Theory and Criticism, New York: Norton, 2001, p. 1714. 45 See Zhou Ning, Zhongguo xingxiang: Xifang de xueshuo yu chuanshuo (China’s Image in Western Scholarship and Legends), Beijing: Xuewan chubanshe, 2004; Colin Mackera, Western Images of China, Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2000; David Jones, The Image of China in Western Social and Political Thought, London: Palgrave Macmillan, 2001; and Jonathan Spence’s Chan’s Great Continent. 46 Jack Goody, The Theft of History, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2006, p. 52. 47 Ibid., p. 52. 48 Karl Wittfogel, Oriental Despotism: A Comparative Study of Total Power, New Haven and London: Yale University Press, 1957, pp. 195–6. He quotes the views of Victor Ehrenberg, author of Aspects of the Ancient World, New York: 1946, p. 8. 49 See the section titled “The Introduction of Oriental Despotism into Russia” in Wittfogel’s Oriental Despotism pp. 219–25.

Notes   235 50 In tracing the origin of Russian despotism, he observes (p. 120): Was Ivan’s autocratic control over land and people due to external conditions, namely to a continually fought-­over frontier? Or was it due primarily to the influence of the Mongols who in Russia applied despotic methods of statecraft learned in several hydraulic countries of Asia, particularly China? 51 Joseph Needham, “Review of Karl A. Witffogel, Oriental Despotism” in Science and Society, 1958, pp. 61–5. 52 Wittfogel notes in Oriental Despotism, p. 6: “Re-­examination of the Marxist-­Leninist view of Oriental society made it clear that Marx, far from originating the ‘Asiatic’ concept, had found it ready-­made in the writings of the classical economists.” 53 Karl Marx, On Colonialism, New York: International Publisher, 1972, p. 37. 54 Dominique Legros, “Chance, Necessity and Mode of Production: A Marxist Critique of Cultural Evolutionism” in American Anthropologist, 79:1, 1977, pp. 26–41. 55 See Lawrence Krader, The Asiatic mode of Production: Sources, Development and Critique in the Writings of Karl Marx, Assen: Van Gorcum, 1975. 56 Marx, On Colonialism, p. 37. 57 Ibid., p. 36. 58 Ibid., p. 37. 59 Johann Peter Eckermann, Conversations with Goethe, New York: Fredrick Ungar Publishing Co., 1964, pp. 92–4. 60 Russell, The Problem of China, New York: The Century Co., 1922. 61 Russell, “Chinese and Western Civilization Contrasted” in The Basic Writings of Bertrand Russell, New York: Simon and Schuster, 1967, pp. 551–2. 62 Ibid., p. 551. 63 Russell, “Eastern and Western Ideals of Happiness” in Sceptical Essays, New York: Norton, 1928, p. 110. 64 Ibid., p. 101. 65 Russell, “Eastern and Western Ideals of Happiness”, p. 108. 66 Ibid., p. 107. 67 Russell, “Chinese and Western Civilization Contrasted,” p. 554. 68 Ibid., p. 551. 69 Ibid., p. 550. 70 Ibid. 71 Ernest Fenollosa, The Chinese Written Character as a Medium for Poetry, San Francisco: City Lights Books, 1968, p. 4. 72 Ibid., p. 24 73 Ibid., p. 9. 74 Ezra Pound in T. S. Eliot (ed.), Literary Essays of Ezra Pound, London: Faber & Faber 1969, p. 218. 75 See various cantos pertaining to China in Pound, The Cantos of Ezra Pound, New York: New Directions, 1989, especially Canto XIII, and The China Cantos (LII–LXI). 76 Pound, “Procedure” to Confucius, The Analects translated with commentaries by Ezra Pound, New York: New Directions, 1969, p. 191. 77 Pound, “Note” to Confucius, The Great Digest, New York: New Directions, 1969, p. 19. 78 Joseph R. Levenson, Liang Ch’i-ch’ao and the Mind of Modern China, Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1959; Confucian China and Its Modern Fate, 3 Vols., Berkeley: University of California Press, 1958–1965. 79 Professor Hsia’s chapter on Lu Xun in his history of modern Chinese fiction basically follows this line of thought. Professor Průšek challenges this thesis. See The Lyrical and the Epic, pp. 219–20. In his “Reply” to Průšek’s review of A History of Modern Chinese Fiction, C. T. Hsia defends his critical thesis on Lu Xun. See “A Reply to Professor Průšek,” in The Lyrical and the Epic, p. 242.

236   Notes 80 Lin Yu-­sheng, The Crisis of Chinese Consciousness, p. 105. 81 Ibid., p. 104. 82 Gu Jiegang, “Preface” to Debates on Ancient History (1926), in Sources of Chinese Tradition, New York: Columbia University Press, 2000, Volume 2, p. 364. 83 Lu Xun, Lu Xun quanji (Complete Works of Lu Xun), Beijing: Renmin wenxue chubanshe, 2005, Volume 13, p. 170. 84 Machael Loewe and Edward Shaughnessy (eds.), The Cambridge History of Ancient China, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1999, p. 10. 85 Wang Guowei, Hongloumeng pinglun (Critical Commentary on A Dream of Red Mansions), Wang Guantang xiansehng quanji (Complete Works of Wang Guowei), Taipei: Wenhua chuban gongsi, 1968, Volume 5, pp. 1628–71. 86 Ye Jiaying, “On the Literary Achievements of the Hongloumeng and Jia Baoyu’s Mental State from the Perspective of Gains and Losses in Wang Guowei’s Commentary on the Novel” in Dousou (Energetic), 27, Hong Kong, May 1978), p. 30. 87 Zhu Guangqian, Beiju xinlixue (Psychology of Tragedy), Nanjing: Jiangsu wenyi chubanshe, 2009. 88 Cao Shunqing (ed.), Bijiao wenxue bao (Newsprint of Comparative Literature), Chengdu, Sichuan University, December 15, 2005, p. 1. 89 Cohen, Discovering History in China: American Historical Writing on Recent Chinese Past, New York: Columbia University Press, 1984, p. 1. 90 The book was first published in 1930. See Guo Moruo, Zhongguo gudai shehui yanjiu (Studies of Ancient Chinese Societies), Beijing: Renmin chubanshe, 1964, see “Introduction.” 91 Guo Moruo, Studies of Ancient Chinese Societies, Beijing: Renmin chubanshe, 1964, see his own “Preface.” 92 Li Ji, “Contributions to and Critique of the Debates on Chinese Social History” in Dushu zazhi (Journal of Reading), Volume 2, Nos. 2 and 3, 1932, pp. 131–2. 93 Jaroslav Průšek, “Basic Problems of the History of Modern Chinese Literature and C. T. Hsia, a History of Modern Chinese Fiction” in T’oung Pao, 49, 1962, p. 404. 94 Wittfogel, Oriental Despotism, p. 10. 95 The quotation is taken from a Chinese version of Mizoguchi Yuzo’s book, China Studies from the Japanese Perspective, translated from Japanese into Chinese by Li Suping and others, Beijing: Zhongguo Remin daxue chuganshe, 1996, p. 17. 96 Zhou Ning (ed.), Shijjie zhi zhongguo: Yuewai Zhongguo xingxiang yanjiu (The World’s China: Studies of China’s Images outside China), Nanjing: Nanjing University Press, 2009. 4  The ideology of epistemology   1 For a succinct account of how Chinese language reform started, the reader may refer to “Advocates of Script Reform” in William Theodore de Bary and Richard Lufrano (eds.), Sources of Chinese Tradition, Volume 2, 2nd edition, New York: Columbia University Press, 2000, pp. 302–8.   2 Bloomfield, Language, Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1984, p. 21.   3 See de Bary and Lufrano, op. cit., pp. 302–8.   4 See C. T. Hsia, A History of Modern Chinese Fiction, New Haven: Yale University Press, 1961, pp. 3–5.   5 See Lu Xun, Lu Xun quanji (Complete Works of Lu Xun), Beijing: Remin wenxue chubanshe, 2005, Volume 6, pp. 165–6.   6 Qu Qiubai, Qu Qiubai wenji (Collected Works of Qu Qiubai), Beijing: Remin wenxue chubanshe, 1996, Volume 2, p. 690.   7 For an account of the introduction of simplified characters, see P.  L.  M. Serruys, Survey of the Chinese Language Reform and the Anti-­illiteracy Movement in Communist China, Berkeley, CA: Center for Chinese Studies, 1962.

Notes   237   8 Quoted from Jacques Derrida, Of Grammotology, Baltimore, MD: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1976, p. 36.   9 Quoted from Derrida, Of Grammotology, p. 27. 10 Ibid., pp. 27–73, 101–40. 11 See Robert Audi (ed.), The Cambridge Dictionary of Philosophy, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1995, p. 233. 12 Marx wrote: “In broad outline, the Asiatic, ancient, feudal and modern bourgeois modes of production may be designated as epochs marking progress in the economic development of society,” in his “Preface” to A Contribution to the Critique of Political Economy, New York: International Publishers, 1970, p. 21. 13 For an excellent account of the controversy, see Stephen P. Dunn’s The Fall and Rise of the Asiatic Mode of Production, London: Routledge and Kegan Paul, 1982. 14 See Said, Orientalism, pp. 32, 102, 153–7, 231. 15 Creel mentions this idea briefly in his book Chinese Thought from Confucius to Mao Tse-­tung, Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1953, p.  220, and discusses it at some length in another book, Confucius, the Man and the Myth, New York: John Day Co., 1949, pp. 255–78. 16 Wittfogel, Oriental Despotism: A Comparative Study of Total Power, New Haven and London: Yale University Press, 1957, p. 354. 17 Ibid., p. 326. 18 Ibid., pp. 95–6. 19 Ibid., p. 10. 20 See Engels’ letter to Marx, June 6, 1853, in On Colonialism, p. 314. 21 Wittfogel, Oriental Despotism, p. 157. 22 Ibid., p. 159. 23 Spence, The Chan’s Great Continent, p. 213. 24 Althusser extends Marx’s conception and defines “ideology” as “a pure illusion, a pure dream, i.e., as nothingness. . . . Ideology is thus thought as an imaginary construction whose status is exactly like the theoretical status of the dream among writers before Freud.” See Marx, “German Ideology,” pp.  767–8, and Althusser, p. 1498, both in Norton Anthology of Theory and Criticism. 25 Characteristic of his time Defoe held a favorable view of China, but in Part Two of Robinson Crusoe, he swung drastically to a hostile, openly contemptuous attitude and wrote a condemnatory caricature of Chinese people. See Spence, The Chan’s Great Continent, pp. 66–70. 26 Herder may be one of the earliest Western scholars to voice pseudo-­racist prejudices against China and the Chinese people even though he claimed that his views were totally neutral. See Spence, The Chan’s Great Continent, pp. 99–100. 27 Doyle pioneered Chinatown fiction that advocates that Chinese values could threaten white Western values. See Spence, The Chan’s Great Continent, pp. 139–40. 28 Rohmer created the notorious Chinatown mafia leader Fu-­Manchu in a series of Chinatown novels, which spread Sinophobia by referring to the notorious idea of the “yellow peril” that arose from the fear of the Mongol Conquest. See Spence, The Chan’s Great Continent, pp. 140–1. 29 Steinbeck published a story during the years of the Great Depression in which he presented his account of how the Chinese could destroy Western civilization. See Steinbeck, “Johnny Bear” in The Long Valley, New York, 1938. 30 Harlan, the sole Supreme Court Justice to raise a dissenting voice against the segregation of black Americans in the famous 1896 case of Plessy v. Ferguson, nevertheless wrote these Sinophobic remarks: There is a race so different from our own that we do not permit those belonging to it to become citizens of the United States. Persons belonging to it are, with few exceptions, absolutely excluded from our country. I allude to the Chinese race.

238   Notes 31 Li Ling, “Kosova in Scholarship: A Debate over Wu Hong’s New Book” in Liu Dong (ed.), Chinese Scholarship (Zhongguo xueshu), Beijing: Shangwu yinshuguan, 2000, Volume 2, p. 203. 32 Li Zehou, Li Zehou zhexue meixue wenxuan (Selected Writings on Philosophy and Aesthetics by Li Zehou), Changsha: Hunan Renmin Chubanshe, 1985, pp. 386–7. 33 See Joseph R. Levenson, Liang Ch’i-ch’ao and the Mind of Modern China, Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1959; Confucian China and Its Modern Fate, 3 Volumes, Berkeley: University of California Press, 1958–1965. 34 See Goody, The Theft of History, pp. 125–53. 35 Paul A. Cohen, Discovering History in China: American Historical Writings on the Recent Chinese Past, New York: Columbia University Press, 1984, 2010. 36 John Schrecker, The Chinese Revolution in Historical Perspective, second edition, New York: Praeger, 2004. 37 Dirlik, “Chinese History and the Question of Orientalism” in History and Theory, 35:4, 1996, p. 102. 38 Goody, The Theft of History, p. 1. 39 Ibid., p. 6. 40 For example, even after the Western media’s representations of China became totally negative following the imperialist powers’ accelerated policy of colonization towards the end of the nineteenth century, some Western thinkers and writers like Hugo, Gautier, Toynbee, Russell, Pound, and Lowell, continued to have high regard for China’s civilization and to depict positive images of China to the world. 41 Goody, The Theft of History, p. 5. 42 See Frantz Fanon’s The Wretched of the Earth, quoted from Vincent Leitch (ed.), Norton Anthology of Theory and Criticism, New York: Norton, 2001, p. 1578. 5  The ideology of methodology   1 Russell, “Chinese and Western Civilization Contrasted” in The Basic Writings of Bertrand Russell, New York: Simon and Schuster, 1967, p. 554.   2 Foucault, The Order of Things: An Archaeology of the Human Sciences, a translation of Les Mots et Les Choses, New York: Vintage Books, 1973, p. xv.   3 Jorge Luis Borges, “The Analytical Language of John Wilkins” in Other Inquisitions, 1937–1952, Austin: University of Texas Press, 1964, p. 101.   4 Foucault, The Order of Things, p. xv.   5 Rey Chow (ed.), Modern Chinese Literary and Cultural Studies in the Age of Theory: Reimagining a Field, Durham and London: Duke University Press, 2001, p. 10.   6 For a detailed account of these distinctive features please read my book, Chinese Theories of Fiction: A Non-­Western Narrative System, Albany, NY: SUNY Press, 2006, pp. 2–3.   7 C. T. Hsia, The Classic Chinese Novel: A Critical Introduction, New York: Columbia University Press, 1968, p. 6.   8 Ibid., p. 17.   9 See John Bishop, “Some Limitations of Chinese Fiction” in his edited volume, Studies in Chinese Literature, Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1966, pp. 237–47. 10 Richard G. Irwin, The Evolution of a Chinese Novel: Shui-­hu chuan, Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1953, p. 5 and p. 23. 11 Zheng Zhenduo, Zheng Zhenduo wenji (Collected Works of Zheng Zhenduo), Beijing: Renmin wenxue chubanshe, 1988, Volume 5, pp. 96–133. 12 Wen I-­to, “Wenxue de lishi Dongxiang” (Historical Tendencies of Literature) in Shenhua yu shi (Myths and Poetry) in Wen Yiduo quanji (Complete Works of Wen I-­to), Shanghai: Kaiming shuju, 1948, Volume 1, p. 203. 13 Ibid., p. 204. 14 Ibid., p. 203. English translation is quoted from Victor Mair’s article, “The Narrative

Notes   239 Revolution in Chinese Literature: Ontological Presuppositions” in Chinese Literature: Essays, Articles, Reviews, 5, 1983, p. 4. 15 According to literary history: [O]ne of the earliest dates it [roman] appears is 1140, when roman denoted a story in verse adapted from Latin legends. Originally, roman referred to imaginative works in the vernacular; mainly the medieval French verse epics. By the 16th c. it was applied to works in prose. See J. A. Cudden’s A Dictionary of Literary Terms and Literary Theory, Oxford: Blackwell, 1991, p. 802. 16 Wen I-­to, Wen Yiduo quanji (Complete Works of Wen I-­to), Volume 1, p. 206. 17 All the mentioned scholars have made a similar claim with varying degrees of emphasis. Wen I-­to’s opinion is representative: If it had not been for that little bit of fresh stimulus brought in by religious forces and the fact that our own songs had been sung to such a degree that they could not be sung again, we might have gone on producing stories such as the two chapters of didactic anecdotes in Han Fei tzu or “Tan the Prince of Ye” and embryonic song-­and-dance dramas such as “The Nine Songs” but we definitely never would have had Yuan drama and chaptered novels. Requoted from Mair’s article “The Narrative Revolution in Chinese Literature: Ontological Presuppositions” in Chinese Literature: Essays, Articles, Reviews, 5 1983, p. 4. 18 Victor Mair, “The Narrative Revolution in Chinese Literature: Ontological Presuppositions,” p. 22. 19 For an account of how this view has been repudiated, see Ming Dong Gu, Chinese Theories of Fiction: A Non-­Western Narrative System, 2006, pp. 43–6. 20 C. T. Hsia, The Classical Chinese Novel, p. 5. 21 Mao Dun, Hua xiazi (Chatterbox), Shanghai: Liangyu dushu gonsi, 1934, pp. 177–84. 22 Hu Shi, Hu Shi wencun (Hu Shi’s Writings), Taipei: Shijie shuju, 1957, Volume 3, pp. 470–2, 546–8. 23 These scholars include Patrick Hanan, David Roy, Anthony C. Yu, Andrew Plaks, Robert Hegel, Andre Levy, David Hawkes, and John Minford. 24 For modernist and postmodern features in traditional Chinese fiction, see relevant pages in M. D. Gu’s book, Chinese Theories of Fiction, 2006. The view of the modernist and postmodern features in traditional Chinese fiction has been endorsed by J. Hillis Miller. See his “Commentary” in Modern Language Quarterly, 69:1, 2008, p. 193. 25 Zheng Zhenduo, Zhongguo wenxue yanjiu (Studies of Chinese Literature), Beijing: Zuojia chubanshe, 1957, Volume 1, p. 478. 26 See David T. Roy, “Chin P’ing Mei” in William Nienhauser (ed.), The Indiana Companion to Traditional Chinese Literature, Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1986, p. 287. 27 See the chapter on the novel in Andrew Plaks, The Four Masterworks of the Ming Novel, Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1987. 28 C. T. Hsia, The Classic Chinese Novel, p. 166. 29 Ibid., p. 178. 30 See M. D. Gu, Chinese Theories of Fiction, pp. 117–20 and 201–5. 31 Ibid. 32 Karl Wittfogel, “Preface” to Oriental Despotism, p. iii. 33 Ibid., p. iv. 34 Ibid., p. v. 35 C. K. Yang wrote that Weber’s study “remains an extremely stimulating work in comparative study of complex social systems and a source of provocative ideas for the study of Chinese society and its pattern of socioeconomic development.” See his

240   Notes “Introduction” to Weber’s The Religion of China: Confucianism and Taoism, New York: Free Press, 1951, p. xiii. 36 See Tu Wei-­ming, “Introduction” to Confucian Traditions in East Asian Modernity: Moral Education and Economic Culture in Japan and the Four Mini-­Dragons, Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1996, pp. 4–5. 37 Max Weber, The Sociology of Religion, translated by Ephraim Fishschoff, Boston: Beacon Press, 1963, p. 269. 38 Weber discussed “ideal types” in “Objectivity in social science and social policy” in his The Methodology of the Social Sciences, translated and edited by Edward A. Shils and Henry A. Finch, New York: Free Press, 1949, pp. 49–112. 39 Ibid., p. 88. 40 Max Weber, The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism, New York: Penguin Books, 2002. 41 Jack Goody, The East in the West, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1996, pp. 24–48, 77–81, 90–1, 259–60. 42 Max Weber, The Religion of China: Confucianism and Taoism, New York: Free Press, 1968, p. 177. 43 For these views, see Tu Wei-­Ming (ed.), Confucian Traditions in East Asian Modernity: Moral Education and Economic Culture in Japan and the Four Mini-­Dragons, Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1996; and Peter L. Berger, The Capitalist Revolution: Fifty Propositions about Prosperity, Equality and Liberty, New York: Basic Books, 1986; and Jack Goody, The East in the West. 44 See Peter Berger and Hsin-­Huang Michael Hsiao (eds.), In Search of an East Asian Development Model, New Brunswick, NJ: Transaction Books, 1988, p. 7. 45 Edward Said, Orientalism, p. 259. 46 Max Weber, Gesammelte Aufsätze zur Religionssoziologie, Tübingen: J. C. B. Mohr, 1920–1921, Volume 1, p. 1. English translation is quoted from Reinhard Bendix, Max Weber: An Intellectual Portrait, New York: Doubleday, 1960, p. 212. 47 Johann Gottfried Herder, preface to The Outline of a Philosophy of the History of Man, p. vii. 48 Ibid., p. ix. 49 Adam Smith, An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations, Chicago: University Of Chicago Press, 1776 [1977], Book I, Chapter viii, p. 24. 50 This paradigm is based on the “accomodationist” position in the seventeenth century debates within the Roman Catholic Church over the controversies surrounding the policies adopted by the early missionaries to China. 51 David Buck, “Editor’s Introduction” to “Forum on Universalism and Relativism in Asian Studies” in Journal of Asian Studies 50:1, 1991, p. 30. 52 Rey Chow, (ed.), Modern Chinese Literary and Cultural Studies, p. 10. 53 See Leibniz, Writings on China, pp. 46–8; Hegel, Hegel’s Philosophy of Right, p. 220, and Lectures on the Philosophy of World History, pp. 112, 198–9, 201; Weber, The Religion of China, pp. 152–3, 226–7, 240–8; Granet, La Pensée chinoise, pp. 25–9, 279, 476–9; Schwartz, “The Age of Transcendence,” p. 3, “Transcendence in Ancient China,” pp.  67, 59–60, and The World of Thought in Ancient China, pp.  25, 302; Mote, Intellectual Foundation of China, pp.  15–17; Hall and Ames, Anticipating China, pp.  xiii, 257; Needham, Science and Civilization in China, 2, pp. 216–17, 280–7; K.  C. Chang, “Ancient China,” pp.  161–5, and The Archaeology of Ancient China, pp. 415–6, 418–21; Graham, Disputers of the Tao, pp. i, 3–22, Yin-­Yang and the Nature of Correlative Thinking, pp. 8–9; Tu Wei-­Ming, Confucian Thought, p. 43; Keightly, “Early Civilization in China,” pp.  20, 32; Roetz, Confucian Ethics of the Axial Age, pp. 273–4. For a coherent account of this oppositional paradigm, the reader may refer to an excellent critical survey by Michael Puett in his book, To Become a God: Cosmology, Sacrifice, and Self-­Divinization in Early China, Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Asia Center, 2002, pp. 1–29.

Notes   241 54 For scholarship that disputes the oppositional paradigm in the comparative studies of Chinese and Western languages, literatures and aesthetics, see Haun Saussy’s The Problem of A Chinese Aesthetic, Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1993, pp. 13–73; Longxi Zhang’s Mighty Opposite: From Dichotomies to Differences in the Comparative Study of China, Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1998, pp.  117–50; Ren Yong’s article, “Cosmogony, Fictionality, Poetic Creativity: Western and Traditional Chinese Cultural Perspectives” in Comparative Literature, 50:2, Spring 1998), pp.  98–119; Jonathan Chaves, “Forum: From the 1990 AAS Roundtable” in Chinese Literature: Essays, Articles, Reviews, 13, 1991, pp. 77–82; Ekström, “Illusion, Lie, and Metaphor: The Paradox of Divergence in Early Chinese Poetics” in Poetics Today 23:2, 2002, pp.  251–85. For scholarship that challenges the contrastive paradigm in historical patterns and metaphysical thinking see Michael Puett’s two studies, The Ambivalence of Creation: Debates Concerning Innovation and Artifice in Early China, Stanford: Stanford University Press, p.  199, and To Become a God: Cosmology, Sacrifice, and Self-­ Divinization in Early China, Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Asia Center, 2002. The reader will find the conclusions to Puett’s books especially illuminating. 55 M. Puett, The Ambivalence of Creation, pp. 17, 214. 56 M. Puett, To Become a God, p. 321. 57 G. C. Spivak, “Can the Subaltern Talk?” in Vincent B. Leitch (ed.), Norton Anthology of Theory and Criticism, p. 2197. 58 Rey Chow, (ed.), Modern Chinese Literary and Cultural Studies, p. 10. 59 Parrick C. Hogan and Lalita Pandit (eds.), Literary India: Comparative Studies in Aesthetics, Colonialism, and Culture, Albany: State University of New York Press, 1995, pp. 6, 8. 60 Du Ping, “Zhongguo ‘zhengzhi biaoshu’ de shuofu li” (The Persuasive Power of China’s “Political Statement”) in Lianhe zaobao (United Morning News), June 6, 2009. Online. Available at: www.zaobao.com/special/forum/pages7/forum_zp090606. shtml 61 See Jin Zhong, “A Dark Horse in Literary Circles – Liu Xiaobo’s Interview with A Hong Kong News Reporter” in Jiefang yuebao (Emancipation Monthly), 12, Hong Kong, 1988. 62 The radical attack on Chinese medicine was carried online and in some publications. A systematic criticism can be found in a book titled Criticism of Traditional Chinese Medicine, Beijing: China Concord Medical University Press, 2007. 63 See Zhang Gongyao’s article “Farewell to Traditional Chinese Medicine” in Medicine and Philosophy, 4, 2006. 64 See Lu Yan’s interview “Why Does He Zuoxiu Criticize Chinese Medicine?” in Celebrities Around the World (Huanqiu renwu), 17, November 2006. 65 Oswald Spengler, Preface to the revised edition of The Decline of the West, New York: Knopf, 1932, p. xiii. 66 Ibid., p. xiv. 67 Hans-­Georg Gadamer, Truth and Method, 2nd edition, New York: Continuum, 1999, p. 277. 68 Martin Heidegger, Sein und Zeit, pp. 312ff. 69 Gadamer, Truth and Method, p. 270. 70 Ibid., p. 277. 71 Ibid., p. 293. 72 Ibid., p. 271. 73 Ibid., pp. 293–4. 6  The intellectual unconscious   1 Paul Cohen, Discovering History in China: American Historical Writing on Recent Chinese Past, New York: Columbia University Press, 1984, p. 1.

242   Notes   2 Edward Schaffer, “What and How Is Sinology?” Inaugural Lecture for the Department of Oriental Languages and Literatures, University of Colorado, Boulder, October 14, 1982, p. 12.   3 Robert Bagley, “Review of Monumentality in early Chinese Art and Architecture by Wu Hung” in Harvard Journal of Asiatic Studies 58:1, 1998, p. 226.   4 Ibid., p. 231.   5 Ibid., p. 233.   6 Ibid., p. 256.   7 Wu Hung, “A Response to Robert Bagley’s Review of My Book Monumentality in Early Chinese Art and Architecture” in Archives of Asian Art, Volume 51, 1998, p. 95.   8 Ibid.   9 Ibid., pp. 96–7. 10 Ibid., p. 101. 11 Liu Dong (ed.), Zhongguo xueshu (Chinese Scholarship), Beijing, 2001, 2. 12 Tian Xiaofei, “Xueshu Sanchakou: Shengfen, Lichang he Babilunta de chengfa” (Academic Sanchakou: The Punishment of Identity, Position, and the Tower of Babel” in Zhongguo xueshu (Chinese Scholarship), 2, 2001, pp. 259–62. 13 Ibid., pp. 260–1. 14 Ibid., p. 265. 15 Li Ling, “Xueshu Kesuowa – Yichang weirao Wu Hung xinzuo de xueshu taolun” (Academic Kosova: A Scholarly Debate over Wu Hung’s New Book) in Zhongguo xueshu (Chinese Scholarship), 2, 2000, p. 214. 16 Ibid., p. 203. 17 Li Ling, “Da Tian Xiaofei” (A Response to Tian Xiaofei), in his book, Hezhi keyi: Daituxuan dushu ji (Which Branch Can I Lean On: Reading Notes Taken in the Rabbit-­Waiting Studio, Beijing: Sanlian shudian, 2009, p. 181. 18 Gu Jiegang and Luo Genze, Gushi bian, Volume 1, Part 1, pp. 40–66; English quoted from W. T. de Bary and Richard Lufrano (eds.), Sources of Chinese Tradition, New York: Columbia University Press, Volume 2, 2000, p. 364. 19 Lu Xun, Lu Xun quanji (Complete Works of Lu Xun), Beijing: Renmin wenxue chubanshe, Volume 2, 2005, p. 386. 20 These ideas, shared by some Western scholars, are reflected in the Cambridge History of Ancient China. See relevant articles by Bagley, Nivison, and others. 21 Li Xueqin, who holds this view, is a leading scholar. See his Zouchu yigu shidai (Out of the Age of Skepticism about Ancient Literature), Shenyang: Liaoning University Press, 1979, pp. 83–9. 22 Li Ling, “Academic Kosova”, p. 204. 23 Li Ling, “Chinese Studies: A Changing Field of Contention – A Debate on Wu Hung’s Monumentality in Early Chinese Art and Architecture” in Critical Zone 1: A Forum of Chinese and Western Knowledge, Hong Kong: Hong Kong University Press, 2004, p. 194. This is an abridged version of Li Ling’s Chinese article. 24 Machael Loewe and Edward Shaughnessy (eds.), The Cambridge History of Ancient China, p. 10. 25 Lothar von Falkenhausen, “On the Historical orientation of Chinese archaeology” in Antiquity, 67, 1993, p. 843. 26 Ibid., p. 842. 27 Ibid, p. 843. 28 Li Ling, “Scholarly Kosova,” p. 211. 29 Lothar von Falkenhausen, “On the Historical orientation of Chinese archaeology”, p. 843. 30 Ibid., p. 842. 31 Ibid., p. 844. 32 Ibid., p. 848.

Notes   243 33 Hans-­Georg Gadamer, Truth and Method, 2nd edition, New York: Continuum, 1999, p. 277. 34 Martin Heidegger, “Being and Time: Introduction” in David Farrell Krell (ed.), Basic Writings, New York: Harper Collins, 1993, p. 45. 35 Ibid., p. 25. 36 Falkenhausen, “On the Historical orientation of Chinese archaeology,” pp. 842–3. 37 Ibid., p. 848. 38 Ibid., p. 847. 39 Ibid., p. 841. 40 Ibid., p. 842. 41 Arif Dirlik, “Chinese History and The Question of Orientalism” in History and Theory, 35:4, 1996, pp. 111–12. 42 Lionel M. Jensen, Manufacturing Confucianism: Chinese Tradition and Universal Civilization, Durham: Duke University Press, 1997, p. 5. 43 Ibid. 44 Ibid. 45 Ibid. 46 Ibid. 47 Ibid, p. 24. 48 Ibid, p. 9. 49 Fung Yu-­lan in Derek Bodde (ed.), A Short History of Chinese Philosophy, London: Macmillan, 1948, p. 3. 50 Ibid, p. 31. 51 Kristofer Schipper, The Taoist Body, 1982, trans. by Karen C. Duval, Berkeley and London: University of California Press, 1992, p. 192. 52 Ibid., 215. 53 Isabelle Robinet, Taoism: Growth of a Religion, 1992, translated by Phyllis Brooks, Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1997, p. 3. 54 Russell Kirlkand, Taosim: The Enduring Tradition, London: Routledge, 2002, p. 172. 55 Ibid., p. 2. 56 Ibid., p. xix. 57 See Random House Webster’s College Dictionary, New York: Random House, 1991, p. 1014. 58 Ibid., p. 1138. 59 See “Preface” to Isabelle Robinet, Taoism: Growth of a Religion, p. xii. 60 Ibid., p. xiii. 61 This is the opinion of quite a few Western scholars. Girardot, for one, declares in his preface to Kirkland’s book: This book can, therefore, be considered among the very first sinologically informed and popularly accessible products of the pioneering labors by Taoist and comparative scholars during the past twenty or thirty years. Kirkland’s little book, along with just one or two other recent works, shows us that Taoist studies have finally come of age. See his preface to Kirkland’s Taosim: The Enduring Tradition, p. viii. 62 Norman J. Girardot, “Foreword” to Schipper’s The Taoist Body, p. x. 63 Ibid. 64 Lu Xun, “Letter to Xu Shoushang,” (August 20, 1918) in Lu Xun quanji (Complete Works of Lu Xun), Volume 11, Beijing: Renmin wenxue chubanshe, 2005, p. 365. 65 Liang Chi-­chao, Zhongguo lishi yanjiu fa (Methodologies of Chinese Historical Research), Shanghai: Huadong shida chubanshe, 1995. 66 Chen Yinke, Tianshi Dao yu binhai diyu zhi guanxi (Heavenly Master’s Dao and its Relation to the Coastal Areas) in Jinmingguan conggao chubian (Preliminary Collection of Papers of Jinming Studio), Beijing: Sanlian shudian, 2001, pp. 1–46.

244   Notes 67 Qing Xitai, “A Review of the Hundred Year Studies of Religious Daoism with A Look Forward” in Zhongguo mingzu bao (Gazette of China’s Ethnic Minorities), September 2, 2009. 68 Lionel M. Jensen, Manufacturing Confucianism, p. 23. 69 Ibid., pp. 279–80. 70 See Li Ling’s “A Response to Tian Xiaofei,” in his book, Hezhi keyi: Daituxuan dushu ji (Which Branch Can I Lean On: Reading Notes Taken in the Rabbit-­Waiting Studio), Beijing: Sanlian shudian, 2009, pp. 175–84. 71 Ibid., p. 181. 7  The political unconscious   1 Fredric Jameson, The Political Unconscious: Narrative as a Socially Symbolic Act, Ithaca and New York: Cornell University Press, 1981, p. 17.   2 Ibid., p. 289.   3 Ibid., p. 22.   4 Li Ling, “Chinese Studies: A Changing Field of Contention – A Debate on Wu Hung’s Monumentality in Early Chinese Art and Architecture” (Excerpts), in Q. S. Tong et al. (eds.), Critical Zone: A Forum of Chinese and Western Knowledge, Volume 1, Hong Kong: Hong Kong University Press; Nanjing: Nanjing University Press, 2004, p. 192.   5 Li Ling, “Xueshu Kesuowa – Yichang weirao Wu Hung xinzuo de xueshu taolun” (Academic Kosova: A Scholarly Debate over Wu Hung’s New Book” in Zhongguo xueshu (Chinese Scholarship) 2, 2000, p. 193.   6 Tian Xiaofei, “Xueshu Sanchakou: Shengfen, Lichang he Babilunta de chengfa” (Academic Sanchakou: The Punishment of Identity, Position, and the Tower of Babel” in Zhongguo xueshu (Chinese Scholarship) 2, 2001, p. 262.   7 The words in quotation marks are Li Ling’s words, but the idea expressed by these words permeates Robert Bagley’s review.   8 Lothar von Falkenhausen, Review of Monumentality in early Chinese Art and Architecture, in Early China, 21, 1996, pp. 183–99.   9 See Xia-­Shang-Zhou Chronology Project zhuanjiazu (Xia-­Shang-Zhou Chronology Project team), Xia-­Shang-Zhou duandai gongcheng 1996–2000 nian jieduan chengguo baogao (A Report on the Outcomes of The Xia-­Shang-Zhou Chronology Project 1996–2000), Beijing: Shijie tushu publishing company, 2000. 10 Li Ling, “Da Tian Xiaofei” (A Response to Tian Xiaofei), p. 178. 11 For Western media and scholarly responses, see Erik Ecknolm, “In China, Ancient History Kindles Modern Doubts” in the New York Times, November 10, 2000; Bruce Gilley, “China: Nationalism. Digging into the future” in Far Eastern Economic Review, July 20, 2000. 12 Quoted from Bruce Gilley’s “China: Nationalism. Digging into the future” in Far Eastern Economic Review, July 20, 2000. 13 Ibid. 14 Ibid. 15 I have the highest respect for these scholars both in terms of scholarship and personal integrity. The citation of their political judgment of the Chronology Project as one motivated by a political and chauvinistic agenda should not be construed as disrespect on my part. 16 See Erik Eckholm, “In China, Ancient History Kindles Modern Doubts” in the New York Times, November 10, 2000. All quotations following this are taken from this article. 17 Yun Kuen Lee, “Building the Chronology of Early Chinese History” in Asian Perspective, 41:1, 2002, pp. 15–16. 18 Eckholm, “In China.”

Notes   245 19 Li Xueqin, Xia Shang Zhou Niandaixue Zhaji (Miscellaneous Notes on the Xia Shang Zhou Chronology Study), Shengyang: Liaoning daxue chubanshe, 1999, p. iii. 20 Yun Kuen Lee, “Building the Chronology of Early Chinese History,” p. 16. 21 The panel abstract and abstracts of the panel presentations are available online at the Association for Asian Studies website: www.asian-­studies.org/absts/2002abst/wrld-­ toc.htm. 22 See D. S. Nivison, “The Riddle of the Bamboo Annals,” a paper for October 1997 American Oriental Society-­West Branch meeting, Boulder CO, carried on Stanford University website: www.stanford.edu/~dnivison/rdl-aos.html. 23 Song Jian, Chaoyue yigu Zouchu mimang: Huhuan Xia Shang Zhou Duandai gongcheng (Beyond Skepticism and Out of Perplexity: A Call for Xia Shang Zhou Chronology Project), Shanghai: Shanghai keji jiaoyu chubanshe, 1999. 24 Li Liu and Hong Xu, “Rethinking Erlitou: legend, history and Chinese archaeology” in Antiquity, 81, 2007, pp. 899–900. 25 Margarita Diaz-­Andreu and Timothy Champion, “Nationalism and Archaeology in Europe: An Introduction” in their edited book, Nationalism and Archaeology in Europe, London: UCL Press, 1996, pp. 1–23. 26 Ibid. 27 Yun Kuen Lee, “Building the Chronology of Early Chinese History,” p. 26. 28 Ibid., p. 19. 29 James Cuno, Who Owns Antiquity? Museums and The Battle over Our Ancient Heritages, Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2008, p. xvii. 30 Ibid., p. xvii. 31 Yun Kuen Lee, “Building the Chronology of Early Chinese History,” pp. 15–16. 32 James Cuno, Who Owns Antiquity, p. xvi. 33 Ibid., p. xxx 34 Ibid., p. xvii. 35 These scholars include Wang Dayou, Song Baozhong, and Wang Shuangyou, whose research focus is on pre-­Columbus Native American civilization and its relationship with Ancient Chinese civilization. Embracing multiple disciplines and employing diverse methodologies, they have come to the conclusion that in the last 10,000 years there have been several migrations of Asian and Chinese peoples to the Americas. Their major works include: Zhonghua zuxian tuohuang Meizhou (Chinese Ancestors as Pioneers in America) (1992), Tushuo Meizhou tudeng (An Illustrated Study of American Totems) (1998), San Huang Wu Dian shidai (The Age of Three August Kings and Five Emperors) (2000), Shanggu Zhonghua wenming (Chinese Civilization of High Antiquity) (2000), etc. In addition, they have published over 100 articles carried in mainstream Chinese media including the People’s Daily (Overseas edition), Xinhua Digest, China Central TV, China Central Broadcasting Station, and Xinhua News Agency. Their research results were carried in news reports disseminated to the world. 36 All the information concerning the responses of Western scholars is taken from Dai Kaiyuan’s Chinese article, “Did the Shang People Migrate to Mid-­America? An Interview with Prof. Xu Hui” in Shijie zhoukan (The World Weekly), January 7, 2001. 37 Ibid. 38 Cuno, Who Owns Antiquity, p. 154. 39 Ibid., pp. 147–55. 40 Ibid., p. 93. 41 See Sanchita Balachandran, “Object Lessons: The Politics of Preservation and Museum Building in Western China in the Early Twentieth Century” in International Journal of Cultural Property, 14:2, 2007. 42 See Peter Hopkirk, Foreign Devils on the Silk Road: The Search for the Lost Cities and Treasures of Chinese Central Asia, Amherst: University of Massachusetts Press, 1984. 43 Cuno, Who Owns Antiquity, p. 90.

246   Notes 44 Ibid., p. 91. 45 Ibid., p. 92. 46 Ibid., p. 120. 47 Ibid., p. 105. 48 Victor Hugo, “The sack of the summer palace” (A Letter to Captain Butler, November 25, 1861). Reprinted in UNESCO Courier, November 1985. 49 Angela Tsai et al., “Splendors of a Bygone Age” in Tzu Chi Quarterly, 9:1, Spring 2002. Online. Available at: http://taipei.tzuchi.org.tw/tzquart/2002sp/qp5.htm (accessed February 27, 2012.) 50 Cuno, Who Owns Antiquity, pp. 99–100. 51 Balachandran, “Object Lessons,” p. 3. 52 James L. Hevia, English Lessons: The Pedagogy of Imperialism in Nineteenth-­ Century China, Durham: Duke University Press, 2003, pp. 74–118. 53 Eilean Hooper-­Greenhill, Museums and the Shaping of Knowledge, London: Routledge, 1992; Carol Duncan, “Art Museums and the Ritual of Citizenship” in Ivan Karp and Steve D. Lavine (eds.) Exhibiting Cultures: The Poetics and Politics of Museum Display, Washington, DC: Smithsonian Institution Press, 1991, pp. 88–103; Claire L. Lyons and John K. Papadopoulos, “Archaeology and Colonialism” in Claire L. Lyons and John K. Papadopoulos (eds.) The Archaeology of Colonialism, Los Angeles: Getty Research Institute, 2002, pp. 1–23. 54 Stuart Hall, “New Ethnicities,” in A. Rattansi and J. Donald (eds.), Race, Culture and Difference, London: Sage Publication, 1992, pp. 252–9. 55 Li Ling, “Da Tian Xiaofei” (A Response to Tian Xiaofei), p. 184. 8  Linguistic Sinologism   1 Ferdinand de Saussure, Course in General Linguistics, translated with an introduction and notes by Wade Baskin, New York: McGraw-­Hill, 1966, pp. 25–6.   2 Ibid., p. 26.   3 Ibid., p. 26.   4 See Ernest Fenollosa, in Ezra Pound (ed.), The Chinese Written Character as A Medium for Poetry, San Francisco: City Lights Books, 1968.   5 Giambattista Vico, “New Science” in Vincent Leitch et al. (eds.), Norton Anthology of Theory and Criticism, second edition, New York: Norton, 2010, p. 332.   6 Ibid., p. 320.   7 See Peter S. Du Ponceau, A Dissertation on the Nature and Character of the Chinese System of Writing: In A Letter to John Vaughan, Esq., Philadelphia: American Philosophical Society, 1838, Kessinger Publishing’s reprint, Appendix A, p. 108.   8 Peter Boodberg, “Some Proleptical Remarks on the Evolution of Archaic Chinese” in Harvard Journal of Asiatic Studies, 2, 1937, p. 332.   9 See H. G. Creel, “On The Nature of Chinese Ideography” in T’oung Pao, 32, 1936, p.  160; Chad Hansen, “Chinese Ideographs and Western Idea” in Journal of Asian Studies, 52:2, 1993, p. 375. 10 William Hannas, “The Cart and the Horse,” Georgetown University, unpublished manuscript, 1995, p. 1. 11 John DeFrancis, The Chinese Language: Fact and Fantasy, Honolulu: University of Hawaii Press, 1984, pp. 130–48. 12 John DeFrancis, Visible Speech: The Diverse Oneness of Writing Systems, Honolulu: University of Hawaii Press, 1989, p. xi. 13 DeFrancis, The Chinese Language: Fact and Fantasy, p. 111. 14 William Boltz, “Review of The Chinese Language: Fact and Fantasy by John DeFrancis” in Journal of the American Oriental Society, 106:2, 1986, pp. 405–7. 15 Hansen, Language and Logic in Ancient China, Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 1983, p. 179.

Notes   247 16 Chad Hansen, “Chinese Ideographs and Western Idea” in Journal of Asian Studies 52:2, 1993, p. 375. 17 J. Marshall Unger, “Communications to the Editor” in Journal of Asian Studies 52:4, 1993, p. 949. 18 Chad Hansen, “Communications to the Editor: Chad Hansen Replies” in Journal of Asian Studies 52:4, 1993, pp. 954–7. 19 For detailed information, see Creel’s “On the Nature of Chinese Ideography” in T’oung Pao, 32, 1936, pp. 85–161; Boodberg’s “Some Proleptical Remarks on the Evolution of Archaic Chinese,” pp. 329–72; Creel’s “On the Ideographic Element in Ancient Chinese” in T’oung Pao, 34, pp. 265–94; Boodberg’s “ ‘Ideography’ or Iconolatory?” in T’oung Pao, 35, pp.  266–88. In spite of its scholarly intensity and vigor, the debate ended inconclusively. In 1984 John DeFrances revived the debate in his book-­length study of the Chinese language. He sides with Boodberg and rejects Creel’s view. See The Chinese Language: Fact And Fantasy, pp.  85–8; 133–48. Chad Hansen criticizes DeFrances’ view. See “Chinese Ideographs and Western Idea” in Journal of Asian Studies, 52:2, 1993, p. 375. 20 Jacques Derrida, Of Grammotology, translated by Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak, Baltimore and London: The Johns Hopkins University Press, 1974, pp. 76–93. 21 Herrlee Creel, “On The Nature of Chinese Ideography,” p. 85. 22 See Edward Mcdonald, “Getting over the Wall of Discourse: ‘Character Fetishization’ in Chinese Studies” in Journal of Asian Studies, 68:4, 2009, pp. 1189–1213. 23 F. Bacon, in G. W. Kitchin (ed.), The Advancement of Learning, London: J. M. Dent and Sons, 1605, pp. 136ff. 24 Quoted from Du Ponceau, A Dissertation on the Nature and Character of the Chinese System of Writing, p. 8. 25 Wilhelm von Humboldt, Linguistic Variability and Intellectual Development, translated by George C. Buck and Frithjof A. Raven, Coral Cables, FL: University of Miami Press, 1971, p. 124. 26 Du Ponceau, A Dissertation on the Nature and Character of the Chinese System of Writing, pp. 1–123. 27 Ibid., Appendix A, p. 110. 28 Du Ponceau, “Letter to Captain Basil Hall,” July 7, 1828, in A Dissertation on the Nature and Character of the Chinese System of Writing, Appendix A, p. 115. 29 Marcel Granet, “Quelques particcularités de la langue et de la pensée chinoise” in his Etudes sociologiques sur la Chine, Paris PUF, 1920, p.  99. English is quoted from Christoph Harbsmeier, Language and Logic in Traditional China, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1998, p. 41. 30 Henry Rosemont, “On Representing Abstractions in Archaic Chinese” in Philosophy East and West, 24, 1974, pp. 71–88. 31 John Webb, An Historical Essay Endeavouring a Probability That the Language of the Empire of China is the Primitive Language, London: N. Brook, 1669, p. 192. 32 Cf. Lundbaek, T. S. Bayer (1694–1738), Pioneer Sinologist, London: Curzon Press, 1986, pp. 83, 97, 103. 33 Xunzi, Xunzi yizh (Xunzi’s Writings Annotated and Translated), Chapter 21, Shanghai: Shanghai guji chubanshe, 1998, p. 482. 34 Wilhelm von Humboldt, Linguistic Variability, pp. 211–12. 35 Ibid., p. 212. 36 Ibid. 37 William Boltz, The Origin and Early Development of the Chinese Writing System, New Haven, CT: American Oriental Society, 1994, p. 7. 38 Ibid., pp. 7–8. 39 Ibid., p. 8. 40 Ibid., p. 18. 41 See Du Ponceau’s letter to Captain Basil Hall in A Dissertation on the Nature and Character of the Chinese System of Writing, Appendix A, p. 109.

248   Notes 42 William Boltz, The Origin and Early Development of the Chinese Writing System, p. 14. 43 Ibid., p. 16. 44 Ibid., p. 17. 45 Zhuangzi, Zhuangzi yigu (Writings of Master Zhuang), annotated and translated by Yang Liuqiao, Shanghai: Guji chubanshe, 1991, p. 576. 46 Wang Bi, “Mingxiang” (Elucidation of Images), in Lou Yulie (ed.), Wang Bi ji jiaoshi (Anthology of Wang Bi’s Writings Annotated), Beijing: Zhonghua shuju, 1980, Volume 2, p. 609. 47 William Boltz, The Origin and Early Development of the Chinese Writing System, pp. 18–19. 48 Ibid., p. 18. 49 Ibid., p. 19. 50 Bernard Karlgren, Philology and Ancient China, Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1926, p. 41. 51 Roger Ames and Henry Rosemont, “Philosophic and Linguistic Background” in The Analects of Confucius: A Philosophical Translation, New York: Ballantine Books, 1998, pp. 38–9. 52 Ibid., p. 36. 53 Bernard Karlgren, The Chinese Language: An Essay on its Nature and History, New York: The Ronald Press Co., 1949, p. 9. 54 Ibid., p. 57. 55 Roger Ames and Henry Rosemont, “Further Remarks on Language, Translation, and Interpretation” in The Analects of Confucius, p. 290. 56 See Victor Mair’s brief introduction to “Advocates of Script Reform” in Sources of Chinese Tradition, Volume 2, pp. 302–3. 57 Fang Yizhi, Tongya (A Comprehensive Collection of Refined Knowledge), Volume 1, pp. 96–7, in Fang Yizhi quanshu, Shanghai: Guji chubanshe, 1988. English translation is taken from W. de Bary and Richard Lufrano (eds.), Sources of Chinese Tradition, Volume 2, New York: Columbia University Press, 2000, p. 303. 58 Lu Zhuangzhang, preface to Yimu lianran chujie, in Pinyin wenzi shliao congshu, Beijing: Wenzi gaige chubanshe, 1956. English translation is taken from Sources of Chinese Tradition, Volume 2, p. 305. 59 Aristotle, Categories and De Interpretatione, translated by J.  L. Ackrill, Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1963, 16A3. 60 Bloomfield, Language, New York: Henry Holt and Co., 1933, p. 283. 61 George Trager, “Writing and writing systems” in Current Trends in Linguistics, 12, 1974, p. 377. 62 Paul L. M. Serruys, “Basic Problems Under-­lying the Process of Identification of the  Chinese Graphs of the Shang Oracular Inscriptions” in BIHPAS, LIII/3, 1982, p. 455. 63 Roman Jakobson, “Closing Statement: Linguistics and Poetics” in T. A. Sebeok, (ed.), Style in Language, Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 1960, p. 352. 64 Kong Yingda, (ed.), Zhouyi zhengyi (The Correct Meaning of the Book of Changes), juan 8, in Shisanjing zhushu (Thirteen Classics Annotated), Beijing: Zhonghua shuju, 1980, p. 87c. 65 Liang Shumin, Zhongguo wenhua yaoyi (Essentials of Chinese Culture), Beijing: Xuelin chubanshe, 1987, p. 312. 66 Li Zehou, Zhongguo gudai sixiang shi (History of Ancient Chinese Intellectual Thought), New edition, Tianjin: Tianjin shehui kexue chubanshe, 2008, p. 274. 67 Edward McDonald, “Getting over the Wall of Discourse: ‘Character Fetishization’ in Chinese Studies” in Journal of Asian Studies, 68:4, 2009, p. 1195. 68 Ibid., p. 1194. 69 Ibid., p. 1196.

Notes   249 70 James Liu, Language Paradox Poetics: A Chinese Perspective, Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1988, pp. 17–18. 71 Edward McDonald, “Getting over the Wall of Discourse,” p. 1198. 72 Ibid., p. 1204. 73 Ibid., p. 1205. 74 Chad Hansen, Language and Logic in Ancient China, Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 1983, p. 179. 75 Edward McDonald, “Getting over the Wall of Discourse,” p. 1206. 76 Ibid., pp. 1205–6. 77 James Liu, Language Paradox Poetics: A Chinese Perspective, p. 16. 78 See Ming Dong Gu, “Reconceptualizing the Linguistic Divide: Chinese and Western Theories of the Written Sign” in Comparative Literature Studies, 37:2, 2000, pp. 118–21. 79 A. C. Graham, “The Relations of Chinese Thought to the Chinese Language” in A. C. Graham (ed.), Disputers of the Tao: Philosophical Argument in Ancient China, La Salle, IL: Open Court, 1989, p. 389. 80 Ming Dong Gu, “Reconceptualizing the Linguistic Divide,” p. 119. 81 Edward McDonald, “Getting over the Wall of Discourse,” p. 1207. 82 Eric Heinz Lenneberg, Biological Foundations of Language, New York: John Wiley & Sons, 1967, p. 180. 83 Jacques Lacan, Écrits: A Selection, translated by Alan Sheridan, New York: Norton, 1977, p. 152. Conclusion: a theory of self-­c onscious reflection   1 Raymond Williams, Keywords: A Vocabulary of Culture and Society, Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1983, p. 34.   2 Ibid., p. 35.   3 G.  W.  F. Hegel, “The World of Self-­Alienated Spirit” in Phenomenology of Spirit, translated by A. V. Miller, Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1977, pp. 297–302.   4 Ludwig Feuerbach, The Essence of Christianity (1841), New York: Prometheus Books, 1989.   5 Raymond Williams, Keywords, p. 35.   6 Karl Marx, “Comments on James Mill’s Elements of Political Economy” in Jon Elster (ed.), Karl Marx: A Reader, New York: Cambridge University Press, 1986, pp. 31–5.   7 Terry Eagleton, Literary Theory: An Introduction, Oxford: Blackwell, 1983, pp. 194–217; Fredric Jameson, The Political Unconscious: Narrative as Socially Symbolic Act, Ithaca and New York: Cornell University Press, 1981, pp. 17–23.   8 This new Chinese word literally means “a fortified mountain village or a bandit stronghold in the mountains.” It was initially used to refer to copies of goods produced at low cost. It now has evolved into a noun meaning “reproduction,” an adjective meaning “duplicated,” and a verb, “to copycat,” etc.   9 F. Jameson, The Political Unconscious, p. 283. 10 Gayatri C. Spivak, “Can The Subaltern Speak?” quoted from The Norton Anthology of Theory and Criticism, New York: Norton, 2010, p. 2114. 11 Edward Said, “Afterword” to Orientalism, London: Penguin Book, 1995, p. 342. 12 Ibid., pp. 342–4.

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Index

academic politics 166 academic unconscious 1 accommodationist policy 43, 67 acculturation 33–5, 55 Adams, M.V. 26 Ahmad, Aijaz 3, 23–4 Ah Q 103–4 alienated knowledge xviii, 8–9, 13, 66, 109, 216–18, 220 alienation 216–17 alternative modernity 4 Althusser, Louis xvi–xvii, 44, 101 Americanization 63–4 Ames, Roger 131, 210, 213 Ang, Ien 22 Anson, George 69–70, 101 anti-Orientalism 49 anti-positivism 122 anti-Westernism 47 Arabic culture 53 archetypal theory 40 Aristotle xiv–xv, 83, 88, 95–6, 121, 207 Arnold, Matthew 13, 39 Ashcroft, Bill 20 Asiatic mode of production 77, 79, 89 Assyrian studies 162 Austin, J.L. 95 Bagley, Robert 140–3, 163, 167, 179–80 Bentham, Jeremy 100 Bhabha, Homi 2–3, 65, 111 Bloomfield, Leonard 93, 208 Boltz, William 179, 189–90, 198–205, 210–11, 213 Boodburg, Peter 189, 198 Book of Changes 209 Borges, J.L. 114 Bourdieu, Pierre 26 Braudel, Fernand 107

British Empire 73 Brown, L.R. 16 Buck, David 130 Buck, Pearl 102 Buddhism 75, 82, 117–18, 123–6, 156, 159, 161 Burlingame, Anson 102 Cafferty, Jack 61 Calvinism 125 capitalism 20, 59–60, 65, 88, 97, 107, 123–6, 216–17 Carstens, S.A. 22 Cassirer, Ernest 191 Ch’en, Shou-yi 118 Ch’en, Yin-ko [Chen Yinke] 161, 118 Chan, Adrian 57 Chang, Eileen 90 Chang, Gordon 15–16 Chang, K.C. 131 Chanos, J.S. 16 character fetishization 210–11, 213–14 chauvinism 132, 145–6, 148, 167–8, 172, 174, 177–8 Chen, Guofu 161 Chen, Mengjia 177 Chen, Xiaomei 58 Chen, Yuan 161 China “craze” 80 China image 17 China knowledge 3, 6, 10–12, 20, 33, 36–7, 42, 50, 66, 109, 162–3, 165, 214, 216–17, 220–1, 223 Chineseness 22 Ching, Julie 16 Chomsky, Noam 214 Chow, Rey xx, 7, 22, 115, 130, 132 Christianity xvi, 43, 67, 71, 82, 111, 117, 123

Index   265 Chuang Tzu [Zhuangzi] 157, 159, 203–5 Chun, Allen 22 civil service examination 97–8 clash of civilizations 10, 64 class consciousness 165–6 Claudel, Paul 102 Coe, M.D. 179 Cohen, Paul 88, 105, 139 Cold War 12, 54, 88, 90–1, 99, 165, 173 collective unconscious 34, 40 colonial discourse 3 colonization 59 commodification 216 Confucian classics 83 Confucianism 62, 75, 123, 125, 155–6, 159, 163 Confucius 62, 67, 76, 83, 85, 155–6, 163 Conrad, Peter 23 Cosmology 131–2 Creel, Herrlee 98, 189–91, 213 cultivated unconscious 31 cultural complex 26–7 cultural critique 217 cultural essentialism 7 cultural fundamentalism 8 cultural hegemony 52 cultural insider 140–2, 154, 178 cultural outsider 140–2, 154, 178 cultural relativism 57, 101, 130–2 Cultural Revolution 88, 100, 149, 153, 159, 177, 183 cultural sedimentation 34, 41, 103–4 cultural unconscious xvii, 1–2, 7, 8, 9, 19, 26–41, 85, 103, 114, 218 , 222 culture 29–30, 35 cultured unconscious 31 Culture Wars 3, 10, 24 Cuno, James 175, 177, 180–5 Dao (the Way) 4 Daoism [Taoism] 75, 156–61 Daojia (philosophical Daoism) 156, 157, 158 Daojiao (religious Daoism) 156, 157, 158 Dawson, R.S. 16 decolonization 22, 37, 39–40, 180, 184 deconstruction xvi, 168, 191 DeFancis, John 189–90, 198 Defoe, Daniel 70, 101 democracy 77 Derrida, Jacques xiv–xvi, 95, 102, 188, 191, 202, 208, 215 de-sinologization 219 despotism 77–8, 80, 100

Dickinson, G.L. 48, 52, 102 Dirlik, Arif 2, 56, 59, 61, 105, 154 disinterestedness 14, 24 Doyle, C.W. 101 Du Ponceau, P.S. 188–90, 193–4, 196, 198, 201–2 Dutch Empire 73 Durkheim, Emile 126 Eagleton, Terry 23, 219 Engels, Friedrich 77, 89, 97, 100 East–West dichotomy 115 Egyptian hieroglyphics 196 Egyptology 162 epistemic colonization 59, 92, 101–2, 107, 111, 121, 133 epistemic violence 59, 132 epistemic ideology 92, 106 epistemic ideologization 104–5 epistemic inertia 223 epistemic sickness 109 epistemological unconscious 8, 104 ethnic criticism 8, 139 ethnic identity 163, 185 ethnic politics 166, 185 ethnic unconscious 8, 12, 139, 144, 162–3 ethno-centrism 5, 11, 19, 72, 80, 86, 101, 105, 109–11, 132, 141–3, 177, 225 Euro-centrism 5, 11, 19, 68, 72, 80, 105, 109–11, 113, 132 Fairbank, J.K. xvi, 17–18, 48, 54 Falkenhausen, L. von 149–53, 164 Fang, Yizhi 206 Fanon, Frantz 20, 65, 111 Far East 74 Feng, Youlan 4, 156 Fenollosa, Ernest xvi, 52, 82–4, 102, 188–91, 205, 209 Feuerbach, L.A. 216–17 Fishman, T.C. 16 foot-binding 224 Foucault, Michel 43–4, 52, 100, 114 Frank, A.G. 73 Freud, Sigmund xvii, 28–34, 38, 40, 88 Fu, Qinjia 161 Gadamer, Hans-Georg 137 Gellner, Ernest 23 geo-cultural politics 179 Gilley, Bruce 170 Girardot, Norman 55, 159–60

266   Index globalization xv, 6, 9, 14, 18, 22, 43, 57–9, 63–5, 73–4, 91, 96, 102, 107–10, 130, 138, 179, 220, 225 Goethe, J.W. von 80 Goldsmith, Oliver 102 Goody, Jack 77, 105, 107, 124 Graham, A.C. 131, 210, 213 grammar 194–5 Gramsci, Antonio 23, 101, 107 Gran, Peter 55 grand narrative 44, 74 Granet, Marcel 48, 131, 144, 195 graphic wealth 213 Gu, Jiegang 86, 144–6, 149–50 Gu, Ming Dong xiv–xix, 213 Gu shi bian 86 Guo, Moruo 89 Hägerdal, Hans 56 Hall, David 131 Hall, Stuart 44, 185 Hanan, Patrick 49 Hannas, William 189 Hansen, Chad 189–90, 210–13 Harlan, J.M. 102 Hegel, G.W.F xvi, 17, 52, 74–7, 79, 82, 95–7, 115, 126, 131, 190–1, 216–17 hegemony 23, 52, 56, 60, 67, 91–2, 101, 107, 111, 113, 144, 146–7, 149, 156, 170, 172, 184 Hexagram 203 Heidegger, Martin 137, 151 Hellenism 24–5, 66 hermeneutic circle 137 Henderson, J.L. 26 Herder, J.G. von 17, 71–2, 74, 79, 101, 115, 126, 128–9, 131 Hindu culture 223 Hinduism 123 historiography 23, 76, 149, 150, 151 Hodder, Rupert 16 Hodge, Bob 5, 43–4 Hsia, Adrian 5, 16 Hsia, C.T. 84–5, 90, 116, 119–20 Hu, Shi [Shih] 4, 118–19, 145–6, 152 Hugo, Victor 184 Humboldt, A. von 190–1 Humboldt, W. von 192, 197–8 Huntington, Samuel 10, 64 hydraulic civilization 99–100 iconoclasm 62 ideal type 122–4, 126–7 identity politics 163

ideographic 95–6, 187–94, 196, 198–9, 205–9, 213–14 ideological unconscious 5, 11, 92, 104, 185 ideology xvi–xvii, 3, 6, 7, 10–14, 22, 24–5, 32, 36, 39–41, 44–7, 54, 57, 64, 67, 70, 73, 84, 90, 92–3, 96–7, 99, 101, 103, 105–7, 109, 113, 122, 133, 137, 143, 147–8, 164–8, 174, 176–7, 185, 222, 224 imperialism 23–5, 36–7, 44, 47–8, 54, 66–7, 72, 88, 103, 111, 132, 156, 174, 184, 186, 221 inferiority complex 38, 103 intellectual commodity 6, 109, 221 intellectual consumerism 221 intellectual colonization 84, 222 intellectual unconscious 8, 37–8, 114, 139 Irwin, Richard 117 Islamism 123 Jacoby, Russell 23 Jakobson, Roman 208 Jameson, Fredric xvii, 20, 165–6, 223 Japanese language 199–201 Jensen, L.M. 155–6, 163 Jesuit 43, 67, 70, 163, 206 Jones, D.M. 16 Judaism 82, 126 Jullien, François 49 Jung, Carl xvii, 29, 32–4, 40 Kapp, R.A. 55 Karlgren, Bernhard 48, 144, 205, 213 Keightly, David 131 Korean language 199–201 Khomeini, A.R. 62 Kimbles, S.L. 26 Kipling, Rudyard 113, 132, 174, 223 Kirkland, Russell 158 Kristeva, Julia 102 Lacan, Jacques xiv–xv, 26, 30, 32, 215 language reform 93–5 Lao Tzu 159 Laozi, the 145 Lawrence, D.H. 29 Lawrence, T.E. 53 Lee, Yun Kuen 171–2, 174–5 Leibniz, G.W. xv, 43, 52, 67, 102, 131, 190–1, 196, 221 Levenson, Joseph xvi, 84–5, 103 Lévi-Strauss, Claude 95 Lewis, Bernard 23–5, 47, 49, 224

Index   267 Li Jinfa 90 Li, Ling 102, 142–4, 146–7, 149–50, 163–4, 167, 169–70, 186 Li, Xueqin 171–2, 177 Li, Zehou xx, 3–4, 34–5, 41, 103, 134, 209 Liang, Qichao 161 Liang, Shuming 209 Liezi 159 Lin, Yu-sheng 84–5 linguistic politics 95, 214 linguistic Sinologism 96, 187, 207, 210 linguistic unconscious 8, 36, 187 liushu [six graph-formation method] 212 Literary Revolution 93 literary unconscious 8, 115–16 Liu, Nai’ou 90 Liu, James 210–13 Liu, Shipei 161 Liu, Xiaobo 64, 135 logo-centrism 12, 95, 187–8 logos xvi, 96, 189 Louie, Kam xxi, 5, 43–4 Lu, Xun 18, 60, 84–6, 90, 94, 103, 134, 145, 160–1, 173 Lukács, Georg 126 Lyotard, Jean-François 44 Ma, Jianzhong 195 Macartney, George 77 MacCannell, J.F. 26 Mackenzie, J.M. 23, 53 Mackerras, Colin 16 Magellan, Ferdinand 50 magical realism 121 Mair, Victor 119 Malthus, T.R. 88, 129 Mannheim, Karl 126 Mao, Zedong 89, 94, 120, 134 Mao, Dun 119 Marx, Karl xvi–xvii, 17, 21, 74, 77–80, 88–9, 97, 99–101, 107, 126, 153, 216–17 Marxism 60, 88, 224 Maspero, Henri 144 May Fourth Movement 4 McCarthyism 54 McDonald, Edward 210–14 Meng, Wentong 161 methodological unconscious 8, 12, 36, 104, 114–15 methodology 113–14, 133, 146, 168 Middle East 27, 50, 51, 52–3, 55, 111 Mill, J.S. 77, 79 Mill, James 77

Miller, J.H. xx, xxii, 40 Mizoguchi, Yuzo 91 modernity 4, 21, 46, 56, 58, 64, 93 modernization 55, 58, 62–4, 74, 81, 84–5, 93, 125 Mongol Empire 73 Montesquieu xvi, 17, 68–71, 74, 77, 79, 101, 126, 129 Moore-Gilbert, Bart 20, 23 Mosher, S.W. 16 Mote, Fredrick 131 Mou, Zongsan 4 Muslim culture 53 myth 98 nation state 12, 14, 88, 181, 185–6 national identity 21, 154 nationalism 22, 48, 93, 145–8, 155, 166–8, 170–2, 174–5, 177, 181, 184–6 nativization 21 Needham, Joseph 48, 78, 102, 105, 107, 131 New Culture Movement 18, 62, 85, 93, 134, 145 New Historicism 129 New Right, the 23 Nivison, D.S. 171–2, 176 Nobel Prize complex 102, 223 Occident 49 Occidentalism 11, 14, 51, 55, 58–9, 185, 210, 215, 219 Old English 194 Old Historicism 128 Olmec civilization 178–9 Opium War 1, 36–7, 103 Orient 50–1 oriental despotism xvi, 54, 77–9, 83, 90, 97–100, 121 Orientalism xiv, xvii, xix, 1–3, 5–14, 18–21, 23–6, 37, 42–59, 61–3, 65–6, 80, 97, 104–5, 109–11, 113, 122, 133, 139, 154, 161–2, 165, 185, 210–11, 215, 219–21, 224 Orwell, George 100 otherization 56, 79, 101, 109 Owen, Stephen xvi, 49 Oxtoby, Willard 16 Panopticon 100 Peirce, C.S. xv Pelliot, Paul 48, 182 personal unconscious 34 phonetic poverty 213

268   Index phonocentrism 12, 76, 93, 95, 187–8, 201–2, 206–8, 215 phonographic 192, 197–8, 203–9 Plaks, Andrew 49, 120 Plato 83, 88, 93, 95–6, 188, 207–8 political criticism 45 political unconscious xvii, 8, 12, 20, 36, 38, 165–6, 172, 176–7, 185–6, 223 politicization 91, 170, 177, 180, 185 Polo, Marco xv, 17, 43, 50, 68, 80, 102, 111, 129, 221–2 Portuguese Empire 73 postcolonialism xiv, xix, 3, 6, 8, 10–11, 14, 19–22, 24–6, 38, 42, 51, 65, 132, 184–5, 221 postmodernism 46, 120, 168 Pound, Ezra xvi, 29, 52, 72, 82–4, 90, 102, 159, 188–91, 193, 205, 209, 212 prejudice 8, 90, 114, 137–8, 221 problematics 4–5, 10–11 Procrustean bed, the 17 propaganda 173, 174 Protestant ethic 123–6 Průšek, Jaroslav 90 psychoanalysis 26, 29, 32 psychoanalytic psychology 28 Puett, Michael 131 Qi (pneuma or vital energy) 4 Qian, Zhongshu 90 Qing, Xitai 161 Qu, Qiubai 94 real-politik 88, 103 Renaissance 52, 83 Ricci, Matteo 43, 67, 102, 206–7 Robinet, Isabelle 157, 159 Rohmer, Sax 101 Romanized Chinese 206–7 Rosemont, Henry 195, 205–6, 210, 213 Rousseau, Jean-Jacques 17, 95 Roy, David 120 Rushdie, Salman 62 Russell, Bertrand xvi, 17, 52, 80–2, 102, 113 Said, Edward xvii, 2–3, 5–6, 9, 13–14, 18–21, 23–6, 37–9, 42–58, 61, 97, 110, 122, 126, 139, 162, 220, 224 Sardar, Ziauddin 3 Sati 223–4 Saussure, Ferdinand de xiv–xv, 30, 95, 187, 190, 201, 210 Sautman, Barry 170

Schafer, Edward 43 Schipper, Kristofer 157, 159–60 Schlegel, Friedrich 191 Schleiermacher, Friedrich 137 scholarly unconscious 8, 162 Schopenhauer, Arthur 87 Schrecker, John 105 Schwartz, Benjamin 131 Seddon, R.J. 101 Segalen, Victor 102 self-colonization 2, 7, 36, 59–63, 65, 84, 111–12, 133–5, 223 self-orientalization 56, 61–2 self-otherization 56, 61, 101 Shaughnessy, E.L. 171 Shen, Congwen 90 Shi, Zhecun 90 Shih, Shu-mei 22 Silk Road 73 sign representation 203 Sima, Qian 76, 100 Singer, Thomas 26 Sinism 5 sinicization 110 Sino-centrism 7–8, 105, 177 Sinologism xiv–xix, xxi, 2–3, 5–14, 18–21, 25–6, 30, 32, 36–51, 53–4, 56–63, 65–8, 71–4, 77–81, 84–6, 88–9, 91–2, 95–7, 99–117, 119–20, 123, 125, 127–9, 133, 137–9, 142, 144, 146, 161–6, 168–9, 171–2, 179, 185, 187, 191, 196, 198, 207–8, 210–11, 213–25 Sinologization xvii–xviii, 10–11, 13–14, 42, 59–61, 63–5, 91, 108, 138, 216, 218–19, 223 Sinology xvi, 2–3, 5–6, 8–11, 14, 18–22, 25, 36, 42–51, 53–8, 65–6, 86, 91–2, 95, 104, 109, 129–30, 139–40, 144, 153–4, 158, 162–3, 165, 168–9, 178–9, 185, 187, 213–14, 216–17, 220–1, 223 Sinophiles 102 Sinophobes 101 skepticism 146 Smith, Adam 77, 129 Smith, Henry 102 Snow, Edgar 102 Song, Jian 173 Spanish Empire 73 Spence, Jonathan 16, 55, 70, 100 Spencer, Herbert 77 Spengler, Oswald 136 spiritual colonization 62, 223 Spivak, Gayatri 2, 20–1, 59, 132, 176, 223–4

Index   269 Stein, M.A. 182 Steinbeck, John 101 subconscious 30, 33, 103 subjectivism 18 subjectivity 9, 17, 216, 219, 221 Sun, Yat-sen xxi, 70 superego 30, 35 superiority complex 38, 103 Taiji (Great Ultimate) 4 Taliban 184, 185 Tang, Yongtong 161 Taoism [Daoism] 75, 125, 156–61 teleology 9, 221 teleological model 3 theocracy 75, 99 Third World 6, 37, 51–2, 58–60, 89, 105, 133, 156, 184–5, 223 Tian, Xiaofei 142–5, 163–4, 167 totalitarianism 100 tragedy 87 transnationalism 22 Trevor-Roper, Hugh 107 Tu, Wei-ming 22, 64, 131 tyranny 77 Twain, Mark 102 Unger, J.M. 190 unconscious, the 29–32 universal value 21, 101 universalism 57, 101, 132, 147 Vatican 67 Vico, Giambattista 188–9 Vogel, E.F. 54 Voltaire xvi, 52, 68, 74, 102, 131, 221 Wallerstein, Immanuel 107 Wang, Bi 203–5 Wang, David 44 Wang, Gongwu 22 Wang, Guowei 86–7, 144, 148 Wang, Hui 3–4, 17

Wang, Ming 161 Wang, Ning xxi, 51 Wang, Yuanlu 182 Warner, Langdon 181–2 Watson, Burton 49 Webb, John 196 Weber, Max 17, 74, 77, 97, 107, 115, 122–7, 131 Wen, I-to [Wen Yiduo] 117–19 Weng, Dujian 161 Western-centrism 5, 11, 19, 26, 65, 109–10, 113, 225 Westernization 14, 18, 21, 58, 60–1, 63–5, 85–6, 106, 134, 146 White, Haydon 76–7 “white man’s burden” 113, 174, 223 Wilkins, John 114, 191 Williams, Raymond 29–30, 36, 216 Wittfogel, Karl 54, 77–9, 83, 90–1, 97–100, 102, 115, 121–2, 126, 131, 146 Wu, Hung 140–2, 163, 166–9 Xia Shang Zhou Chronology Project 169–77, 180 Xin, Jianfei 16 Xu, Dishan 161 Xu, Hui 178–80 Xu, Shen 212 Ye, Jiaying 87 Yellow Peril 221 Young, Robert 2, 20 Zen Buddhism 75 Zhang, Kuan 51, 54 Zhang, Xiping 45 Zhang, Zhidong 134 Zheng, Qiao 206, 213 Zheng, Zhenduo 86, 117, 120 Zhou, Ning xxi, 5, 16, 44–6, 91 Zhou, Zuoren 90 Zhu, Guangqian 87 Zhuangzi [Chuang Tzu] 157, 159, 203–5