Modern Chinese History
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Specific Strategies for Reform:
Combining Chinese Culture and Western Learning
Besides the emperor's attempt to reform in 1898, in the face of Western encroachment, many Chinese called for reform and wrote treatises memorializing Emperor Guangxu, persuading him to reform, or they disseminated their ideas in the emerging newspapers and journals in the treaty-ports and other major Chinese cities. The question was how, specifically, how to maintain a degree of equality between China and the West while adopting Western knowledge and practices.
Singling out culture, many decided that despite a vast disparity between China and the West militarily and economically, culture-wise China was an equal, if not superior to the West. As you may guess, many Chinese continued to share Emperor Chien Lung's China-centered view of the world, and reform to them was something forced upon them. Hence many agreed to a scheme of Western learning borrowing, called the ti (essence)/yong (application) formula: maintaining Chinese culture as the essence, and applying Western learning to solving the practical problems of the world.
What did ti/yong mean in the language of the reformers? Historically, ti (essence) and yong (application) were treated as two indispensable dimensions of the same thing. Ti was the essence of the thing while yong was its application, just as in Western philosophy, there was the division between the substance and the appearance of something, and according to Aristotle, you cannot have one without the other. However, in modern times, ti and yong were separated.
Ti referred to Chinese learning, which primarily consisted of four branches related to the study of Confucian learning: history, literature, philosophy, and philology. Basic Confucian tenets of human behavior were upheld. Central to the essence of Chinese culture were certain values extracted from Confucian teachings, such as ren.
The Confucian idea of ren (benevolence, humaneness):
In modern Chinese usage, since ti and yong were separated, Chinese learning (Confucian learning) could be the ti while Western learning became its application, the yong. The application of the ti/yong formula was a way to justify borrowing from Western culture and resolve the confusion the Chinese had in such borrowings, which raised questions such as, where does Chinese culture stand? and what about Chinese values when we borrow from Western values? The ti/yong forumula provided a much needed way to differentiate between the priorities of Chinese and Western culture so that borrowing from the latter would not negate the former.
The ti/yong dichotomy as an approach to cultural borrowing continued on and off throughout much of the 20th century. The initial decision to learn from the West in the late 19th century led to vast changes in Chinese society: the establishment of a modern school system in 1905; the overthrow of the imperial government in 1911 and the ushering in of a republic; and the introduction of modern Western medicine, science, politics, philosophy, history, literature and many other subjects that had initially been deemed not relevant to the building of Chinese strength and prosperity. By 1935, there was a formal declaration that equated Westernization with modernization, although that did not silence the debate over what aspects of Western culture was to be introduced into China either.
The debate seemed to come to a stop in 1949, when the Chinese Communists took over the country, and declared that a particular branch of Western learning, Marxism, would be upheld in China because it emphasized paying attention to the particular issues of each society. But in the 1980s, China again opened up to the outside world, and the debate over Westernization continues to this day.
Remember Pedia Share
Specific Strategies for Reform:
Combining Chinese Culture and Western Learning
Besides the emperor's attempt to reform in 1898, in the face of Western encroachment, many Chinese called for reform and wrote treatises memorializing Emperor Guangxu, persuading him to reform, or they disseminated their ideas in the emerging newspapers and journals in the treaty-ports and other major Chinese cities. The question was how, specifically, how to maintain a degree of equality between China and the West while adopting Western knowledge and practices.
Singling out culture, many decided that despite a vast disparity between China and the West militarily and economically, culture-wise China was an equal, if not superior to the West. As you may guess, many Chinese continued to share Emperor Chien Lung's China-centered view of the world, and reform to them was something forced upon them. Hence many agreed to a scheme of Western learning borrowing, called the ti (essence)/yong (application) formula: maintaining Chinese culture as the essence, and applying Western learning to solving the practical problems of the world.
What did ti/yong mean in the language of the reformers? Historically, ti (essence) and yong (application) were treated as two indispensable dimensions of the same thing. Ti was the essence of the thing while yong was its application, just as in Western philosophy, there was the division between the substance and the appearance of something, and according to Aristotle, you cannot have one without the other. However, in modern times, ti and yong were separated.
Ti referred to Chinese learning, which primarily consisted of four branches related to the study of Confucian learning: history, literature, philosophy, and philology. Basic Confucian tenets of human behavior were upheld. Central to the essence of Chinese culture were certain values extracted from Confucian teachings, such as ren.
The Confucian idea of ren (benevolence, humaneness):
- Just like love is central to Christianity, so ren (translated variously as benevolence or humaneness) was central to Confucian learning. It was the benchmark for a human being, hence its translation into "humaneness."
- Ren referred to a system of proper behavior toward different people.
- To practice ren, one is loyal to the emperor, obedient to one’s father, respects the elderly and one’s senior, loves and cares for those who are junior, and proves trustworthy to one’s friends and peers. It is a system of interpersonal relationships.
- To achieve ren one has to rid oneself of the tendency of free will and selfishness, and practice self-cultivation, such as through painting, music, and calligraphy.
In modern Chinese usage, since ti and yong were separated, Chinese learning (Confucian learning) could be the ti while Western learning became its application, the yong. The application of the ti/yong formula was a way to justify borrowing from Western culture and resolve the confusion the Chinese had in such borrowings, which raised questions such as, where does Chinese culture stand? and what about Chinese values when we borrow from Western values? The ti/yong forumula provided a much needed way to differentiate between the priorities of Chinese and Western culture so that borrowing from the latter would not negate the former.
The ti/yong dichotomy as an approach to cultural borrowing continued on and off throughout much of the 20th century. The initial decision to learn from the West in the late 19th century led to vast changes in Chinese society: the establishment of a modern school system in 1905; the overthrow of the imperial government in 1911 and the ushering in of a republic; and the introduction of modern Western medicine, science, politics, philosophy, history, literature and many other subjects that had initially been deemed not relevant to the building of Chinese strength and prosperity. By 1935, there was a formal declaration that equated Westernization with modernization, although that did not silence the debate over what aspects of Western culture was to be introduced into China either.
The debate seemed to come to a stop in 1949, when the Chinese Communists took over the country, and declared that a particular branch of Western learning, Marxism, would be upheld in China because it emphasized paying attention to the particular issues of each society. But in the 1980s, China again opened up to the outside world, and the debate over Westernization continues to this day.
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