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Political Reformism in China Before the Sino-Japanese War

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  23 March 2011

Lloyd E. Eastman
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Historians on the Chinese mainland maintain that the self-strengthening movement became “bankrupt” after the Sino-French War of 1884–1885. Their phraseology is typically value-laden, and contains the usual quotient of exaggeration. Yet these Communist scholars do point to a development in the late Ch'ing period that is usually overlooked by students in the West. During the Sino-French War, French forces had sailed almost at will along the entire coast of the empire, had temporarily occupied a part of Taiwan, and finally had snuffed out the dynasty's last pretensions to sovereignty in Vietnam. In the wake of this conflict, growing threats of Russian and Japanese aggression further raised doubts that the self-strengthening policy was effective as a means of securing the defense of the empire.

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The Journal of Asian Studies , Volume 27 , Issue 4 , August 1968 , pp. 695 - 710
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Copyright © The Association for Asian Studies, Inc. 1968

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References

1 See, for example, Chih-chün, T'ang, Wu-hsii pien-fa shih lun-ts'ung (Collected essays on the history of the 1898 reforms) (Wuhan, 1957), p. 58Google Scholar; An-shih, Mou, Yang-wu yün-tung (The foreign affairs movement) (Shanghai, 1956), p. 124Google Scholar; Wen-lan, Fan, Chung-kuo chin-tai-shih (Modern Chinese history) (Peking, 1961), p. 240.Google Scholar

2 Kai, Ho and Li-yuan, Hu, “Tseng lun shu hou” (Comments on the article of Tseng Chi-tse), in Hu I-nan hsien-sheng ch'üan-chi (The collected writings of Hu Li-yüan) (1920), 3:33a–b.Google Scholar

3 Chi-tse, Tseng, “China: The Sleep and the Awakening,” The Asiatic Quarterly Review, III (january, 1887), 7–8Google Scholar. Italics added. It is doubtful that Tseng's article depicted his personal attitude toward reform. (See “Tseng lun shu hou,” 3:13Google Scholar.) Probably Tseng wrote in this vein because, preparing to return to the political arena in Peking and hoping to appease his actual or potential enemies there, he wished to avoid identifying himself too closely with proponents of radical Westernization. Whether or not Tseng's statement accurately described Ch'ing policy is, as Prof. William Speidel has pointed out to me, somewhat problematical. What is important for the discussion here is that Ho Kai, discussed in the following paragraphs, thought Tseng's article reflected the views of the government.

4 Biographical material on Ho Kai is in Wright, Arnold, ed., Twentieth Century Impressions of Hong Kong, Shanghai, and Other Treaty Ports of China: Their History, People, Commerce, Industries, and Resources (London, 1908), p. 109Google Scholar; Hsiang-lin, Lo, Hsiang-kang yü chung-hsi wen-hua chih chiao-liu (“The role of Hong Kong in the cultural interchange between East and West”) (Kowloon, 1961), p. 135Google Scholar and passim; Hsiang-lin, Lo, Kuo-fu chih ta-hsüeh shih-tai (Sun Yat-sen's college years) (Taipei, 1954), pp. 9–12Google Scholar; Schiffrin, Harold, “The Rise of Sun Yat-sen: 1894–1905” (paper presented to a conference on the Chinese Revolution of 1911 in Portsmouth, N. H., august, 1965), pp. 5–8Google Scholar; Ride, Lindsay, “The Antecedents,” in University of Hong Kong: The First 50 Years, 1911–1961, ed. Harrison, Brian (Hong Kong, 1962), pp. 6–12Google Scholar. Further references are in Hsüeh-lin, Ch'en, “Huang Sheng: Hsiang-kang hua-jen t'i-ch'ang yang-wu-shih-yeh chin hsien-ch'ü” (Huang Sheng: Forerunner of the proponents of foreign affairs among Hong Kong's Chinese), in Ch'ung-chi hsüeh-pao (“The Chung Chi Journal”), III, 2 (may, 1964), 231Google Scholar, note 17.

All of Ho Kai's writings were done in collaboration with Hu Li-yüan (1847–1916), who had competed unsuccessfully in the civil service examinations and was subsequently a well-to-do merchant in Hong Kong. In this article, I refer to Ho Kai as the sole author, because I think he was largely responsible for the substantive content in their joint productions. Hu's contribution was primarily that of putting Ho's ideas into acceptable Chinese—since Ho Kai, an intellectual product of Hong Kong and Britain, had a very unsatisfactory command of the Chinese literary language.

The most complete, but still sketchy, information regarding Hu Li-yüan is by T'ing-ch'ang, Lu, “Hu I-nan hsien-sheng shih-lüeh” (A sketch of Hu Li-yüan), in Hu 1-nan hsien-sheng ch'üan-chi, ts'e 1, 2 ppGoogle Scholar. The only considerable analytical discussion of the writings of Kai, Ho and Li-yüan, Hu is in Kung-ch'üan, Hsiao, Chung-kuo cheng-chih ssu-hsiang shih (History of Chinese political thought) (Taipei, 1954), VI, 795–803.Google Scholar

5 “Tseng lun shu hou,” 3:340.Google Scholar

6 Ibid., 3:5b and 34b. Compare the statement by Mencius, : “If a prince is able rightly to govern his kingdom, who will dare to insult him?” Translation by Legge, James, The Chinese Classics, 3d rev. ed. (Hong Kong, 1960), Vol. II, 198.Google Scholar

7 “Tseng lun shu hou,” 3:34a.Google Scholar

8 Ibid., 3:5b, 19a–b, 33a.

9 Ibid., 3:16a and 31a.

10 Ibid., 3:31a.

11 Kwan-wai So, “Western Influence and the Chinese Reform Movement of 1898” (Ph.D. thesis, Univ. of Wisconsin, 1950), p. 138.

12 Teng, Ssu-yü and Fairbank, John K., China's Response to the West: A Documentary Survey, 1839–1923 (Cambridge, Mass., 1961), p. 140Google Scholar. Wang T'ao did not urge, however, that parliamentary institutions be adopted in China. (Letter from Prof. Paul Cohen to the author, Feb. 16, 1966; and Ping, Ho, Chung-kuo chin-tai kai-liang-chu-i ssu-hsiang [Reformist thought in modern China; Peking, 1964], p. 64.Google Scholar) On Kuo and Ma, see An-shih, Mou, p. 123Google Scholar; and Hamilton, David, “Kuo Sung-tao: A Maverick Confucian,” Papers on China (Harvard East Asian Research Center, 1961), 15:11.Google Scholar

13 Hidema, Onogawa, Shimmatsu seiji shiso kenkyo (Studies on political thought during the late Ch'ing period) (Kyoto, 1960), p. 77Google Scholar. It is relevant to a subsequent section of this article to note that K'ang Yu-wei's views in 1888 were similar to those of Chang Tzu-mu. See So, Kwan-wai, pp. 191–92.Google Scholar

14 There were other writers, like Sung Yü-jen, Hsüeh Fu-ch'eng, and Huang Tsun-hsien, who also advocated parliamentary institutions between 1890 and 1894. It is impossible to state how many other intellectuals did not write, but shared their reform views. However, data in footnote 56 below suggests that interest in reformism had grown markedly before the Sino-Japanese War, and especially during 1893.

15 This material on Ch'en Chih is drawn from Chao Ping-lin, “Ch'en nung-pu chuan” (Biography of Ch'en Chih), in Chao Pea-yen wen-ts'un (Collected works of Chao Ping-lin) (1909), 3:24a–25aGoogle Scholar; Ch'en Chih's preface in Kuan-ying, Cheng, Sheng-shih wei-yen (Warnings to a seemingly prosperous age) (1896), ts'e I, 4 pp.Google Scholar; Chih-chün, T'ang, Wu-hsü pien-fa jen-wu chuan-kao (Draft biographies of participants in the 1898 reforms) (Peking, 1961), I, 59–61Google Scholar; and Soothill, W. E., Timothy Richard of China (London, 1924), pp. 219–20Google Scholar. A study focusing on one aspect of Ch'en Chih's writings is Ch'ing-tseng, T'ang, “Ch'ing-chi Ch'en Chih chih lao-kung hsüeh-shuo” (The tabor theory of Ch'en Chih), in Ching-chi-hsüeh chi-k'an (Economics quarterly), I, 1 (april, 1930), 82–98.Google Scholar

16 Some information about T'ang Chen, also known as Shou-ch'ien, T'ang, is in Onogawa, pp. 78–85Google Scholar; Hsiao, Kung-chuan, “Weng T'ung-ho and the Reform Movement of 1898,” Tsing Hua Journal of Chinese Studies, new ser. I, 2 (april, 1957), 132 and 223–24, note 262Google Scholar; Chih-chün, T'ang, Wu-hsü pien-fa jen-wu chuan-kao, I, 63–64Google Scholar; and Chu, Samuel C., Reformer in Modern China: Chang Chien, 1833–1926 (New York and London, 1965), p. 64Google Scholar and passim.

17 Chih-ch'eng, Shen, “Ch'en Chih-lu hsien-sheng wu-shih-shou hsü” (A tribute to Ch'en Ch'iu at the age of fifty), in Ou-feng she-k'an (Journal of the Ou-feng Society), X, 2 (1934).Google Scholar

18 Biographical information on Ch'en Ch'iu is in Chih-ch'eng, Shen, 3 pp.Google Scholar; Mi, Ch'en, “Ch'en Chih-lu hsien-sheng chuan” (Biography of Ch'en Ch'iu), in Ou-feng she-k'an, XI, 7–9 (1934)Google Scholar; and Mi, Ch'en, “Tung-ou san hsien-sheng nien-piao” (“Chronological tables of three writers in Wenchow of Chekiang”), Che-kiang t'u-shu-kuan kuan-k'an (“Journal of Chekiang Provincial Library”), IV, 1 (february, 1935), 22 pp.Google Scholar Onogawa (pp. 86–97) adumbrates Ch'en's reform views.

19 I-yen (preface dated 1875; published 1892), 1:39b.Google Scholar

20 Chung-kuo chin-tai ssu-hsiang-shih lun-tven chi (A collection of essays on Chinese modern intellectual history) (Shanghai, 1958), p. 102.Google Scholar

21 The publication dates of Cheng's works are uncertain. The 1892 preface to an 1896 edition of Sheng-shih wei-yen indicates that his Chiu-shih chieh-yao (Exposition of essentials to save the times) appeared in 1862, I-yen in 1871 and again in 1875, and Sheng-shih wei-yen in 1893. Prof. Ichiko has suggested, however, that Chiu-shih chieh-yao was probably not published until 1873, I-yen not until 1880, and that Sheng-shih wei-yen was not published until 1895. See Chūzō, Ichiko, “Cheng Kuan-ying no I-yen nitsuite” (“The I-yen written by Cheng Kuan-ying”) in Wada hakushi koki kinin tōyōshi ronsō (“Oriental studies presented to Sei [Kiyoshi] Wada”) (Tokyo, 1960), pp. 107–16.Google Scholar

Hu Ch'iu-yüan of the Academia Sinica has stated recently, however, that he has in his possession a copy of Sheng-shih wei-yen that was published prior to 1894. (Ch'iu-yüan, Hu, “Cheng Kuan-ying sheng-p'ing chi ch'i ssu-hsiang” [The life of Cheng Kuan-ying and his thought], p. 1Google Scholar, in Sheng-shih wei-yen [Taipei, 1965], Vol. IGoogle Scholar; and letter to the author, Aug. 2, 1966.) All references in this article to Sheng-shih wei-yen are to the 1896 edition, which is the earliest edition now available in the United States.

22 Sakakida, Evelyn T., “Cheng Kuan-ying: Compradore-Reformer” (seminar paper, Harvard Univ., january, 1963), 34 pp.Google Scholar; Teng, and Fairbank, , p. 113Google Scholar; and Feuerwerker, Albert, China's Early Industrialization: Sheng Hsüan-huai (1844–1916) and Mandarin Enterprise (Cambridge, Mass., 1958), pp. 116–17CrossRefGoogle Scholar and passim.

23 Hsin-cheng lun-i, 5:9bGoogle Scholar. See also Sheng-shih wei-yen, 3:9aGoogle Scholar; and Yung-shu, wai-pien, 2:43a.Google Scholar

24 Hsin-cheng lun-i, 5:9a.Google Scholar

25 Ching-shih po-i (Extensive discussions on statecraft), in Wu-hsü pien-fa (The 1898 reform movement) (Shanghai, 1957), ed. Po-tsan, Chien et al. , I, 222.Google Scholar

26 Ibid.

27 Chih-yün, T'ang, Wu-hsü pien-fa shih lun-ts'ung, p. 58Google Scholar; An-shih, Mou, p. 128Google Scholar; Chün, Shih et al. , Chung-kuo chin-tai ssu-hsiang-shih chiang-shou t'i-kang (Major themes for the teaching of modern Chinese intellectual history) (Peking, 1955), p. 60.Google Scholar

28 Kuan-ying, Cheng, Sheng-shih wei-yen, 3:10bGoogle Scholar. Recognizing that the officials were an obstacle to economic development, the early political reformers were particularly vituperative in their comments about the kuan-tu shang-pan (government-supervision and merchant-operation) system. See Chen, T'ang, Wei-yen (Words of warning) (Shanghai, 1890)Google Scholar, reprinted in Chih-hsüeh ts'ung-shu ch'u-chi (Collectanea of the Chih-hsüeh Society; 1890), 2:13a and 4:303Google Scholar; Hsin-cheng lun-i, 5:43Google Scholar; Chih, Ch'en, Yung-shu, wai-pien, 1:19b.Google Scholar

29 Hsin-cheng lun-i, 6:14a.Google Scholar

30 Ch'iu, Ch'en, “Ch'uang-she i-yüan i t'ung hsia-ch'ing” (Establish parliaments in order to transmit the sentiments of the people), in Huang-ch'ao ching-shih-wen san-pien (A third collection of writings on statecraft) (Shanghai, 1901), comp. Ch'en Chung-i, 18:7bGoogle Scholar. Ch'en Ch'iu's reform proposals are scattered among a number of publications. Tung-yu t'iao-i (Proposals made during a trip to Shantung), published in 1890, merely recommended the establishment of parliaments on the provincial level. In 1892, he elaborated his reform views in two works. Chiu-shih yao-i (Important proposals to save the times) again referred only to provincial assemblies, but Ching-shih po-i (Extensive discussions on statecraft) urged that a parliament be established on the national level. He collected these and other of his writings in Chih-p'ing t'ung-i (Comprehensive proposals for successful governing) (1893), which have been excerpted in Wu-hsü pien-fa, I, 217–29.Google Scholar

31 Wei-yen, 1:7a.Google Scholar

32 Wei-yen, 1:6a–7aGoogle Scholar; and Ch'iu, Ch'en, Ching-shih po-iGoogle Scholar, in Wu-hsü pien-fa, I, 219–20Google Scholar. For a brief discussion of the traditional yen-lu, see Eastman, Lloyd E., “Ch'ing-i and Chinese Policy Formation during the Nineteenth Century,” The Journal of Asian Studies, XXIV, 4 (august, 1965), 596–97.Google Scholar

33 The publication date of Yung-shu is in dispute, with one scholar placing it as late as 1896 (Feng-t'ien, Chao, Wan-Ch'ing wu-shih-nien ching-chi ssu-hsiang shih [“Economic thought during the last fifty years of the Ch'ing period”; Yenching Journal of Chinese Studies Monograph Series, no. 18, Peiping, 1939], P. 317Google Scholar). It is more probable, however, that the work was first published in 1893. Cf. Shu-huai, Wang, Wai-jen yü wu-hsü pien-fa (Foreigners and the 1898 reforms) (Taipei, 1965), p. 143Google Scholar; and Chih-yün, T'ang, Wu-hsü pien-fa jen-wu chuan-kao, I, 59Google Scholar. Much of the confusion stems from the fact that Sung Yü-jen's preface to one edition of Yung-shu is dated 1896.

34 Sheng-shih wei-yen, 1:34a.Google Scholar

35 Translation adapted from that of James Legge, II, 483.

36 Hucker, Charles O., “Confucianism and the Chinese Censorial System,” in Confucianism in Action (Stanford, 1959), ed. Nivison, David S. and Wright, Arthur F., p. 199.Google Scholar

37 Hsin-cheng lun-i, 4:25a–b.Google Scholar

38 Yung-shu, wai-pien, 2:1a–2bGoogle Scholar; Sheng-shih wet-yen, 1:32bGoogle Scholar; Hsin-cheng lun-i, 4:13a–15a.Google Scholar

39 Sheng-shih wei-yen, 1:34b–35a.Google Scholar

40 Hsin-cheng lun-i, 4:10a–14aGoogle Scholar; Yung-shu, nei-pien, 1:36b–37a.Google Scholar

41 Sheng-shih wei-yen, 1:36a.Google Scholar

42 Ibid., 1:32b; Hsin-cheng lun-i, 4:14aGoogle Scholar; Yung-shu, wai-pien, 2:2a.Google Scholar

43 Hsin-cheng lun-i, 4:15a.Google Scholar

44 “Ch'uang-she i-yüan i t'ung hsia-ch'ing,” 18:7b.Google Scholar

45 Hsin-cheng lun-i, 6:12b.Google Scholar

46 Ibid., 4:14a. The translation is that of Legge, James, I, 374Google Scholar. For similar quotations from the classics, see Yung-shu, wai-pien, 2:1aGoogle Scholar; and Sheng-shih wei-yen, 1:34a.Google Scholar

47 Levenson, Joseph R., Confucian China and Its Modern Fate (Berkeley and Los Angeles, 1964), 11, 12.Google Scholar

48 Han-sheng, Ch'üan, “Ch'ing-mo te hsi-hsüeh yüan ch'u Chung-kuo shuo” (“Research on the ‘Theories of Chinese Origin of Western Sciences’ at the end of the Ch'ing Dynasty”), in Chung-kuo chin-tai-shih lun-ts'ung (Collection of essays on modern Chinese history), ed. Ting-i, Li et al. , (Taipei, 1956), 1st ser., V, 225–46Google Scholar. There is one argument used by the reformers to justify Westernizing innovations that I have not touched on here. That is the complex and metaphysical problem of tao (principle) and ch'i (implement) and their relationship to Western learning. On this problem, see Onogawa, , pp. 104–06Google Scholar and passim.

49 Compare, for example, Hsin-cheng lun-i, 4:14a and 6:26aGoogle Scholar. See also Kung-ch'üan, Hsiao, Chung-kuo cheng-chih ssu-hsiang shih, VI, 796–97.Google Scholar

50 Preface to Sheng-shih wei-yen, ts'e 1, pp. 3b–4a.Google Scholar

51 Han-sheng, Ch'üan, pp. 250–54Google Scholar; So, Kwan-wai, pp. 242–45.Google Scholar

52 The introduction of parliamentary concepts to China has been carefully examined by Howard, Richard C. in “The Concept of Parliamentary Government in 19th Century China: A Preliminary Survey” (paper presented to the University Seminar on Modern East Asia—China and Japan, Columbia University, Jan. 9, 1963), mimeographed, 25 pp.Google Scholar See also Li-wen, Kao [Elijah C. Bridgman], Mei-li-ko ho-sheng-kuo chih-lüeh (Brief account of the United States of America) (1838), ch. 15Google Scholar; Yüan, Wei, Hai-kuo t'u-chih (Illustrated gazetteer of the maritime nations) (1852), 51:6b and 10a, 52:25a–bGoogle Scholar, and passim; Drake, Fred W., “A Nineteenth-Century View of the United States of America from Hsü Chi-yü's Ying-huan chih-iüeh,” Papers on China (Harvard, East Asian Research Center, 1965), 19:30–54.Google Scholar

53 Wei-yen, 1:5a.Google Scholar

54 This influence has sometimes been overemphasized, especially by the missionaries themselves. The reformers did not slavishly imitate the missionaries' proposals, but rather adopted, or adapted, those that they thought suited China's needs. See Shu-huai, Wang, pp. 99–122Google Scholar; and Chen, Chi-yun, “Liang Ch'i-ch'ao's ‘Missionary Education’: A Case Study of Missionary Influence on the Reformers,” Papers on China (Harvard East Asian Research Center, 1962), 16:75Google Scholar and passim.

55 Kung-lu, Ch'en, Chung-kuo chin-tai-shih (Modern Chinese history) (Shanghai, 1935), p. 439Google Scholar; Sakakida, , p. 17.Google Scholar

56 The following table records the income of the S.D.K.:

1892–1,208.99 (in taels?)

1893–8,593.13

1894–12,141.63

1895–missing

1896–13,891.04

1897–22,796.00

1898–missing (Shu-huai, Wang, pp. 38–39Google Scholar).

According to Wang Shu-huai, the increase in income was derived largely from increased sales of publications, among which was the Wan-kuo kung-pao.

57 Shu-huai, Wang, pp. 85–86.Google Scholar

58 Schiffrin, , pp. 4–5.Google Scholar

59 Schiffrin, , pp. 14–17 and 26Google Scholar; and Man-yue, Mary Chan, “Chinese Revolutionaries in Hong Kong, 1895–1911,” paper delivered to the International Conference on Asian History, Univ. of Hong Kong, Aug. 30–Sept. 5, 1964, mimeographed, p. 3Google Scholar. Further, if admittedly tenuous, evidence of Ho's influence upon Sun is found in the remarkable similarity between Ho's statement on the effect of the Westerners' baleful effects in China and Sun's view that China was a “hypo-colony.” See “Tseng lun shu hou,” p. 30.Google Scholar

60 I-shan, Hsiao, Ch'ing-tai t'ung-shih (Comprehensive history of the Ch'ing period) (Taipei, 1963), IV, 2075Google Scholar; So, Kwan-wai, p. 186Google Scholar; Hsiao, Kung-chuan, “Weng T'ung-ho,” p. 157.Google Scholar

61 So, Kwan-wai, pp. 202 and 205.Google Scholar

62 Hsiao, Kung-chuan, “Weng T'ung-ho,” p. 150.Google Scholar

63 So, Kwan-wai, p. 194.Google Scholar

64 Quoted in Hsiao, Kung-chuan, “The Case for Constitutional Monarchy: K'ang Yu-wei's Plan for the Democratization of China,” Monumenta Serica, 24 (1965):18Google Scholar

65 Ch'i-ch'ao, Liang, Wu-hsü cheng-pien chi (Record of the 1898 reform movement) (Taipei, 1959), p. 1.Google Scholar

66 “Kai-ko ch'i-yüan” (Origins of reform), appended to Ibid., p. 128. Liang does remark at one point that there was somewhat less aversion to modernization after the Sino-French War (Wu-hsü cheng-pien chi, pp. 21–22Google Scholar). Generally, however, he discounts the contribution of his predecessors in the reform movement.