Timothy Richard(1845-1919), a Welsh missionary, acted as the spearhead of the missionaries in China who were interested in the reform of the late Qing society. Being sent by the Baptist Missionary Society, he worked in the areas including North China and Shanghai from 1870 to 1916 and his works included relief, literature, education, and social reform as well as evangelism. Sublating the hagiographical writings on him published in the first decades following his death and the socialist historiography utterly criticizing him as the agent of imperialism from the other side, this study tries to take a look both at his missionary motivation for the reform of Chinese society and politics and at his problematic toleration of the imperialistic Western Powers that was implied in his suggestions.
Richard was convinced that Western civilization was benefited from the discovery of “the workings of God in Nature.” Communicating with the highest Chinese officials like Zhang Zidong and Li Hongzhang of the Self-Strengthening Movement, which was started in the 1860s, he made an effort to provide the society with scientific education and reform ideas in many areas including agriculture, industry, commerce, transportation, education, and religious education. Serving as the general secretary of the Society for the Diffusion of Christian and General Knowledge among the Chinese (SDK/SDCGK) since 1891, he had a great opportunity to help the Chinese society with writing essays, translating books, publishing books and periodicals. Especially, his translation of History of Nineteenth Century and the periodical titled The Review of the Times edited by Young J. Allen were very popular among the Chinese intellectuals seeking the ways to reform Chinese society. It is important to note that, in terms of the ideology of reform, he did not agree on the overriding Chinese motto of reform, ‘zhong-ti-si-yong,’ which meant ‘the Chinese in mindset and the Western in technology.’ Rather, his idea started from the Western Civilization, not Chinese traditional value system. His suggestion was based on his conviction that Western civilization, comprising of the materialistic development based on natural sciences and ‘the true Christian civilization,’ was superior to Chinese civilization. Thus, his suggestion tends to be a universal reform including modernization, opening of the nation to foreign nations, improvement in commerce and international trades, Western education in sciences, and toleration of Christian education. Even though he did not deny the classical education coming from Chinese tradition and only did ask adding Western subjects to the current education, his respect for Chinese tradition rather came from missiological considerations and his reform ideas came from Western and Christian influences. Furthermore, at the base of Richard’s political activism was his evangelical conviction that made him a missionary to China. In addition to his evangelical faith, through his experiences in China, he developed a type of social gospel emphasizing the Kingdom of God seeking for the salvation of both ‘body’ and ‘soul’ and both ‘individuals’ and ‘nation.’
His effort of reform was at its peak at the 1898 Reform Movement, in which the young rising reformers like Kang Youwei and Liang Qichao co-operated with the Emperor Guangxu to drive forward more progressive reforms following after the Chinese’s defeat at the Sino-Japanese War (1894-1895). He was very influential to the top leaders of the movement in many directions. However, a series of foudroyant ideas that he suggested were not accepted or administered by the leaders and the Court. For example, he suggested 1) a protectorate by the Powers, 2) an annexation or union of China with Japan, the United States, and the British Empire at least in some areas including defence and diplomacy, and 3) a united cabinet with the same number of Chinese and foreign representatives. His ideas were shared by Chinese officials and, in fact, even some similar ideas were coined by Chinese themselves in the great crisis of the fall of the Empire in the encroachments by imperialist Western Powers. His ideas listed above, in spite of the consideration of the context, had implications of Western colonialism trespassing Chinese sovereignty. They especially show the lack of his understanding in the commercial expansion of the Western colonialists. However, despite this point, it does not seem that he was directly connected to the officials or colonialists of the Britain or other Western countries. His idea of protectorate, annexation, or united cabinet was foreign to the current British position in diplomacy.
In conclusion, Richard’s reform idea, first, came from his revised evangelical faith including the idea of the Kingdom of God and missiological consideration seeking for cultural adaptation. second, he contributed to the late Qing reform movement in promoting the discourse of reform and educating the younger reformers. Third, his reform had limitations due to his own political and cultural identities as a British subject. He, in his imperialists-friendly suggestions, came to be in the line of supporting the Western colonialists and he never approached republican ideas, which some progressive Chinese already had in their mind by the end of the century.

• 박형신(남서울대학교) | Park, Hyung Shin