Zhong Wen: Ricci’s interactions and friendships with Chinese scholar-officials can truly be called a beautiful chapter in history. When Ricci first landed in China from Macao, he began studying Chinese in the southern region of Lingnan—known historically as a “land of bird-language.” One can easily imagine the difficulty, yet he succeeded. Not only did he write works on China in Western languages; he also used Chinese to write books introducing Western religion, science, and culture. The intended readers of the latter were Chinese scholar-officials.

By learning Chinese, he could deal directly with the Chinese, including men of letters. Ricci lived in Nanchang, Nanjing, and Beijing for more than ten years, interacting with countless scholar-officials, some of whom became his closest friends, people with whom he could entrust even life and death. In his On Friendship he wrote: “A friend is not another, but half of myself—indeed, a second self. Therefore, one should regard a friend as oneself.” This accords entirely with Chinese Confucian ethics.

Ricci developed deep relationships with many figures, including the Jiangxi provincial governor Lu Zhonghe, Wang Pan, Qu Taisu, Li Zhi, Jiao Ruohou, Feng Yingjing, Xu Guangqi, and Li Zhizao. Ricci not only persuaded Chinese officials and scholars to give up Daoist alchemy and instead study Western science with him—mastering astronomical instruments such as the sextant, the celestial globe, and angular measurement devices—he also translated classics such as Euclid’s Elements. Several times in moments of mortal danger, he lived or died together with Chinese scholar-officials. It was precisely through his friendships with Chinese literati and officials that he succeeded in entering the very center of Chinese political authority and brought Western religion and science into a traditionally closed China.

After spending some time in China, Ricci suddenly saw things clearly: in China, to get anything done, one must rely on connections—renmai—and scholar-officials were precisely his network. Li Zhi was considered a madman, someone with whom many people could not peacefully coexist, yet Ricci managed to use softness to overcome his forcefulness. In 1599, Ricci met Li Zhi in Nanjing, leaving an extremely favorable impression on Li Zhi, who had Muslim ancestry. At the time, Ricci was working on a major project—translating the Four Books into Latin—which required consultation with Chinese literati. Li Zhi also actively asked him questions. The two later met again in Nanchang and Nanjing, and Li Zhi even introduced his friend Jiao Ruohou to Ricci, effectively bringing Ricci into the core of China’s “Confucian network.”

As for Xu Guangqi, his story with Ricci is well known, long celebrated as a classic episode in Sino-Western cultural and scientific exchange. Yet one point deserves emphasis: after Xu Guangqi earned his initial degree (xiucai), his fortunes did not improve. He had to wander to Guangdong to make a living as a teacher; in his thirties he was still just an “old child student,” weary and frustrated. Later he barely managed to pass the provincial exam, but his life still did not improve much—until many years later when he finally met Ricci in Nanjing. After an all-night conversation, the two felt they had met too late. Father Ricci resolved for him two great existential problems, and from that moment Xu Guangqi’s life was transformed.

Ricci also wrote Ten Discourses by a Strange Man, a late-life work of moral philosophy. It records Ricci’s conversations with seven Ming-dynasty scholar-officials and a Confucian named Guo. They discussed topics deeply concerning to the Chinese: death, the immortality of the soul, fasting, spiritual cultivation, moral retribution, wealth, divination, and more. This was a rare metaphysical dialogue between Chinese and Western intellectuals on an equal footing. Before this, Chinese literati had hardly ever been so “serious and candid.” The importance of the dialogue partners is evident.

Bo Ya: The historical record of Ricci’s interactions with Chinese literati is a treasure in the history of Sino-Western cultural exchange. Today some people imagine: “When we revisit this history, we should not merely listen to it as stories. We should imaginatively consider: if such exchanges had continued freely and openly, if they had been more accepted by mainstream ideology—if riddling words had turned into practices promoting social progress—then over the following centuries, the psychological distance between China and the West might not have grown so vast.”

But this clearly underestimates the difficulty of civilizational enlightenment. In my view, without ordeals of life and death, real breakthroughs in progress are simply impossible. The facts show: without later imperialist invasions, China would not have undergone any modernization at all.