From Yi-xia To Tianxia:an Analysis Of The Historical Concept In The Cultural Conflict And Mutual Understanding Between China And The West From The 18^th Century To The Late 19^th Century

In the history of human civilization,each culture has its own specific development path,showing different characteristics,and inevitably will face other cultures.When different cultures meet,each culture will show the tendency of egocentrism and have its own understanding and interpretation of the "Self" culture and the "Other" culture.This understanding and interpretation originates from the "Self" culture's development,in which the "Self" culture was formed.It not only determines the "Self" cognition of the"Other" culture,but also understands itself from the "Other" cognition of the "Self"culture.It is in this mutual recognition and interpretation that different cultures deepen their mutual understanding which becomes the premise of intercultural communication.However,the cultural exchange in the process of mutual understanding is not a calm but tortuous development which is filled with constant conflict,contradiction and coordination.Each culture will witness a process of cognition,understanding,selection and adjustment when facing heterogeneous culture.Chinese civilization and European civilization,as representatives of the two major civilizations of the East and the West,have made contributions to the development of world civilization.The main body of Chinese culture originates from farming civilization,which is characterized by stability,firmness and cohesion;while the main body of European culture originates from marine civilization,which has a prominent spirit of adventure,pioneering and expansion.With the great geographical discoveries and the continuous connections between China and the West,the geographical barrier has gradually weakened,and the strong desire and potential of human beings to explore the unknown world have been explored,so the two civilizations gradually started substantive contacts and exchanges.Especially since the 18th century,the communication between China and the West has become much closer.After experiencing the cultural exchange which takes the Silk Road as the main way in history,China has begun to face a new civilization from the western world.Meanwhile,the West is in the process of ideological emancipation and external expansion of the enlightenment.Each side is the "other" in the eyes of the other side and both are the subjects of mutual understanding.When two different cultures encounter,there will occur the doubts,puzzles,misunderstandings and even rejection between them.Therefore,the conflict between Chinese culture and the Western culture is inevitable.In essence,this is a new stage of cultural integration between China and the outside world in the process of historical development.This dissertation considers the conflicts and contradictions possibly caused by the lack of understanding in the intercultural communication as a practical problem,and combines the general trend of contemporary cultural exchange,aiming at exploring the historical rationality and limitation of the times through surveying the process of mutual understanding between China and the West,so as to help establish a consciousness:in the unstoppable trend of cultural exchange and the inevitable cultural conflict,how to correctly understand the national nature and global nature of culture in an open vision,how to treat the acceptance and interpretation of each side to the other side,how to make a reasonable choice and adjustment when facing different cultures,so as to ultimately realize the harmony but not sameness of different cultures.For these purposes,the dissertation starts with the etiquette conflict during the British Macartney's embassy to China in 1792-1794 and the similar etiquette conflicts in the subsequent Amherst's and William John Napier's visits to China as typical examples.Then it explores the ideological root of the etiquette conflict from the traditional views of yi-xia and tianxia which are important notions in the traditional Chinese culture.Next it tries to find out the mutual understanding between China and Europe through clarifying the process in which China experienced her changing recognition of the West from unawareness,unsuitability to openness,and the process in which Europe witnessed the changing image of China from legend,praise to negative.What follows is to analyze the standpoints and views of China and the West when they face different cultures and their respective adjustments and changes.Finally,the paper summarizes the principles of cultural mutual understanding which should be followed and puts forward the expectations that different types of culture should understand each other,learn from each other and coexist harmoniously.The research of this dissertation mainly shows the following three characteristics.First,it pays attention to the process of historical development.Regarding the conflict and relationship adjustment between China and the West in the 18th century as a special stage in the whole historical development process,it starts from the perspective and thinking mode of China's understanding and treating surrounding world in early times,and then analyzes how it continuously adjusts its world outlook with the development of history,so as to explore the deep roots of cultural conflict and integration.Second,it emphasizes on thinking and analyzing with the focus on certain co-relations.That is,in analysis of historical process,it pays special attention to the characteristics of cultural conflict and integration which happened in certain space(China and Europe),and then highlights the co-relations through combining the vertical historical carding and horizontal comparison between China and the West.Third,it narrates from the concrete to the general,namely,it takes specific historical events as clues to sum up the general rules which should be followed in cultural mutual understanding and exchange,and the general principles of coexistence and integration of different cultures as well.In the trend that the multipolarization of the world and cultural diversity are becoming more and more common,the research of this dissertation has significance in theory and practice.It not only helps us to correctly understand the problems of cultural understanding and cultural conflict that we have to face in the process of cultural exchange,but also suggests a historical perspective to study cultural mutual understanding and exchange,in addition it proposes a historical reference for us to handle complicated problems for contemporary and future times,and especially it offers some research ideas and practical experiences for Chinese culture's going towards the world.This dissertation is the product of the research in the program of "International Education of Traditional Chinese Culture" in the major of "History of China".The program of "International Education of Traditional Chinese Culture" was established in a special period to actively adapt to the national requirements.In the past 30 years,China has been promoting traditional Chinese culture actively.Especially in the past over 10 years,through a series of measures such as establishing Confucius Institutes abroad,China has been spreading traditional Chinese culture world-widely,so as to push China onto the international forum and let the world understand China.This is also an important initiative to realize the great rejuvenation of the Chinese nation.However,people from other countries are in lack of an impartial and authentic knowledge of China,and to a certain extent there still exists misunderstanding,which has also become an obstacle to Sino-foreign exchanges and cooperation,so it is crucial to shape the positiveimage of contemporary China and eliminate misunderstandings or even prejudice.Therefore,in the process of spreading Chinese culture abroad,it is necessary to build a bridge of mutual communication,which means that the people engaged in this project should not only have considerable proficiency of traditional Chinese history and culture,but also have the strong ability to communicate with foreign countries.In particular,they should be professional enough in the expression of technical terms of Chinese history and culture to enable foreigners to have accurate and comprehensive knowledge of Chinese history and culture.This research program also will play a unique role in promoting cultural exchanges between China and other countries.President Xi Jinping pointed out:"Civilizations are colorful because of exchanges,and civilizations are enriched by mutual learning.Civilization exchanges and mutual learning are an important driving force for the advancement of human civilization and the peaceful development of the world." He proposed to promote the development of international communication capacity,tell Chinese stories well,present a true,three-dimensional and comprehensive China,and to improve the country's cultural soft power." In this way,President Xi emphasized the importance of mutual respect and tolerance between different civilizations,as well as the importance of international people-to-people exchanges.In the international exchanges between China and foreign countries,cultural exchanges and ideological exchanges are the most conducive to promote and enhance the people-to-people understanding and communication.In addition,this research is also one of the series of researches in the special doctorate program of "International Education of Traditional Chinese Culture".It,with other researches of this program,will contribute to form the characteristics of the international communication of Chinese culture which is based on the major of history and will be presented in the form of series English publications.Based on the above considerations and in accordance with the plan of this doctoral program,this dissertation was written in English,with the aim of introducing and spreading traditional Chinese culture to foreign countries,winning the initiative in cross-cultural communication,and enhancing the world's understanding of China.