John King Fairbank's Studying Of The History Of Relations Between The East And The West And His "Impact-Response" Model

John King Fairbank is an American famous Chinese learner, and he established American modern Chinese learning. His studying concentrated mainly on modern history of China. He studied the history of relations between the east and the west deeply and carefully. He started his research especially taking traditional culture as a starting point and taking traditional China as the background. He studied their changes that took place from traditionally tributary system to modern treaty system. In the process of his studying the history of relations between the east and the west, he put forward a famous model called "Western impact—China's response". Studying this model and absorbing its reasonable composition can advance the studying of Chinese modern history and the relations between China and the West, and also have academic significance. Simultaneously, the model is helpful to increase the understanding of Chinese and American cultural views. Thus it is good for us to develop cultural exchange to the United States. As a result, studying this model has actual significance. This text is totally divided into fiver parts:The first part mainly discusses John King Fairbank's studying on the history of relations between the east and the west .He mainly studied the treaty system that formed from the mid-19^th century. He took Chinese traditional culture as a starting point in order to continue his research.The second part discusses the proposal and content of John King Fairbank's "impact--response" model. He proposed "impact--response" model which is about his studying of Chinese in his works, for example, The United States and China published in 1948 and China's response to the West published in 1954 and so on. The content of this model mainly includes four points; they are the differences and conflict between Chinese and the West's culture, "Western impact", "China's response", and "the Western center".The third part analyzes the factors that form "impact-response" model. Mainly include: John King Fairbank's profound understanding to Chinese traditional culture, political system, social shape and several historians' influence on John King Fairbank, like Mark·Webber, Arnold Joseph Toynbee, Jiang Tingfu and so on, and John King Fairbank's Christianity thoughts. His coming to China during the Sino—Japanese war provided him with the thoughts.The fourth part is about John King Fairbank's revision to "impact--response" model when he was old. John King Fairbank drew many American scholars' academic fruit and his studying on Chinese modern time was deeper. When Paul A·Cohen criticized his "impact--response" model and "West--centered Approach", John King Fairbank received certain touching. Thereupon, John King Fairbank reconsidered his own viewpoint, and began to revise his "impact--response" model from"China—centered Approach" to "West—centered Approach". This could clearly be found in his works in 1980s.The fifth part appraises John King Fairbank's "impact--response" model. His model includes certain rationality; it accords with Chinese history actual evolvement somewhere. However, it obviously has a prejudice in favor of "the western center", furthermore, there are both simple concept comprehension and one-sided analyzed questions flaws in this model.