Preface I

I will never forget the first time, in 1966, that I opened a book of T’ang Dynasty poetry, with the original Chinese on the one page and an English translation on the facing page. I was only 14 at the time, and a cousin whom I idolized sent me the book from Taipei, China. He had been trained in Mandarin, and for me to read that book and, only slightly later, to hear him speak Mandarin with his Chinese w ife, set me off on a life-long love of Chinese culture. At university, I took every course offered in Chinese, Chinese and Japanese history, literature, and religion, graduating with approximately one half of my credit hours in what constituted an independent “Asian studies” major. Back in those days, I could only go to Taiwan to study, as the Chinese mainland and the United States hadn’t yet opened to each other for commerce, intellectual exchange, or tourism. I spent ten weeks in the summer of 1973 at Fu Ren University, near Taipei, and then an entire year, again in Taipei, on a Rotary Club International Graduate Fellowship. What has always interested me the most, from the first time I opened that book of T’ang poetry to the present, is the comparative study of Anglo-American and Chinese society and culture. I’ve kept up with all the latest translations of the Chinese classics, taught courses on Chinese religion and philosophy in my university’s Asian Studies program, and I’ve been fortunate enough to visit and to teach in China on a number of occasions. Of course, the recent openness between the U.S. and China has resulted in spectacular work in almost all academic disciplines. Moreover, the rise of China makes a new, vital, and rigorous understanding of China and of the relationships between China and the rest of the world of paramount significance. Australian Reg Little is one of our most significant and informed scholars of China, present and past. He is also one of the sharpest critics of the so-called “West’s” recent trends.

If Reg Little were known only for his 2007 book, A Confucian-Daoist M illennium? and his more recent The Twenty-First Century Dream of the Red Chamber, he would still merit a work as synthetic and rigorous as Li Shucang’s present study. In that study, Little explores, with the expertise of a life-long Sinologist, the prospects of China in the 21st century from the point of view of its philosophical past and the ways in which the Confucian and Daoist underpinnings of contemporary Chinese thought and, perhaps more importantly, attitude toward the social and political world. But Little has done much more than that. Beginning with a degree in Economics from Melbourne University, building through another B.A. in English and Russian in 1962, continuing with a Master of Science degree in Economics from Trinity College, Dublin, and culminating with a graduate diploma in International Law, Little’s academ ic training has been both deep and w ide. Moreover, after being trained as a diplomat, Little’s international experience has taken in various foreign service capacities to Sw itzerland, Laos, Japan, Bangladesh, and, most importantly for the focus of this book, China, the country with which Little as engaged as a friend, a diplomat, a scholar, and a teacher for most of his adult life. Little embodies the spirit, the range, and the passion of a true polymath. Little is also a frequent contributor to the online Confucian Weekly Bulletin and to On Line Opinion: Australia’s e-Journal of Social and Political Debate, with titles such as “Why Is the West Unprepared for China’s Rise,” “For Every Yin There Is a Yang,” and “The Passion and Enthusiasm of Confucian Asia.” While perhaps “little” known outside of Australian and Chinese cultural circles (his books are not yet available on the United States version of amazon.com), Little’s thoughtful interventions into current events in the eastern and southern hemispheres deserve a broad readership.

Little’s work raises important questions for the entire discipline of comparative studies, and, while his focus is frequently from the perspective of his native Australia, his work ranges far afield to embrace and to struggle with increasingly numerous vexations between what is conventionally called the “East” and the “West.” It is in this field that Little’s expertise in Confucian and Daoist structures and habits of thought enables him to shed valuable philosophical light on matters of economic, political, social, and technological differences between China and its “Western” competitors, whether from “down under” or from across the Pacific. About these matters, Little w rites with much more than an educated “outsider” perspective. As a matter of fact, he stresses throughout his career that the Chinese way has to be “experienced” and “lived,” not just studied and learned. Such a distinction also informs his view of the ongoing permeation of Confucian and Daoist values from the Chinese past as being immanent and thoroughly integrated, as opposed to the abstract and transcendent predilection of the West, as its own philosophical traditions still saturate its Occidental world view.

Li Shucang is well positioned to introduce Reg Little to the larger world. A scholar with a comparative bent himself, Li has studied, taught, and w ritten on English teaching, American poetry, Shakespeare, translation theory, and various topics pertinent to his work on Little. An award-w inning (both for teaching and research) professor at the Qilu University of Technology in Jinan, Shandong, China, Li has also spent time as a visiting scholar in the Department of English Language and Literature at the University of Toledo, Ohio, USA, and has collaborated with American scholars on teaching and research projects. Perhaps most importantly, he has collaborated with Reg Little, an opportunity that lends serious credibility to this study.

Russell Reising

Professor of American Culture and Asian Studies

University of Toledo

Toledo, Ohio, USA