Study On The Scientific Integration Of China And West Thoughts Of Wang Zheng

The communication between China and the foreign countries has been frequent since ancient times.The Introduction of Western theory during Ming and Qing dynasty in the 17th and 18th centuries was the most typical example. From the Late Ming, many missionaries came to China to peach their religion.The western culture came into the view of Chinese scholars. This period took on a wonderful view because of the turbulence of the political situation, the emergence of capitalism and the cultural awareness of the scholars. Facing with the influence of the western culture, Chinese people must make choice towards this phenomenon. And there were different attitudes, some people were totally negative to western culture, but some believed that the western culture could be made good use with some change, and others thought that the western culture should be accepted without any change. Whoever the rulers of the highest authority or common civilian that leading ordinary lives are important participants of The Introduction of Western Learning to the East. Wang Zheng, who lived in the Late Ming, was no exception. Although he was baptized in Catholic church, he was still a "Confucian scholar". He insisted on the principle that knowledge cannot be refused based on the sources. He had great interest in learning western science and spread western science actively to improve Chinese traditional machinery, for the purpose of improving people’s daily livelihood and meeting the urgent needs of the country. His positive attitude towards western science also reflected the attitude of other scholars of the same period. Recently, the research about representative scholars of this period is blooming, however, Wang Zheng never attracted enough attention who had great contribution in the field of mechanics and mechanology with the background of both Catholic and Confucianism. Most study just focus on the contribution that the evolution of versions, his technology works, his beliefs and his scientific and technological inventions, few of them took the special social background that the melting of Chinese and western culture into consideration to probe Wang Zheng’s ideology.In the field of interaction between China and the West in scientific, Wang Zheng has the same contribution with Xu Guangqi, which showed his important position. He had influenced by multi-aspect all along. He has a strong interest in science and technology. The introduction of western science gave him the chance to get close to the melting science of China and the West. In order to make good for people’s daily livelihood and meet the urgent needs of the country, he became succeed in mechanics, mechanology and military. In mechanology, he combined the Western medicine knowledge and skills with Chinese traditional skills. A large number of machine for the production and livelihood had been improved. In the area of military, traditional Chinese military equipment had been transformed by Wang Zheng, which promoted the ability of military machinery of defense and lethality. In the field of interaction between China and the West in scientific, Wang Zheng made significant contribution, which profited from his leading attitude to the western science, and for this reason, his ability of mastering western science was remarkable at that time. This paper tries to testify the importance of Wang Zheng in the field of the complementary of Chinese and western science through straightening up the contents and practices of Wang Zheng’s ideology. And then probe into the development of science and traditional culture.