China and the West

Daniel Defoe : Rezeption in China.
Bibliography of Defoe studies in the Far East [ID D26786].
The Farther Adventures of Robinson Crusoe is the first extensive Western fiction about China ; Crusoe sees me Great Wall and travels across the country ; the Farther Adventures is the first of Defoe's novels in which characters cross.
Out of the early twentieth-century events came the birth of the country's interest in Western literature. The first translation of Robinson Crusoe into Chinese appeared in 1905. Significantly, though, this translation reflects Chinese epistemologies as much as it does Western ones. This flirtation with, yet hesitancy to embrace, Western culture and its values seems indicative of China's twentieth century political history and its struggle to re-create itself as a nation independent of dynastic rule. The political climate of this ancient land has made a great impact on literature and art in the past half century. Defoe studies in China have gone through three historical periods since the foundation of the People's Republic of China in 1949. During the ten years between 1949 and 1959, the policy "letting a hundred flowers blossom and a hundred schools of thought contend"—a policy set forth by chairman Mao Tse-tung for promoting the progress of literature, the arts, and the sciences—brought about for the first time a flourishing of foreign, especially English, literary studies. Many major authors—Shakespeare, Milton, Byron, Shelley, Dickens, Shaw, among others—and introductions to, comments on, and criticism of their works were published. This stream of translations included Defoe's The Wanderings of Robinson and Moll Flanders. The glamour of Robinson Crusoe not only made Defoe one of me English writers most familiar to Chinese readers, but also made Robinson a hero in me hearts of children who were greatly impressed by his adventurous and diligent spirit. The impact of Robinson's spirit upon youth was encouraged and advocated, for the diligence, perseverance, courage, and patience of his spirit have much in common with Confucian philosophy and embody the highest virtues in Chinese culture.
During the 1960s "left-deviationist thinking" began to dominate ideological and political fronts in China. Accordingly, foreign literary works were divided into three categories: revolutionary ones represented mainly by Shelley and Byron ; classical bourgeois literary works represented mainly by Shakespeare, Dickens, and Ernest Hemingway ; and counter-revolutionary ones represented mainly by Pearl S. Buck and T.S. Eliot. Defoe's work fell into the second category. The left-deviationists required that works in this category be passed down and assimilated with discrimination. They were criticized and regarded as "savage beasts and fierce floods." The study of Defoe and foreign literature was at a low tide during the ten-year-long Great Cultural Revolution. Thousands of literary works were put into incinerators and authors into prison—bom spiritually and physically.
During the "Cultural Revolution" (1966-1969), which Mao declared to squelch liberal factions, no scholarship on Defoe has been uncovered. The 1970s, which saw the admission of the People's Republic of China into the United Nations (1971), Mao's death (1976), and Deng Xiaoping's new economic reforms and trade policies (1977), are more productive. The rise of "the Gang of Four," however, put an end to this disastrous decade and marked the beginning of a new era. At the Fourth National Literature Representative Conference held in 1978, it was decided that the development of an understanding of foreign literature should be undertaken as a great task of the new era. Yang Zhou, the former Minister of Propaganda, pointed out at the conference that "we must broaden our horizon; we must borrow and inherit all of the excellent cultural products in the world in order to enrich our socialist culture and our cultural life." Never before had so many foreign literary works been translated, nor so many literary reviews, literary histories, and biographies been published. It is in this political and literary atmosphere that Defoe and his works have received fresh attention.
The reappearance of The Wanderings of Robinson in the 1980s effectively marked a new beginning in Defoe studies in China. This novel has been retranslated, printed and published in several different editions. There are now adapted, simplified, illustrated, braille editions and editions with English and Chinese text on opposite pages. It has also been translated into several minority national languages. The edition translated by Xiacun Xu in 1959 has been reprinted three times. Additionally, many of Defoe's other works have been reissued.
A phenomenon worth noticing is the publication of me Farther Adventures of Robinson Crusoe. Though The Wanderings of Robinson had been introduced to China as early as the beginning of this century, it was not until 1983 that its sequel first appeared in Chinese. The delay in introducing it may have had something to do with its looser structure and less succinct language. There were, however, more complicated social and political reasons. In me sequel, Crusoe no longer appeared simply as a brave, diligent, and progressive bourgeois but as a colonizer whose sense of superiority as a colonizer to a colonized people, as a Protestant to a heathen, exhibited his race discrimination as Defoe's world outlook. Moreover, Defoe appeared indifferent to me brave and hardworking Chinese people and to their great contributions to civilization. Worst of all, he mistook the bad bureaucratic habits of the decayed Qing government officials for the typical character of the Chinese nation and showed his contempt for this "poor" Eastern nation. Thus, the Farther Adventures was put into the category of counter-revolutionary foreign literary work forbidden in China. Reform and a more open policy, however, have introduced a greater tolerance. The publication of the Farther Adventures suggests that more of Defoe's works will appear and that their availability will encourage me development of Defoe studies in China. The revision of the Chinese constitution in 1993, which called for the development of a socialist market economy, has led to new cultural openness. What the impact of this change will be upon China's engagement with Western literature and Defoe is not yet known.