Zhong Wen: Although Leibniz, like most European thinkers, never left Europe, his work was still a product of colonial activities. His book Recent Events in China was an important result of the spread of Chinese culture in Europe during the eighteenth century. In it, Leibniz advocated a vision of international cultural pluralism and complementarity, and for the first time voiced the idea that China and Europe could learn from each other through mutual exchange.

Bo Ya: It was not until the Yuan dynasty, when the Mongol western expeditions opened the Eurasian continent, that the West truly learned of China’s existence, after which missionaries began translating Chinese classics.

Zhong Wen: The adventures of Marco Polo at the turn of the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries reflected the West’s curiosity about China, but these were merely individual stories. Official contact came about two and a half centuries later, in 1583, when Emperor Wanli of the Ming dynasty gave his approval. Around that time, Portugal, France, Italy and other countries sent missionaries to China. In 1593, Matteo Ricci translated major portions of the Four Books (The Great Learning, Doctrine of the Mean, Analects, Mencius) into Latin. Soon after, his successor Nicola Trigault (a Belgian) translated the Five Classics (Book of Songs, Book of Documents, Book of Rites, Book of Changes, Spring and Autumn Annals) into Latin and had them printed in Hangzhou—these were the first Western-language editions of Chinese classics.

The first complete Latin translation of the Four Books was eventually produced by the Belgian missionary François Noël (1651–1729). Building on the work of his predecessors and after more than twenty years of effort, he published the translation at the University of Prague in 1711. His Philosophia Sinica introduced other ancient Chinese thinkers as well. The complete Latin translation of the Five Classics was accomplished by several missionaries. In addition, they wrote works such as The Life of Confucius and Biographies of the Disciples of Confucius in French, published in Beijing—though these appeared in the latter half of the eighteenth century.

Noël’s Three Treatises on Chinese Philosophy was a profound work that in many respects surpassed similar studies by earlier Jesuits. However, from the perspective of Sinology, Noël’s Six Classics of the Chinese Empire (The Great Learning, Doctrine of the Mean, Analects, Mencius, Classic of Filial Piety, and Elementary Learning) was his most important contribution to Chinese studies. If the earlier Jesuit translations of Confucian classics reached their peak with Confucius Sinarum Philosophus, Noël’s Six Classics of the Chinese Empire did not build on that work; it was a completely new translation, and it included the first-ever Western-language translations of Mencius, The Classic of Filial Piety, and Elementary Learning, a work compiled by Liu Ziceng under the guidance of Zhu Xi.

In the Six Classics, Noël placed Zhu Xi’s prefaces to the Four Books before the main text, but he also consulted and used other sources. In this translation, the text was divided into short, numbered sections like the original. Commentary followed each section, usually naming the commentator. Many translations were preceded by lengthy paraphrases, and sometimes followed by short explanations to aid comprehension.

Unlike Confucius Sinarum Philosophus, Noël’s translation included little or no Christian terminology. His work appears to be a serious scholarly attempt to present ancient Chinese texts in an academic fashion—perhaps intentionally distancing himself from the Jesuits who half a century earlier had translated and compiled Confucius Sinarum Philosophus.

Although Noël completed the Latin translation of six Confucian classics in 1711, his work was prohibited from publication by the authorities in Rome and Germany. Yet because of Du Halde’s high praise of Noël’s translations in his General History of the Chinese Empire, Noël had a tremendous influence on German scholars such as Leibniz and Christian Wolff in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. Du Halde not only used Noël’s translation of the Four Books, but also summarized and commented on each of what he considered the major components of the ancient Chinese canon—the Five Classics.

The Six Classics translation was relatively free in approach. Noël explained in his preface that his aim was to present “not what the Chinese literally wrote, but what they truly meant to express.” The base text he used clearly came from Zhu Xi, as Zhu Xi’s prefaces were included, but his interpretive method was European and scholastic—methods already employed by many earlier missionaries.

The opening of Noël’s translation of the Doctrine of the Mean is a good example. The original reads: “What Heaven imparts to man is called nature; following nature is called the Way; cultivating the Way is called education.” Ninety years earlier, when Giulio Aleni (1582–1649) was asked in a study hall in Fuzhou to comment on this sentence, he explained: “The law of Heaven is called natural disposition. To follow this law is called the Way or natural law. To elaborate and systematize this natural law is called the real law.” Noël’s interpretation is less overtly Christian, but still bears clear traces of scholastic philosophy: “The law of Heaven is nature itself; this nature inclines one to act in a proper manner; such a way of life conforms to the correct rule of living, or the precepts of proper existence.”

Bo Ya: All these achievements were initiated and carried out by missionaries. Why? Clearly, without ideals that transcend personal gain, such “nonprofit activities” would have been difficult to sustain.

Zhong Wen: From the late seventeenth to mid-eighteenth century, Sinology—or Chinese studies—became a temporary craze in Europe, and its roots lay in missionary activity.

Amid the complex final decades of the Chinese Rites Controversy, Noël published his translations Six Classics of the Chinese Empire and Chinese Philosophy. To help Chinese Christians avoid the dilemma of conflicting ethnic and religious identities, he explored a method of text interpretation that explained Confucian classics through Aristotelian perspectives. Hence his translations have considerable freedom—he attempted to merge Confucian texts with Nicomachean ethics (Aristotelian virtue ethics), rather than simply translating at the linguistic level. This merging revealed commonalities and universal principles that transcend cultural boundaries. It was precisely this fusion that inspired philosophers such as Christian Wolff, Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz, and Voltaire: it embodied pure rational ideals not yet constrained by later colonial and postcolonial theories—a “tree standing tall in the forest” before intellectual frameworks became rigid.

Bo Ya: Out of their missionary zeal, Western missionaries studied China in great depth. Their research was not limited to classics—they studied the Chinese language, history and geography, astronomy and mathematics, science and technology, medicine, agriculture, gardens, and more. They produced numerous groundbreaking works, and many became distinguished scholars in their own right.

Zhong Wen: It is recorded that in 1682, when the Italian missionary Prospero Intorcetta returned to Rome, he brought back more than 400 works authored by missionaries in China. They also transported large numbers of Chinese books to Europe. In 1693, Emperor Kangxi sent the French missionary Joachim Bouvet back to France to recruit more mathematicians, technicians, and especially surveyors, and he sent with him 300 Chinese books and porcelain as gifts for King Louis XIV. Another French missionary, Joseph de Prémare, collected several thousand Chinese volumes for the Royal Library of France. Among the missionaries’ works, linguistic studies included the Italian Francisco Varo’s Grammar of the Chinese Language, the Spaniard Basilio Brollo’s Easy Method for Learning Mandarin, and Louis XIV’s advisor Étienne Fourmont’s Chinese Grammar. Historical works included Mendoza’s History of the Great Kingdom of China (1585, translated into several languages), Antoine Gaubil’s twelve-volume General History of China (1783), and especially Athanasius Kircher’s China. The French missionary Jean-Baptiste Du Halde’s encyclopedic General History of the Chinese Empire was widely admired by Enlightenment scholars. There were also numerous works on philosophy, astronomy, medicine, and even martial arts.

Bo Ya: Some say philosophers sang the “high notes” of Sino-Western cultural exchange, while the missionaries provided the “bass.” Without their foundational work, the philosophers’ lofty claims would have had no ground to stand on.

Zhong Wen: The seventeenth and eighteenth centuries were the high tide of European philosophy. Thinkers such as Kant, Hegel, and Schelling followed in the footsteps of Leibniz. Leibniz was a polymath—mathematician, physicist, historian, and philosopher. He showed great interest in distant and unfamiliar China, studying it tirelessly from the age of 21 until his death. In this respect he had greater foresight than Hegel. Whereas Hegel focused on criticizing the “national character” of the Chinese, Leibniz emphasized China’s place in the global order and its potential and prospects. His Recent Events in China lays out his attitude toward China quite comprehensively.

In his view, China and Europe represented two poles of the world. The two regions, compared side by side, each had strengths and weaknesses, neither superior nor inferior. Europeans excelled in speculative thought, while the Chinese excelled in observation. He listed several fields in which Europeans took pride—then shifted tone: “But who would have imagined that there existed on earth a people who surpassed even us—who pride ourselves on being well-cultivated in all areas—in moral cultivation? Since we came to know the Chinese, we have discovered precisely this trait in them. If we are equal to them in craftsmanship and slightly superior in speculative sciences, then in practical philosophy—in ethics and the principles of governance—we are clearly outmatched.”

Bo Ya: The difference between Hegel and Leibniz shows a time lag—Hegel lived a century later, when China had fallen further behind Europe under the yoke of the Manchu Qing dynasty.

Zhong Wen: Leibniz proposed an important idea: that every people has its strengths and weaknesses, and the best way to correct these weaknesses is through mutual learning. This remains valid even by modern standards. Thus he argued: “Peoples far apart in distance should establish new kinds of relationships, enabling mutual understanding,” and “exchange their talents and jointly illuminate the light of human wisdom.”

Bo Ya: So, the Enlightenment thinkers’ “passionate love” for Chinese culture was in fact rooted in their own circumstances and interests.

Zhong Wen: The craze for China during the Enlightenment was most visible among the French. The Enlightenment swept all major European countries, but its center was France, as it was a movement driven not only by reason but also by sentiment. The French Encyclopedists formed its core—including Diderot (initiator of Encyclopédie), Voltaire, Rousseau, Montesquieu, d’Holbach, La Mettrie, Helvétius, Quesnay, and others. Their main attacks were against tradition; in religion, they promoted atheistic or deistic philosophies.

The Encyclopedists learned about China from missionaries. They discovered that China seemed to embody their ideal of “natural religion,” and thus they quickly embraced it. Among them, Voltaire was the most enthusiastic. He regarded China as the best model of human society, calling it “the most beautiful, most ancient, most vast, most populous, and best-governed country in the world” (Philosophical Dictionary). He believed that human civilization, science, and technology had all originated in China and that China had long been far ahead. When China was already a great nation with good governance, “we were still but a handful of savages wandering in the Ardennes forest!”

He praised Chinese history for its rationality, claiming it contained “almost no fiction or absurd tales, none of the Egyptian or Greek claims of divine revelation.” Rationality was a banner of the Enlightenment. Voltaire also lauded Chinese astronomy, saying that only the Chinese had continuous records of eclipses and planetary conjunctions, and that European astronomers were astonished at the accuracy of their calculations. He regarded Confucianism as a form of natural religion and believed its principle—“Do not impose on others what you do not desire”—to be the highest moral rule, deserving to be everyone’s motto.

Bo Ya: There was a certain amount of projection in this, like Rousseau’s idealization of the “noble savage.”

Zhong Wen: In economics, the European craze for China peaked in the 1760s, with François Quesnay leading the way. In his Natural Law, Quesnay emphasized that natural law was the basis of human legislation and the highest principle of human behavior, and that China alone had succeeded in honoring it. He advocated an agriculture-centered economy and praised Chinese emperors for valuing agriculture. He believed that only agriculture could generate real wealth, while money and commercial capital were secondary.

After Quesnay’s death, his students continued to promote his thought. One of them, Turgot, became France’s Finance Minister and sought to emulate China by promoting agricultural reform. During that time he met two Chinese students, Gao Leisi and Yang Dewang, who were preparing to return home. Turgot persuaded them to stay another year to study physiocratic theory. He then gave them 52 survey questions concerning China’s economy, culture, and history. After returning to China, they sent regular reports to French Minister Bertin. French missionaries in China also collected materials in accordance with physiocratic interests and sent them back to France.

Bo Ya: It seems Ming-China was more open and free than mainland China in 2024! Those scholars were not accused of “colluding with foreign forces” or “espionage,” nor imprisoned until death, nor had their ashes scattered at sea.

Zhong Wen: Meanwhile, Chinese literature also created a sensation in Europe, especially through the play The Orphan of Zhao. Western literary circles joined the China craze slightly later. It was not until the mid-eighteenth century that Chinese literature reached Europe. The first to introduce it was a British merchant named James Wilkinson, who lived in Guangdong for many years and compiled a four-volume collection of Chinese novels, dramas, proverbs, and poems, including Haoqiu zhuan, Chinese Theatre, Chinese Proverbs, and Chinese Poetry. In 1719, Thomas Percy published this anthology. Thirteen years later, the French missionary Prémare translated the Yuan-dynasty play The Orphan of Zhao into French as Chinese Tragedy: The Orphan of Zhao, which was included in Du Halde’s General History of the Chinese Empire. English, German, and Russian translations soon followed. Because Prémare’s translation lacked lyrics, a complete English translation appeared in 1741.

Many Enlightenment thinkers were also literary figures—Voltaire, Diderot, Montesquieu, Rousseau. Voltaire greatly admired The Orphan of Zhao and adapted it into The Chinese Orphan for staging in France in 1755. The story, found in Sima Qian’s Records of the Grand Historian and set in the Spring and Autumn period, is about sacrifice, loyalty, and vengeance. In the 1760s, the Chinese “Ten Talented Books,” including Haoqiu zhuan, also appeared in English, French, and German translations.

In Germany, too, The Orphan of Zhao first drew attention. Goethe considered it “profoundly moving.” In 1781 he began adapting a play based on The Orphan of Zhao and stories from Stories Old and New, though he never finished it. Goethe, who first put forth the idea of “world literature,” naturally turned his eyes toward the East and toward China. His early misunderstandings of China—similar to Chinese seeing all foreigners as “barbarians”—disappeared after he read works such as Haoqiu zhuan, Yujiao li, Huajian ji, Hundred Beauties, Stories Old and New, and The Orphan of Zhao. He concluded that “the Chinese are a people very similar to the Germans,” and that “in thought, behavior, and feeling, they are nearly identical to us…. Everything is easy to understand, accessible…. similar to my Hermann and Dorothea and Richardson’s novels.” Out of admiration, Goethe even wrote a small poetry collection titled Chinese-German Seasonal Dawn and Dusk Verses, consisting of fourteen poems.

Bo Ya: Yet these Europeans seemed unaware that the China they admired was under the barbaric rule of Manchu and Mongol conquerors. Not one of them called for rescuing the Chinese people—unlike Byron, who passionately supported Greek independence.

Zhong Wen: After a century of Sino-Western “romance,” by the late eighteenth century, the West sent a new generation of mercantilists to China. They no longer cared for ancient Chinese philosophy. Around the 1760s, when Frederick II of Prussia requested trade privileges from the Qianlong Emperor and was refused, his enthusiasm for China quickly cooled. His shift marked the turning point in what had begun as a promising cultural exchange. Thus, the Chinese cultural wind that had blown strongly in Europe for a century—invited by Europeans themselves—was pushed back by their own colonial ambitions.

Bo Ya: In fact, the Manchus and Mongols were themselves colonizers—more brutal than Europeans. It was these villains, seeking to monopolize China, who obstructed normal Sino-Western contact and delayed China’s development by more than three centuries.