Research On The Christian Literature Society For China Cultural Transmission To China In The Late-Qing Dynasty

The Christian Literature Society for China(C.L.S.)was the most influential publisher founded in Shanghai in 1887 by Alexander Williamson,a British Protestant missionary.The association is originally called the Society for the Diffusion of Christian& General knowledge among the Chinese.The Society's activities in China lasted for 70 years until 1957,when it merged with the Youth Association Book Council,Baptist Book Council and China Sunday School Union to form the United Christian Book Council of China.During its existence,C.L.S.has always been committed to cultural transmission activities to China,among which the most active was in the 24 th year of the late Qing Dynasty(1887-1911).In the late Qing Dynasty,C.L.S.adhered to the "top-down" cultural transmission strategy,taking books and periodicals as the media,Chinese literati as the primary object,and assimilating the thoughts of all Chinese people.Enthusiasm for politics and participation in politics were the most distinctive characteristics of C.L.S.in the late Qing Dynasty.Taking the Reform movement,the New Deal and other major historical events as opportunities,C.L.S.actively offered Suggestions through modern newspapers and books.Over the years,its publications have been exceptionally rich,with more than 399 kinds of documented publications and countless unrecorded leaflets and pamphlets.The Guangxu Emperor,Zhang Zhidong,Kang Youwei,Liang Qichao and other famous political figures once regarded its remarks as the standard,which had a very lasting,extensive and profound influence on the development of Chinese political society in the late Qing Dynasty.Therefore,at the end of the Qing Dynasty,C.L.S.was one of the important objects that could not be avoided in the study of modern Chinese history and the history of cultural exchange between China and the West.This paper focuses on C.L.S.cultural transmission activities to China in the late Qing Dynasty,which can be divided into four parts:In the first part,expound the background of the establishment of C.L.S..The Society to create are not on time for publication of the society,also not a protestant sectarian competition each product in China,but the western powers in China in the late qing dynasty based on the Chinese social reality and the protestant missionaries in China business development environment,how to more effectively carry out cultural transmission and infiltrate activity of practical considerations.In the second part,excavate the historical facts of the origin of C.L.S.,clarify its organizational system and personnel composition.The origin of C.L.S.is different from the historical context of its institution,so the two should not be confused.By systematically sorting out the two clues,the origin of C.L.S.and its historical status and role in western cultural communication to China can be restored.In the third part,reveals the complete picture of American publishing activities under the strategy of cultural communication to China in the late Qing Dynasty.The cultural transmission strategy of C.L.S.towards China originated from William Wilson and was inherited from Timothy Richard.In the late Qing Dynasty,it was constantly adjusted to the reality of China's political and social development in order to guide the specific publishing activities of the organization.This part focuses on the analysis of the thoughts and opinions of Timothy Richard,Young J.Allen,Donald Mac Gillivray and other key figures in the Reform,Boxer Movement,New Deal reform and other historical periods,and gives a comprehensive and systematic display of the organization's cultural transmission strategies and practical activities.In the fourth part,This paper analyzes the communication principles in the process of C.L.S.cultural transmission activities to China from prosperity to decline.In the late Qing Dynasty,the climax of the Society's cultural transmission activities to China was mainly in the period of the Reform movement and the New Deal,which spanned 16 years.But in two reform campaigns of similar nature,it has had two very different outcomes: one boom,one bust.This process reflects the pseudo-environment constructed by C.L.S.in the political field of knowledge monopoly at the end of the 19 th century,which used mass media to manipulate public opinion in China,and the chain reaction of the weakening of western cultural hegemony caused by the diversification of information channels brought by students studying abroad in Japan in the New Deal period after1901.Taking the cultural transmission activities of C.L.S.in the last twenty-four years of the Qing Dynasty as the main line,this paper makes a progressive analysis of the origin,organization construction,personnel composition,strategy generation and development,publishing practice and other contents of the Society.Through a large number of undiscovered and unutilized original materials,this paper objectively and truly shows the essence of ideological infiltration under the activities of the Society's cultural transmission to China,in an attempt to provide more historical reference and inspiration for the study and judgment of the current western cultural transmission activities to China with different features.