America’s missionary presence in China led to many fruitful cultural encounters. But there was a fundamental misconception at the heart of much of the American thinking about China, and one which is not entirely absent from political thought today: a widely held belief that the Chinese aspired to become like Americans, and that it was the job of the Americans to train them to achieve that goal, whether in systems of government, education, or religion. Wealthy American families including the Luces and the Rockefellers established universities, hospitals, and other institutions whose ethos was
...more
