Between Confucianism and Catholicism: Jiang Fucong and the Problem of Chinese Catholic Identity in Post-war Taiw

This article examines the conversion of the Chinese scholar, librarian, and cultural administrator Jiang Fucong (1898– 1990) to Catholicism and analyses his attempts to reconcile Catholic belief with the Confucian intellectual tradition. Drawing on Jiang Fucong’s religious writings, memoirs, and contemporary testimonies, the study explores the formation of a Chinese Catholic identity in the intellectual and political context of post-war Taiwan. Particular attention falls on Jiang Fucong’s interpretation of Confucian ritual, morality, and concepts of Heaven as elements compatible with Christian revelation rather than as expressions of an irreconcilably separate civilisation. Methodologically, the article combines intellectual history with approaches developed in the study of religious self-identification and cultural memory. It argues that Jiang Fucong did not regard conversion as a rejection of Chinese cultural belonging. Instead, he sought to construct an integral model of identity in which loyalty to the Confucian cultural heritage coexisted with adherence to the universal tradition of the Catholic Church. The article further demonstrates that Jiang Fucong interpreted Catholicism not as a foreign ideological import, but as a religious tradition capable of fulfilling and clarifying intuitions already present within classical Chinese thought. The study contributes to the historiography of Christianity in mainland China and Taiwan by introducing previously understudied religious texts by Jiang Fucong into scholarly circulation and by situating his intellectual project within broader debates on religion, modernity, and cultural identity in twentieth-century Chinese intellectual history.

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