Western Interest in “Chinese Torture”
With the arrival of Portuguese adventurers on the Chinese coast in the early 16th century, reports about China—some objective and some invented—spread across Europe. Among these were critical assessments of the Chinese judicial system, prison conditions, and cruel sentencing.[1] By the end of 16th century, a prosperous, beautiful, and powerful image of China was deliberately crafted through the letters and reports of Jesuits in China, such as Matteo Ricci. When it came to forms of Chinese punishment, Ricci argued that “the punishment of this country is not all that severe." Yet, he did criticize the common practice of “cruel methods” of inquiry.[2] As increasing numbers of Westerners arrived in China, and the Ming Dynasty fell to the Qing, Europeans developed a dark fascination with methods of Chinese punishment, fueled by negative accounts. After the mid-18th century, accounts of East Asia authored by Western adventurers and merchants gained momentum in Europe, such as British merchant George Anson’s Lord Anson’s Voyages around the road, performed in the Years 1740,41,42,43,44. By the end of the century in British and American accounts, China’s image began to resemble that of a declining empire, characterized by savagery and poverty, backwardness and stagnation, insularity and arrogance, moral corruption, extreme weakness, and an absolutist political system on the wane. In this context, China’s penal system in particular suffered a barrage of criticism. Before the Opium War, in order to give rationale for claims to extraterritoriality in China, the Western media increased its descriptions of an abusive Chinese judicial system, focusing on the cruelty of its penalties. As a result, the impression of the “cruel Chinese” emerged in Western society, and “Chinese torture” gradually became a stock phrase in English.
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[1] Fernand Mintos Pinto, Antologia dos Viajantes Portuguese na China, Translated by Wang Suoying, Sanhuan Press, Beijing, 1998, pp.120-124.
[2] Matto Ricci, De Christiana Expeditione apud Sinas Suscepta ab Societate luse, Translated by He Gaoji and Wang Zunzhong,Chunghua Press, 2010,p.94.
