The history of China has recorded three major foreign cultural inflows, among which the introduction of India's Buddhism into China (1-9 cent. A. D.) is the first. The second inflow is that of the Western natural sciences dating from mid-Ming Dynasty to early Qing Dynasty. And the latest one is the all-round inflow of Western culture following the Opium War, culminating in the introduction of Marxism-Leninism into China during the May Fourth Movement. The foreign culture pounded at China's traditional cultural structure and caused inevitable Shockwaves and changes. The two cultures have undergone a long and complicated process of mutually contradicting, conflicting, harmonizing, and inter-assimilation. This paper is an investigation into the three phases experienced by India's Buddhism in China, that is, "imitating","conflicting", and "harmonizing". And in this light the paper expounds the "open" nature of China's culture. Recalling the past can enlighten the future. The above-discussed history might render some enlightenment for China's on-going cause of modernization.
