Justifying Collaboration between Chinese Literati and 'Subjects from Afar': The Paratexts of the Taixi shuifa 泰西水法 (Hydromethods of the Great West; 1612)

Prefaces and other paratexts can serve as platforms not only for advertising the work to which they are attached, but also for self-promotion and the articulation of ulterior aspirations of their authors. The Chinese language treatises on Western sciences and technology written during the Jesuit China mission from the late 16th century onwards were no exception in this regard. This essay takes the altogether five prefaces to the Taixi shuifa ???? (Hydromethods of the Great West; 1612) (hereafter TXSF), composed by the Italian Jesuit Sabatino de Ursis with the support of the Chinese official Xu Guangqi ???, as an example for typical rhetorical strategies implemented in such endeavours at that time. On the Chinese side, these strategies aimed at the introduction of the transmitted knowledge to a learned and in large part sinocentric audience in the Middle Kingdom, and at a justification of the collaboration with these foreign "vassals". The comparison with de Ursis' preface shows that the Jesuit's intentions, however, went in a completely different direction.