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Fall of the Qing, 1840-1912

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  1. Introduction
  2.  
  3. The last seventy-some years of the Qing dynasty, simply put, is a story of decline. But a closer examination reveals a much more complex and nuanced picture. The reasons for decline are fairly straightforward, though scholars might dispute the relative weighting among them. The period opened with the First Opium War (1839–1842), a milestone in the dynastic decline. Viewed more broadly, however, the sources of this decline—if seen as a function of ailing institutions such as the examination system or an increasingly inefficient revenue system out of sync with population growth—can be traced back to the Ming dynasty (1368–1644) and before. As such, this perspective focuses on large sociopolitical forces that beg the question of whether the decline was not just of the Qing political order but of China’s civilization itself. Symptomatic of this decline, reforms came slowly and with limited and sporadic government support. Known as the Qing Restoration, which began around 1860, the aim was to reinvigorate the Confucian state through administrative and tax reforms, as well as a practical application of Confucian principles in governance. To tackle the thorny problem of foreign threats, the reformers’ initial response was the adoption of Western military technology and diplomatic practices, conveniently encapsulated as “self-strengthening” (ziqiang自強), in 1861. But reforms soon acquired a life of their own. It became apparent early on that the adoption of one Western technological or diplomatic innovation would inevitably lead to the adoption of another. Modern guns and boats would require new military training, just as their manufacture would require machinists and engineers, and they in turn would demand support industries such as coal mining and a modern transportation infrastructure. To finance these projects, the self-strengtheners branched out into money-making enterprises. A steamship company and textile mills followed, first under government purview, but eventually, under further pressure to combat cheap foreign manufactured goods, import-substitution industries were promoted, now completely in private hands, who were touted as patriotic entrepreneurs. To meet demands, modern education was introduced. In the meantime, the foreigners—their enterprises, missionaries, and military might—continued to threaten the Qing Empire, extracting greater concessions each time there was an altercation or war, which the Chinese inevitably lost. By the end of the 19th century, some Chinese began to realize that, if they were to become a modern nation, their political system had to be seriously reformed and, should that fail, changed. The combined effect of modern commerce, industry, and education had led to major diversification and enrichment of the Chinese elites. They were now poised for greater say in the polity. When their demands were not satisfied, they deserted the Qing Court, and the dynasty collapsed in 1912. Seen in its immediate aftermath, all the efforts at reform or self-strengthening had failed. Over the long haul, the late Qing had laid the foundation for modern China. There was no turning back.
  4.  
  5. General Overviews
  6.  
  7. Given the nature of this topic, general overviews come largely in the forms of textbooks, of which several are notable. Hsü 2000 is a systematic, insightful account: it first appeared in 1970, and the relevant section has not been updated for some time. There is a slight emphasis on political leadership, particularly the imperial. Spence 1999 is written in smooth-flowing prose. Though shorter than Hsü 2000, it does not give up much in terms of essentials. Fairbank 1978 and Fairbank and Liu 1980, though somewhat dated, contain excellent essays on late Qing, some of which will be discussed in relevant sections below. In Chinese, a number of works on the history of the Qing dynasty also provide extensive treatment of the period in question. A notable example is Qingdai quanshi (especially Vol. 8, edited by Mi Rucheng, and Vol. 9, edited by Xu Che and Dong Shouyi), which adopts a Marxist perspective. Xiao 1962–1963, though dated, probably provides the most thorough treatment of the period, in nearly 3,000 pages. Among these works, only Hsü 2000 provides a convenient, though brief, evaluation of the Qing period. Both the Qing dynasty and the 1840–1912 periods are often viewed as the beginning of modern China. Either way, the implication is that modern China is a continuing process, giving rise to numerous studies of 20th-century China that devote substantial treatment of the pre-1912 era.
  8.  
  9. Fairbank, John K., ed. The Cambridge History of China. Vol. 10, Late Ch’ing, 1800–1911, Part 1. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 1978.
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  11. The bulk of this work, from chapter 4 to the end (chapter 11), analyzes major political topics of this period. Authored by major scholars of China’s modern history, this is an authoritative work. The treatment is topical and, therefore, as a whole does not provide a flowing narrative.
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  13. Fairbank, John K., and Kwang-ching Liu, eds. The Cambridge History of China. Vol. 11, Late Ch’ing, 1800–1911, Part 2. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 1980.
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  15. Similar to Vol. 10 in organization, this volume deals with the economy, foreign relations, military, and intellectual and social developments as well as the reform and revolution of the last decade of the Qing.
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  17. Hsü, Immanuel C. Y. The Rise of Modern China. 6th ed. Oxford and New York: Oxford University Press, 2000.
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  19. By far the most thorough text on the period (chapters 7–20). Balanced, methodical, and often insightful. Originally published in 1970.
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  21. Qingdai quanshi (清代全史). 10 vols. Shenyang, China: Liaoning renmin chubanshe, 1991–1993.
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  23. See especially Vol. 8, edited by Mi Rucheng 宓汝成; Vol. 9, edited by Xu Che 徐彻 and Dong Shouyi 董守义; and Vol. 10, edited by Liu Kexiang 刘克祥. Reflecting a Marxist influence, this “complete history of the Qing” provides ample coverage on social economic issues, highlighting the exploitation of the poor (peasants and workers). In international relations, the maltreatment of China and the Chinese by the foreign powers and foreigners—imperialism—is stressed.
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  25. Spence, Jonathan D. The Search for Modern China. 2d ed. New York and London: W. W. Norton, 1999.
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  27. Chapters 6–11 pertain to the period in question. Though less detailed than Hsü 2000, this extremely well-written text provides good coverage and is especially strong on weaving social history into the main narrative. Third edition published in 2013.
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  29. Xiao Yishan 蕭一山. Qingdai tongshi (清代通史). 5 vols. Taibei: Taiwan shangwu yin shuguan, 1962–1963.
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  31. Despite its title, claiming to be a “comprehensive” history of the Qing, by far the greater part of this work—parts of Vol. 2, Vols. 3–4, and parts of Vol. 5 (tables)—relate to the history of the Qing from c. 1840. The approach is traditional, with an overconcentration on scholars and schools of thought, but the book is nonetheless a mine of information.
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  33. Reference Works
  34.  
  35. There is a dearth of reference works on many fronts. Biographical dictionaries in Chinese generally adopt a traditional, formulaic approach and tend to concentrate on prominent political figures (mostly men). Chinese encyclopedia entries tend to be brief and share similar shortcomings with biographical references. Political considerations also enter into the scope of these works. References in Western languages are much more useful, by contrast, but are few in number (e.g., Hummel 1943–1944 and Pong 2009). Tabulated guides to officials and offices (Wei 1977), examination candidates, and the like are essential tools, which the Chinese do extremely well. To make sense of the titles, functions, and organization of government offices, Brunnert and Hagelstrom 1912 is invaluable.
  36.  
  37. Brunnert, H. S., and V. V. Hagelstrom. Present-Day Political Organization of China. Translated by A. Beltchenko and E. E. Moran. Shanghai: Kelly and Walsh, 1912.
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  39. A useful guide to the organization and function of the Chinese government, including information on offices as well as titles and ranks of officials that had been replaced or changed in the course of late Qing reforms, also known as the New Policies (Xinzheng) of 1901–1912.
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  41. Gugong bowuyuan Ming-Qing dang’an bu 故宫博物院明清档案部 and Fujian shifan daxue lishixi 福建师范大学历史系, comps. Qingji Zhong-Wai shi-ling nianbiao (清季中外使領年表). Beijing: Zhonghua shuju, 1985.
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  43. Tabulated are Chinese envoys in foreign countries (1875–1912), foreign ministers in Beijing (1860–1912), Chinese consuls abroad (1877–1912), and foreign consuls in China (1843–1912). Also included are the ministers of the Zongli Yamen 總理衙門 (1860–1901), and of the Waiwu bu 外務部 (Department of Foreign Affairs) from 1901 to 1912.
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  45. Hummel, Arthur W., ed. Eminent Chinese of the Ch’ing Period. 2 vols. Washington, DC: US Government Printing Office, 1943–1944.
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  47. Despite its age, still provides the best biographies of prominent Qing dynasty’s ruling elites, though practically all entries need to be updated to reflect current scholarship. Vol. 1, A–O; Vol. 2, P–Z.
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  49. Leung, Edwin Pak-wah, ed. Political Leaders of Modern China: A Biographical Dictionary. Westport, CT: Greenwood, 2002.
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  51. Coverage begins with the Opium War (1839–1842). Entries are shorter than those found in Hummel 1943–1944, but more up to date. About a third (twenty-eight entries) belongs to the Qing era. A short list of references accompanies each entry.
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  53. Pong, David, ed. Encyclopedia of Modern China. 4 vols. Detroit: Scribner, 2009.
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  55. A reference representing the latest scholarship for the period 1800–present. Contains about 950 entries by more than 400 scholars from around the world. E-book also available for purchase online. A short bibliography accompanies each entry.
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  57. Qian Shifu 錢實甫. Qingji xinshe zhiguan nianbiao (清季新設職官年表). Beijing: Zhonghua shuju, 1961.
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  59. A chronology of new offices established in the late Qing, including those concerning legal reforms, provincial assemblies, the army, the navy, financial administration, revenue, railways and mines, commerce, borders affairs, and so forth.
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  61. Wang, Ke-wen, ed. Modern China: An Encyclopedia of History, Culture, and Nationalism. Garland Reference Library of the Humanities 1519. New York and London: Garland, 1998.
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  63. Covers the last two centuries, with emphasis on political events and personalities. Two to three references are usually provided for each topic. A handy one-volume reference.
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  65. Wei Xiumei 魏秀梅, comp. Qingji zhiguan biao: Fu renwu lu (清季職官表附人物錄). 2 vols. Taibei: Zhongyang yanjiuyuan, jindaishi yanjiusuo, 1977.
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  67. Includes tables of all holders of major offices from the Jiaqing reign (1795–1820) to the end of the Qing in February 1912. Vol. 1 tabulates central government officials and holders of newly created posts since the 1860s, down to the rank of 3B. Vol. 2 deals with provincial officials down to the rank of 3A, as well as high military officials down to the rank of 2A.
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  69. Guides to Sources
  70.  
  71. There is a general shortage of good guides to sources, particularly archival materials in China. The accessibility of Chinese archives has undergone constant improvement. Any print information may not reflect current situations. Guides to some Western-language sources are becoming increasingly accessible through lists and catalogues online. Before they scrutinize any of the sources, students of the Qing period wishing to understand how Qing official documents were generated, transmitted, and used should benefit from Fairbank and Teng 1961.
  72.  
  73. Fairbank, J. King, and Ssu-yü Teng. Ch’ing Administration: Three Studies. Harvard-Yenching Institute Studies 19. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1961.
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  75. The first segment studies the transmission of Qing official documents—those dealing with foreign affairs, which, therefore, entail the operation of the government “postal system.” The second segment deals with the types and uses of Qing documents (e.g., rescripts, edicts, and kinds of memorials). The final segment examines the tribute system, which is not directly related to our current concerns.
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  77. Archives
  78.  
  79. Wars (civil and foreign), political instability, natural disasters, and financial stringency all contribute to the relative scarcity of archival materials in China from the late Qing period. The periodic destruction of government documents in the provinces, once the official history has been written, further diminishes these archives. At the national level, the First Historical Archives of China in Beijing has the single largest collection of official documents relative to the central administration of the Qing Empire. Coverage tends to be more voluminous toward the last periods of the dynasty (Bartlett 2007, Ye and Esherick 1996). A significant amount of archival materials from the central government was taken to Taiwan as the Guomindang (Nationalists) left the mainland in 1948–1949. They are housed in the National Palace Museum and the Institute of Modern History, Academia Sinica, both of which are located in Taipei (Ye and Esherick 1996). Provincial and local archives in China are uneven in quality (Pong 1975), though many are becoming more accessible. Outside China, the most-valuable archival materials are to be found in Britain, the most dominant foreign power in China at the time (Iwao 1958). France, the United States, and Japan also have significant holdings (France: Archives des Affaires étrangères and Ministère de la guerre and Ministère de la marine et des colonies). Materials carried off by the Russians in 1900 and around 1945 are believed to have been returned to the Chinese. Missionaries made up the single largest category of Westerners in China. They, and the mission boards that sent them, generated huge quantities of materials. By the end of the Qing, Americans led the field; of the two guides here, Crouch, et al. 1989 provides a wealth of details for American repositories, while Tiedemann 2009 covers Europe as well.
  80.  
  81. Archives des Affaires étrangères.
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  83. Provides lists of official documents of the French foreign ministry, its correspondence with the French minister in China, and communication between the minister and the consuls in China. Documents are divided into two series: the first covers the period 1840–1896; the second (“Nouvelle série”), 1896–1918.
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  85. Bartlett, Beatrice S. “A World-Class Archival Achievement: The People’s Republic of China Archivists’ Success in Opening the Ming-Qing Central-Government Archives, 1949–1998.” Archival Science 7.4 (2007): 369–390.
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  87. Informative description of the efforts made in China to render accessible the rich materials mainly in central archives in the first fifty years of PRC rule. Characteristics of Chinese archival materials are briefly described. Many of the documents were published in the 1950s on various topics, such as the Opium War, the Sino-French War, etc., to be found under the section Collections of Source Materials. Available online for purchase or by subscription.
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  89. Crouch, Archie, Steven Agoratus, Arthur Emerson, and Debra E. Soled, comps. Christianity in China: A Scholars’ Guide to Resources in the Libraries and Archives of the United States. Armonk, NY: M. E. Sharpe, 1989.
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  91. Describes US resources concerning Christianity in China, by state, city, and institution. Materials include manuscripts, missionary journals, and other publications (e.g., pamphlets) in the United States or China, as well as private papers of individuals (missionaries, elders / board members of missionary organizations), whether in the original or in photographic or digitized form. Dissertations/theses are also listed.
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  93. Iwao, Seiichi, ed. List of the Foreign Office Records Preserved in the Public Record Office in London Relating to China and Japan. Tokyo: Toho Gakkai (Institute of Eastern Culture), 1958.
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  95. Provides brief descriptions by volume in two broad categories: “General Correspondence” and “Embassy and Consular Archives” for the period 1815–1913. Omitted are “Foreign Office Confidential Print: China, 1848–1922” (FO 405) and “Manuscripts in Chinese” (FO 682 and FO 931; see Pong 1975).
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  97. Ministère de la guerre and Ministère de la marine et des colonies.
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  99. Archives of the French ministries of the Army and of the Navy and the Colonies. Particularly pertinent are the documents found in Série BB: Service général (mouvements et opérations, cabinet, secrétariat général, état-major, organismes consultatif, dépôt des archives), and Série CC: Personnel. The site provides general descriptions of groups of materials but does not list individual documents.
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  101. Pong, David. A Critical Guide to the Kwangtung Provincial Archives, Deposited at the Public Record Office of London. Harvard East Asian Monograph 63. Cambridge, MA: East Asian Research Center, Harvard University, 1975.
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  103. Provides individual descriptions for the two thousand items (some exceed five hundred folios) from the Guangdong (Kwangtung) provincial archives seized by the British in early 1858 (during the Second Opium War). For ease of use, these documents are presented under six headings: “Opium Trade and Opium War,” “Central and Local Administration,” “Foreign Relations and Trade,” “Rebellions/Secret Societies and Their Suppression,” “Second Opium War,” and “Maps.”
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  105. Tiedemann, R. G. Reference Guide to Christian Missionary Societies in China from the Sixteenth to the Twentieth Century. Armonk, NY: M. E. Sharpe, 2009.
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  107. This useful guide includes Roman Catholic and Protestant missionary societies. It provides a short historical description of each, mentioning the date when it began operation in China and the location where its archives are kept. There is no description of the archives, however.
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  109. Ye, Wa, and Joseph W. Esherick. Chinese Archives: An Introductory Guide. China Research Monograph 45. Berkeley: Center for Chinese Studies, Institute of East Asian Studies, University of California, 1996.
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  111. Contains detailed descriptions of the national archives in Beijing and Taipei, including references to guides to these collections in Chinese, although the ones from Taiwan are far more helpful to researchers. This guide covers less than one-fifth of the archives in China, because many of the regional archives were still in varying degrees of organization and accessibility in the early 1990s. Information needs updating.
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  113. Other Primary Sources
  114.  
  115. Wilkinson 2000 provides a convenient guide both to archives and their holdings, as well as to published documentary collections in China and around the world. Periodicals and newspapers were introduced to China by missionaries and, later, by merchants. King and Clarke 1965 remains the only comprehensive guide to newspapers on the China coast, though many newspaper collections have been located since its publication. Foreigners in China had been collecting Chinese books, pamphlets, and other materials for a long time, but none exceeds the magnitude of those collected by George Ernest Morrison, the Times correspondent in China at the turn of the 20th century and an adviser to the Chinese government from 1912. His collection was sold to the Japanese in 1917 and became the foundation of the holdings at the Toyo Bunko in Tokyo. Some 2,400 Manchu-language documents on the Beijing Bordered Red Banners for the period 1723–1922 were added in 1936. Local gazetteers (difangzhi 地方志) compiled for specific administrative divisions, from the county (xian 县) up to the province, are another important category of primary sources, although no central or comprehensive guides are available. Leslie and Davidson 1967 provides a guide to these resources, but the authors’ efforts have not been followed by more-recent endeavors.
  116.  
  117. King, Frank H. H., and Prescott Clarke. A Research Guide to China-Coast Newspapers, 1822–1911. Harvard East Asian Monograph 18. Cambridge, MA: East Asian Research Center, Harvard University, 1965.
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  119. Following a brief historical introduction, the authors provide an annotated list of the Western-language newspapers, arranged by treaty ports. The section on extant copies of newspapers and where they are deposited is useful. An important tool but sorely needs updating.
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  121. Leslie, Donald, and Jeremy H. C. S. Davidson. Catalogues of Chinese Local Gazetteers. Guide to Bibliographies on China and the Far East. Canberra: Department of Far Eastern History, Research School of Pacific Studies, Australian National University, 1967.
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  123. Listed are the handful of union catalogues of the 1930s to the early 1960s; catalogues of gazetteers in Japan, Europe, and the United States; and those in universities or provincial/municipal libraries in China.
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  125. Toyo Bunko (東洋文庫).
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  127. A rich repository of primary and secondary materials, built on the collection of George Morrison, acquired in 1917, and some 2,400 Manchu-language documents on the Beijing Bordered Red Banners for the period 1723–1922, purchased in 1936. A list of catalogues can be found online. See in particular No. 50, “A Classified Catalogue of Chinese Books in the Toyo Bunko: Section Ch’ing (Qing),” 1978.
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  129. Wilkinson, Endymion Porter. Chinese History: A Manual. Harvard-Yenching Institute Monograph 52. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Asia Center, 2000.
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  131. A convenient guide for students and scholars. Part V, “Primary Sources by Period,” deals both with archives and published documentary collections, supported by references to pertinent secondary works. Other primary and secondary sources are found under specific topics in Parts III and IV (e.g., “Army, Warfare, and Uprisings,” “Women Studies,” “Foreign Accounts of China,” and so forth.)
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  133. Secondary Sources
  134.  
  135. Bibliographical guides are a labor of love and remain largely the province of the dedicated. For decades, the Association for Asian Studies has enjoyed the good services of Frank Shulman and Anna Leung to maintain the Bibliography of Asian Studies, the only one in China studies that is more or less up to date. More recently, the focus of the Bibliography of Asian Studies has shifted to journal articles and chapters in edited volumes, and away from monographs. Since 1994, however, China Review International has taken up the review of monographs. But as a review journal, its selection, though up to date, is limited. The fact that it covers the entire span of Chinese history and civilization also means that its coverage of the modern era is relatively small. Skinner 1973 was a titanic effort; it encompasses a wide range of topics on modern China since 1644, but it should be updated and put online. Fairbank and Banno 1955 and Fudan daxue lishixi ziliaoshi 1980 are useful in their respective subject matter. But in a field that has been growing at an increasingly rapid rate, keeping these useful study or research tools up to date is a serious concern.
  136.  
  137. Bibliography of Asian Studies. 1956–.
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  139. Published annually. Originally appeared as a section of Far Eastern Quarterly (from 1941), then as a separate volume under the current title in 1969–1991. Since 1991, new entries (about 400,000) are published and available by subscription online, but with a focus on journal articles and chapters in edited volumes. The online site also includes entries from 1971 and, in odd cases, before that date.
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  141. China Review International. 1994–.
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  143. Published twice a year (Spring and Fall issues) by the University of Hawai‘i Press, Honolulu, since 1994. A journal for review of books about China. As such, it permits more lengthy reviews than regular academic journals. More importantly, it is for all practical purposes up to date. As a review journal, its coverage is highly selective, though it does occasionally include publications in languages other than English.
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  145. Fairbank, John King, and Masataka Banno, eds. Japanese Studies of Modern China: A Bibliographical Guide to Historical and Social-Science Research on the 19th and 20th Centuries. Rutland, VT, and Tokyo: Charles E. Tuttle, 1955.
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  147. Provides descriptions of individual monographs and journal articles published up to the early 1950s. While Part 2, “Late Ch’ing [Qing] Political History,” is most directly related to this article, sections on political institutions, Russian and Japanese expansion, intellectual and cultural history, economic history, Chinese society, and reference works also include much of interest. Updated in 1971 with the assistance of Sumiko Yamamoto; republished as recently as 2006 (Ann Arbor, MI: UMI).
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  149. Fudan daxue lishixi ziliaoshi 复旦大学历史系资料室, comp. Zhongguo jindaishi lunzhu mulu, 1949–1979 (中国近代史论著目录, 1949–1979). Shanghai: Shanghai renmin chubanshe, 1980.
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  151. This catalogue presents works on modern China that were published in the People’s Republic of China between 1949 and 1979. Part 1 lists articles from major academic journals as well as daily newspapers; Part 2, anthologies; and Part 3, monographs. Works on late Qing occupy a major portion of the volume.
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  153. Skinner, G. William, ed. Modern Chinese Society: An Analytical Bibliography. 3 vols. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 1973.
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  155. A massive bibliography of works in Western (13,000), Chinese (11,000), and Japanese (7,000) languages, ranging from monographs to journal articles and unpublished dissertations that had appeared up to 1972. For late Qing, it includes some contemporary publications that could serve as source materials. Usefulness of the volume is enhanced by multiple indexes. This volume sorely needs updating.
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  157. Collections of Source Materials
  158.  
  159. Because of adverse circumstances before 1949, few resources were available for the gathering of primary sources, let alone their publication. For an extended period of time, only a handful of such collections were available. Fairbank and Teng 1961 (under Guides to Sources) provides a list of a good number of these (pp. 69–72), several of which are described in this section. Stability after 1949 on both sides of the Taiwan Strait saw the publication of a spate of documentary collections. On the mainland, reflecting anti-imperialist and general socialist interests of the scholars, the first documentary collections (consisting of ten titles), published in the mid-1950s and after, are largely concerned with China’s foreign wars and popular uprisings. Meanwhile, the Institute of Modern History, Academia Sinica, in Taipei has published a significant amount of its archival holdings. The materials selected and brought over to Taiwan in 1949 reflect the interests of the institute (foreign affairs, modernization, and the like). Nine of the more important and substantial collections it publishes are described here. For a complete list, see its archives online. It is worth mentioning that many of the collections published on the mainland had been reprinted on Taiwan, sometimes with additional materials, under the “editorship” of Yang Jialuo 楊家駱 and published by Dingwen shuju 鼎文書局 of Taipei, mostly in 1973. Typically, they will carry the original titles but with the added suffix 文獻彙編 (wenxian huibian, collection of materials). Since 1982, a program for the compilation of newly accessible material has been launched, resulting in the publication of a second series on topics (and titles) identical to the first. Zhang, et al. 1996 and Qi, et al. 1996 (cited under Foreign Wars) and Zhu, et al. 1996–2006 (cited under Missionary and Church Affairs) are notable examples. In addition, official and private papers as well as journals of numerous officials and important personages are available. For some individuals, such as the famous official Zeng Guofan 曾國藩, multiple editions/versions of their collected works exist, some with identical titles, while others have misleadingly similar ones, but they are too numerous to be included here. For the sake of convenience, the published documentary collections are presented under different headings.
  160.  
  161. Administration
  162.  
  163. The Qing government put together collections of official documents under various formats for use in administration. Liu 1921 was culled from Qing collections but was compiled after the Qing, as is the more recently published Zhongguo diyi lishi dang’anguan 1995, made up of valuable material from the No. 1 Archives in Beijing.
  164.  
  165. Liu Jinzao 劉錦藻, comp. Huangchao xu wenxian tongkao (皇朝續文獻通考). 4 vols. Beijing: Shangwu yin shuguan, 1921.
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  167. Also called the Qingchao xu wenxian tonggao (清朝續文獻通考). Materials were selected mainly from the Donghua xulu 東華續錄 and the Da Qing huidian shili 大清會典事例 for the 1786–1911 period and are divided into topics that reflect administrative concerns: land tax, civil service and the examination system, court rituals, and the like. For the post-1840 period, new categories are added for foreign trade, custom duties, opium, likin, telegraphy, modern education, and the modern navy.
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  169. Zhongguo diyi lishi dang’anguan 中国第一历史档案馆, comp. Guangxu chao zhupi zouzhe (光绪朝硃批奏折). 120 vols. Beijing: Zhonghua shuju, 1995.
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  171. This large collection of memorials from the Guangxu reign is divided into various categories and is arranged chronologically within each: administration, military affairs, and government finance make up the bulk of the material. The remaining material (Vols. 97–120) deals with agriculture, water conservancy, industry, public works, education, law, foreign relations, ethnic groups, antimissionary incidents, astronomy, geography, and anti-Qing activities.
  172. Find this resource:
  173. Foreign Relations
  174.  
  175. Three different kinds of collections are presented here. First, compilations that purport to cover all aspects of foreign affairs management for a specified period (Qingdai chouban yiwu shimo, Wang and Wang 1932–1935), and the supplementary collections that came sometime later (Zhongyang yanjiuyuan, Jindaishi yanjiusuo 1966a, Zhongyang yanjiuyuan, Jindaishi yanjiusuo 1966b). Second, compilations for relations with a particular foreign nation or groups of nations (Zhongyang yanjiuyuan, Jindaishi yanjiusuo 1972, Zhongyang yanjiuyuan, Jindaishi yanjiusuo 1968–1990). And finally, those that are topical (Zhongyang yanjiuyuan, Jindaishi yanjiusuo 1972–1990; Zhongyang yanjiuyuan, Jindaishi yanjiusuo 1962).
  176.  
  177. Qingdai chouban yiwu shimo (清代籌辦夷務始末). Beijing: Gugong bowuyuan, 1930.
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  179. Photograph of the original documents on the management of “barbarian” affairs for the 1836–1874 period. Reprinted in 1963 (Taibei: Guofeng chubanshe, 7 vols.). These valuable materials have been rendered most accessible by David Nelson Rowe in Index to Ch’ing Tai Ch’ou Pan I Wu Shi Mo (Hamden, CT: Shoe String, 1960). For supplements to this collection, see Zhongyang yanjiuyuan, Jindaishi yanjiusuo 1966a.
  180. Find this resource:
  181. Wang Yanwei 王彥威, and Wang Liang 王亮, comps. Qingji waijiao shiliao (清季外交史料). 218 vols. Beijing: Waijiao shiliao bianzuan chu, 1932–1935.
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  183. Collection of historical materials on foreign relations in the late Qing (1875–1911) period, including records of Chinese envoys abroad, a chronology of major events, and maps.
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  185. Zhongyang yanjiuyuan, Jindaishi yanjiusuo 中央研究院近代史研究所, comp. Zhong-Fa Yuenan jiaoxie dang (中法越南交涉檔). 7 vols. Edited by Guo Tingyi 郭廷以 and Wang Yujun 王聿均. Taibei: Zhongyang yanjiuyuan, Jindaishi yanjiusuo, 1962.
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  187. Reproduction of government documents on Sino-French relations over Indochina for the period 1875–1911, including materials on Chinese response to French inroads in Indochina, the Sino-French War of 1884–1885, and continued French efforts at expanding their influence into southwestern China.
  188. Find this resource:
  189. Zhongyang yanjiuyuan, Jindaishi yanjiusuo 中央研究院近代史研究所, comp. Daoguang Xianfeng liangchao chouban yiwu shimo buyi (道光咸豐兩朝籌辦夷務始末補遺). Edited by Guo Tingyi 郭廷以. Taibei: Zhongyang yanjiuyuan, jindaishi yanjiusuo, 1966a.
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  191. Reproduction of 708 government documents on the management of foreign affairs for the period 1842–1861, as a supplement to the Qingdai chouban yiwu shimo. They came from the Grand Council Archives in Beijing and were selected and hand-copied by Jiang Tingfu 蔣廷黻 at the direction of John K. Fairbank.
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  193. Zhongyang yanjiuyuan, Jindaishi yanjiusuo 中央研究院近代史研究所, comp. Siguo xin dang (四國新檔). 4 vols. Edited by Guo Tingyi 郭廷以. Taibei: Zhongyang yanjiuyuan, jindaishi yanjiusuo, 1966b.
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  195. Reproduction of government documents for the period 1850–1863, on relations with Britain (2 vols.), Russia (1 vol.), and the United States and France, and on the Chinese management of the Second Sino-Foreign War (1 vol.). Some overlap with Qingdai chouban yiwu shimo; documents that are new or different are noted in the table of contents and at the head of each document.
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  197. Zhongyang yanjiuyuan, Jindaishi yanjiusuo 中央研究院近代史研究所, comp. Zhong-Mei guanxi shiliao (中美關係史料). 8 vols. Vols. 4–8 edited by Huang Jiamo 黃嘉謨. Taibei: Zhongyang yanjiuyuan, Jindaishi yanjiusuo, 1968–1990.
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  199. Reproduction of government documents on Sino-American relations for the period 1805–1903, including materials on the treaty ports, antimissionary incidents, and Chinese laborers in the United States.
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  201. Zhongyang yanjiuyuan, Jindaishi yanjiusuo 中央研究院近代史研究所, comp. Qingji Zhong-Ri-Han guanxi shiliao (清季中日韓關係史料). 11 vols. Edited by Guo Tingyi 郭廷以, and Li Yushu 李毓澍. Taibei: Zhongyang yanjiuyuan, jindaishi yanjiusuo, 1972.
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  203. Reproduction of government documents on Chinese relations with Japan and Korea, and with Japan over Korea for the period 1864–1911. Topics include opening of Korea to Japan, Japanese and Chinese influence in Korea, and the resulting conflicts.
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  205. Zhongyang yanjiuyuan, Jindaishi yanjiusuo 中央研究院近代史研究所, comp. Jindai Zhongguo dui Xifang ji lieqiang renshi zhi ziliao huibian (近代中國對西方及列強認識之資料彙編). 10 vols. Taibei: Zhongyang yanjiuyuan, jindaishi yanjiusuo, 1972–1990.
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  207. Reproduction of government documents on Chinese knowledge and understanding of the West and of the foreign powers in the period 1821–1911.
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  209. Missionary and Church Affairs
  210.  
  211. The two selections here complement each other. Zhongyang yanjiuyuan, Jindaishi yanjiusuo 1974–1981, a larger work, covers a slightly shorter time span and contains material from the Zongli Yamen archives taken to Taiwan in 1949. Zhu, et al. 1996–2006 contains material from the No. 1 Archive of Beijing. As the title indicates, the focus is on antimissionary incidents.
  212.  
  213. Zhongyang yanjiuyuan, Jindaishi yanjiusuo 中央研究院近代史研究所, comp. Jiaowu jiao’an dang (教務教案檔). 21 vols. Edited by Zhang Guiyong張貴永, Lü Shiqiang 呂實強, Li Enhan 李恩涵, and Wang Ermin 王爾敏. Taibei: Zhongyang yanjiuyuan, Jindaishi yanjiusuo, 1974–1981.
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  215. Reproduction of government documents on church affairs and disputes involving missionaries and Chinese converts from 1860 to 1911. Documents include official reports (memorials), edicts, and correspondence between Chinese and various interested foreign parties (missionaries and diplomats).
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  217. Zhu Jinfu 朱金甫, Zhongguo diyi lishi dang’an guan 中国第一歷史档案馆, and Fujian shifan daxue lishixi 福建师范大学历史系, eds. Qingmo jiao’an (清末教案). 6 vols. Beijing: Zhonghua shuju, 1996–2006.
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  219. This collection of materials is on disputes with missionaries and Chinese converts. Documents include memorials of Chinese officials and correspondence between Chinese officials and Western diplomats, all from the No. 1 Historical Archives in Beijing (Vols. 1–3), translations of selected documents from the French archives (Vol. 4), US diplomatic service (Vol. 5), and British Parliamentary Papers (Vol. 6), for the period 1842–1911.
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  221. Foreign Wars
  222.  
  223. All six compilations in this section were published on the mainland, reflecting partly the wealth of archival holdings on these topics, and partly the interests in these wars in the People’s Republic. They were among the very first compilations to appear, in the early and mid-1950s. Included here are those concerning the Opium Wars (Qi, et al. 1954 and Qi and Gugong bowuyuan Ming-Qing dang’an bu 1978–1979), the Sino-French War (consisting of two different sets with identical titles, Zhong-Fa zhanzheng: Shao and Zhongguo shixuehui 2000 [originally published in 1955] and Zhang, et al. 1996), and the Sino-Japanese War (again, two different sets with identical titles, Zhong-Ri zhanzheng: Xu and Zhongguo shixuehui 2000 and Qi, et al. 1996). In each instance, the newer sets are products of a project launched in 1982 to make accessible those materials that have come to light since the publication of the first.
  224.  
  225. Qi Qizhang 戚其章, Sun Kefu, and Wang Ruhui 王如绘, eds. Zhong-Ri zhanzheng (中日战争). 12 vols. Beijing: Zhonghua shuju, 1996.
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  227. Historical material on the Sino-Japanese War, compiled by a team of scholars under the direction of Qi Qizhang, foremost authority on the topic. Does not overlap with the work of the same title (Xu and Zhongguo shixuehui 2000) described below.
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  229. Qi Sihe 齐思和, and Gugong bowuyuan Ming-Qing dang’an bu 故宫博物院明清档案部, eds. Dierci Yapian zhanzheng (第二次鸦片战争). 6 vols. Shanghai: Shanghai renmin chubanshe, 1978–1979.
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  231. In addition to official documents, this collection on the Second Opium War also includes personal accounts, correspondence, and Chinese translations of some foreign sources for the period 1843–1861.
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  233. Qi Sihe 齐思和, Lin Shuhui 林树惠, and Shou Jiyu 寿纪瑜, eds. Yapian zhanzheng (鸦片战争). 6 vols. Shanghai: Shenzhou guoguangshe, 1954.
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  235. Contains official documents, personal accounts, correspondence, and translations of some foreign sources, relating to the Opium War. Republished as recently as 2000 (Shanghai: Shanghai renmin chubanshe).
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  237. Shao Xunzheng 邵循正, and Zhongguo shixuehui 中国史学会, eds. Zhong-Fa zhanzheng (中法战争). 7 vols. Shanghai: Shanghai renmin chubanshe, 2000.
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  239. These documents on the Sino-French War include memorials, diaries, and correspondence of Chinese officials; translations of French works; and a small amount of British and US sources. Originally published in 1955.
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  241. Xu Teli 徐特立, and Zhongguo shixuehui 中国史学会, eds. Zhong-Ri zhanzheng (中日战争). 7 vols. Shanghai: Shanghai renmin chubanshe, 2000.
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  243. These documents on the Sino-Japanese War include memorials, diaries, and correspondence of Chinese officials; contemporary accounts; and translations of Japanese works, as well as a small amount of British and US sources.
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  245. Zhang Zhenkun 张振鵾, Yu Yuliang 瘐裕良, and Zhang Yin 张胤, eds. Zhong-Fa zhanzheng (中法战争). 5 vols. Beijing: Zhonghua shuju, 1996.
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  247. This set on the Sino-French War includes Chinese official documents and several personal accounts of the war (2 vols., covering 1875–1886), and translations of documents from the French archives (3 vols., covering 1873–1885).
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  249. Popular Uprisings
  250.  
  251. The Taiping Rebellion, the largest popular uprising in history, has been the topic of several documentary collections. Xiang 1952 was among the very first to appear in China (just after the collection on the Boxers). Valuable still for the material from the rebel side, information from the Qing side has now been eclipsed by a much-larger source: Zhongguo diyi lishi dang’an guan 1990. Some of the primary sources collected by foreigners are to be found in Jin and Tian 1959. For the Nian Uprising, Fan and Zhongguo shixuehui 1953 remains the most accessible source. The Boxer Uprising, like the Taiping Rebellion, received attention from compilers early in the PRC (Jian 1951) and continues to maintain a high level of attention, as the publication of Gengzi shibian: Qinggong dang’an huibian (Zhongguo diyi lishi dang’an guan 2003) shows.
  252.  
  253. Fan Wenlan 范文瀾 and Zhongguo shixuehui 中国史学会, eds. Nian jun (捻军). 6 vols. Shanghai: Shenzhou guoguangshe, 1953.
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  255. Includes both official and Nian material on the Nian army.
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  257. Jian Bozan 翦伯贊, comp. Yihe tuan (义和团). 4 vols. Shanghai: Shenzhou guoguangshe, 1951.
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  259. This set on the Boxers includes contemporary accounts (Chinese and foreign in translation), diaries, and a limited amount of official documents (edicts, memorials, and telegrams).
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  261. Jin Yufu 金毓黻, and Tian Yuqing 田余庆, eds. Taiping Tianguo shiliao (太平天国史料). Beijing: Zhonghua shuju, 1959.
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  263. This volume contains materials hand-copied from the Cambridge University Library and the British Museum (now British Library), as well as from repositories in China. About half the materials come from the Qing side.
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  265. Xiang Da 向達, ed. Taiping Tianguo (太平天國). 8 vols. Beijing: Shenzhou guoguangshe, 1952.
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  267. This set on the Taiping Rebellion contains materials from the Taiping and the Qing sides, foreigners’ accounts (translated into Chinese), Xiangrong’s memorials, and so forth. Reprinted in Taiwan with an additional volume, which provides notes on the provenance of materials found in Vols. 1–8.
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  269. Zhongguo diyi lishi dang’an guan 中國第一歷史檔案館, comp. Qing zhengfu zhenya Taiping Tianguo dang’an shiliao (清政府鎮壓太平天國檔案史料). 26 vols. Beijing: Shehui kexue wenxian chubanshe, 1990.
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  271. Contains materials from the No. 1 Archive in Beijing, on the Qing suppression of the Taipings, many of which are not to be found elsewhere.
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  273. Zhongguo diyi lishi dang’an guan 中國第一歷史檔案館, comp. Gengzi shibian: Qinggong dang’an huibian (庚子事变 : 清宫档案汇编). 18 vols. Beijing: Zhongguo renmin daxue chubanshe, 2003.
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  275. A collection of Qing documents on the events of 1900 (the Boxers). Rich collection of materials from the government side.
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  277. Reforms (Including Self-Strengthening) and Revolution
  278.  
  279. Both Zhongyang yanjiuyuan, Jindaishi yanjiusuo 1957 and Zhongyang yanjiuyuan, Jindaishi yanjiusuo 1960 are extremely useful collections for their respective subject, far superior to Zhongguo kexueyuan jindaishi yanjiusuo shiliao bianjishi and Zhongyang dang’anguan Ming-Qing dang’anbu bianjizu 1961, although the latter covers a broader range of self-strengthening/Yangwu undertakings. Reforms are perhaps too unfocused a topic for documentary collections, but the Hundred Days Reform of 1898 is certainly an exception in this sense (Jian 1953). Chai and Xu 2000, first published in 1957, rounds out this group.
  280.  
  281. Chai Degeng, and Xu Teli 徐特立, eds. Xinhai geming (辛亥革命). 8 vols. Shanghai: Shanghai renmin chubanshe, 2000.
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  283. Apart from personal accounts by revolutionary leaders, materials in this collection on the 1911 Revolution come from the various revolutionary organizations, Qing official reports (memorials), newspaper and magazine articles, and some foreign reports (in translation). They cover the period from 1894, when the Xingzhonghui 興中會 (Revive China Society) was founded, to 1912, when the new Republic government was established. Originally published in 1957; errata at the end of each volume.
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  285. Jian Bozan 翦伯贊, comp. Wuxu bianfa (戊戌变法). 4 vols. Shanghai: Shenzhou guoguangshe, 1953.
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  287. This collection of materials on the Hundred Days Reform includes accounts and journals of key persons for and against the reform movement; memorials, newspaper reports, biographies, and nianpu 年谱 of key players; and chronology. Reprinted in Taiwan under the title Wuxu bianfa wenxian huibian 戊戌變法文獻彙編 (Taibei: Dingwen shuju, 1973), with an additional volume (Vol. 5) consisting of official memorials.
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  289. Zhongguo kexueyuan jindaishi yanjiusuo shiliao bianjishi 中国科学院近代史研究所史料编辑室, and Zhongyang dang’anguan Ming-Qing dang’anbu bianjizu 中央档案馆明清档案部编辑组, comps. Yangwu yundong (洋务运动). 8 vols. Shanghai: Shanghai renmin chubanshe, 1961.
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  291. Documents on the self-strengthening or Yangwu movement (memorials and correspondence of Chinese officials, some individual accounts), divided into such categories as government schools, study abroad, maritime defense, military training, naval dockyards, arsenals, telegraphy, mining, railways, textile mills, etc. Though useful, it is not as complete on certain topics covered by documentary collections put out by the Institute of Modern History, Academia Sinica (Zhongyang yanjiuyuan, Jindaishi yanjiusuo 1957; Zhongyang yanjiuyuan, Jindaishi yanjiusuo 1960).
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  293. Zhongyang yanjiuyuan, Jindaishi yanjiusuo 中央研究院近代史研究所, comp. Haifang dang (海防檔). 9 vols. Taibei: Zhongyang yanjiuyuan, Jindaishi yanjiusuo, 1957.
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  295. Reproduction of government documents on maritime defense for the period 1861–1911, including shipbuilding, armaments, naval engineering, naval training, and battles, as well as policy discussion and implementation, administration, personnel, and funding. By far the best single collection of source materials on the subject.
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  297. Zhongyang yanjiuyuan, Jindaishi yanjiusuo 中央研究院近代史研究所, comp. Kuangwu dang (礦務檔). 8 vols. Taibei: Zhongyang yanjiuyuan, jindaishi yanjiusuo, 1960.
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  299. Reproduction of government documents on mechanized mining for the period 1865–1911, including mining for coal, iron, and gold; policy matters; machinery; technical training; foreign technicians; funding; administration; and negotiations of mining rights with foreign countries.
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  301. Photographic Collections
  302.  
  303. The first photographer arrived in China with the British expeditionary forces during the Second Opium War. Since then, a succession of photographers has brought to the world images of China that are invaluable for teaching and research. Included in this section are several of the more accessible collections. Those in the Morrison collection (see Views of China; Album of Hong Kong, Canton, Macao, Amoy, Foochow; and Photographic Views of Canton), accessible online, often come with captions, some quite detailed. Unfortunately, the provenance of many of the images is no longer known. The originals are held by the Toyo Bunko, Tokyo. The Face of China as Seen by Photographers and Travelers, 1860–1912 (Cameron 1978) and Imperial China: Photographs, 1850–1912 (Worswick and Spence 1978), both published in conjunction with exhibitions in 1978, feature works by many of the best-known globetrotting photographers of the day. While these are the works of accomplished photographers, the collection at Bristol University, Picturing China, 1870–1950: Photographs from British Collections (Bickers, et al. 2007), consists mainly of images taken for more-personal purposes. The ambitious Virtual Cities Project from the University of Lyon has so far produced photographic collections online for Shanghai, Tianjin, and Beijing. The fascination with old photographs has resulted in many collections in print in recent years. The Renmin meishu chubanshe (人民美术出版社 People’s Art Publishers) of Beijing has put out a series on cities in China; see, for example, the volume on Wuhan (Wuhanshi dang’anguan and Wuhanshi bowuguan 1999).
  304.  
  305. Bickers, Robert A., Catherine Ladds, Jamie Carstairs, and Yee Wah Foo, eds. Picturing China, 1870–1950: Photographs from British Collections. Chinese Maritime Customs Project Occasional Papers 1. Bristol, UK: Bristol University Chinese Maritime Customs Project, 2007.
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  307. This is a guide to a collection of some 7,700 photographs, mainly of Britons in China, their life, and the places where they visited, lived, and worked as merchants, customs officers, diplomats, and missionaries. The full collection, titled “Historical Photographs of China,” can be viewed online. About a fifth of the collection comes from the late Qing era.
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  309. Cameron, Nigel, ed. The Face of China as Seen by Photographers and Travelers, 1860–1912. Captions by Fred W. Drake. Millerton, NY: Aperture, 1978.
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  311. Published as a catalogue to accompany the exhibition presented by the Philadelphia Museum of Art. Included are works by John Thomson, Felix Beato, Donald Mennie, Ernest Henry Wilson, Thomas Childe, H. C. White, and others.
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  313. Morrison, George Ernest. Album of Hong Kong, Canton, Macao, Amoy, Foochow. National Institute of Informatics: Digital Silk Road Project, Digital Archive of Toyo Bunko Rare Books.
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  315. This album of 115 pictures of buildings and scenery in these coastal cities is generally of a very high quality, but only one (map of Xiamen [Amoy]) has any caption at all!
  316. Find this resource:
  317. Morrison, George Ernest. Photographic Views of Canton. National Institute of Informatics: Digital Silk Road Project, Digital Archive of Toyo Bunko Rare Books.
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  319. Despite its title, this album also includes some photographs of Hong Kong and Macao. There are about forty images altogether, mostly with simple captions. Quality of the images is very good.
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  321. Morrison, George Ernest. Views of China. 2 vols. National Institute of Informatics: Digital Silk Road Project, Digital Archive of Toyo Bunko Rare Books.
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  323. Small but valuable collection of 140+ photographs taken at the end of the 19th and the beginning of the 20th centuries. They vividly capture China, its society, and its people. Each is accompanied by a caption, many written by Morrison himself.
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  325. Virtual Cities Project. Under the direction of Christian Henriot, Institut d’Asie Orientale, University of Lyon and Institut Universitaire de France.
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  327. So far, the project provides photographic images for Shanghai (4,400+), Tianjin (400+), and Beijing (2,600+); perhaps only 15–20 percent are from the late Qing, and many have a French provenance. The quality of the pictures is generally high, except for the few that date back to the 1860s.
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  329. Worswick, Clark, and Jonathan Spence, eds. Imperial China: Photographs, 1850–1912. New York: Penwick, 1978.
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  331. Photographs by John Thomson, M. Miller, Felix Beato, Ernest Henry Wilson, Donald Mennie, and others from archives in Europe, the United States, and Asia, exhibited at the Asia House Gallery, New York, 1978.
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  333. Wuhanshi dang’anguan 武汉市档案馆, and Wuhanshi bowuguan 武汉市博物馆, comps. Wuhan jiuying (武汉旧影). Beijing: Renmin meishu chubanshe, 1999.
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  335. Images of Wuhan in yesteryear, compiled by the Municipal Archives and the Municipal Museum of Wuhan. This (and volumes on other cities in this series) makes accessible many images that are valuable for study and research. Only a handful of images in the volume originate from the Qing period. The quality of the reproduction leaves something to be desired.
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  337. Journals
  338.  
  339. No journal is dedicated exclusively to this period. In English, Late Imperial China and Modern China regularly publish articles on the last decades of the Qing, whereas Twentieth-Century China, the Journal of Asian Studies, and Modern Asian Studies also occasionally include articles of interest. All are refereed journals.
  340.  
  341. Journal of Asian Studies.
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  343. Published quarterly. Initially published as Far Eastern Quarterly (1941–1955); assumed the current title in 1956. Covers East Asia, North Asia, Southeast Asia, and South Asia, in all academic fields. Articles selected for publication are generally highly regarded, but only a small proportion pertain to China, 1860–1912. The book review section in each issue contains a section on China.
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  345. Late Imperial China.
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  347. Published twice a year since 1985 in Baltimore by the Johns Hopkins University Press and the Society for Qing Studies. Known previously as Ch’ing shih wen-t’i, it was published irregularly from 1965 to 1985.
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  349. Modern Asian Studies.
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  351. Founded in 1967 as a quarterly; bimonthly since 2007. Coverage is similar to the Journal of Asian Studies except that it is restricted to the modern era.
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  353. Modern China: An International Quarterly of History and Social Science.
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  355. Published by SAGE since 1975.
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  357. Twentieth-Century China.
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  359. Published twice a year (April and November). Founded as Republican China in 1983 and changed to its current name in 1997 to reflect its broadening scope. It publishes articles in social science and humanities disciplines, covering the late Qing onward.
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  361. The First Sino-Foreign Wars (the Opium Wars)
  362.  
  363. The first two wars fought against Western powers in 1839–1842 and 1856–1860 are a watershed in China’s modern history. Conventional analysis tends to look at the First Opium War in terms of the evils of opium smoking, the drain of silver by the opium trade, and the handling of the diplomatic crisis brought about by the opium question in particular and the differences between the Chinese and Westerners over larger diplomatic, commercial, and legal matters (Chang 1964, Fay 1975). More-recent historical works, since the late 20th century, take into fuller consideration the wider contexts of the conflict, suggesting that the Chinese concerns were part of a larger reform initiative that went back to at least the beginning of the 19th century (Polachek 1992). Mao 1995, on the other hand, turns the table on conventional wisdom and asks whether appeasement is necessarily traitorous and whether dogged resistance is patriotic in a war that China was doomed to lose at the outset. Steering away from questions of right and wrong, Polachek 1992 draws attention to intrabureaucratic politics and even Han-Manchu competition for power as determinants of Chinese policies. The Opium War put a great deal of stress on the fabric of society in South China, unleashing forces that troubled the empire in years to come (Wakeman 1997, originally published in 1966). The role of opium in bringing about the Second Opium War is rather indirect and is a subject of debate (Wong 1998). Still, together, these two foreign wars resulted in a set of treaties that laid the foundations of China’s international relations for the next century.
  364.  
  365. Chang, Hsin-pao. Commissioner Lin and the Opium War. Harvard East Asian Monograph 18. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1964.
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  367. Provides the most comprehensive analysis of the First Opium War, though it should be read in conjunction with Polachek 1992.
  368. Find this resource:
  369. Fay, Peter Ward. The Opium War, 1840–1842: Barbarians in the Celestial Empire in the Early Part of the Nineteenth Century and the War by Which They Forced Her Gates Ajar. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1975.
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  371. Gripping, play-by-play narrative based on Western sources and materials available in Western languages, from the Chinese side.
  372. Find this resource:
  373. Mao Haijian 茅海建. Tianchao de benghui: Yapian zhanzheng zai yanjiu (天朝的崩潰鸦片战争再研究). Beijing: Sanlian shudian, 1995.
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  375. Revisionist study of the Opium War. It questions accepted assumptions among Chinese historians as to the meaning of appeasement, traitorous behavior, and patriotic resistance in the context of a war in which China was destined to lose. The revised understanding then leads to a new interpretation of why China was slow in responding to the defeat of the Opium War.
  376. Find this resource:
  377. Polachek, James M. The Inner Opium War. Harvard East Asian Monograph 151. Cambridge, MA: Council on East Asian Studies, Harvard University, 1992.
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  379. The author studies literati networks and poetry clubs (disguised factions), by way of tackling the questions why the Qing government was unable to generate consistent or effective diplomatic/strategic policies, and why the Chinese were slow to respond to the challenges of the West. Questions many assumptions about Chinese politics and policies in the 1835–1850 period.
  380. Find this resource:
  381. Wakeman, Frederic E., Jr. Strangers at the Gate: Social Disorder in South China, 1839–1861. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1997.
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  383. Originally published in 1966. Analyzes sociopolitical dislocations brought by the First Opium War: Chinese officials as well as the British were held responsible for social disorder and popular anger, mobilized by gentry leadership. This set the tone for Cantonese antiforeignism and anti-Manchuism for decades to come.
  384. Find this resource:
  385. Wong, J. Y. Deadly Dreams: Opium, Imperialism, and the “Arrow” War (1856–1860) in China. Cambridge Studies in Chinese History, Literature and Institutions. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 1998.
  386. DOI: 10.1017/CBO9780511572807Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  387. The focus is on the causes of the war. The author concludes that Britain’s concern for trade (largely opium) and the financial problems in India were central to understanding why the war broke out. Tends to downplay Chinese resistance to foreign inroads.
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  389. Secret Societies and Midcentury Popular Uprisings
  390.  
  391. Secret societies are endemic in modern Chinese society. They originated either in the 17th or the 18th century, depending on one’s belief in their origins, whether as an anti-Manchu movement, as is proposed in Luo 1943, or as a mutual aid society. Scholars also distinguish between those that are religious and those that are secular. But the distinction tends to blur in real life, as does the one between legitimate and illegal activities (smuggling, prostitution, extortion, and the like). In the 1840–1912 period, the activities of secret societies tended to manifest an anti-Qing sentiment, culminating in the various movements that contributed to the toppling of the Manchu dynasty, though some popular movements may not have had a secret-society component. While a number of monographs touch on the activities of secret societies in the late Qing, Chesneaux 1972 is the only general history in English (translated from the French) of these organizations for the period. Davis 1994 (originally published in 1971) is more focused and stresses the antigovernment leanings of the secret societies. More recent studies on Chinese secret societies question the premises of the three authors mentioned here, but they are based on studies either outside our period or among Chinese overseas. Popular uprisings occurred on an increasing scale in the 1840s, reaching a peak in the following decades. No part of the empire that was of any significance was spared. The uprisings ranged from those that had distinct dynastic pretensions, such as the Taipings, to those that were more regional and particularistic, such as the Muslim uprisings. The uprisings took advantage of a dynasty and a political order that was already in decline, and they further weakened the Qing imperial hold on the country. Both the uprisings and their suppression brought about a huge loss of lives, demographic dislocations, and physical devastations, the scars from which were still evident in the early decades of the 20th century, even as the dynasty survived until 1912. Chesneaux 1973, Feuerwerker 1993, and Jones and Kuhn 1978 deal with all the major uprisings collectively and comprehensively. Works related to the largest of the uprisings are presented in the subsections.
  392.  
  393. Chesneaux, Jean. Peasant Revolts in China, 1840–1949. Translated by C. A. Curwen. London: Thames & Hudson, 1973.
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  395. About two-thirds of the book deals with the rebellions of the late Qing, emphasizing the uprisings as peasant movements.
  396. Find this resource:
  397. Chesneaux, Jean, ed. Popular Movements and Secret Societies in China, 1840–1950. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 1972.
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  399. Chesneaux, a Marxist scholar, emphasizes the popular nature of the secret societies—a form and means for protest against the established order, for resistance against foreign penetration, and for a source of support for the Republican revolution. Succinct and readable for undergraduates. Translated from the French, Les sociétés secrètes en Chine, XIXe et XXe siècles (Paris: Julliard, 1965).
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  401. Davis, Fei-ling. Primitive Revolutionaries of China: A Study of Secret Societies of the Late Nineteenth Century. Ann Arbor, MI: UMI, 1994.
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  403. Originally published in 1971 (London: Routledge & Kegan Paul). A study of the Hung League (Hongmen or Triad Society) and its organization, rituals, ideology, and activities in the 1840–1912 period. Formed in response to political instability and official venality, secret societies embraced mutual aid and antigovernment objectives. They tended to side with rebels and were in some manner linked to Sun Yat-sen’s Republican revolution. These “primitive” revolutionaries drifted back to less exalted pursuits after 1911.
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  405. Feuerwerker, Albert. Rebellion in Nineteenth-Century China. Michigan Monographs in Chinese Studies 21. Ann Arbor: Center for Chinese Studies, University of Michigan, 1993.
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  407. Originally published in 1975. A preliminary exploration about the character of these rebellions, arguing for a more “complex” view than that presented in Chesneaux 1973. A single page of suggested readings plus the absence of footnotes limit the usefulness of this essay.
  408. Find this resource:
  409. Jones, Susan Mann, and Philip A. Kuhn. “Dynastic Decline and the Roots of Rebellion.” In The Cambridge History of China. Vol. 10, Late Ch’ing, 1800–1911, Part I. Edited by John K. Fairbank, 107–162. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 1978.
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  411. The authors take a broad and yet nuanced perspective on Qing dynastic decline and social upheaval, reminding us of the fact that the eventual revolutionary transformation of the country in 1911 took place in a national context—China did not fall apart.
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  413. Luo Ergang 羅爾綱. Tiandihui wenxianlu (天地會文献錄). Shanghai: Zhengzhong shuju, 1943.
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  415. A major theme of Luo’s work on the Heaven and Earth Society is to underscore the Ming loyalist cause of the secret societies. This lends support to Sun Yat-sen’s view that they were nationalistic (i.e., anti-Manchu).
  416. Find this resource:
  417. The Taiping Rebellion, 1851–1864
  418.  
  419. There is no shortage of opinions about this massive uprising; the war of its suppression constituted arguably the largest civil war in world history. Its anti-Manchu objectives suggest a form of early Chinese nationalism, its Christian-inspired ideology split the missionary as well as the larger Western community, its egalitarian social programs are grist for the mill for socialist and Marxist historians, and its organizational structure is reminiscent of totalitarian rule (Michael 1966–1971). Modern historians are also divided over whether it is a rebellion or a revolution (Jen 1973), or whether it was a peasant movement (Chesneaux 1973, cited under Secret Societies and Midcentury Popular Uprisings). The fact that the Taiping movement lasted some fourteen years, and that it underwent various phases, may well lend weight to one or more of these interpretations at a given point. Spence 1997 focuses on the leader Hong, using new materials to shed light on his mindset. The legacies of the Taiping war are as complex as they are massive. Kuhn 1980 studies the organization of the anti-Taiping forces, resulting in new power structures at local and provincial levels. We list only several general histories of the movement here. Exploration of its complexities can be obtained via the bibliographies of these works, as well as in Skinner 1973 and the Bibliography of Asian Studies (both cited under Secondary Sources).
  420.  
  421. Jen Yuwen (Jian Youwen 簡又文). The Taiping Revolutionary Movement. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1973.
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  423. Jen, a Christian, a nationalist, and a Western-trained scholar, spent much of his life studying the Taipings. Jen’s sympathetic view—in the minority—is an important corrective to a generally and perhaps inexplicably hostile interpretation of the movement. A fuller version is the three-volume Taiping Tianguo Quanshi (太平天國全史) (Hong Kong: Jicheng tushu gongsi, 1962).
  424. Find this resource:
  425. Kuhn, Philip A. Rebellion and Its Enemies in Late Imperial China: Militarization and Social Structure, 1796–1864. Harvard East Asian Monograph 49. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1980.
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  427. Originally published in 1970. The decline of the Qing regular armies in the face of the Taiping threat had led to the adaptation of an earlier form of military organization: the tuanlian 團練 (local or provincial militia), under gentry leadership but with imperial recognition. The long-term effect of this local militarization is a major legacy of the Taiping war.
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  429. Michael, Franz H. The Taiping Rebellion: History and Documents. 3 vols. University of Washington Publications on Asia. Seattle: University of Washington Press, 1966–1971.
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  431. Volume 1 constitutes a history of the Taipings. Argues in part that the movement failed to gain peasant support because of its totalitarian nature and the fanaticism of its leaders. The remaining volumes contain translations of some four hundred Taiping documents (most useful for the serious student), though the authenticity of a handful has been called into question. No material on the Qing side has been included.
  432. Find this resource:
  433. Spence, Jonathan D. God’s Chinese Son: The Taiping Heavenly Kingdom of Hong Xiuquan. New York: W. W. Norton, 1997.
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  435. A gripping narrative of the revolutionary career of Hong Xiuquan. The author’s probe into the mind of the millenarian leader is based largely on newly discovered texts in the British Museum (now British Library). A great read for students and scholars alike.
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  437. The Nian Uprising, 1851–1868
  438.  
  439. The Nians arose from a poor region in North China famous for its perennial rebelliousness. Historians disagree as to how well organized these rebels were, or whether they had a social or political agenda. Teng 1984 proposes that these rebels were more organized than previously thought and had contacts with the Taipings from an early date, suggesting a level of political ambition. The description in Liu 1978 shows positive collaboration between the two at some later stage but gives the impression that they did so because both were cornered by the Qing forces into the same region. In any case, the collaboration, such as it was, did not amount to much. The Nians wreaked havoc in North China because of their mobility and cavalry. Perry 1980, asking different questions, comes to the opinion that the Nians, as predators, turned rebellious because of the environment and government negligence. However, all three agree that official venality was a cause for the Nian Uprising.
  440.  
  441. Liu, Kwang-ching. “The Ch’ing Restoration.” In The Cambridge History of China. Vol. 10, Late Ch’ing, 1800–1911, Part 1. Edited by John K. Fairbank, 409–490. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 1978.
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  443. Under this unlikely title is embedded the best, succinct treatment of the Nian Uprising that can be found anywhere (pp. 456–477). According to Liu, the Nians were champions of justice and philanthropy. There was no central leadership, and organization within each band was simple. Their roving strategy and increasing use of cavalry posed serious problems for the Qing.
  444. Find this resource:
  445. Perry, Elizabeth J. Rebels and Revolutionaries in North China, 1845–1945. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 1980.
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  447. Huaibei, home of the Nians, was a poor region, which was exacerbated by the neglect of water-control works. In this ecosystem peasants adopted either one of two survival strategies: predatory (smuggling, banditry) or protective. The Nians rebelled in the 1850s because of increased government pressure and Taiping influence. Perry studies the Nian to answer a large question about Huaibei peasant response to the Communist revolution in the 1930s and 1940s.
  448. Find this resource:
  449. Teng, S. Y. The Nien Army and Their Guerrilla Warfare, 1851–1868. Westport, CT: Greenwood, 1984.
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  451. A comprehensive study by a modern historian, using materials published in China. Emphasizes the guerrilla warfare of the Nian and, unlike earlier studies, establishes Nian contacts with the Taipings at an earlier date (1853), as well as portraying the Nian as a more organized movement than hitherto believed. Originally published in 1961.
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  453. The Muslim Uprisings, 1855–1877
  454.  
  455. There were two separate Muslim uprisings. The one posing the greater threat to China’s national security took place in the Northwest, a region inhabited by Sino-Muslims as well as Turkic Muslims. Both, in different ways, were subjected to discrimination by the Qing government. The volatility of the region was exacerbated by the introduction of new sects that urged political and social activism, and they competed with each other for followers. Local incidents flared up and contributed to the so-called “Great Muslim Rebellion,” a misnomer because there was really no central leadership or organization (Kim 2004). Following the suppression of the Nians in 1868, the Qing was in a position to send forces to effect its suppression, but not before thousands of Muslims were killed and thousands more were exiled (Zhu 1966). The Russians, taking advantage of the chaos, seized the Yili region; the subsequent dispute over its return led to the Yili (Ili) Crisis (Hsü 1965, cited under Foreign Relations and Wars since 1860). The other Muslim uprising, known in Western literature as the “Panthay Rebellion,” took place in Yunnan, 1856–1873. The forefathers of these Muslims had migrated to this area five centuries earlier, and yet they were still ill treated by the Han commoners and the Qing government alike (Wang 1968). There is as yet no full-length study on this uprising in English. These uprisings underscore the often-overlooked features of the Qing as a multiethnic state with all the attendant problems of religious tolerance, ethnic equality, and cultural diversity, problems that the post-1912 governments have inherited.
  456.  
  457. Kim, Hodong. Holy War in China: The Muslim Rebellion and State in Chinese Central Asia, 1864–1877. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 2004.
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  459. To successfully study this uprising in the context of the Qing state and the complex international setting of Inner Asia, the author needed to use sources in many languages. This he accomplished admirably. The rising nationalist sentiments among the peoples of this region were matched by increasing Qing desire to assert its political and cultural influence there, setting the stage for ethnic difficulties ever since.
  460. Find this resource:
  461. Wang Shuhuai 王樹槐. Xian-Tong Yunnan Huimin shibian (咸同雲南回民事變). Zhongyang yanjiuyuan, Jindaishi yanjiusuo zhuankan 23. Taibei: Zhongyang yanjiuyuan, jindaishi yanjiusuo, 1968.
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  463. A straightforward, detailed account of the Muslim uprising in Yunnan. Besides long-term and immediate causes, this work examines the character of leadership, rebel organization, and Qing suppression. The unsuccessful attempt to seek British support is also briefly described.
  464. Find this resource:
  465. Zhu, Wenzhang (Chu Wen-djang). The Moslem Rebellion in Northwest China, 1862–1878: A Study of Government Minority Policy. Central Asiatic Studies 5. The Hague: Mouton, 1966.
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  467. A study of the uprising, from the perspective of Qing government policy.
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  469. International Relations
  470.  
  471. This general area is treated under different subheadings for convenience. There is a fair amount of overlap among some topics, and yet each has its distinct concerns. In Foreign Relations and Wars since 1860, the focus is on diplomacy and diplomatic practices, including the breakdown of relations, the result of which is war. A characteristic of the history of modern China is that its Foreign Trade and the development of the Treaty Ports cannot be separated from the treaties, usually signed at the conclusion of a lost war or international incident. The activities of three human groups, among others, were also closely tied to China’s international relations: Missionary Activities and Antimissionary Incidents and Chinese Out-Migration, the Coolie Trade, and, under its own section, the Commercial Community.
  472.  
  473. Foreign Relations and Wars since 1860
  474.  
  475. Among the works that purport to discuss China’s international relations comprehensively, Morse 1910–1918 would serve well as a point of departure. Bilateral relations are ably studied in Hunt 1983 for Chinese-American relations, and in Quested 1984 for Sino-Russian relations. Both Morse 1910–1918 and Fairbank 1964 begin with the “tribute system,” the traditional framework the Chinese adopted to handle their relations with other peoples. This system, based on a hierarchical relationship, conflicted with the Western insistence on diplomatic equality. The successive treaties signed after the Opium War demolished, in a few decades, the system that had taken the Chinese over two millennia to develop (Hsü 1960). Chinese bitterness is expressed by the term “Unequal Treaties,” which has run through their thinking ever since (Wang 2005). None of the works address upfront the issue of imperialism, for which one has to turn to Qingdai quanshi, cited under General Overviews, and some of the works under Foreign Trade and Treaty Ports. The impact of imperialism, however, could be inferred from Fairbank 1978. The Opium Wars have been fairly well studied (Chang 1964, Polachek 1992, and Wong 1998, all cited under the First Sino-Foreign Wars [the Opium Wars]]), but, other than the Sino-French War (Eastman 1967) and the Boxer Uprising (Esherick 1987 and Cohen 1997, both cited under the Boxer Uprising, 1898–1900), foreign wars since 1860 have not received scholarly attention, though there is a study of the Sino-Japanese War based on English sources only. The Chinese nearly went to war with the Russians over the Yili region, which the Russians seized from China when it was plagued by rebellions. Hard negotiations eventually won back most of the disputed territories (Hsü 1965). This Chinese qualified success has been used to illustrate how much better they fared when dealing with a land empire.
  476.  
  477. Eastman, Lloyd E. Throne and Mandarins: China’s Search for a Policy during the Sino-French Controversy, 1880–1885. Harvard Historical Studies 79. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1967.
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  479. A lucid account of this undeclared conflict. Provides valuable analysis of decision-making processes in China in a time of crisis. Between high-ranking officials such as Li Hongzhang (responsible for defense) and a bunch of noisy junior officials (ideologues who opposed negotiation) stood the throne. Needing the service of the former but wishing to check their power, the Empress-Dowager Cixi relied on the ideological voice of the latter.
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  481. Fairbank, John K. Trade and Diplomacy on the China Coast: The Opening of the Treaty Ports, 1842–1854. Harvard Historical Studies 62–63. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1964.
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  483. A well-documented and detailed account of the subject. Topics include the new system of international relations and its application under the unequal treaties, trade, tariff, etc. The work is a mine of information and insights. A path-breaking study in its time, though some may disagree with the “China’s response to the West” perspective, which it represents.
  484. Find this resource:
  485. Fairbank, John K. “The Creation of the Treaty System.” In The Cambridge History of China. Vol. 10, Late Ch’ing, 1800–1911, Part 1. Edited by John K. Fairbank, 213–263. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 1978.
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  487. A handy introduction to the subject, with a focus on the application of the treaties in the treaty ports up to the 1860s.
  488. Find this resource:
  489. Hsü, Immanuel C. Y. China’s Entrance into the Family of Nations: The Diplomatic Phase, 1858–1880. Harvard East Asian Series 5. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1960.
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  491. A standard reference on the subject of diplomatic exchange—establishment of foreign diplomatic representation in China and Chinese diplomatic representation abroad—the mechanism by which China became a member of the international community, leaving the tribute system behind.
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  493. Hsü, Immanuel C. Y. The Ili Crisis: A Study of Sino-Russian Diplomacy, 1871–1881. Oxford: Clarendon, 1965.
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  495. A rare diplomatic victory for the Qing! The Chinese and the Russians were on the verge of war over the disputed territory in the Yili Valley and the Treaty of Livadia, which Beijing refused to accept. Appointment of a capable negotiator, persistence, and brinkmanship won back much but not all of the disputed region.
  496. Find this resource:
  497. Hunt, Michael H. The Making of a Special Relationship: The United States and China to 1914. New York: Columbia University Press, 1983.
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  499. Examines US-China relations prior to 1914. Conventional wisdom emphasizes American good works and goodwill, which engendered Chinese gratitude. This perspective sidelines anti-Chinese and exclusion legislations on the US side and anti-American and antimissionary movements on the Chinese side. Still, the myth of a special relationship dominated American thinking through the Cold War era. Hunt provides a corrective.
  500. Find this resource:
  501. Morse, Hosea Ballou. The International Relations of the Chinese Empire. 3 vols. London and New York: Longmans, Green, 1910–1918.
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  503. By far the most comprehensive treatment of the subject from 1834 to 1911. Based on Western-language sources, though it consults some Chinese materials available in translation at the time. Tends to view China’s decline in terms of Chinese personal and institutional failures, and to overlook economic forces and the nature of imperialism. Readers should consult works on topics that have been the subject of more-recent scholarship.
  504. Find this resource:
  505. Quested, Rosemary K. I. Sino-Russian Relations: A Short History. Sydney, Australia: Allen & Unwin, 1984.
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  507. Short, general survey of the history from the 17th to the 20th centuries.
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  509. Wang, Dong. China’s Unequal Treaties, Narrating National History. AsiaWorld. Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield, 2005.
  510. DOI: 10.4324/9780203352779Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  511. This book examines the Chinese narrative of their nation’s encounter with the foreign powers. Though the term “unequal treaties” was not coined until the 1920s, expressions of this notion were current in late Qing: “treaties of inequality” (bupingdeng zhi tiaoyue 不平等之條約) or the need to defend China’s rights and sovereignty. Chapter 1 deals with the Qing era.
  512. Find this resource:
  513. Foreign Trade
  514.  
  515. China started as the biggest producer and exporter of tea and silk but eventually lost its dominance, first in tea, then in silk. The reasons are many and complex, but at the risk of oversimplification, Gardella 1994 finds that the British promotion of plantation tea production in South Asia was a major reason, while Li 1981 sees the lack of orchestration in production and trade either by the Chinese government or civic agency as key. May and Fairbank 1986 also examines American export to China, as well as commercial firms in China. Just how important international commerce was in affecting China’s economy or inhibiting the Chinese commercial efforts remains a nagging question. Liu 1964 and Lai 1992 (both cited under the Commercial Community), which use the same Chinese enterprise as an example, show that Chinese merchants were quite capable of embracing modern business methods and successfully competed with foreign firms; their eventual failure was chalked up to government mismanagement. In a sense, Hao 1986, as well as Liu 1964 and Lai 1992, by pointing out the innovativeness of the Chinese merchants and their eventual failure, inevitably directs one’s attention to a tricky question, which the authors leave open: the baneful effects of imperialism. It is up to the followers of the dependency and of the world-systems theorists to tackle this uncomfortable proposition (Moulder 1977). However, many, such as the authors of Remer 1926 and Murphey 1970 (the latter cited under Treaty Ports), stress that China’s international trade was small in global terms. Rather, the impact is largely political, legal, and psychological. Wright 1950 shows how the promotion and growth of foreign trade resulted in a customs service that performed function far beyond what its name suggests. Much more research needs to be conducted using newly accessible archival materials in China, so that a more rounded picture may be obtained.
  516.  
  517. Gardella, Robert Paul. Harvesting Mountains: Fujian and the China Tea Trade, 1757–1937. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1994.
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  519. Building on an already high level of commercialization, the Fujian tea industry and trade enjoyed a boom from 1842 to 1888. Its treaty ports—Amoy (Xiamen) and Fuzhou—became major outlets for tea export. Fuzhou tea brokers soon replaced compradors, native banks financed the trade, and Chinese warehousing firms appeared. The boom ended as British colonial tea plantations in South Asia captured the market.
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  521. Hao, Yen-p’ing. The Commercial Revolution in Nineteenth-Century China: The Rise of Sino-Western Mercantile Capitalism. Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press, 1986.
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  523. A major study of the trade from the 1820s to the 1880s, including examination of the forms of money and credit used or introduced. Hao argues that the innovations in the trade amounted to a “commercial revolution,” a conclusion that should bear closer examination. By contrast, scholars influenced by dependency and world-systems theories tend to point out how imperialism harmed Chinese entrepreneurs (see Moulder 1977).
  524. Find this resource:
  525. Li, Lillian M. China’s Silk Trade: Traditional Industry in the Modern World, 1842–1937. Harvard East Asian Monograph 97. Cambridge, MA: Council on East Asian Studies, Harvard University, 1981.
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  527. This volume ably analyzes the processes in silk production, which compare favorably with agricultural output elsewhere in the world. It attributes the declining competitiveness in the 20th century to institutional shortcomings: lack of central leadership and coordination in disease and quality control.
  528. Find this resource:
  529. May, Ernest R., and John K. Fairbank, eds. America’s China Trade in Historical Perspective: The Chinese and American Performance. Harvard Studies in American–East Asian Relations 11. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1986.
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  531. Anthology of studies on Chinese export trades, American exports, and commercial and manufacturing firms in China. Examines the overall impact of foreign trade on China, and how, in the case of tea and silk (chapters by Robert Gardella and Lillian Li, respectively), China lost its foreign markets.
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  533. Moulder, Frances V. Japan, China and the Modern World Economy: Toward a Reinterpretation of East Asian Development ca. 1600 to ca. 1918. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 1977.
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  535. Using the approach of world-systems theory, Moulder argues that China’s path to modernization was slower than Japan’s because China bore the brunt of Western economic inroads. Simply put, China was more intensely incorporated into the world system than Japan was. Hao 1986, by contrast, points to the beneficial effects of commerce, in which Chinese and Western merchants competed unencumbered.
  536. Find this resource:
  537. Remer, C. F. The Foreign Trade of China. Shanghai: Commercial Press, 1926.
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  539. Still the only general survey of the topic up to 1921, though mainly from 1870, when the Suez Canal and the arrival of the telegraph changed the character of the trade. The author points out that the trade remained small and that its significance lies in its political and legal influence. Could be read with benefit in conjunction with more recent scholarly works. Republished as recently as 1972.
  540. Find this resource:
  541. Wright, Stanley F. Hart and the Chinese Customs. Belfast: William Mullan & Son, 1950.
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  543. Robert Hart was the inspector general of the Chinese Customs Service from 1863 to 1908. The Customs Service more than just administered the tariffs on import-export trade, it also managed harbor and navigational facilities and worked on behalf of the Chinese government in various defense and modernization enterprises. Hart’s career brings into focus the nature of the service performed by a foreigner in the employ of the Chinese government.
  544. Find this resource:
  545. Treaty Ports
  546.  
  547. Treaty ports are of interest because they were outposts of Western and, later, Japanese economic activities and culture. They were symbols simultaneously of imperialism and of the modernity of the West. Once the most-modern cities in China, they set the pace and pointed to the future. To some, that future might represent moral decadence, but for most, they were the harbinger of change, even revolutionary change, spurred on by a vibrant press, among others (Bergère 2009). Murphey 1970 considers the size of their foreign community and their enterprises too small to have much impact one way or another in China’s overall economy. Fairbank 1964, despite its title, contains much information on the first five treaty ports. Subsequent studies of treaty ports tend to focus almost exclusively on Shanghai, even though Shanghai was quite exceptional. In urban studies for the period 1840–1912, however, there has been some notable, exemplary work on Hankou (Rowe 1984, cited under the Commercial Community, and Rowe 1989, cited under Civil Society and the Public Sphere) and Chengdu (Stapleton 2000, cited under the Spectrum of Social and Political Changes before the 1911 Revolution). But this trend has not yet been reflected in treaty port studies. Nonetheless, we do have Yeh 2007, a fascinating study of Shanghai culture especially among commercial circles, and Wagner 1995, on the development of a public sphere in treaty ports, particularly in Shanghai.
  548.  
  549. Bergère, Marie-Claire. Shanghai: China’s Gateway to Modernity. Translated by Janet Lloyd. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 2009.
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  551. Translated from the French, Histoire de Shanghai (Paris: Fayard, 2002). Bergère asks why and how Shanghai so quickly overtook well-established urban centers such as nearby Suzhou even before 1912. She attributes Shanghai’s commercial prosperity to the Western presence but pays due credit to the dynamism of Chinese entrepreneurs. Provides a comprehensive overview of Shanghai, though emphasis is on the post-Qing era.
  552. Find this resource:
  553. Fairbank, John K. Trade and Diplomacy on the China Coast. Harvard Historical Studies 62–63. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1964.
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  555. To the extent that treaty ports were places where trade was conducted; merchants operated; customs collected; Chinese and Westerners interacted; missionaries preached, taught, and practiced medicine; and diplomacy exchanged, this book, despite its title, contains much about the first twenty years of treaty port development.
  556. Find this resource:
  557. Murphey, Rhoads. The Treaty Ports and China’s Modernization: What Went Wrong? Michigan Papers in Chinese Studies 7. Ann Arbor: Center for Chinese Studies, University of Michigan, 1970.
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  559. In this short but seminal study, Murphey argues that the impact of the treaty ports was more political and psychological than economic. Though treaty ports were vibrant commercially and, in some cases, industrial centers, their backward linkage with the rest of China was limited.
  560. Find this resource:
  561. Wagner, Rudolf G. “The Role of the Foreign Community in the Chinese Public Sphere.” China Quarterly 142 (June 1995): 423–443.
  562. DOI: 10.1017/S0305741000034998Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  563. Argues that the Shanghai International Settlement (and even smaller ones in other treaty ports) was a Western-dominated enclave in which Chinese denizens enjoyed the benefits of a public sphere. Scholarship on the development of the public sphere has shown that, in some countries, internal forces were central; Wagner believes international influences were the driving wedge in the case of China. Available online for purchase or by subscription.
  564. Find this resource:
  565. Yeh, Wen-hsin. Shanghai Splendor: Economic Sentiments and the Making of Modern China, 1843–1949. Berkeley: University of California Press, 2007.
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  567. A fascinating study of Shanghai’s culture, especially as it pertained to the commercial circles. Only a few cases are drawn from the Qing period, however.
  568. Find this resource:
  569. Missionary Activities and Antimissionary Incidents
  570.  
  571. The American (1843) and the French (1844) treaties permitted missionary work in treaty ports. The Beijing Convention (1860) extended the privilege throughout the empire and provided for the right to acquire properties and to use them for purposes that would further their goals (schools, hospitals, and orphanages, as well as churches). Like all foreigners, missionaries enjoyed extraterritorial rights. The number of missionaries grew rapidly from the 1860s, and again after 1900, following the Boxer Uprising. Missionary work contributed to and inspired various reform and modernization efforts in China—to wit, the introduction of Western medicine, schools for girls, higher education (Lutz 1971, cited under Education), the anti-foot-binding movement, and the like (Lodwick 1996). Missionary activities challenged Chinese traditional beliefs, social mores, and the leadership role of the gentry, not to mention the authority of the officials (Cohen 1963). Antimissionary riots flared up from time to time after 1860, culminating in the riots along the Yangzi in the 1890s and the Boxer Uprising of 1898–1900. Historians disagree as to the nature of these anti-Christian activities (Li 1958, Lü 1966). Yet, missionaries were not immune to the influence of China and its civilization, leading to shifts in missionary objectives and methods (such as the promotion of secular education that accommodated Chinese values) (Barnett and Fairbank 1985, Girardot 2002). In recent decades there has been a shift in scholarly attention from missionary-centered history to an emphasis on Chinese Christians and Christianity, a shift that is ably represented by the work of Daniel Bays (Bays 2012) and by many of the contributors to Bays 1996.
  572.  
  573. Barnett, Suzanne Wilson, and John King Fairbank, eds. Christianity in China: Early Protestant Missionary Writings. Harvard Studies in American–East Asian Relations 9. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1985.
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  575. Essays exploring the work of what the editors call the “most significant actors” in Sino-Western relations in the 19th century. Many of the pieces here underscore explicitly, perhaps for the first time, how these Western agents of change were themselves influenced and affected by the Chinese and China’s civilization, a theme also present in Girardot 2002.
  576. Find this resource:
  577. Bays, Daniel H. A New History of Christianity in China. Blackwell Guides to Global Christianity. Malden, MA: Wiley-Blackwell, 2012.
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  579. Sees the late Qing period as one in which the seeds were sown for the eventual development of a Chinese indigenous faith. The volume argues that the real meaning of the missionary movement in late Imperial China can be seen only in the long history of Christianity in China. This volume synthesizes the fruits of more-specialized studies in Bays 1996.
  580. Find this resource:
  581. Bays, Daniel H., ed. Christianity in China: From the Eighteenth Century to the Present. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 1996.
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  583. The book’s twenty chapters are divided into four sections. Section 1—on the role of Christianity in Qing society—is the most pertinent. Chapters in other sections (Christianity and ethnicity, Christianity and women, and rise of indigenous Chinese Christianity) also touch upon the late Qing period. The volume avoids the traditional focus on missionary work and conflicts arising from the presence of foreign missionaries.
  584. Find this resource:
  585. Cohen, Paul A. China and Christianity: The Missionary Movement and the Growth of Chinese Antiforeignism, 1860–1870. Harvard East Asian Series 11. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1963.
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  587. Analyzes the anti-Christian tradition in China, the tendency to treat Christian beliefs as heterodox, and the leading role of the gentry in opposing Christianity. Reprinted as recently as 1977.
  588. Find this resource:
  589. Girardot, Norman J. The Victorian Translation of China: James Legge’s Oriental Pilgrimage. Berkeley: University of California Press, 2002.
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  591. An exhaustive study and a reappraisal of Legge as translator of the Chinese classics and as the pioneer of Chinese studies in Britain and of the study of Chinese religions in the West.
  592. Find this resource:
  593. Li Shiyue 李时岳. “Jiawu zhanzheng qian sanshinian jian fan yangjiao yundong” (甲午战争前三十年间反洋教运动). Lishi yanjiu (历史研究) 6.5 (1958): 1–15.
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  595. Thesis: as missionary activities expanded after 1860, antimissionary incidents became more frequent and large scale, just as leadership passed on from the scholar-gentry elite to the common folk.
  596. Find this resource:
  597. Lodwick, Kathleen L. Crusaders against Opium: Protestant Missionaries in China, 1874–1917. Lexington: University Press of Kentucky, 1996.
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  599. A study on an important but much-neglected topic. Future research needs also to answer questions such as why the missionaries did not take up this issue sooner, and what the Chinese themselves were doing about the problem, either officially or among the public, and with or without collaborating with the missionaries.
  600. Find this resource:
  601. Lü Shih-ch’iang 呂實強. Zhongguo guanshen fanjiao de yuanyin (中國官紳反教的原因). Zhongyang yanjiu jindaishi yanjiusuo zhuankan 16. Taibei: Zhongyang yanjiu jindaishi yanjiusuo, 1966.
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  603. Though in general agreement with Cohen 1963, Lü does not regard Chinese perception of “Christianity as heterodoxy” a main source of missionary-Chinese conflicts. Rather, Chinese misunderstanding of Christian rites and social customs, and the victimization of converts by abusive officials and gentry, were major sources of disputes.
  604. Find this resource:
  605. Chinese Out-Migration, the Coolie Trade
  606.  
  607. The out-migration of the Chinese to other parts of the world, as opposed to internal migration or colonization, experienced a surge in the middle of the 19th century. Drawn by the discovery of gold, first in North America and later in Australia, Chinese laborers migrated in droves. As the gold rush began to wane, railway building provided new opportunities, though the laborers quickly became the object of discrimination. Others were shipped to Central and South America to work as indentured laborers under horrible conditions (Irick 1982). Still others went to destinations in Southeast Asia, following the path blazed by earlier migrants, but many ended in rubber plantations, tin mines, and the like. Kuhn 2008 provides an admirably succinct narrative of the stories of these migrants. Chinese who had settled in Southeast Asia as merchants were more able to integrate themselves into the native population, and some played active roles as community and political leaders (Wang 1991).
  608.  
  609. Irick, Robert Lee. Ch’ing Policy toward the Coolie Trade, 1847–1878. Asian Library 18. Taipei: Chinese Materials Center, 1982.
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  611. Discusses the evolution of Qing government attitude and policy toward the coolie trade as the practice of foul play in recruitment and inhumane conditions in transportation caused unwarranted hardship and loss of lives. Official corruption compounded the problem. The trade, operated from Hong Kong, Macau, and some southern treaty ports, also added complications to attempts to regulate the trade.
  612. Find this resource:
  613. Kuhn, Philip A. Chinese among Others: Emigration in Modern Times. State and Society in East Asia. Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield, 2008.
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  615. Clear, easy to read. Places Chinese emigration from the mid-19th century in a global context. It sees Chinese out-migration as a product both of internal conditions in China and the international environment transformed by Western expansion, creating two destinations for global migrations: the underpopulated temperate regions for Europeans and the tropical regions for Asians (mainly Chinese) engaged in plantation agriculture and other labor-intensive occupations. Life of Chinese laborers is studied.
  616. Find this resource:
  617. Wang, Gungwu. China and the Chinese Overseas. Singapore: Times Academic Press, 1991.
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  619. A collection of essays, some published in the 1970s but most in the 1980s, on topics that offer insights on subjects not always dealt with in Kuhn 2008. These include patterns of migration, historiography, merchant communities, participation in politics, and so forth.
  620. Find this resource:
  621. Reforms, the Qing Restoration, and Self-Strengthening, 1840–1894
  622.  
  623. Various reform efforts had been underway during the Jiaqing (1796–1820) and Daoguang (1821–1850) reigns, but reform became more urgent from 1860 onward, following the defeat in the Second Opium War and when the imperial troops suffered a serious reverse in the Taiping war. In reality, efforts at restoring the old order had begun locally even in the late 1850s, whenever the Qing forces had regained control of territories from the Taipings, although these efforts did not gain enough scope or momentum until the late 1860s, when officials were confident enough to speak of a dynastic restoration (zhongxing 中興). Meanwhile, the death of the Xianfeng Emperor (1851–1861) provided the opportunity for a new type of reform involving the gradual adoption of Western diplomatic practices, military training, and technology, as well as commercial institutions. These efforts were subsequently called the “self-strengthening” (ziqiang自强) or “foreign affairs” (yangwu 洋务) movement. They sowed the seeds of China’s long-term modernization though they failed in the short term as China was ignominiously defeated by the Japanese in 1894–1895. The short-term failures had led some historians to conclude that Confucianism and modernization are incompatible (Michael 1966–1971, cited under the Taiping Rebellion, 1851–1864; Wright 1974, cited under Political Changes and Reforms). Whether China’s tardiness to modernize was wrought by its traditional social structure and institutions or by it being placed in a disadvantaged position because of imperialism is worth further investigation (see Moulder 1977, cited under Foreign Trade). Conventional views also tend to draw a sharp distinction between the reforms before and after the Sino-Japanese War. More-recent scholarship tends to view a high level of continuity through most of the major late Qing reforms (e.g., Min 1989, cited under the Constitutional Movement, 1905–1911; Kwong 1984, cited under the Reform Movement, 1880s–1890s, and the Hundred Days Reform, 1898; Pong 1985, cited under Political Changes and Reforms; and Pong 2002, cited under Defense Modernization). “Restoration,” “self-strengthening movement,” and “foreign affairs movement” are often used interchangeably. Strictly speaking, the latter two were but a part of the dynastic restoration. Still, scholars in the People’s Republic will not use the term “self-strengthening,” because scholar-officials, owing to their class nature, could not be up to the task. They could be engaged in “foreign affairs” only to strengthen the Confucian order and their own class interests, and that’s not self-strengthening.
  624.  
  625. Political Changes and Reforms
  626.  
  627. To the “true” Confucians, “self-strengthening” begins with the strengthening of the self through self-cultivation, before one could engage in the external and collective form of self-strengthening—to preserve the Confucian order and the state by moral and physical means. For them, it was intellectually possible to be a Confucian official and a modernizer. The failure of the self-strengthening movement, usually judged by China’s defeat by Japan in 1894–1895, led the author of Wright 1974 to the conclusion that Confucianism and modernization are basically incompatible. This conclusion has since been much debated; Lai 1992 (cited under the Commercial Community), for example, appears to point to the opposite conclusion. There is no general survey of the self-strengthening movement in English. Xia 1992, in Chinese, provides a general introduction, but one that reflects a Chinese Marxist view of the subject. While it is generally agreed that there was a focus on defense or military modernization, the implicit assumption that the “self-strengtheners” neglected political reforms (Xia 1992) should be further explored. Kwong 1984 (cited under the Reform Movement, 1880s–1890s, and the Hundred Days Reform, 1898) and Pong 1985 have argued otherwise and show that the ideas for political reform on either side of 1895 are linked. A useful perspective to view the failings and accomplishments of this period is perhaps that in Kennedy 1978 (cited under Defense Modernization): the efforts of the period laid the foundation for future developments. Zhongyang yanjiuyuan jindaishi yanjiusuo 1988 serves as a resource on specialized topics within the self-strengthening movement and a guide to the several dozen scholars active in the field. Chu and Liu 1994 provides the best window on Li Hongzhang, a leading official of the period.
  628.  
  629. Chu, Samuel C., and Kwang-ching Liu, eds. Li Hung-chang and China’s Early Modernization. Armonk, NY: M. E. Sharpe, 1994.
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  631. The self-strengthening movement is much larger than Li Hongzhang (Li Hung-chang). Still, he was arguably the most influential of its leading officials. This volume is the best attempt at studying Li in the round, with chapters on his rise, his pragmatism and patriotism, and his role as national figure, diplomat, and modernizer.
  632. Find this resource:
  633. Pong, David. “The Vocabulary of Change: Reformist Ideas of the 1860s and 1870s.” In Ideal and Reality: Social and Political Change in Modern China, 1860–1949. Edited by David Pong and Edmund S. K. Fung, 25–61. Lanham, MD: University Press of America, 1985.
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  635. Thesis: Restoration officials adapted traditional concepts (Confucian and beyond) to develop proposals for reforms that included institutional and administrative changes, much more so than is often believed. There is therefore much more linkage between these ideas and the reform efforts in the 1890s.
  636. Find this resource:
  637. Wright, Mary C. The Last Stand of Chinese Conservatism: The T‘ung-chih Restoration, 1862–1874. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 1974.
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  639. Originally published in 1957. The first major, comprehensive study by a modern historian of the post-1860 reforms. Wright argues that Tongzhi (T’ung-chih) restoration was conducted under favorable circumstances. There were new leaders in Beijing and the provinces, and the foreign ministers in China had formulated the “Co-operative Policy” that also created a favorable milieu for the Chinese. The restoration eventually failed because Confucianism is essentially anathema to modernization.
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  641. Xia Dongyuan 夏東元. Yangwu yundongshi (洋务运动史). Shanghai: Huadong shifan daxue chubanshe, 1992.
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  643. A systematic survey of the Foreign Matters Movement, omitting, ironically, the subject of foreign affairs management. The author argues that the movement was a necessary stage in China’s transition from feudalism to capitalism, and that the movement as such did not entail political reform.
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  645. Zhongyang yanjiuyuan jindaishi yanjiusuo 中央研究院近代史研究所, ed. Qingji ziqiang yundong yantaohui lunwenji (清季自強運動研討會論文集). 2 vols. Proceedings of the Conference on the Self-Strengthening Movement in Late Ch’ing China, 1860–1894, held in Taipei in 1987. Taibei: Zhongyang yanjiuyuan jindaishi yanjiusuo, 1988.
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  647. Students wishing to pursue the topic of the self-strengthening movement will find it useful to consult this collection of thirty-four papers (ten of them in English) and comments from discussants and more than one hundred participants in this 1987 conference in Taipei.
  648. Find this resource:
  649. Defense Modernization
  650.  
  651. Other than the establishment of the Beijing Tongwenguan 同文館 (Interpreters school) in 1861, the first phase of the self-strengthening movement was dominated by defense and military modernization, to which Wang 1963 attests. The selections here cannot provide a full range of the activities involved, but enough to point out how lopsided this effort was, being heavily invested in the military. The efforts at defense modernization failed to the extent that they were unable to meet the Japanese challenge in 1894–1895 (Kennedy 1978, Rawlinson 1967). Besides the institutional weakness that Rawlinson 1967 underscores, the self-strengtheners were perennially plagued by the shortage of funds, which, as the author of Pong 2002 admits, was in turn exacerbated by the lack of efficient institutional mechanisms to allocate the limited resources.
  652.  
  653. Kennedy, Thomas L. The Arms of Kiangnan: Modernization in the Chinese Ordnance Industry, 1860–1895. Boulder, CO: Westview, 1978.
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  655. A study of the arsenals, especially the Jiangnan (Kiangnan) Arsenal, established by Li Hongzhang as institutional innovations and anti-imperialist undertakings. Though they failed in their mission, and technological independence was still decades away, the arsenals did open an era of mechanization and mass production.
  656. Find this resource:
  657. Pong, David. Shen Pao-chen and China’s Modernization in the Nineteenth Century. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 2002.
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  659. Originally published in 1993. China’s first modern naval dockyard and academy experienced a period of success under the direction of Shen. The book demonstrates how a Confucian scholar-official, Shen Baozhen (Shen Pao-chen), made the transition to become a modernizer who, beyond the naval establishment, went on to advocate broader areas of modernization.
  660. Find this resource:
  661. Rawlinson, John L. China’s Struggle for Naval Development, 1839–1895. Harvard East Asian Series 25. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1967.
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  663. After twenty years of nonaction (1842-1860), the Chinese began building a modern navy in the following three decades but ended in dismal failure at the Sino-Japanese War of 1894–1895. Rawlinson attributes the tardy and inadequate response to “Confucian institutions” and “Confucian values”: provincialism, weak imperial leadership, and values attached to the civil-service and reward system.
  664. Find this resource:
  665. Wang Ermin 王爾敏. Qing-ji binggongye de xingqi (清季兵工業的興起). Nangang, China: Zhongyang yanjiuyuan, jindaishi yanjiusuo, 1963.
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  667. A survey of the rise of arsenals and shipyards in the late Qing period.
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  669. Broader Areas of Industrialization and Technological Change
  670.  
  671. To support the expensive defense industries, and to provide inexpensive sources of raw material, the government branched out into profit-generating enterprises. The first shipping company was founded for this purpose and was quickly followed by mechanized coal mining. The government was initially reluctant to open these endeavors to private enterprise and devised the “government supervision-merchant management” (guandu shangban 官督商辦) formula. Feuerwerker 1968, along with Liu 1964 and Lai 1992 (both cited under the Commercial Community), show how “government supervision” could stifle merchant initiatives. The relatively short period of time in which the Chinese came to accept new technologies is noted in particular in Baark 1997 but also in many of the other studies. Wright 2009, on coal mining, is the definitive work on the subject. The initial rationale for official promotion of shipping and mining enterprises was to retrieve lost economic rights (shouhui liquan 收回利權). By the last decade of the 19th century, patriotic import-substitution industries were encouraged, now open to all. Zhang 1992, Hatano 1961, and Köll 2003 provide examples.
  672.  
  673. Baark, Erik. Lightning Wires: The Telegraph and China’s Technological Modernization, 1860–1890. Contributions in Asian Studies 6. Westport, CT: Greenwood, 1997.
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  675. Shows how a useful Western invention found ultimate acceptance in China, despite initial opposition.
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  677. Feuerwerker, Albert. China’s Early Industrialization: Sheng Hsüan-huai (1844–1916) and Mandarin Enterprise. Harvard East Asian Series 1. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1968.
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  679. A pioneering work, originally published in 1958, on the history of the method the Chinese government adopted to promote modern enterprises to compete with Western firms. This was the “government supervision, merchant management” (guandu shangban 官督商辦) system, under which Sheng operated China’s first steamship company.
  680. Find this resource:
  681. Hatano Yoshihiro 波多野善大. Chukoku kindai kogyoshi no kenkyu (中國近代工業史の 研究). Toyoshi kenkyu sokan 9. Kyoto: Toyoshi kenkyukai, 1961.
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  683. This study of modern industries in China is not as comprehensive as Zhang 1992, though its treatment of the several major industries (Shanghai Cotton Mill and the Hanyang Ironworks in particular) is more thorough, but without the benefit of the archival materials that had become available since publication. Its discussion of capital investment is useful, though short.
  684. Find this resource:
  685. Köll, Elisabeth. From Cotton Mill to Business Empire: The Emergence of Regional Enterprises in Modern China. Harvard East Asian Monograph 229. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Asia Center, 2003.
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  687. Having begun with a cotton mill (1899), Zhang Jian’s empire of industrial enterprises employed both Western corporate structure and traditional business practices and expanded to include flour and oil mills, and shipping lines, with a land reclamation project for production of raw materials. The book ably illuminates how this new form of enterprise worked and why it fell on hard times in the 1920s.
  688. Find this resource:
  689. Wright, Tim. Coal Mining in China’s Economy and Society, 1895–1937. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 2009.
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  691. Originally published in 1985. An indispensable work on the subject, even though the bulk of the book relates to the period after 1912. Sheds light on key issues of China’s early industrialization: how modern coal mining, once accepted, grew rapidly from 1895 to eventually displacing imported coal, and how the industry’s development was determined by transportation facilities, politics, foreign investments, and Chinese entrepreneurs, as well as mining technology.
  692. Find this resource:
  693. Zhang Yufa 張玉法. Jindai Zhongguo gongye fazhanshi (1860-1916) (近代中國工業發展史 1860–1916). Zhongguo rencongshu 14. Taibei: Guiguan tushu gongsi, 1992.
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  695. The only general history on this topic in any language, this volume analyzes industries under several categories: those financed by foreign capital, those founded by the Chinese government, those jointly managed by officials and merchants, and those under Chinese entrepreneurs (private enterprise).
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  697. Education
  698.  
  699. Education in traditional China was accessible mainly to the rich, in a variety of private settings. While a few women received an education, it was almost an obsession among men, for whom it was the main avenue to success. Earning the highest degrees in the Imperial Civil Service Examinations was the main (“regular”) route to a rewarding official career. With commercialization and a growing population, more men with an education were needed to provide public or community services. Reform-minded officials and gentry leaders began to set up academies to satisfy the need. Entered the missionaries, who, also to meet practical needs (to translate the Bible and other religious materials, not to mention the training of a cadre of native catechists), reluctantly established schools. They were also the first to introduce formal education for girls. In the post-Taiping era, the period of the Reforms, the Qing Restoration, and Self-Strengthening, 1840–1894, in addition to gentry-initiated academies (shuyuan 書院), Restoration leaders such as Zeng Guofan 曾國藩 and Zuo Zongtang 左宗棠 promoted the shuyuan, not to train students to better succeed in the civil-service examinations, but to reinvigorate Confucian values and practical statecraft (jingshi 經世) among the elites. At the same time, they set up schools to train diplomats, naval officers, marine engineers, and specialists in the armament industry (Biggerstaff 1961). The first major program to send students abroad took place in the early 1870s (Rhoads 2011). In 1894–1899, during and after the Sino-Japanese War, new curricula were introduced as part of the reforms of the era. Those under Zhang Zhidong began to relate moral principles to political issues, while incorporating military drills, science, engineering, and Western languages (Ayers 1971). As Keenan 1994 shows, gentry-led academies, too, were swept up in this change and succeeded so well that they produced a generation of activists as well as intellectuals (see also Sang 2007, under the Spectrum of Social and Political Changes before the 1911 Revolution). Meanwhile, missionary educational endeavors moved on to tertiary education, though their main impact was to be felt after the Qing (Lutz 1971).
  700.  
  701. Ayers, William. Chang Chih-tung and Educational Reform in China. Harvard East Asian Series 54. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1971.
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  703. Zhang Zhidong (Chang Chih-tung) strongly believed in the moral persuasive power of Confucian learning, even as he turned to the self-strengthening type of education (military academies; schools for mining, agriculture, industry, science, commerce, international affairs, and foreign languages). Instrumental in abolishing both the traditional military and civil-service examinations, in the establishment of a modern school system, and in sending students abroad, Zhang insisted on combining traditional values with Western learning.
  704. Find this resource:
  705. Biggerstaff, Knight. The Earliest Modern Government Schools in China. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1961.
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  707. Studies the history of the Beijing Tongwenguan (Interpreters School), and the schools attached to the Jiangnan Arsenal and the Fuzhou Navy Yard during the self-strengthening era (1861–1894). A pioneering work that remains a most accessible source for these institutions. For the Fuzhou Navy Yard schools, one could supplement this with Pong 2002 (cited under Defense Modernization).
  708. Find this resource:
  709. Keenan, Barry C. Imperial China’s Last Classical Academies: Social Change in the Lower Yangzi, 1864–1911. China Research Monographs 42. Berkeley: Institute of East Asian Studies, University of California, Berkeley, 1994.
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  711. The gentry-dominated academies of the early decades of the 19th century were joined by official financed and directed academies in the Restoration era. Though Keenan does not sidestep the many problems these academies confronted, he shows how they managed to change with the time and were even sources of some of the changes.
  712. Find this resource:
  713. Lutz, Jessie Gregory. China and the Christian Colleges, 1850–1950. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1971.
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  715. Thorough and comprehensive. Lutz examines the reasons for missionary entry into education and their ambivalence about its value for evangelization. The scale of operation was initially small, with only 164 students in eight colleges in 1900. About three-fifths of the book is devoted to Republican China, because it was then that the Protestant and American character of these colleges intersected with Chinese nationalism and the revolutionary impulse.
  716. Find this resource:
  717. Rhoads, Edward J. M. Stepping Forth into the World: The Chinese Education Mission to the United States, 1872–81. Hong Kong: Hong Kong University Press, 2011.
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  719. A meticulous study of the education of some 120 teenaged Chinese in New England. Both their formal education and life in home-stay families showed promise, though these were not free of tensions and cultural conflicts, oftentimes despite good intentions on all sides. Some eventually entered college, though the mission was terminated prematurely because of certain government objections. Upon their return to China, many were assigned to positions in government schools and other self-strengthening projects.
  720. Find this resource:
  721. The Gentry/Elites
  722.  
  723. In the course of the 19th century, China’s elites expanded beyond the scholar-gentry. Suppression of rebellions had introduced into the scene a new type of local elites—the “gentry managers” discussed in Kuhn 1980 (cited under the Taiping Rebellion, 1851–1864). Successful merchants aspired to become a part of the gentry society. By the end of the 19th century, reforms and the multifarious facets of self-strengthening, military campaigns, and modern education, as well as increased commercial activities (at least in certain localities), both changed the character of the scholar-gentry and introduced new elements to the elites (Esherick and Rankin 1990). For an overview, one still has to turn to the all-too-familiar Chang 1967. Rankin 1986 highlights increasing gentry activism in social welfare and, later, political activities. It is also a contribution to the Civil Society and the Public Sphere debate. For the role of the elites in the 1911 Revolution, see Esherick 1998, cited under the Revolutionary Movement.
  724.  
  725. Chang, Chung-li. The Chinese Gentry: Studies on Their Role in Nineteenth-Century Chinese Society. Far Eastern and Russian Institute Publications on Asia 3. Seattle: University of Washington Press, 1967.
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  727. Still the best general study of the gentry in the 19th century, including their numerical strength, composition, and structure, though it does not directly address the issues of change over time. First published in 1955.
  728. Find this resource:
  729. Esherick, Joseph W., and Mary Backus Rankin, eds. Chinese Local Elites and Patterns of Dominance. Papers presented at the Conference on Chinese Local Elites and Patterns of Dominance, held in August 1987 in Banff, Canada. Studies on China 11. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1990.
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  731. An anthology of eleven articles, which collectively suggest an understanding of local elites away from the traditional definitions and examine how these increasingly diversified groups used a broad array of strategies to preserve their local influence and status. Good reflection on scholarship of the preceding decade or so, pointing to new directions for research and understanding of the issues of local elites.
  732. Find this resource:
  733. Rankin, Mary Backus. Elite Activism and Political Transformation in China: Zhejiang Province, 1865–1911. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 1986.
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  735. Studies the increasing role of activist gentry, merchants, and others in managing public affairs from 1865 to 1911, particularly in the post-Taiping era, making the transition from apolitical activism to a politicized challenge to the government.
  736. Find this resource:
  737. The Commercial Community
  738.  
  739. Although merchants were traditionally looked down upon, all the selected studies in this section demonstrate how successful they were in four very different settings: as employees in foreign firms (Hao 1970), as merchants in the so-called “government supervised, merchant management” enterprise (Lai 1992 and Liu 1964), as traders on their own account in a Chinese commercial center (Rowe 1984), and as industrial entrepreneurs capable of developing complex corporate business structures (Zelin 2005). Lufrano 1997 sets itself apart by examining the business culture that midlevel merchants created for themselves, which, the author believes, speaks much to Chinese commercial success. Watching the development of the merchant community in the context of the emergence of new elites and growing elite activism in the last decade or so of the Qing, one can begin to see a more rounded picture of the social, economic, and political potentials before 1912.
  740.  
  741. Hao, Yen-p’ing. The Comprador in Nineteenth-Century China: Bridge between East and West. Harvard East Asian Series 45. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1970.
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  743. An important study of a body of men hired by foreign firms trading in China to serve a range of functions (from house stewards to buyers). Numbering about 10,000 in 1900, these men served simultaneously to aid Western economic penetration in China as well as introducing Western commercial practices and even political ideas to China. When trading on their own account, they could pose fierce competition for the foreign firms.
  744. Find this resource:
  745. Lai, Chi-kong. “The Qing State and Merchant Enterprise: The China Merchants’ Company, 1872–1902.” In To Achieve Security and Wealth: The Qing Imperial State and the Economy, 1644–1911. Edited by Jane Kate Leonard and John R. Watt, 139–155. Cornell East Asia 56. Ithaca, NY: East Asia Program, Cornell University, 1992.
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  747. A case study of a guandu shangban 官督商辦 (government supervised and merchant managed) enterprise, the China Merchants’ Steam Navigation Company, demonstrating that the company thrived in its first thirteen years because the state gave almost total autonomy to the merchants.
  748. Find this resource:
  749. Liu, Kwang-ching. “British-Chinese Steamship Rivalry in China, 1873–1885.” In The Economic Development of China and Japan: Studies in Economic History and Political Economy. Edited by Charles D. Cowan, 49–78. Studies on Modern Asia and Africa 4. London: Allen & Unwin, 1964.
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  751. Liu demonstrates how Chinese officials and merchants were willing to adopt Western business practices and to invest in a shipping company (the China Merchants’ Steam Navigation Company) that competed successfully against foreign firms. The Chinese company fell on hard times in the 1880s, thanks to official mismanagement and corruption.
  752. Find this resource:
  753. Lufrano, Richard John. Honorable Merchants: Commerce and Self-Cultivation in Late Imperial China. Study of the East Asian Institute. Honolulu: University of Hawai‘i Press, 1997.
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  755. By analyzing merchant manuals, Lufrano shows how midlevel merchants developed a culture that turned Late Imperial Suzhou into a prosperous marketplace without the support of the official infrastructure. Confucian-influenced character building (self-cultivation) was the key that guided them in business and social life. Lufrano’s conclusions apply to late Qing and shed light on the debate regarding the role of Confucian influence in contemporary East Asian business practices.
  756. Find this resource:
  757. Rowe, William T. Hankow: Commerce and Society in a Chinese City, 1796–1889. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 1984.
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  759. An authoritative analysis of business organization and how merchant guilds operated in commerce and public affairs in a traditional Chinese milieu. It highlights the dynamic socioeconomic changes in the post-Taiping era, in which merchants gained a strong sense of identity and asserted themselves in public life, even without the de jure political autonomy of the Western bourgeoisie.
  760. Find this resource:
  761. Zelin, Madeleine. The Merchants of Zigong: Industrial Entrepreneurship in Early Modern China. Studies of the Weatherhead East Asian Institute, Columbia University. New York: Columbia University Press, 2005.
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  763. Studies entrepreneurship in an industry not influenced by foreign management and technology until the 1920s. In the chaos of the Taiping wars, these Sichuan salt merchants broke into fresh markets in the Huguang provinces. They soon developed a complex and sophisticated system of partnerships as well as lineage-based but highly integrated firms. There were strong potentials for modern management to evolve, as in the New England cotton industry.
  764. Find this resource:
  765. Political Movements and Change at the End of the Qing
  766.  
  767. Social and political changes gathered momentum toward the last two decades of the Qing. Reform efforts were more intense, and the programs tended to be more sweeping, even if unsystematic. Social forces—some unleashed under rather unexpected circumstances, as in the Boxer Uprising, others evolved as trends set forth by previous actions, as when modern education, commerce, and urban growth resulted in the spread of knowledge and information—combined to generate greater demand not only for more information but also for social and political change. There were rising political awareness and expectations. While specifics about the final rounds of reforms to save the dynasty [see the New Policies (Xinzheng) of 1901–1912 and the Constitutional Movement, 1905–1911] and the movement to destroy it (see the Revolutionary Movement) depend much on individual actors, the larger forces contributing to the collapse of the Qing were in place.
  768.  
  769. The Reform Movement, 1880s–1890s, and the Hundred Days Reform, 1898
  770.  
  771. This reform movement is, in the context of modern Chinese history, a crucial if not pivotal moment of Chinese awakening, a direct precursor to the major historical changes in the 20th century. Chang 1980 provides a rounded and insightful overview. The 1898 Reform itself, however, had limitations and was suppressed in a coup staged by the Empress-Dowager Cixi that September (Kwong 1984). Traditional scholarship tends to focus on the activities of Kang Youwei (Hsiao 1975) and his associates, particularly Liang Qichao and Tan Sitong. Liang’s literary and intellectual influence on China came mainly after the reform movement. Of the several excellent studies on Liang, Chang 1971 best meets the concerns of this section.
  772.  
  773. Chang, Hao. Liang Ch’i-ch’ao and Intellectual Transition in China, 1890–1907. Harvard East Asian Series 64. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1971.
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  775. Examines Liang Qichao’s (Liang Ch’i-ch’ao) intellectual development: how it was grounded in practical statecraft (jingshi 經世), leading him to favor Xunzi and discard Han learning as he incorporated Western ideas into his reformist thought. He assigned a critical role to a new education system in the rejuvenation of the Chinese people as a prerequisite to political transformation.
  776. Find this resource:
  777. Chang, Hao. “Intellectual Change and the Reform Movement, 1890–8.” In The Cambridge History of China. Vol. 11, Late Ch’ing, 1800–1911, Part 2. Edited by John K. Fairbank and Kwang-ching Liu, 274–338. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 1980.
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  779. An excellent introduction to the Hundred Days Reform and the intellectual and political movements leading up to it.
  780. Find this resource:
  781. Hsiao, Kung-chuan (Xiao Gongquan). A Modern China and a New World: K’ang Yu-wei, Reformer and Utopian, 1858–1927. Publications on Asia of the Institute for Comparative and Foreign Area Studies 25. Seattle: University of Washington Press, 1975.
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  783. A detailed study of Kang Youwei (K’ang Yu-wei), his ideas, and his reform efforts. This volume is a mine of information and is very insightful. However, Kang’s central role in the Hundred Days Reform has been challenged in Kwong 1984.
  784. Find this resource:
  785. Kwong, Luke S. K. A Mosaic of the Hundred Days: Personalities, Politics, and Ideas of 1898. Harvard East Asian Monograph 112. Cambridge, MA: Council on East Asian Studies, Harvard University, 1984.
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  787. A revisionist work: the Guangxu Emperor had a strong hand in the reforms; the proposals were moderate—they were mostly familiar ideas with long roots in the era of the self-strengthening movement. Kang Youwei’s proposals were sought, but they were not the emperor’s only source of ideas. The reforms failed because the emperor’s high-handed manner alienated many officials on whom he had to depend for implementing the reforms.
  788. Find this resource:
  789. The Boxer Uprising, 1898–1900
  790.  
  791. The end of the 19th century closed with what to many was a bizarre popular uprising, which, driven by beliefs in the possession of supernatural power after following certain religious practices, first opposed the Manchu dynasty and then quickly directed its hostility toward the Westerners, particularly the missionaries and their Chinese followers. Official ambivalence and prevarications resulted in confused policies that opened the empire to a major invasion by the forces of eight foreign powers. The result was a disastrous treaty—the Boxer Protocol—which further weakened China’s international standing and forced the Qing court to finally endorse a course of reforms. The unusual Boxer phenomenon and the ineptitude of the Qing court have been the subject of numerous popular accounts, and the alleged heroism of the Western defenders against Boxer attack has been “immortalized” by a major Hollywood movie, Fifty-Five Days at Peking (1963). Among historians in China, heroism resides in the peasants, who were the victims of Western imperialism, and their antiforeign objectives. Two attempts at bringing clarity to this historical incident are presented below (Cohen 1997, Esherick 1987).
  792.  
  793. Cohen, Paul A. History in Three Keys: The Boxers as Event, Experience, and Myth. New York: Columbia University Press, 1997.
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  795. An innovative approach to the study of the Boxers, beginning with a comprehensive narrative of the events, followed by an explanation of the dynamism of their actions by way of looking at their beliefs and reactions to the drought of 1899–1900, and finishing with the Boxers as a lasting historical phenomenon in the minds of later writers, both Chinese and foreign. An excellent model of a historian’s craft.
  796. Find this resource:
  797. Esherick, Joseph W. The Origins of the Boxer Uprising. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1987.
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  799. A thorough analysis of the causes of this peasant uprising, on the basis of Chinese archival and oral-history material. Effectively explains Boxer beliefs and activities in the context of North China. Unlike the majority of scholars, Esherick’s material shows that the Boxers had no connection with the White Lotus sect. The work, focusing on origins, does not provide a picture of what happened during the height of the movement.
  800. Find this resource:
  801. The Spectrum of Social and Political Changes before the 1911 Revolution
  802.  
  803. While historians will continue to disagree on the extent of social transformation in late Qing, none will deny that significant changes did take place across a broad spectrum of Chinese society. Bastid-Bruguière 1980 provides a valuable introduction to this topic. Half a century or so after the introduction of education for women, some women assumed unexpected political roles as revolutionaries and feminists (Rankin 1975, Zarrow 1988). Young scholars who used to gather only periodically at government examinations now attended schools on a daily basis. Schools became venues for political ideas to spread and for movements to get organized (Sang 2007). Urbanization, or rather the modern transformation of urban communities, produced new ways to organize urban space, lending weight to local initiatives (Stapleton 2000). Meanwhile, industrialization produced a more politically aware working person (Pong 2001) as rural transformation increased tensions between the peasants on the one hand, and between the officials and landlords on the other (Bernhardt 1992). In addition, the following three areas of change (Spread of Knowledge and Information, Civil Society and the Public Sphere, and Nationalism, Anti-Manchuism, Anti-imperialism) deserve special focus because they, in different fashion, bear upon the fall of the Qing.
  804.  
  805. Bastid-Bruguière, Marianne. “Current of Social Change.” In The Cambridge History of China. Vol. 11, Late Ch’ing, 1800–1911, Part 2. Edited by John K. Fairbank and Kwang-ching Liu, 535–602. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 1980.
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  807. An insightful essay taking stock of changes at the end of the Qing: diversification of the elites, a new military, merchants and industrialists, intelligentsia, and people otherwise influenced by outside forces. Even commoners were transformed by urbanization, industry, and trade, as well as migration and an impoverished subproletariat.
  808. Find this resource:
  809. Bernhardt, Kathryn. Rents, Taxes, and Peasant Resistance: The Lower Yangzi Region, 1840–1950. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 1992.
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  811. Shows how taxes and rents affected the relative position of the state, the landlord, and the peasant. After the Taiping Rebellion the Qing government lowered rent and taxes, though taxes rose again in the last years of the dynasty. As peasant resistance increased after 1901, greater official-landlord interdependence resulted—a finding that leads to a different conclusion from that in Kuhn 1980 (cited under the Taiping Rebellion, 1851–1864).
  812. Find this resource:
  813. Pong, David. “Government Enterprises & Industrial Relations in Late Qing China.” Australian Journal of Politics & History 47.1 (March 2001): 4–23.
  814. DOI: 10.1111/1467-8497.00216Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  815. Industrial relations in late Qing are a neglected field. Between 1894 and 1913, the industrial workforce increased ninefold, nearly 40 percent of them in government enterprises. This study examines the industrial actions in government enterprises, pointing out that they were not as well organized as those in private modern industries in Shanghai, and suggests questions for further investigation. Available online for purchase or by subscription.
  816. Find this resource:
  817. Rankin, Mary Backus. “The Emergence of Women at the End of the Ch’ing: The Case of Ch’iu Chin.” In Women in Chinese Society. Edited by Margery Wolf and Roxane Witke, 39–66. Studies in Chinese Society. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 1975.
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  819. The martyrdom of Qiu Jin (Ch’iu Chin) made her an instant legend in the years leading up to the 1911 Revolution. She was definitely a great inspiration, but the symbol she represented became a powerful backdrop to the relatively low status of women after the revolution.
  820. Find this resource:
  821. Sang Bing 桑兵. Wan-Qing xuetang xuesheng yu shehui bianqian (晚清学堂学生与社会变迁). Guilin, China: Guangxi shifan daxue chubanshe, 2007.
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  823. Examines the rise of the modern schools and their students, with the purpose of studying student activism in the late Qing period, c. 1860–1912. Main focus is on student agitations after 1895 as they participated in the boycott of foreign goods, retrieving lost economic rights, and upheld constitutional government in the Republican Revolution. Informative but tends to overemphasize the progressiveness of the students.
  824. Find this resource:
  825. Stapleton, Kristin E. Civilizing Chengdu: Chinese Urban Reform, 1895–1937. Harvard East Asian Monograph 186. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Asia Center, 2000.
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  827. Two-thirds of the book is about bringing order to city life in Chengdu in the late Qing. Focusing on the creation of a modern police force in the New Policies (Xinzheng) of 1901–1912 era, the book shows how public services as well as new urban bureaucracies grew. Expanding local civic responsibilities fit well with the self-government and constitutional movements that contributed to the fall of the Qing.
  828. Find this resource:
  829. Zarrow, Peter. “He Zhen and Anarcho-Feminism in China.” Journal of Asian Studies 47.4 (November 1988): 796–813.
  830. DOI: 10.2307/2057853Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  831. Late Qing anarchists linked feminism to social and political revolution. He Zhen, however, advocated women’s liberation for its own sake, not for that of the nation. Available online for purchase or by subscription.
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  833. Spread of Knowledge and Information
  834.  
  835. The work of the missionaries, the treaty port communities that introduced the newspapers to China (King and Clarke 1965, cited under Other Primary Sources), and the rise of modern schools (government or otherwise—see Biggerstaff 1961 and Keenan 1994, both cited under Education), as well as the publications, study societies, and reading rooms founded by the reformers, all contributed to the general spread of knowledge, information, and new ideas in China. Clearly, there is a close relationship between the spread of knowledge and the development of certain degrees of political awareness, leading to a level of civil society and abetting reforms and revolution (e.g., see Judge 1997, cited under Civil Society and the Public Sphere). Highlighted here is the role of Yan Fu (Yen Fu) in personally digesting new Western sociopolitical ideas, to which he was first exposed in England, and in propagating them in China. Within China, the power of the newspapers, themselves an item of new knowledge from the outside world, is ably studied in Mittler 2004, while Harrison 2003 shows how, in parts of the country, the press had to compete with other sources of information or misinformation.
  836.  
  837. Harrison, Henrietta. “Newspapers and Nationalism in Rural China, 1890–1929.” In Twentieth-Century China: New Approaches. Edited by Jeffrey N. Wasserstrom, 83–102. Rewriting Histories. London: Routledge, 2003.
  838. DOI: 10.4324/9780203455531Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  839. Conventional wisdom tends to equate circulation of newspapers with spread of knowledge and opinion. This article is a corrective at least when it comes to the influence of newspapers in rural China in the last decade of the Qing: the arrival of newspapers (days and weeks after publication) competed with oral news networks, rumors, and deeply entrenched worldviews.
  840. Find this resource:
  841. Mittler, Barbara. A Newspaper for China? Power, Identity, and Change in Shanghai’s News Media, 1872–1912. Harvard East Asian Monograph 226. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2004.
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  843. The longest-running Chinese-language newspaper in China (1872–1949), the Shenbao 申報 of Shanghai, founded by an Englishman, adapted the Western medium and developed a journalistic style to appeal to the Chinese audience. Mittler examines the text of the daily to ascertain its contents and tone, as well as its impact on various aspects of society: status of women, nationalism, and the like.
  844. Find this resource:
  845. Schwartz, Benjamin I. In Search of Wealth and Power: Yen Fu and the West. Harvard East Asian Series 16. Cambridge, MA: Belknap, 1964.
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  847. One of the first graduates of the Fuzhou Navy Yard academy to study in Europe, Yan, in his search for wealth and power for China, found his answer in the ideas of Herbert Spencer, John Stuart Mill, and others: ideas to exalt human energy and actualize human potentials. Yan understood the nature of Western civilization and avoided the simplistic perspective that pitted Western materialism against Eastern spirituality.
  848. Find this resource:
  849. Civil Society and the Public Sphere
  850.  
  851. The meaning and existence of a civil society or public sphere in late Imperial China (or, for that matter, in modern China) have been hotly debated. Essays presented in a 1993 symposium on “‘Public Sphere’ / ‘Civil Society’ in China?” pretty much represent the tenor of the debate. Those related to late Imperial China are presented here (Rankin 1993, Rowe 1993, Wakeman 1993). Since then, other works have appeared that bear upon our understanding of the issues, even if they do not directly address the question of public sphere or civil society (Stapleton 2000, cited under the Spectrum of Social and Political Changes before the 1911 Revolution). In the last analysis, the issue is about how state and society intersect, thus returning us to the question of agency—how the gentry/local elites have changed: first, by the transformation of late Qing society, and second, by their willingness or desire to take advantage of the opportunities so created, even in nontreaty port communities (Rowe 1989 and Wang 2003; see also Rankin 1986, cited under the Gentry/Elites). By contrast, Wagner 1995 (cited under Treaty Ports) brings into focus the role of the treaty port: how far the Chinese citizens could assert themselves in their contestations with the state, and how the international settlements or concessions in the treaty ports were critical in providing a more favorable, even necessary, milieu for them. Judge 1997, in a way, suggests that the absence of a middle realm had driven some constitutional reformers to revolution.
  852.  
  853. Judge, Joan. Print and Politics: “Shibao” and the Culture of Reform in Late Qing China. Studies of the East Asian Institute, Columbia University. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 1997.
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  855. Shows how some late Qing journalists, to promote reforms, infused traditional concepts with new political meanings derived from the West. But proposals for participatory politics ran against the state and invited suppression. The absence of a well-developed civil society (or middle realm) drove these advocates of reform to revolution.
  856. Find this resource:
  857. Rankin, Mary Backus. “Some Observations on a Chinese Public Sphere.” In Symposium: “Public Sphere” / “Civil Society” in China? Paradigmatic Issues in Chinese Studies, III. Modern China 19.2 (April 1993): 158–182.
  858. DOI: 10.1177/009770049301900204Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  859. Rankin points out that civil society did not develop along a single path, even in Western democracies. Institutions and practices characteristic of civil society appeared in the late Qing and expanded into the first three decades of the 20th century but were dissimilar to the beginnings of civil society in the West. Available online by subscription.
  860. Find this resource:
  861. Rowe, William T. Hankow: Conflict and Community in a Chinese City, 1796–1895. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 1989.
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  863. A finely crafted social history of the Chinese city (not the treaty port) of Hankou (Hankow). The use of space, the provision of public services, and the maintenance of public safety testify to a significant expansion of the public sphere in Hankou. As both commoners and elites moved into areas hitherto managed by officials (or not managed at all), Hankou achieved “considerable” urban autonomy.
  864. Find this resource:
  865. Rowe, William T. “The Problem of ‘Civil Society’ in Late Imperial China.” In Symposium: “Public Sphere” / “Civil Society” in China? Paradigmatic Issues in Chinese Studies, III. Modern China 19.2 (April 1993): 139–157.
  866. DOI: 10.1177/009770049301900203Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  867. Rowe is troubled by the discussion because it implies the imposition of a Western norm. This said, he and the author of Rankin 1993 (the next article in this same journal issue) argue that a Chinese public sphere or civil society existed in the late Qing, equivalent if not identical to that in the West. Available online by subscription.
  868. Find this resource:
  869. Wakeman, Frederic, Jr. “The Civil Society and Public Sphere Debate: Western Reflections on Chinese Political Culture.” In Symposium: “Public Sphere” / “Civil Society” in China? Paradigmatic Issues in Chinese Studies, III. Modern China 19.2 (April 1993): 108–138.
  870. DOI: 10.1177/009770049301900202Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  871. Using a stringent set of criteria, the author argues that the Chinese public sphere or civil society lacked autonomy from state power. Available online by subscription.
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  873. Wang, Di. Street Culture in Chengdu: Public Space, Urban Commoners, and Local Politics, 1870–1930. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 2003.
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  875. The commercial space of Chengdu developed into a public arena where commoners and elites as well as merchants and officials intersected. As the Qing dynasty waned, the streets of Chengdu became the site of much political agitation. A notable development because Chengdu was not a treaty port or a commercial node like Hankou, but an inland provincial capital.
  876. Find this resource:
  877. Nationalism, Anti-Manchuism, Anti-imperialism
  878.  
  879. Depending on one’s predilections or political persuasion, one, two, or all three “isms” can be traced to such popular movements as the Taipings, the Boxers, or the numerous antimissionary incidents, or to sentiments inherent in many of the self-strengthening enterprises. The patriotic industrial enterprises that appeared after 1895 certainly fall under this topic. Some would even include the protonationalistic Sanyuanli Incident of the First Opium War, as described in Wakeman 1997 (cited under the First Sino-Foreign Wars (The Opium Wars)). By the end of the 19th century, newspapers began to spread and were even created to promote nationalism (Harrison 2003, Mittler 2004, both cited under Spread of Knowledge and Information). Chang 1987 focuses on the more articulate manifestations of these ideas in activities or writings expressly directed against a national threat or against the Manchus. Rhoads 2000 approaches the anti-Manchu phenomenon through the ethnic relations between the two in historical context. Karl 2002 sees the emergence of a Chinese nationalism in the context of global imperialism, whereas active official resistance to imperialistic expansion is studied in Schrecker 1971.
  880.  
  881. Chang, Hao. Chinese Intellectuals in Crisis: Search for Order and Meaning (1890–1911). Berkeley: University of California Press, 1987.
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  883. Studies four thinkers and activists (mainly antidynastic): Kang Youwei, Tan Sitong, Zhang Binglin, and Liu Shipei. All four were informed by and drew inspiration from the Confucian tradition as they responded, each in his own distinct way, to the national crises—intellectual challenges, imperialism, and internal disintegration.
  884. Find this resource:
  885. Harrison, Henrietta. China. Inventing the Nation. New York: Oxford University Press, 2001.
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  887. This clearly written book argues that China as a modern nation-state was constructed out of a multiethnic Qing Empire where Manchu rule was legitimized by Chinese values. The building of this modern state began with the new ways of handling trade and diplomacy in the mid-19th century. When the new republic was established, elaborate rituals and symbols were invented to promote the new nation.
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  889. Karl, Rebecca E. Staging the World: Chinese Nationalism at the Turn of the Twentieth Century. Asia-Pacific. Durham, NC, and London: Duke University Press, 2002.
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  891. Studies how late Qing intellectuals formulated their nationalism, by seeing China in the context of other nations subjugated by imperialism. Karl differs from other scholars who are inclined to see Chinese nationalism mainly as nation building.
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  893. Rhoads, Edward J. M. Manchu & Han: Ethnic Relations and Political Power in Late Qing and Early Republican China, 1861–1928. Studies on Ethnic Groups in China. Seattle: University of Washington Press, 2000.
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  895. Focuses largely on the 1898–1912 era. Though the post-Boxer reforms under the New Policies (Xinzheng) of 1901–1912 attempted to resolve Manchu-Han differences, the recentralization of political power in the hands of the Manchus alienated many Chinese who had gone along with the reforms. An excellent study of Manchu-Han relations, within a largely political context.
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  897. Schrecker, John E. Imperialism and Chinese Nationalism: Germany in Shantung. Harvard East Asian Series 58. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1971.
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  899. Qing official response to the German seizure of Jiaozhou (Kiaochow) ranged from accommodation to active protection of China’s sovereign rights. The latter succeeded in limiting and rolling back German rights after 1900 as the German Foreign Office gained influence over the navy in promoting relations more favorable to German merchants.
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  901. The New Policies (Xinzheng) of 1901–1912
  902.  
  903. The decade following the Boxer catastrophe saw a period of reforms far more extensive than ever attempted before. These included the sending of students to study abroad (mainly to Japan), the abolition of the time-honored civil-service examinations, and the creation of the New Army. Many were then swept up by the drive toward constitutional government after 1905. Ichiko 1980 provides a valuable introduction to the subject, while Wright 1968, despite its vintage, contains articles that remain instructive. One of the key players in many of the reforms was Yuan Shikai, whose political role is examined in MacKinnon 1980. By contrast, Marianne Bastid (subsequently known as Bastid-Bruguière) looks at the reforms from below: Bastid 1988 is a detailed study of the education reform at the local level, through the endeavors of Zhang Jian, a successful Confucian scholar turned industrialist and reformer. Zhang’s eventual disillusionment with the Qing is symptomatic of much of the New Policies. Reynolds 1993 focuses on the role of Japan as a model and as the destination of hordes of Chinese students seeking a modern education, and on the role of the Japanese as advisers in the reforms in China,. The sincerity of the throne in promoting these “New Policies” has been questioned, but the results were largely positive, leading to the comment that the post-Boxer decade was, “in retrospect, the best national government China was to enjoy for the rest of the half-century [1901–1949]” (Rhoads 1975, p. 270; cited under the Revolutionary Movement). Indeed, the changes were successful enough to render the Qing dynasty obsolete. The reforms and revolution have become intertwined.
  904.  
  905. Bastid, Marianne. Educational Reform in Early 20th-Century China. Translated by Paul J. Bailey. Michigan Monographs in Chinese Studies 53. Ann Arbor: Center for Chinese Studies, University of Michigan, 1988.
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  907. The New Policies inspired Zhang Jian, a “new gentry,” to cooperate with local officials in educational reform. The experiment broke down after 1905 due to rising tensions and opposing agendas. Originally published as Aspects de la réforme de l’enseignement en Chine au début du 20e siècle, d’après des écrits de Zhang Jian (Paris: Mouton, 1971).
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  909. Ichiko, Chuzo. “Political and Institutional Reform, 1901–11.” In The Cambridge History of China. Vol. 11, Late Ch’ing, 1800–1911, Part 2. Edited by John K. Fairbank and Kwang-ching Liu, 375–415. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 1980.
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  911. By far the best general introduction to this decade-long reform, ranging from educational, military, and administrative to social reforms, and culminating in constitutional reform.
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  913. MacKinnon, Stephen R. Power and Politics in Late Imperial China: Yuan Shi-kai in Beijing and Tianjin, 1901–1908. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1980.
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  915. Yuan Shikai’s reform activities show how political initiatives had returned to the central government, a development also hastened by the foreign powers’ preference to exert their influence through Beijing. Reforms in education, police, and economy aside, Yuan’s biggest role was military modernization, but MacKinnon shows that Yuan’s power was always derived from the throne and thus he should not be seen as a protowarlord.
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  917. Reynolds, Douglas R. China, 1898–1912: The Xinzheng Revolution and Japan. Harvard East Asian Monograph 160. Cambridge, MA: Council on East Asian Studies, Harvard University, 1993.
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  919. The author draws attention to the major and positive role of Japan as a model and of the Japanese as advisers in this government-led restructure of Qing administration and education. A useful corrective, but whether the reforms amounted to a “revolution” has been questioned.
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  921. Wright, Mary C., ed. China in Revolution: The First Phase, 1900–1913. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1968.
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  923. The essays in this volume provide an analysis of the events leading up to the Republican Revolution of 1911. Collectively, they give a picture of a new polity being forged by a combination of government efforts and elite activism, not always working in harmony but nonetheless generating new forces that link this period to the larger revolution of modern China in the 20th century. Reissued as recently as 1998 (Ann Arbor, MI: UMI).
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  925. The Constitutional Movement, 1905–1911
  926.  
  927. There is considerable overlap between this topic and the New Policies (Xinzheng) of 1901–1912. Included here are those works that are specifically concerned with the constitutional movement. Although the movement “began” in 1905 when the throne, in response to Japan’s defeat of Russia, gave constitutional government (at least the promise of one at a future date) its blessing, the ideas espoused by the agitators had much longer roots (Min 1989, Thompson 1995).
  928.  
  929. Min, Tu-ki. National Polity and Local Power: The Transformation of Late Imperial China. Edited by Philip A. Kuhn and Timothy Brook. Harvard-Yenching Institute Monograph 27. Cambridge, MA: Council on East Asian Studies, Harvard University, 1989.
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  931. Three of the six chapters explore the traditional ideas of fengjian 封建 and junxian 郡縣 (concerning central-local relations) and how they were adapted by the elites at the provincial and subprovincial levels for the constitutional movement and the railway rights recovery movement.
  932. Find this resource:
  933. Thompson, Roger R. China’s Local Councils in the Age of Constitutional Reform, 1898–1911. Harvard East Asian Monograph 161. Cambridge, MA: Council on East Asian Studies, Harvard University, 1995.
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  935. How to transform the emperor’s subjects into a constitutional monarch’s citizens? One of the ideas that could facilitate this transformation was local self-government, which began to gain currency in the late 1890s. Under the constitutional reform after 1905, local self-government councils were formed, providing a forum for local elites; many people, such as holders of the now-worthless civil-service examination degrees, became alienated from the state.
  936. Find this resource:
  937. The Revolutionary Movement
  938.  
  939. The Qing dynasty came to an end on 12 February 1912. Whether the dynasty collapsed because of its own inept attempt at reform or because of the success of the Republican revolutionaries under Sun Yat-sen’s leadership, or any number of reasons in between, will remain a matter for scholarly debate. Bergère 1998, in contrast to the rather harsh assessment of Sun Yat-sen by some scholars, tends to give this “father of the nation” some credit in leadership—his persuasiveness and ability to respond to shifting environments and changing supporting groups. The role of the new gentry, however defined, has been given a great deal of attention (e.g., Rhoads 1975; Esherick and Rankin 1990 and Rankin 1986, cited under the Gentry/Elites; and Thompson 1995, cited under the Constitutional Movement, 1905–1911), and its support of the revolution was not always consistent (Esherick 1998). Fung 1980 serves as a reminder that the Wuchang Uprising was successful, whereas all earlier uprisings had failed, precisely because it was hatched within the New Army. Rhoads 1975 also points out the antirevolutionary role of the merchants, at least in Guangdong.
  940.  
  941. Bergère, Marie-Claire. Sun Yat-sen. Translated by Janet Lloyd. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 1998.
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  943. Though generally sympathetic, this work successfully places Sun’s revolutionary career in the larger historical context and is by no means uncritical of the shortcomings either of Sun or his organizations.
  944. Find this resource:
  945. Esherick, Joseph W. Reform and Revolution in China: The 1911 Revolution in Hunan and Hubei. Michigan Monographs in Chinese Studies 80. Ann Arbor: Center for Chinese Studies, University of Michigan, 1998.
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  947. Originally published in 1976 (Berkeley: University of California Press). A study of elites produced or transformed by the reforms of late Qing and of their impact on revolutionary politics in Hunan and Hubei. Esherick calls the 1911 Revolution “a most unrevolutionary revolution” because the local elite, though politically progressive, was socially regressive. Once freed of Manchu control, the elite’s commitment to republicanism proved shallow.
  948. Find this resource:
  949. Fung, Edmund S. K. The Military Dimension of the Chinese Revolution: The New Army and Its Role in the Revolution of 1911. Canberra: Australian National University Press, 1980.
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  951. Contending that China had always had the raw material for a good army, given good leadership and competent officers, Fung sets out to study the New Army created under the New Policies in 1903. He then examines the reasons why the army was eventually alienated from the government that created it.
  952. Find this resource:
  953. Rhoads, Edward J. M. China’s Republican Revolution: The Case of Kwangtung, 1895–1913. Harvard East Asian Series 81. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1975.
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  955. Because Guangdong’s (Kwangtung’s) experience under the post-Boxer reforms was similar to that of other provinces, Rhoads seeks explanation for its role in the revolutionary movement. Broadly speaking, he points out that the newly empowered gentry did not desert the dynasty until the court’s unpopular policies of 1910–1911, but, unlike what happened in other provinces, their role in shaping events at Canton was thwarted by the also newly empowered merchants.
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