Evan Osnos on China

The first book you’ve recommended visitors read is To Change China by Yale historian Jonathan Spence. It’s about all the foreigners – missionaries, soldiers, doctors, teachers, engineers and revolutionaries – who tried to change China over a 300-year period…

At its core this book is about humility and understanding what is possible here as a foreigner. I don’t really know why, but going back to the very origins of foreigners coming to China, there’s something about setting foot on Chinese soil that stirs all of our most extravagant ambitions for changing the world. I think that’s partly because of the size of the place, and because it really does capture our imaginations. People come here intending to have a lasting impact on China and one of the smart things about the book is that it doesn’t tell you that that’s a bad idea – to be hopeful, or to try to help solve problems in China, whether they’re medical problems, or social problems or whatever. But what it does is plays out to you the ways in which a foreigner might be able to help here, and the ways in which a person might run into problems.

Can you give me an example?

One great example is an astronomer and Jesuit named Adam Schall. He came to China in the 17th century and really dedicated his life to the place. He taught the emperor and his advisers about astronomy, which was very important for them, because the emperor needed to be able to tell people when to harvest. That was the way regular citizens knew whether to support the emperor or not, that was the foundation of the emperor’s mandate, whether or not he had a good understanding of the heavens. So Adam Schall taught modern astronomy and as result he was rewarded and promoted: he became a very senior adviser in the imperial court. And then there was a change of mood and a change of guard among the Chinese leadership and all of a sudden Adam Schall was accused of high treason. He was ordered to be executed by death by 10,000 cuts, and it wasn’t until the final moment, when he was about to be executed, that a decision was made that, ‘Well, actually, he’s really, really old and infirm, let’s just give him a pass.’ So he died of natural causes in his own home in Beijing. I’ve always found that story to be quite a valuable corrective to any illusions about whether we are permanent or temporary residents here.

What do you think it is about China that brings out this desire in people to change it?

I don’t think it’s unique to China. I think one of our most enduring Western impulses is the ‘civilising impulse,’ the missionary instinct. We don’t need to go into all the various reasons why that can be hugely destructive, but it can also be productive. There are things here in China that foreigners have left behind over the centuries that are meaningful – for instance Yale University set up a Yale- China Association, which included a medical programme in Changsha that was very important in training a generation of doctors.

I also think the fact that China is a civilisation that is as proud of its history and contributions as our own is a challenge, fundamentally, to foreigners: the idea that you could come here and bring something to it and make a meaningful contribution. But the single largest reason is just because of numbers – the whole idea that if you accomplish something here, you’ll have a bigger impact than you would in any other country. 

Next, you’ve got a book by Jianying Zha, Tide Players. I know you wrote about her in your blog. She’s writing partly about her brother who spent nine years in prison for co-founding a democracy party. But it’s also about people who have done rather well, the ‘movers and shakers of a rising China’.

Yes, she writes a bit about, for instance, Zhang Xin and Pan Shiyi, who are the property developers behind the Soho China chain.