Early western influence in Fujian

That people from the Western hemisphere have been visiting China from before the Christian era is beyond doubt. The first known name of a westerner is that of Alopen and he came from Syria in about 635. He may have been a Nestorian priest and his visit is recorded on the Nestorian Stone tablet, now in Xi'an. But before that it is recorded that an unnamed ambassador from the Roman Emperor Marcus Aurelius arrived in Beijing in 166. The scarcity of records of Western visitations means little, since it is known for example that the upper classes in the Tang dynasty favored the employment of westerners as servants. When Alopen arrived in Chang An (Xi’an) it is very unlikely that he would find himself the sole representative of a foreign land as did many later arrivals in the last couple of centuries.

The first tangible record, for what it is worth, of Westerners in Fuzhou is that of Marco Polo, in about 1285 when he visited Fujiu. He observed that the people were the subjects of Kublai Khan, were ‘idolaters’, and much engaged in commerce and manufacture. ‘In these parts the tigers are of great size and strength. Ginger and galangal are produced in great quantities as well as other drugs.’ He did not seem to be very impressed with Fuzhou and barely gives the city a mention other than to remark that, ‘The people in this part of the country are addicted to eating human flesh, esteeming it more delicate than any other, provided that the person has not been occasioned by disease … They are a most savage race of men, insomuch that when they slay their enemies in battle, they are anxious to drink their blood and afterwards they devour their flesh.’

Given that Marco Polo dictated his book in prison several years after he returned from China, the accuracy of his remarks may be suspect. Either his memory was clouded by that time, or his ghost writer was more imaginative than he was. Some suggest that he did not visit this part of China at all. Nevertheless, he was impressed with Quanzhou(Zaiton), two hundred kilometres to the south of Fuzhou and according to Marco Polo, fifteen miles from Guangzhou. He claims to have visited Quanzhou, after leaving Fuzhou and making a detour that takes in Guilin and Guangzhou. He found to be Quanzhou a bustling port, was impressed by the quantity of pepper imports and noted that sugar was produced.

"There is a remarkable passage by Rustichello of Pisa, the "as-told-to" author of The Travels of Marco Polo, that appears to have escaped the attention of Jewish historians altogether. It tells how, when Messer Maffeo, Marco's uncle, and Messer Marco himself were in the city of Fu-Chau, there was in their company a certain Saracen who spoke to them as follows: "In such-and-such a place there is a community whose religion nobody knows. It is evidently not idolatrous, since they keep no idols. They do not worship fire. They do not profess Mahomet. And they do not appear to observe the Christian order. I suggest that we should go and have a talk with them. "Marco Polo and his uncle did just that. At first, writes Rustichello, the members of this mysterious community were reluctant to talk, for they were afraid that their visitors had been sent by the Great Khan to make this investigation in order to get them into trouble. But Maffeo and Marco attended the place regularly day after day, familiarizing themselves with these people and inquiring about their affairs. They discovered that they did indeed hold the Christian faith. For they possessed books and Maffeo and Marco, poring over them, began to interpret the writing. Translating it word by word from one language to another, till they found that they were the words of the Psalter.

They inquired from what source they had received their faith and their rule; and their informants replied: "From our forefathers." It came out that they had in a certain temple of their three pictures representing three apostles of the seventy who went through the world, preaching. They declared that it was these three who had instructed their ancestors in this faith long ago, and that it had been preserved among them for 700 years. For a long time they had been without teaching, so that they were "ignorant of the cardinal doctrines." In other words, it seems that their ancestors in China were practicing a form of Judaism but were unaware of the events of the Christian era.

The Moroccan traveller Ebn-e Batutta visited the port of Zaytun - (modern day Quanzhou) and still known as Citong - in the mid-fourteenth century. He encountered a certain Shaykh Borhã noddin who gathered donations for the Sufi congregation of the Shrine of Abu Es’hã q-e Kã zeruni in Kã zerun, Iran.

During the period of the Mongol Yuan dynasty, China was open for trade and foreign intercourse of all kinds, including religious tolerance. The Jesuits were most successful in introducing Christianity, but the inroads made and the accumulated trust that might just have encouraged trade were lost when the Pope decided to undo a couple of hundred years of the work of his missionaries by countermanding their acceptance of ancestor respect (worship?).

The Mongol empire fell and China officially closed its doors to foreign trade for 500 years. Many tried to engage in trade throughout the Ming and the early parts of the Qing dynasties, but the Chinese simply did not require to trade with the West or any other foreign trader, being satisfied that their own products satisfied their needs. For centuries the West failed to appreciate the validity of such a position and did not recognise the highly sophisticated systems that existed for trade and commerce in China. In 1000 years the only contribution that the West made was through the correction of the calendar by the Jesuits. Many an Emperor told Western ambassadors that he was not interested in the gadgets and toys that the West had to offer.

It was not until the 17th Century that Fujian started to feel pressure from the West to trade. The first probably came in the form of the Portuguese based in Macao who were not averse to raiding and pillaging along the southeast coast. When Portuguese influence was in decline, the Dutch in 1602 made their mark when the viceroy of Fujian Province reported to the Court in Beijing that the ‘Hong Mao’ (Red heads), had attempted to establish a base. He reported to the Emperor that they had been dissuaded from doing so. Whether they established a base or not, the Dutch were apparently in Fuzhou long enough to be able to make an extraordinarily detailed and accurate survey of the mouth of the Min River and Fuzhou District, as shown on Bellin's 1758 map "Suivant les Hollandois". The Dutch were evidently in Fuzhou for some considerable time and were accepted by the Chinese generally. One could hardly create such a chart without the consent and assistance of the local people. This map and others created in the 16th to 18th centuries suggest that foreigners were in China in considerable numbers, sufficient to map accurately much of mainland China and not only the coastal areas.

In the ensuing years from the visit of Marco Polo and the opening of Fuzhou as a Treaty port in 1843, there were many other foreign visitors to Fuzhou, but there is little in the literature other than intense mapping, to mark such occasions. The reasons for this may be twofold. The first is the positioning of Fuzhou City. Fuzhou was established in 202 BCE as the City of Ye. It is surrounded by mountains and the approach to the city by sea is through a narrow swift flowing passage of the Min River that is difficult to navigate. Furthermore, by land routes Fuzhou was, as it is now, the end of the line and not part of any major trading route. The second reason is that the only foreign trade port permitted in China was Guangdong (Canton) and foreigners were not supposed to be roaming freely around China.

Immediately before the First Opium War there was considerable visible activity. Opium receiving stations of the great trading houses floated offshore Fuzhou and handled about $2 million of business annually by the mid-1840s - before the port was officially opened.

Problems for the Chinese with foreigners started in the late 18th Century. The British East India Company trading in India, China and Indonesia was prohibited by protectionist Acts of Parliament from importing into Britain any textiles, silks and the like, that would compete with local industry. This left the company with only tea as a commodity of importance that could be sold in Britain. Since China demanded in exchange for tea, only gold or silver and would not accept any trade materials other than materials from India, the company was left with a serious imbalance in their dealings. From 1792 to 1807 imports to England were valued at 27 million pounds while exports to China were worth only 16 million pounds.

At first diplomatic representations to the Court were made, first by Lieutenant-Colonel Cathcart in 1788 who died on the way to China, and then by Lord Macartney in 1792. Lord Macartney was unsuccessful in obtaining any of the concessions that the company had hoped for from the Chinese Government and the company had to take other measures to improve the balance of trade. Two products from India found acceptance in China, one was raw cotton and the other was opium. As the Chinese took up the use of opium for recreational rather than medicinal purposes, imports increased from 600 cases in 1750 to 5000 cases in 1815. In that year a further attempt was made to open trade by diplomatic means through Lord Amherst. He was even less successful than Lord Macartney.

Nonetheless, attempts were made to trade in Fujian before Fuzhou was 'officially' opened to trade. In 1832 the redoubtable Prussian missionary doctor cum diplomat interpreter and later opium trader Karl Friedrich August Gutslaff visited Fuzhou with Captain Lindsey of the British ship Lord Amherst. Lindsey managed to sell some of his trade goods but Gutslaff distributed Christian tracts 'to eager and grateful readers'. Gutslaff also reported that the common people were very friendly, but they received a less friendly welcome from the city's officials.

By 1825 the balance of trade had swung in the other direction, wherein the demand for silver to pay for opium was beginning to affect the national economy. The trade in opium was made illegal in 1798 but little was done to enforce the law. In 1838 the Emperor appointed Lin Zexu, a highly respected official from Fuzhou to put a halt to the opium trade. Lin had gained some credibility as an honest dealer through the suppression of salt smuggling.

Lin first appealed to the populous to stop using opium, and to the Chinese traders to stop dealing in opium with foreign traders. He even wrote to Queen Victoria threatening to cut off the trade in tea and rhubarb. He felt that to withhold the laxative might bring the constipated nation to reason. In 1839 Lin Zexu finally took decisive action. He demanded that the dealers hand over their opium but for six weeks they refused to comply. He tried to arrest Lancelot Dent, one of the major opium dealers and then blockaded the factories. The dealers persuaded by the British resident handed over some three million pounds of raw opium that Lin Zexu contrived with some difficulty to destroy.

By a curious sleight of mind, the opium traders persuaded the British Government that it was unreasonable to destroy the goods that they intended to smuggle into China. Charles Elliot, the British Superintendent of Trade in China wrote to the ‘Minister of the Emperor of China’ protesting against the violent outrages against British residents. In response, in June 1840, the British, with 4,000 troops backed by four armed steam ships, blockaded Guangzhou's harbour and so the First Opium War began. The war ended after the British supported by a number of other nations looking for spoils, had destroyed defences in Guangzhou and Tianjin, and had taken part of Guangzhou city. The Treaty of Nanjing was signed in August 1842. This treaty stipulated the opening of Guangzhou, Fuzhou, Xiamen, Ningbo and Shanghai to Foreign trade and the ceding of Hong Kong in perpetuity. The treaty provisions were then extended to the Americans, the French and later to other nations. From that time on, but only for another twenty or so years, the name of the city of Fuzhou – or Foochow - became well recognised in England.

In 1913, a westerner noted that many people in Fujian province had Arab ancestry, but were no longer Muslim.[1]