American Missonaries In Modern China And The Orientalized China Image: An Ideological Hegemony In The World System

The Sino-American relationship has become increasingly important in contemporary world. Hence, how to handle such a significant matter should never be overlooked by us. Nowadays, scholars and policy-makers would like to look for elements affecting this relationship beyond traditional ones like geopolitics, economy, military, etc. for explaining the inner factors under the surface of the two countries' interactions. For example, they are paying more attention to culture, ideology and others because these elements, which are often called "soft power" in recent years, could influence international relationship in depth. That does need us to get to the bottom of the related matter. The earliest cultural impression of these two countries was made mainly by American missionaries who came to China under the protection of unequal treaties. This paper mainly intends to analyze the Chinese image in Westerners'mind which was shaped by missionaries, the reasons why it had been done like that and its enduring effect in history.The theory used in this paper is mainly the post-colonial theory once used by Edward Said in his famous works Orientalism for construing British and French Orientalists'writings about the Middle East. Particularly, the analysis of "Power of Discourse" for the topic of this paper:American missionaries and their writings on China and her people. In Chapter One, the paper introduces the significance of this topic and the literature review of relative aspects, the content and method of this paper, and the major materials used for the analysis. Chapter Two gives an outline of the relationship between the Western hegemony of discourse formed in the past centuries and the role American missionaries played within this context. Chapter Three interprets the image produced by these missionaries, the reasons and the characteristics from which some constant elements would be generalized. With these elements, the Fourth Chapter would articulate a further interpretation about the succession and development of the image and some other factors. The conclusion of this paper starts with a question on cultural interaction and intends to answer it on the basis of the above interpretations.