Xinyi Huang (University of South Carolina)
This paper investigates the perception of (Western) Classics in Chinese society through the discourse phenomena such as “Thucydides’s trap” and “Tacitus trap”. The popularity of these terms is marked by appearance in speeches of President Xi since 2014 on multiple occasions, and in state-run newspapers such as People’s Daily and China Daily. An immediate answer for their popularity is their explanatory power towards the challenges faced by Chinese government both globally and domestically: by criticizing “Thucydides’s trap”, China claims that it has no interest in establishing a new hegemony against Pax Americana; “Tacitus trap” reflects the distrust of the public towards the Chinese government in the age of the Internet.
This paper argues that a deeper root of such popularity is in the perception of the West in Chinese society formed through the reception of “Western Learning” since 1800s. The early introduction of “the West” has two significant features. First, the introduction was decentralized, made by various entities. The division between disciplines were developed later in translation; instead, the umbrella term “Western Learning (Xixue)” were more popular. Second, the introduction of “Western Learning” focused heavily on comparison of China and “the West”. (Xiong, 2013) As a result, the dichotomy between China and “the West” is established. Faced with military defeats by western countries and westernized neighbor Japan, the China-West dichotomy is further developed as parallels to the dichotomy of “old” and “new”, “traditional” and “progressive”: the “new” and “progressive” learning from the West is the solution to the political and military crisis of China. (Wang, 1915) Such dichotomy assigned “the West” and “Western” with the perception of being “new” and “progressive”.
As a result of such reception, (Western) “Classics” in the Chinese context acquires a paradoxical feature: it is old, because it studies ancient Mediterranean; it is also new and progressive, because it is Western. The focus on comparison in the reception of “Western Learning” also lead (Western) Classics to be perceived as Western parallel of traditional Chinese canonical texts, which incarnate both a centralized and continuous legitimacy dating back to ancient China and essence of Chinese cultural identity. As a result, discourse embellished with names of Classical literature such as Thucydides and Tacitus presents itself as dignified, appropriate for a “new” and “progressive” national image, and effective in communication with the Western world, while avoiding the more radical, deconstructive, and post-modern waves of the contemporary West.