After China was defeated by Western powers and Japan in late 18th century, Chinese scholars were preoccupied with two main things. First was a search for the root causes of their weaknesses which resulted into the defeat and secondly how to regain their power, overcome the occupying forces and gain a global position of influence. In addition Grasso, June, and Michael notes that China was confounded by huge population and a declining food production at the time. At the center of most of this debates, was the extent to which western technology and techniques (Yong) could be adopted while retaining Chinese values (Ti). One such Scholar was Yan Fu. In his article entitled ‘Learning from the West,’ Yan Fu was opposed to a complete imposition of western technology without varying the culture of the Chinese as had been argued by other scholars such as Fen Guifen. In his opinion, adoption of western techniques was to be matched by discarding the existing Chinese cultures.
A secondary source that puts Yan Fu text into historical context is Fung, who notes the defeat of China by western powers was mainly because China was at a military disadvantage. It could not merely compete against the sophisticated military hardware of the West. This prompted other scholars such as Yan Fu to rethink how China could modernize and match the West regarding military hardware. Aside from that, the Sino-Japan war of 1894-95 in which China lost disastrously, weakened the confidence of the population in its traditional culture. It is this weakness that made intellectuals consider the West as a complete source of knowledge. Hence, there was a need to balance between borrowing western military hardware, and how to combine it with the culture of the West.
A detailed meaning of Yan Fu text is given by Schell and Delury. They note after Chinese defeats in a number of wars against western powers; China was virtually dominated. To top this domination, the Chinese and the western powers, namely France, England, Germany and even Russia entered into an agreement with Qing Dynasty, which essentially placed China at a disadvantage. For instance, these powers could work in China but under the protection of their motherland and not China. In addition, Grasso, June, and Michael note the Chinese administration lost significant control of rural areas, during the white lotus rebellion which among others other uprising, brought social and economic unrest in the country.
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While the debate was raging over how China can redeem its former glory, it so happened that Yan Fu had studied abroad. He had been exposed to a number of successes and was absorbed in the western way of thinking. It is therefore easy to see why he was in love with this philosophy and advocated for the adoption of both western technology, as well as culture. Yan Fu was genuinely in favor of western belief in ‘survival of the fittest’ and saw Chinese culture as in need of fundamental change. In particular, Yan Fu wanted a sense of nationhood to be inculcated, as opposed to ties to villages. However, these feeling changed drastically after witnessing the horrors of world war one.
Vandal gives Yan Fu text a historical significance. In it, he notes that the fall of China into the hands of Western powers was as a result of its technological and military disadvantage in the later end of 19th Century. Vandal makes a point that around mid-19th century, Europe was an inconsequential power, and as late as 1793, the British attempt to establish trade relations with the Qing Dynasty had been rebuffed. However, industrialization saw Europe grow in wealth and military power, and that is how they found it easier to defeat the Chinese. With this in mind, there was apparently a feeling that China had missed something, and there was a need to take steps to rectify the situation.
- Fu, Yan. Learning from the West. n.d.
- Fung, Yu-lan. A Short History of Chinese Philosophy. New York: The Free Press, 1976.
- Grasso, June, and Michael G. Kort. Modernization and revolution in China. ME Sharpe, 2015.
- Schell, Orville and John Delury. Wealth and Power: China’s Long March to the Twenty-First Century. New York: Little, Brown Book Group Limited, 2013.
- Vandal, Sacco. The Chinese Who Saw the Perils of Westernization. 2016. web.
