Zhong Wen: Matteo Ricci received higher education in the West, so he brought with him maps, astronomical instruments, clocks, and other small gadgets. He himself didn’t expect at the time that these items would later play such an important role in cultural exchange.

Bo Ya: This is the so-called “historical law that by-products sometimes achieve the greatest effect,” right? I call it “a lucky mistake.” Ricci’s original purpose in coming to China was evangelization, yet he ended up opening for China a “window to look at the world.” This has now become his main legacy.

Zhong Wen: He hung maps on the walls of his residence. Local officials who saw them felt that China didn’t have anything like them. The spherical Earth, the newly discovered continents on the maps—these were things unknown to the Ming people. So the Chinese officials asked him to translate the maps into Chinese. But during the translation, he noticed that Western maps placed Europe at the center, while China was far to the east, which did not fit the Chinese concept of the “Celestial Empire” as the center of the world. So he redrew the map, different from the original version, placing China in the center. The map that survives today, the one everyone can still see, is titled “The Complete Map of the Myriad Countries of the World” (Kunyu Wanguo Quantu).

The map was presented to the Wanli Emperor. The “Great Ming Sea”—China’s East China Sea—extended down to the South China Sea, and both were still labeled “Great Ming.”

The original Kunyu Wanguo Quantu, co-created by Ricci and the Ming official Li Zhizao, is one of the earliest colored world maps in China. Based on Ricci’s imported Universal Geography, it broke with the convention of placing Europe at the center of the world, positioning East Asia instead at the center—a precedent-setting approach for Chinese world maps.

Today, the best-preserved copy is in the Vatican, the one Ricci personally mailed back to Europe. In China it was reprinted twelve times. After Ricci’s death in 1610, Li Zhizao produced another drawn edition in 1623. The “National Library of China” still keeps a fragmentary copy. The most complete hand-drawn edition is in the Nanjing Museum.

Ricci brought not only maps but also chiming clocks, opening the eyes of the Chinese people and even the Wanli Emperor.

Ricci’s gifts to the emperor are described in detail in The Journals of Matteo Ricci: three oil paintings, one world map, a Western clavichord, a jeweled crucifix, and two bronze chiming clocks—one large and one small.

Wanli never met Ricci, but he saw the chiming clocks and the Kunyu Wanguo Quantu. The map was even made into a six-panel screen placed in the emperor’s bedroom.

Bo Ya: I really can’t imagine that—how could Wanli still sleep with that thing in his bedroom? At the very least, sleep could not have been peaceful. Fortunately, he was physically disabled and didn’t demand much from himself—otherwise how could he resist the urge to “march out to conquer the world”?

Zhong Wen: Ricci entered the palace merely as a clock repairman. Although he had little direct influence on the emperor, he befriended many Chinese intellectuals—Li Zhi, Tang Xianzu, Xu Guangqi, and others. He mastered Chinese, understood the Confucian classics, enjoyed interacting with Chinese scholars, and received dozens of visitors daily, answering their questions, introducing his Chinese writings, and sharing his library. Xu Guangqi was not only influenced by him—they became collaborators.

More than 400 years ago, a Chinese and a foreigner—two intellectuals—were engaging not only in personal exchange but in a meeting of two vastly different civilizations. It truly deserves to be recorded in bold strokes.

Bo Ya: Ricci adopted a Chinese name, learned Chinese, wore Chinese clothing, practiced Confucian etiquette, and studied Chinese classics. At the same time, he spread Christianity and Western astronomy, mathematics, and geography. He really was a “two-way trader of dual identity.”

Zhong Wen: In letters to his European compatriots, he praised Chinese culture and described China as a “land of propriety,” giving Europeans a remarkably positive impression of China. Thus Ricci made contributions to Sino-Western cultural exchange in both directions during the late Ming.

He died on May 11, 1610. According to Ming law, foreigners could not be buried in the capital—“beneath the Son of Heaven’s feet.” But because he translated Euclid’s Elements, Minister Ye Xianggao argued that the enormous contribution made by Ricci and Xu Guangqi in translating The Elements justified granting Ricci the special privilege of burial in Beijing.

Ricci’s tombstone is inscribed in both Chinese and Latin, adorned with twin dragons—a symbol of cultural fusion. To the Chinese, he was a missionary, but even more so a scholar. He built a bridge for Sino-Western cultural exchange, opened a window for China to view the world, and brought Chinese thought and culture to the world.

Bo Ya: Ricci influenced not only geography but transformed China’s worldview. Maps represent space; clocks represent time. The world is made of space and time. These two items Ricci brought shook Confucian notions of “Hua vs. Yi” (Chinese vs. Barbarians) that had persisted for centuries. Three hundred years later, Ricci’s tomb was looted by Communist bandits, but his historical impact remains enduring.

Zhong Wen: Yes. From the Ming into the Qing, cannons produced by missionaries remained key defensive weapons. In 1669, the Kangxi Emperor ordered Ferdinand Verbiest (Nan Huairen) to cast “red barbarian cannons.” Verbiest also authored Illustrated Explanations of Divine Might and The Principles of Form and Nature.

In 1674, the war to suppress the Three Feudatories broke out. Verbiest was again ordered to cast cannons. He hesitated, citing the Christian commandment “Thou shalt not kill.” Kangxi became displeased and applied pressure. Having witnessed the wrongful persecution of Johann Adam Schall von Bell (Tang Ruowang), Verbiest understood that refusal would endanger not only his own life but also the entire mission. So he designed a lightweight cannon firing three-pound shots with 99% accuracy. Kangxi then ordered an eight-pound version and personally tested it. His two test shots landed exactly on target, delighting him so much that he removed his own fur coat on the spot to reward Verbiest, later appointing him Vice Minister of Works.

The “Bureau of Timekeeping” near Xuanwumen from late Ming and the Qing “Imperial Astronomical Bureau” near Dongbianmen were places where Jesuits applied their skills—strengthening the Manchu state, observing celestial phenomena, reforming the calendar, and producing maps. Verbiest even designed a steam-powered “automobile” for Kangxi.

Bo Ya: Missionaries helped the Manchus brutally slaughter the Han people. That is the dark side of cultural accommodation.

Zhong Wen: Missionaries also had major influence in diplomacy. In 1676, Russian envoys arrived in China. Verbiest, fluent in many languages, served as interpreter. He greeted them in Latin, explained diplomatic titles, and clarified cultural differences, facilitating pleasant exchanges between the two sides. Ten years later, in 1686, he interpreted for the Dutch embassy as well.

During his time in China, Verbiest wrote many religious texts propagating Catholic doctrine—Introduction to Doctrine, A Brief Discussion of Reward and Punishment, Questions on the Eucharist, Daily Devotions of the Holy Religion, etc. Although surviving texts about his evangelization are few, Kangxi’s own statements of belief show that the emperor was influenced by his teachings.

Verbiest died in 1688. Kangxi held a grand funeral and personally wrote the elegy:
“You, Nan Huairen, plain of heart and broad in learning… You served in the Astronomical Bureau and strengthened the imperial arsenal… News of your passing brings deep sorrow.”
He granted him the posthumous title “Diligent and Talented.” Among missionaries who died in China during the Ming–Qing transition, Verbiest was the only one to receive such a title. After political turmoil, he was ultimately buried together with Ricci and Schall von Bell, inside what is now the campus of the “Party School of the Beijing Municipal Committee.”

Bo Ya: The Manchu emperor Kangxi claimed to be “Huaxia”—quite amusing. Unfortunately, the Manchus, ignorant and barbaric, mastered only the surface of civilization. Lacking the drive to advance, they wasted two centuries and by the 19th century were reduced to a degenerate, opium-addicted heap.

Zhong Wen: Over 300 years later, in 1995, a small museum in Southern California (the Bowers Museum) displayed a poem by Kangxi expressing his faith: “I wish to accept the Holy Son, to gain eternal life as a child of God.” He also wrote another short poem mentioning “the cross, flowing grace,” describing Jesus’s midnight arrest, the disciples’ betrayal, Peter’s denial before dawn, the scourging, the two thieves on either side, and Jesus speaking seven sayings from the cross—showing Kangxi’s familiarity with the Gospels.

Sadly, internal conflict within the Catholic Church over the Chinese Rites Controversy eventually led to the suppression of missionary work in China. In 1705, the papal legate Charles Maillard de Tournon arrived. Kangxi treated him politely and patiently explained Chinese rites: “The Chinese bow before ancestral tablets not to seek blessings, but to show respect. This is an essential principle of China, of great importance.” He explained that Chinese people emphasize filial piety and that ancestral memorial tablets express reverence, not worship of the dead. He also said: “Although your worship of the Lord differs in form from our reverence for Heaven, the meaning is the same.” But Tournon, unable to speak the language and unwilling to listen, angered Kangxi, leading to the “century-long prohibition of Christianity.”

Bo Ya: Chinese Christian communities never disappeared because of Kangxi’s anger. Missionaries such as Giuseppe Castiglione (Lang Shining) continued serving in the palace, and underground Christian communities persisted among the common people, as they still do today on mainland China. Not even Mao Zedong’s beastly Cultural Revolution could eradicate Christianity.