The Reform Movement In China, 1898 1912

223 Pages·1931·5.9 MB·English

by  Meribeth E. Cameron

STANFORD UNIVERSITY PUBLICATIONS
U N IV E R S IT Y SE R IE S
HISTORY, ECONOMICS, AND POLITICAL SCIENCE
Volume III Number 1
Reform M ovement
1898-1912
By
MERIBETH E. CAMERON, PH.D.
STANFORD UNIVERSITY PRESS
STANFORD UNIVERSITY, CALIFORNIA
LONDON: HUMPHREY MILFORD
OXFORD UNIVERSITY PRESS
1931

STANFORD UNIVERSITY PRESS
STANFORD UNIVERSITY, CALIFORNIA
LONDON: HUMPHREY MILFORD
OXFORD UNIVERSITY PRESS
THE BAKER te TAYLOR COMPANY
55 FIFTH AVENUE, NEW YORK
MARTINUS NIJ HOFF
9 LANGE VOORHOUT, THE HAGUE
THE VfARUZEN COMPANY
TOKYO, OSAKA, KYOTO, SENDAI
COPYRIGHT 1931 BY THE BOARD OF TRUSTEES
OF THE LELAND STANFORD JUNIOR UNIVERSITY
PRINTED IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA
BY STANFORD UNIVERSITY PRESS
TO
PAYSON J. TREAT
PREFACE
The reform movement in China, lasting from 1898 to 1912, inaugu­
rated by Kuang Hsu, temporarily eclipsed by the “Boxer madness,” and
revived and directed by the great Empress Dowager, Tzu Hsi, until her
death in 1908, gave way to revolution in 1911. Thereafter it became
fashionable to decry the reforms begun under imperial auspices as the
half-hearted, insincere attempts of a tyrannical dynasty to deceive and
placate rising liberal opposition. The purpose of this study has been to
examine the critical years before the collapse of the dynasty in an effort
to discover whether the imperial protestations of reforming zeal were
sincere, to what degree they were carried out, and, if they failed of reali­
zation, what reasons were responsible for that failure. The question arises
whether, had the revolution not come and had the Manchus retained the
throne, China could have been transformed into a modernized state gradu­
ally and comparatively peacefully, as Japan had been. In other words,
was the uprising of 1911, in so far as it was political rather than economic,
a “premature iconoclastic expression,” or was it a necessary if drastic
preliminary to any effective reform of the Chinese body politic? The
answer which has been tentatively formulated here is largely in terms of
the earnestness and energy of Tzu Hsi and certain of her advisers as
against the increasing debility of the ruling group, the corrupt state of
the administrative machine, and the inflammatory nature of certain of the
ideas which came to China from the Occident. In Japan the need for
reform and Westernization was realized just when the dynasty was awak­
ening to a renewed popularity and strength ; in China it was recognized at
a time when the ruling house was already far sunk in lethargy and deca­
dence. This fact explains many of the startling differences between Japan
and China in their attempts to assimilate and adapt to their needs the
civilization of the West.
The writer wishes to express gratitude to Dr. Stanley K. Hombeck,
then of Harvard University, who first suggested the possibility of such
a study and who read the opening chapters in manuscript. Her greatest
thanks, however, are due to Dr. Payson J. Treat, under whose direction
this work, originally submitted as a thesis for the degree of Doctor of
Philosophy at Stanford University, was carried on and whose guidance
and criticism have been of the utmost value. u p
Reed College
Portland, Oregon
December 15, 1930
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TABLE OF CONTENTS
PAGE
L The Beginnings of Reform.......................................................................... 9
II. The “Hundred Days” of Reform............................................................ 23
III. The Empress Dowager’s Conversion........................................................ 56
IV. Educational Reform ....................................................................................... 65
V. The New Army and Navy........................................................................... 88
VI. Constitutional Reform ...............................................................................100
VII. The Campaign against Opium....................................................................136
VIII. Other Aspects of the Reform Movement..............................................160
IX. Reform and Revolution...................................................................................181
X. In Conclusion ..................................................................................................199
Appendix ............................................................................................................................205
A. The Nine-Year Program of Constitutional Preparation......................205
B. The Three-Year Program of Constitutional Preparations....................207
Bibliography ...................................................................................................................209
Index ....................................................................................................................................217
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I. THE BEGINNINGS OF REFORM
At the opening of the nineteenth century, the Chinese Empire, a state
of vast territory and numerous people with more than two millenniums of
civilized existence behind it, was the dominant power of Asia. When the
twentieth century dawned, the Chinese Goliath had been defeated by tiny
Japan, the Occidental powers had securecTChinese leaseholds, concessions,
and "spheres of influence/' and the debility of a once-great power was
visible to all. The changes which China experienced in the nineteenth
century made necessary the reform movement which is the subject of this
work and constitutes the background for the revolutionary movement in
progress in China today.
In the eighteenth century, China was truly the "Middle Kingdom.”
Arpund her were dutifully obedient vassal states which sent tribute to
Peking. Her civilization was the model for eastern Asia. Her government,
her classical learning and the system of official examinations on which that
government was based, and the patriarchal family system, which was the
fundamental social grouping, had stood the test of centuries. True, the
emperor who occupied the Dragon Throne was an alien, for in the sev­
enteenth century the Manchu tribesmen had conquered China and were to
rule in Peking until the fateful year of 1911. But the Manchu conquerors
had wisely taken over the civilization of the conquered Chinese with but
few changes. The earlier rulers of the dynasty, especially Kang Hsi and
Chien Lung, were men of remarkable ability, under whom the empire had
prospered. With the nineteenth century came decline. The rulers were
weaklings, their vitality sapped by palace life, or puppet emperors taken
from the schoolroom to the throne. The efficiency of the administration
had declined and the corruption of the official class was a byword. Auti-
Manchu feeling grew, and minor rebellions in the first years of the century
were followed by the Taiping rising, one of the greatest rebellions of
history- The rebellion failed, but the dynasty was dangerously weakened
and in the eyes of many of its subjects had suffered an almost irremediable
loss oiiace* Foreign relations constituted a source of additional difficulty.
In 1793 Chien Lung could address a British envoy as a Western barbarian,
representative of a remote vassal state eager to secure the products of the
great Middle Kingdom. Foreign trade was restricted to Canton for sea­
farers and to Kiakhta for the Russians, and was carefully regulated. The
attempt of the government to stop opium smuggling and the desire of the
British to be treated as diplomatic equals led to armed conflict in 1840-
1841, in which the Chinese troops were decisively defeated. Almost twenty
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10 THE REFORM MOVEMENT IN CHINA
years later, when the dynasty was harassed by the Taipings, a second war
with the foreigners occurred. After each of these conflicts the imperial
government was forced to grant to the foreigners by treaty valuable rights,
which included extraterritoriality, a conventional tariff, the opening of ad­
ditional ports to trade, and the residence at Peking of foreign diplomatic
representatives.
Disaster was pursuing the Manchu dynasty. Another of the successful
rebellions which have occurred periodically throughout Chinese history
seemed imminent. Chinese political theory held the Emperor responsible
to Heaven for his conduct of government. If the country prospered,
Heaven approved his rule; if not, his heavenly mandate was exhausted
and the people, as agents of Heaven, were justified in rebelling and ele^
vating to the Dragon Throne a better-qualified ruling house ! Heaven was
obviously losing patience with the Ta Ching ("Great Pure”) dynasty.
Even if there had been no conflicts with foreigners, the dynasty would
have had to face the urgent need of reforming and revitalizing the govern­
ment. Yet it was the impact of the foreign powers which led to attempts to
reform China by imitation of Western institutions and eventually in 1911
transformed what would otherwise have been an anti-dynastic rising of
the traditional sort into a true revolution destined to work great changes
in Chinese life. China’s defeats at the hands of the Westerners were
hardly known to the mass of the people, but those of the official class who
had contact with foreigners and realized the significance of the treaty con­
cessions which they had wrung from China began to experiment with
Western ideas and devices. The idea spread, although very slowly, that
the best protection for the indigenous institutions of China was a buttress
of institutions borrowed from the Occident. Armies and navies on the
Western model, railways, and telegraphs could be used to fortify Chinese
civilization against more sudden and drastic change.
The first conspicuous outcropping of reform zeal came in 1898, when
the Emperor himself tried to save his Empire from the depredations of the
foreign powers by a rapid and indiscriminate borrowing of the methods
and institutions which seemed to give the foreigners their strength. The
conservatives soon terminated his brave but ill-advised effort. But looking
back on the reform attempt of 1898 one can see it as the result of a long
seepage of Western ideas into China and as the precursor of the valiant
effort to revitalize the Empire which the Empress Dowager Tzu Hsi led
in the years after the Boxer uprising. Ever since the coming of the for­
eigners there had been a steady infiltration into China of Occidental con­
ceptions and methods, carried chiefly through the media of missionary
activity and commerce. These exotic ideas made sir progress. Here*
and there a scholar became interested in European 1 ning, or an open-
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