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The Reform Movement In China, 1898 1912 PDF

223 Pages·1931·5.9 MB·English
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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 [5] [5 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 [7 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 [9] [9 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- [10]

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