商人、传教士与西方“中国学”的转变

Merchants,Missionaries and the Transformation of Sinology in the West

从1820年代起,来华英美新教传教士和商人通过他们在中国创办或支持的出版媒介和他们的著作,批判并否定在此之前以耶稣会士为主的天主教传教士对中国的认识与研究。他们认为中国文明是一种停止的、没有历史的文明;中国的民族特性是由排外、迷信和其他恶劣品质构成的;中国法律和司法制度则是以残忍、腐败为特征的,而这又与中国传统的政治制度密切相关。在这些观念的影响下,西方关于中国的研究和著述越来越多地展现中国的负面形象。

Since the 1820s,Protestant missionaries and merchants coming into China from England and America,through newspapers and other publications,criticized and negated the positive image of China in the literature about China by the Catholic missionaries,mainly Jesuits,who came to China prior to them.They described that Chinese culture was a static and non-historical one;while the characters of the Chinese people were exclusive,superstitious and full of other evil factors; and Chinese law,government and political system were related closely to cruelty and corruption.Influenced by such ideas,studies and publications about China in the West trended toward building more and more negative images of China.