This work is a welcome addition to the study of Christianity and Islam during the Qing period (1636–1864), especially given how rare it is that the two religions appear side by side in a study. Hung Tak Wai examines the interaction between the Qing rulers and bureaucrats and their Christian and Muslim subjects. Hung’s stated research aim is to reveal policies of the imperial government concerning the two Abrahamic religions but, as the title indicates, he also explores and interprets concepts of tolerance and heresy. The work spans the period of the Qing empire’s westward expansion into Central Asia and the arrival of the religious, trade and military presence of western powers.

In six chapters, Hung takes his readers through thematic discussions about Qing governance of these two religious minorities. Chapter i clarifies the state relationship with Christianity and Islam, arguing that emperors at various times supported Shamanism, Tibetan Buddhism, or Daoism. The class of scholar-bureaucrats who supported Qing rule adhered to Confucianism. This Confucian bureaucracy should be considered ‘tolerant’ due to its flexible governance and policy of not forcing conversion to the state religion of Confucianism. It was never the intention of the Qing rulers to universally enforce Confucianism or any religion to unify the people; rather they accepted a certain amount of cultural and religious diversity, including Christianity and Islam, in exchange for loyalty to the Manchu Qing emperor. Throughout, the focus is not on legal history, but rather the memorials and writings of influential Confucian scholar-bureaucrats and Qing emperors.

Chapter ii surveys the reign of the Yongzheng emperor (1722–35). Official Qing attempts to create and preserve order in their empire led them to make clear distinctions between what was deemed orthodox and heterodox. Christianity and certain sects of Islam were tolerated during this period owing to the emperor’s efforts to redefine heresy to suit imperial aims. Orthodox teachings were supported by the state, the ultimate authority in determining orthodoxy. The Qing used declarations of orthodoxy and heterodoxy to regulate religious movements and prevent them from becoming political movements against the state. In the case of Islam, this led the state to favour certain Islamic sects over others to enforce perceived orthodoxy within Islamic religious practice. As for Christianity, especially during the Kangxi reign (1661–1722), Yongzheng’s predecessor, a redefinition of heresy meant the regulation and containment of the spread of Christianity rather than its outright proscription. The author argues that this did not amount to persecution as there were no edicts banning Christianity, just Christian missionary activity. Some would take issue with the author’s argument that the proscription of missionary activities and conversion did not amount to persecution, but as Standaert has pointed out, most of the Qing’s anti-Christian policies and actions were temporary, rather than a widespread and sustained persecution. Additionally, as Standaert noted in his summary of the incident at Nanjing in 1616–17, the Qing government’s goal was to control rather than eradicate Christianity. Explicitly anti-Christian attitudes peaked under Jiaqing when a true persecution broke out.Footnote ¹ Chapters v and vi further delve into a discussion of modern concepts of heresy and toleration to reiterate the claim that true persecution amounts to more than state intervention in religious affairs.

Chapter iii is a case study of the Ili castle region and the transformation of religious governance of Islam there under Qing rule. In the introduction, the author makes a case for not distinguishing between Muslim minority groups, stating that most Muslims in China during this period were considered Hui, with a single religious identity. He avoids distinguishing between Muslim groups by focusing on the Ili region in Xinjiang, not an area of significant Uighur or other Turkic Muslim influence after the Dzungar elimination. Instead, Qing governing authorities allowed Hui immigrants to build mosques there. According to the author, their acceptance of the erection of new mosques and the spread of Islamic religious traditions was largely due to the Qing political toleration. The author does not examine the political considerations the Qing may have needed to consider when dealing with other Turkic Muslim groups such as the Salars in Gansu and Qinghai who were thought by many Qing officials to be fierce and ungovernable.

Chapter iv continues the focus on Islam, discussing Qing strategies aimed at the minimisation of Islamic religious identity to promote loyalty to the Qing empire. In part, the Qing achieved this through cutting off Muslims in China from the body of Muslims across central Asia, which threatened to redirect Islamic allegiance. The Qing emperor sought to marginalise Muslims from official politics and undermine their group identity. Officials hoped they could then cultivate alliances with local Muslims. Here, the two works of Brown on Qing inscriptions at the Pavilion of Lingering Illumination and Islam’s interaction with local religion would be useful additional references to illustrate that Islam’s position was considered compatible with the ‘imperial state cult’.Footnote ² This chapter shoulders the argument of the redefinition of heresy to suit the aims and policies of the Yongzheng emperor. As such, Wai argues, the emperor was tolerant of the practice of Abrahamic religions in the empire and, according to the source material presented, encouraged his officials to be likewise tolerant.

In discussing the governance of Christianity, the author concentrates on the Huangchaojingshi wenbian, a nineteenth-century handbook on statecraft, to claim that Christianity and Western learning did not play a major role in politics before 1840. The multi-volume Huangchaojingshi wenbian mentioned Christianity in only six articles, sometimes associating it with undesirable customs and heretical religions such as Islam and Buddhism. The author concludes that Christianity was not a major topic of discussion among Confucian scholar-bureaucrats. Most Western learning was equated to Christianity by Confucian scholars, he argues. These sciences were not of interest to Confucians writing about statecraft, but he does concede that agricultural science and other technical disciplines were of interest. The Qing bureaucracy put Christianity in a ‘cage of flexible size’ and like Islam, where Christian identity was not a threat to the state, cooperation was possible. In dismissing the idea that there was large-scale persecution of Christianity, he suggests that contemporaries are ‘too comfortable with liberal discourse and take freedom of religion for granted’ (p. 156). Modern scholars are too eager to see intervention from the state as persecution. This sets the stage for Wai’s final chapter which delves into the interpretations of tolerance and intolerance, claiming that modern definitions of religious toleration should not be applied to historic cases.

The final chapter pivots away from direct analysis of the governance of religion and focuses on modern philosophical and political definitions of tolerance. The initial discussion of the modern discourse around tolerance seems disconnected from the governance of Christians and Muslims. Though the author’s goal here is to redefine the idea of religious tolerance and style the Qing policy of accommodation based on political expediency as tolerance, the philosophical discussion encompassing everything from cancel culture to Trump does not seem to enhance the examination of imperial policies of governing minorities during the Qing period. The chapter winds towards the conclusion that the customisation of governance and policy toward minority religions amounted to a type of unique tolerance not owing a debt to European humanist thought or western theological convictions.

This volume fulfils its aim of providing a view of the changing nature of heresy and tolerance from the seventeenth to the nineteenth century and is a key source for anyone examining Christianity and Islam in Qing China. Where the volume is most useful is the analysis of the Qing governance over Islam and Christianity, and attitudes of Confucian officials towards imperial policies. Helpfully, the author’s bibliography contains a wide variety of Chinese sources that will be of interest to the reader. The work would be even more beneficial were it to include a concluding chapter bringing together the disparate chapters and reiterating the research aim. Moreover, the addition of concluding summaries at the finish of each chapter would improve the cohesion of the volume and strengthen the discourse of the final chapter vis-à-vis the rest of the book. Qing relationships with Christianity and Islam from the Qing imperial point of view deserve much more study and this volume goes some way in providing some insight into imperial and bureaucratic attitudes towards religious minorities.