HSU KUANG-CH'I

born April 24, 1562, Shanghai, China died Nov. 8, 1633, China Pinyin Xu Guangqi, Christian name Paul Hs Ming-dynasty official, the most influential Chinese convert to Christianity before the 20th century. Hs obtained his chin-shih degree, the highest level in the civil-service examination, and then studied with Matteo Ricci, the noted Italian Jesuit missionary in China. He became the first of his countrymen to translate European books into the Chinese language, translating with Ricci Western books on mathematics, hydraulics, and geography. Their most famous translation was Euclid's Elements (Chi-ho yan-pen), which exerted a great influence on Chinese mathematics. In 1629 Hs finally obtained high office as a result of a competition held by the government to determine who could predict most precisely the time of a solar eclipse scheduled to occur that year. Of the three competing schoolsthe Chinese (or Ta-t'ung), the Muslim, and the Westernthe Western approach, represented by Hs, proved to be most accurate, and he was made one of the emperor's leading ministers. Hs convinced the emperor to use Western troops and firearms against the invading Manchu forces. The Manchus, however, soon acquired Western arms themselves and in 1644 occupied all of China. After Hs's death, Roman Catholicism never again achieved such influence in China.