The Western Missionaries And Early The Sino-portuguese Relations

In the sixteenth century,the great geographical discovery broke the situation of the worldhistory’s independent development,and the western powers expanded to the east,which led to theChinese and western civilization beginning to contact frequently. And all of that profoundlyaffected the development process of Chinese history. Therefore the early history of therelationship between Chinese and Western has been an important part of the history of China’sforeign relations. While since the great geographical discovery Portugal was the first Westerncountry which directly contacted with China, so the communication between China and Portugalwas the beginning of Chinese and Western diplomatic. While early Sino-Portuguese relationscomparing with Chinese traditional tributary relationship has its particularity, also has obviousdifference with modern Sino-British relations. Therefore, the study of the history ofSino-Portuguese early relationship is necessary. Besides, affected by the religious expansion,the Western missionaries accompanied the Portugal ’s eastward expansion to come to China, whonot only acted as an important role in the Sino-Portuguese exchanges, but also crucial to thedevelopment of Sino-Portuguese relations in many of the activities in China. Therefore, to studythe activities and the role of Western missionaries in the early Sino-Portuguese relationsdevelopment, are more likely to have a more clear understanding of the early Sino-Portugueserelations. In this thesis, through systematically analyzing the relationship between the two, I wishto provide some supplementary to the study of the early Sino-Portuguese relations.The article has four parts altogether. The first part mainly discusses the background of theoccurrence of the Sino-Portuguese relations and the missionaries coming to the East toparticipate in the Sino-Portuguese relations. The first is the analysis of the relationship betweenreligious forces in Portugal and its overseas expansion, pointed out that the special relationshipof the religious right and the secular regime not only made the Portugal’s overseas expansion getthe strong support of the religious forces, but also let the spread of religion become its expansionmomentum. This is the root reason of the missionaries to the East. The second is to account thebeginning of the development of Sino-Portuguese relations and missionary first coming toChina.Precisely because of the unpleasant in early contact and the complexity of the relationship between China and Portugal, increase the resistance for the later missionaries to enter to China.The second part begin to discuss the missionaries in late Ming Dynasty in China and itsinfluence on the China-Portugal relations. Because the Macau Portuguese are the representaty ofPortugal in China, and Macau is the headquarters of the Missionaries, so this part mainly writetheir activities in Macao and its influence.The third part mainly discusses the influence of the missionaries’s activities from early QingDynasty to Yong Zheng and the activities impacted on the Sino-Portuguese relations. First is theactivities of missionaries to resisted Qing in the late Ming Dynasty. Second discusses thePortugal missions first visited to the Qing Dynasty. It discusses the effect of missionaries and thePortugueses in Macao in which the role. The third is to discusses the Rites Controversy in theearly Qing Dynasty which led to the Sino-Portuguese foreign affairs."The Rites Controversy"triggered by the activities of missionaries in China, which further development to rise to theheight of the country’s foreign affairs, had a direct impact on the development of theSino-Portuguese relations.The last part is the conclusion. On one hand, analyzed and summarized the role and functionof the missionaries in the early Sino-Portuguese exchanges, including the cultural, diplomaticand political aspects.On the other hand, Summarize the early Sino-Portuguese communicationexperience and its enlightenment for us.