What influence does China culture have on western culture?

During the Ming and Qing Dynasties, China's traditional culture spread to some European countries through Jesuits in the west and learning from the East to the West. China's four great inventions (gunpowder, compass, printing and papermaking) first spread to the west, which played an important role in promoting the formation and development of western capitalist society. China's traditional culture had the greatest influence on France, and France became the center of China culture craze in Europe at that time. From the17th century, some Confucian classics of China, such as The Analects of Confucius and Daxue, spread to other European countries through France. /kloc-Few French enlightenment thinkers in the 0/8th century were not influenced by China culture. Such as Descartes, Rousseau, Voltaire, Montesquieu, Diderot, Holbach and so on, whose admiration for China culture has shocked us so far. Voltaire enshrined the portrait of Confucius in the chapel and regarded Confucius as a model of human morality. German philosophers Leibniz, Kant, Fichte, Schelling, Hegel, Feuerbach and the great writer Goethe all studied China's philosophy and were influenced by China culture to varying degrees. Leibniz, for example, thinks that China's discovery made Europeans wake up from religious confusion. This influence directly or indirectly influenced the Enlightenment in France and the dialectical thought in Germany.

Then, what is the relationship between the influence of China culture on the French Enlightenment in the18th century and the western modernization? Since the second half of the 20th century, western academic circles have made a comprehensive reflection on western modern culture, and gained such a * * understanding in the reflection, that is, modernization, as a way of life and thinking, is neither a scientific revolution that began in16th century nor an industrial revolution that began in17th century, but an enlightenment that began in18th century; Because the enlightenment thought embodies the basic characteristics of modern culture, two basic propositions and conclusions are drawn: the first proposition is that China culture has had an important influence on European enlightenment thought; The second proposition is "Enlightenment is a necessary condition in the process of western social modernization". The conclusion is that the modernization process in the West has been influenced by the traditional culture of China.