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Published online by Cambridge University Press: 23 March 2011
The reform movement led by Kʻang Yu-wei initiated a major change in the Chinese approach to international affairs by developing what can be considered to be a nationalistic foreign policy. It is important to examine this development because of the insight which an analysis of the reformers' attitude toward international relations can provide into the reform movement as a whole, as well as into the crucial era of the late 1890's. In addition, such an investigation is useful because it can further our understanding of traditional Chinese conceptions of foreign policy by illuminating their relationship to the new approach.
1 For the information presented here on what I have called militant conservatism, see Eastman, Lloyd, “Ch'ing-i and Chinese Policy Formation During the Nineteenth Century,” Journal of Asian Studies, XXIV (1965), 610Google Scholar; and Schwartz, Benjamin, In Search of Wealth and Power, Yen Fu and the West (Cambridge, Mass.: 1964), pp. 15–16.Google Scholar
2 Hsü, Immanuel C. Y., China's Entrance into the Family of Nations (Cambridge, Mass.: 1960), pt. II.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
3 Wang T'ao was one, for example. See Cohen, Paul A., “Wang T'ao and Incipient Chinese Nationalism,” Journal of Asian Studies, XXVI (1967), 568–69.Google Scholar
4 This information on the Tsungli Yamen and the leading officials is taken from a longer discussion in my Ph.D. dissertation, Imperialism Contained: German Colonialism and Chinese Nationalism in Shantung, 1897–1907 (Harvard University, unpublished dissertation, 1968)Google Scholar. It is based largely on materials in Ch'ing-chi wai-chiao shih-liao [Historical materials concerning foreign relations in the late Ch'ing period] (hereafter WCSL); Yü-chai ts'un-kao [Collected papers of Sheng Hsuan-huai]; Chang-wen-hsiang-kung ch'üan-chi [The complete works of Chang Chih-tung]; and Shu-huai, Wang, Wai-jen yü wu-hsü pien-fa [Foreigners and the Reform Movement of 1898] (Taipei: 1965).Google Scholar
5 The general information in the section which follows on the militant conservatives and the reformers is taken from my Imperialism Contained; specific citations have been added only where they seemed necessary.
6 Hummel, Arthur W., ed., Eminent Chinese of the Ch'ing Period, 1644–1911 (Washington, D. C.: 1943–1944), I, 407.Google Scholar
7 WCSL, 124.14a ff. (Jan. 12, 1897).Google Scholar
8 Ibid., 127.18a (Nov. 15, 1897) has the orders from Peking. Li's rebuttal is at 127.21a (Nov. 18, 1897).
9 Wu-hsü pien-fa [The Reform Movement of 1898], ed., Po-tsan, Chien et al. (Shanghai: 1953), II, 188 ffGoogle Scholar. (Dec.–Jan., 1897–1898).
10 Shu-huai, Wang, pp. 162 ffGoogle Scholar., gives considerably more weight to what he calls K'ang's “enthusiasm” for alignment with England in this period. The evidence for this, however, comes almost exclusively from K'ang's Tzu-pien nien-p'u [Self-compiled niai-p'u] which was written after the reformer had fled to Japan and when, in order to cultivate English and Japanese support, he had reasons for overstressing his earlier sympathies for the two countries.
11 Wu-hsü pien-fa, II, 197 ff, (Jan. 29, 1898).Google Scholar
12 Morse, Hosca Ballou, The International Relations of the Chinese EmpireGoogle Scholar (originally published 1918; reprinted Taipei, n.d.), III, 151. Morse speaks of and lists anti-foreign outbreaks in the “spring and summer of 1898.” With the exception of one, all occurred before or after the Hundred Days, and this single case, referred to in Morse's footnote No. 70, was not a missionary case; see Great Britain, Foreign Office, “Blue Book,” China No. 1, 1899, doc. 213, in House of Commons Sessional Papers, 1899, CIX.Google Scholar
The impact which the attitude of higher government authorities had on the incidence of anti-missionary violence is frequently overlooked. However, the existence of such an impact is not surprising in view of the well-documented role which the local elites, die gentry and the officials, played in missionary cases. While the people who actually attacked die missionaries were not necessarily aware of the feelings of Peking or of their provincial governor, the politically oriented local elites certainly were; in addition, specific local appointments of magistrates who were either friendly or hostile to missionaries could often directly reveal the feelings of the higher authorities. The important influence which the central and provincial governments' policies had on the number of missionary cases was a fact well known to foreigners in China in the 19th century and is also borne out quite neady by the timing of such cases in the area I have studied, Shantung.
The reformers, themselves, were aware of the significance of the differences between their own attitude toward the missionaries and that of the militants. For example, in commenting on a decree against anti-missionary violence issued during the Hundred Days, Liang Ch'i-ch'ao wrote that missionary cases rested on local grievances, “however, diey also grow out of the fact that the court and senior officials hate foreigners so that evil people follow their lead and use it. If one examines the three months when the emperor was pursuing reform, one notes that there was not a single missionary case, but that on the fourth day after the coup the violence in Peking began, and widiin two months there were already five or six cases involving the murder of missionaries. One can see that the thing which directs the behavior of the people in this regard is the attitude of the court.” (Wu-hsü pien-fa, II, 36).Google Scholar
13 As, for example, the Tung-lin Party of the late Ming; see Schreckcr, John, “The Pao-kuo Hui, A Reform Society of 1898,” Papers on China, XIV (1960), 51, 60.Google Scholar
14 Wu-hsü pien-fa, II, 134.Google Scholar
15 In the fight against the German sphere of in fluence in Shantung, for example, what is extremely striking is that after 1900 both Peking and the provincial government not only tried to destroy German privileges when this would help to control the foreigners, but also, frequently at considerable financial sacrifice, sought to end those concessions which infringed even theoretically on China's status as a sovereign nation.
16 The terms for “sovereignty” included in the statistics given here are chu-ch'üan a and tzu-chu-chih-ch'üan b; the count is a complete one and not selective. The edition of WCSL used was the 9 vol. Wen-hai reprint (Taipei: 1963), and the statistics presented use “page” to refer to the Western-style pages of this edition. The word kuo-ch'üan c was also counted; it was, however, used very rarely in all periods, though essentially with a frequency which results in a curve with the same shape as that for die total of the other two terms.
The word count was done for me by the Chinese Materials and Research Aids Service Center, Taipei. I would also like to thank Professors Edward Tufte and Stanley Kelley of the Politics Department, Princeton, for their advice and assistance in preparing the word count for presentation. I am, however, solely responsible for all conclusions and any fallacies which they may involve.
