Like the West itself, China possesses an ancient civili-
zation of great complexity that is
difficult to compre-
hend quickly and fully.
Before 1514, Europeans learned of China mainly
through intermediaries, a few
travelers, and luxury
imports. In the sixteenth century China was
thought
to be a “Mightie Kingdome,” technologically
more
advanced than Europe. The Europeans of the seven-
teenth century were told by the Jesuits that China
had
a rational society of great antiquity and continuous
development
that would have to be incorporated, by
one means or another, into their
Christian, mono-
genetic view of the world.
Both the Jesuits and the
philosophes of the Enlightenment saw China as a
model
of Enlightened Despotism. Artists and connoisseurs of
the
eighteenth century were intrigued with China as
the source of exotic
objets d'art and as the home of
an imaginary, happy people who came to life in the
paintings on
porcelain. The reaction against China as
a rational model and as a source
of exotic delight came
in the nineteenth century. While Sinologists sought
to
understand the China of historical reality, other
Europeans
esteemed Chinese poetry and culture as
being aesthetically superior, and
worthy of study and
imitation. There were Westerners who also derided
China as a stagnant, inferior society that had nothing
to offer the West
but problems. The modernizing,
nationalizing, and communizing of China
produced the
contemporary fear of China as a nemesis of Western
culture.
