Wednesday, April 27, 2011

Essay: Western influence and penetration into late nineteenth century China

Much of my time from 2008 to 2010 was spent taking courses at Athabasca University. I thought that it might be interesting to turn a few of my assignment essays – such as this one – into blogs. 
One  course was titled 'The Pacific Century'The assignment was An Examination of Western influence and penetration into China from mid-nineteenth century to the eve of the Chinese Revolution in 1911. The following is what I submitted. (My instructor was quite dismissive of some of my conclusions about outside influences; but I found little to change during my most recent re-edit).

Introduction

By the middle of the last decade of the nineteenth century Chinese society and the Chinese political system were at a tipping point.  I suspect that a visitor to the typical Chinese village in 1894 would note little obvious change from the way that things had appeared a century before.  The average citizen was still dressed much as before, Christian converts were few and the language and educational systems were little changed.  The Chinese world was changing underneath though and greater change was to come.  
At the summit of the Chinese system, great upheavals were about to happen that would modernize the entire society.  Once the political structure cracked at the top change came to the very depths of Chinese society.  In the Confucian view of society, when the leadership changed the rest of society naturally followed.

Fundamental change was caused by direct political and economic forces originating with the powers of Europe and North America.  Other changes were pushed by internal Chinese influences or from external Asian sources – especially from Japan.  Even these changes from Asian causes were just a second-hand version of Western modernization.  The people pushing the hardest from inside Chinese society were all Western educated and Western influenced.
This essay discusses they types of change in Chinese institutions from the mid-nineteenth century to the eve of the Revolution of 1911.  The emphasis is on the ways that Western powers and ideas altered Chinese political power.  When not otherwise noted, many of the ideas here are based on the assigned course textbook[1].

Classification of change

There is a tendency to classify events and movements into tidy decades and eras.  Therefore, one might think that there was a steady progression through the First and Second Opium Wars to the Boxer Rebellion and then the Chinese Revolution.  According to this simple way of viewing events, history happens in neat decade by decade chunks.  History rarely does happen in such a tidy manner.  There was no five-year plan or ten-year plan for change.  Much of what happened in China during this period was not planned “progress” or “modernization” but simply a reaction to external events.

In another classification system, individual events of Chinese history were matched by individual foreign sources.  One observer might say that the Opium Wars were planned by the British government to force open trade and conquer territory.  Someone else might say that the Japanese government had a central policy of conquest against China in 1894-95.  In actual fact Chinese history was much more complicated, misunderstandings were common and events all seemed to be happening at once.  In some cases a person might be executed for their liberal views and just three or four years later those same views were being used as a blueprint to change all of society.
In an American pamphlet written in 1895 there is a section titled Modern Progress and Enterprise.  Examples of this “modern progress” are listed.  The pamphlet goes on to provide perceptive classifications for these changes:
(1) Compulsory, or those necessitated by force or treaty obligations.  The compulsory occupation by the allies, in 1860, of the imperial capital was followed by a treaty which gave commerce and missions the right of unmolested access to the entire land.
(2) The semi-compulsory changes, or those initiated with a view to adjustments.  The Chinese knew that the treaty must be fulfilled, and that in reorganizing their government they could not do better than copy the strong points of their late adversaries.   Hence, the innovations of foreign military camps, arsenals, customs, schools, coast surveys, etc.
(3) Spontaneous-voluntary changes.  International relations become cordial.  The press is called into acquisition, newspapers and books are translated.  China has become conscious of her wants; a mint, banks, post-offices follow.
(4) Imperial or those which define the position and policy of the country.
[2]
When studying Chinese history of this era it is important to realize that change happened all through this era and people saw it happening.  China was not a homogeneous society walled of from the world.  At mid-century the most perceptive people in the Imperial government knew that change had to happen.  By the end of the century the need for change was apparent to almost everyone.  The need for self-strengthening seemed obvious.  Picking the correct path to national strength was far more controversial.

Wars, Rebellions and Upheavals

The Opium Wars seemed have been caused more by mercantile considerations than any central British governmental military plan.  There were vast sums of money to be made in trading Indian opium for Chinese textiles and silver.  Old established companies such as the East India Company were competing with independent traders such as Jardine Matheson and the always scrappy Americans.  Relatively minor incidents with a few brawling soldiers, or some insults against Lord Napier, were relayed back to the British parliament.  Hot-headed British politicians took sides and insisted on reparation and forced opening of trade.  Soon a small British fleet returned to extract punishment through force of arms.  By the end of the process huge reparation payments were owed to the west, Hong Kong was ceded, extraterritoriality was the new norm, and foreign trade was open to all European traders.

The Americans and French and Germans soon jumped on the bandwagon and demanded the same rights and profits for their sides.  Much of history happens when small events create landslides of change.  Policies are well rarely planned and often were slapped together in reaction to events as they unfold.

For someone politically aware in the 19th century Chinese administration it must have seemed like the country was constantly under attack.  There were at least a dozen[3] different rebellions, uprisings or wars between just 1840 and 1900.  China was rich in resources and people but lacked military strength.  The government forces were strong enough to suppress internal revolts but even so these could drag on for years.

The worst case of internal rebellion – the Taiping Revolt from about 1853 to 1864 – was a violent upheaval in Chinese society that dragged on for more than a decade.  By the time it was over more than 20 million people had died.  The leader of this madness received visions and commandments from “his elder brother Jesus” and from the Christian god after he read some Christian proselytizing literature[4].  I expect that if he had never received those Western religious tracts he probably would have had another native source for his visions; but having visions based on ancient Chinese sources would not likely have been so provocative and revolutionary in nature. 

While wars with foreign powers were limited in both time and area, they brought more profound changes to Chinese society.  They did not last long because the Imperial government was so weak militarily.  Defeat happened fast.  The biggest check on the foreign military forces was the squabbling between the Western powers.  One suspects that if other events such as the Franco-Prussian war and the American Civil War had not happened during this same period, the Western powers would simply have had a friendly conference and divided China among themselves like a big apple pie.

The Western approach was greed and free trade at any cost.  Whenever there was a chance to approach events in a moderate manner of compromise and accommodation the decision was taken to send in gunboats, flatten a town or two and then force a result quite out of proportion to the insult that started the war.

In Japan the Meiji government was far more successful than the Chinese administration at changing their society and embracing the Western way of doing things.  By 1894 their armed forces had weapons as modern as any European army and navy.  In the Sino-Japanese war the Japanese forces triumphed in both Korea and Manchuria.  The imposition of an “Asia for Asians” policy on Japan’s bigger neighbour was a triumph of Western armament, training, tactics and knowledge.

By the end of the century it was obvious to almost everyone in China that changes were required.  It was not yet obvious what those changes were and how the country could unite to make them happen.  In the Confucian system when the top leadership changes the rest of society should naturally follows along.  Unfortunately, in China at the end of the Qing Dynasty it was far from obvious just who the leader was.  The emperor might have progressive ideas, but the Empress Cixi was the true power behind the Mandate of Heaven.  Even if both of them could agree on a plan of action there was a vast conservative bureaucracy and noble family establishment.

Western Culture, Education and Religion

There were many Christian missionaries working in China.  Missionary work was supposed to uplift the Chinese people from their “heathen state” but there were few actual converts.[5]  The missionaries set up colleges, hospitals and universities.  Their students included such prominent people such as Chiang Kaishek and Sun Yat-sen.  In the midst of Western commercial greed these schools provided a place for free discussion of political ideas and the need for change.

Eventually many students travelled abroad or had western educations.  Sun Yat-Sen attended college in Hawaii and Hong Kong.  Chiang Kaishek’s education included military academies in both China and Japan.  Even Japanese education in those years was quite Western influenced.  In many ways Japanese education was just an extension of Western education.  The Japanese people, and especially the Japanese military, were eager students of Western knowledge and thinking.  In the new century many Chinese intellectuals and future politicians went abroad to learn foreign ideas and concepts.

Industrialization, transportation and trade

There were certainly some Chinese government officials who realized early that change was required if China was going to stand up to outside forces.  A prime example was Li Hongzhang.  By the 1860’s he was governor general of Tianjin and gradually became the de facto Foreign Minister of China.  “Li understood as well as any Japanese leader the urgent need for his nation to adapt Western learning if it was to survive.”[6]  Progress was slow though and reactionary forces were strong.  The true power at the top of the nation was the Empress Dowager Cixi.  “To maintain herself in power and to ensure that political control did not devolve to the provinces, the Dowager Empress allowed the reactionaries in her court to block all reforms on a national scale, including those proposed by Li”[7].

By the 1890s new railways and industrialization were being created.  This progress happened especially in the foreign concessions and was imposed from outside.  “The Russian, French and German railway concessions put at the service of the country badly needed transportation facilities without cost and entirely at the risk of the foreign interest involved.  But, Chinese noted that the government of each country was working closely behind its nationals.  In fact, private finance served as a mere mask in deference to the decencies of diplomatic usage”[8].  These facilities were the result of laissez-faire capitalism.  These were not benevolent missionary works designed to improve the general welfare of the Chinese peoples.

Change and Revolution

After the violent events of the Boxer Revolution there was a period known as the Hundred Days when it seemed like peaceful fundamental change could actually happen.  The most prominent philosopher of this period was Kang Youwei.  He read a wide range of contemporary Western thinkers.  His books promoted an optimistic vision of a strong world where every man and woman was equal.[9]

Kang promoted a strong democratic China based on Confucian ideals and loyalty to the emperor.  As quoted by Spence, he warned against revolution “If we now seek to purchase liberty at the price of infinite suffering, it may not be attained after seventy years, and even if it is, what will have happened to our ancestral country?”Sun Yat-sen – perhaps because of his many youthful years outside China – took an “utterly different approach, and decided that the Manchu regime would have to be overthrown before China could be strong”. [10] Both men wanted to strengthen China using Western ideas and methods.  Many of Kang’s idea for change were tried in 1908; but in 1911 Sun’s revolutionary ideas triumphed.  Kang’s vision seems to me more complete, universal and enduring.

Conclusion

During the pre-revolutionary period the forces of conservatism were based on Chinese tradition while the forces of liberalism and change were based on Western ideas.  After the Chinese revolution and the short-lived Presidency of Sun Yat-Sen, the lives of the common people did change, though not always as expected and not always for the common good.

In the twenties, Chinese society was broken into petty provinces with individual governors.  Each was directly influenced by Russia, Japan and the Western powers.  Rampant Western Capitalism ruled the great cities.  Western technology allowed factional fighting to sweep over the countryside.  The Western political concepts of both communism and democracy were taught throughout the country.  The strongest factions were those with the best Western technology.

Bibliography
Baker, John Earl  Explaining China
London:  A. M. Philpot Ltd., 1927
Borthwick, Mark  Pacific Century: The Emergence of Modern Pacific Asia, 3rd Ed.
Boulder, Colorado: Westview Press, 2007.
Gracey, J.T. Rev.  China, (Outline missionary series), 7thAmerican Ed. Revised
Rochester, New York: J.T. Gracey ‘Publisher’, 1895.
Gracey, J.T. Rev.  China in Outline
Rochester, New York: J.T. Gracey ‘Publisher’, 1900.
Seagrave, Sterling  Dragon Lady: The Life and Legend of the Last Empress of China
New York:  Vintage Books, 1992
Spence, Jonathan D.  The Gate of Heavenly Peace: The Chinese and Their Revolution 1895-1980
New York:  The Viking Press, 1981
Spence, Jonathan D.  God's Chinese Son: The Taiping Heavenly Kingdom of Hong Xiuquan, 1st Ed.
New York:  W.H. Norton and Company, 1996


[1] Borthwick: The Pacific Century
[2] This is taken from J.T. Gracey’s 1895 pamphlet on China where he quotes the ideas spoken by Rev. Young J. Allen at the Shanghai Missionary Conference of 1890.
[3] Borthwick The Pacific Century Map 3.2
[4] Spence God’s Chinese Son
[5] In 1890, according to Dr. Gracey (Gracey 1895) there were only 37,287 Protestant “communicants” in a population of approximately 300 million.  He takes care to note that one out every three people on earth was Chinese.
[6] Borthwick The Pacific Century p. 134
[7] Borthwick The Pacific Century p. 135
[8] Baker Explaining China p. 212)
[9] Spence The Gate of Heavenly Peace chapter 2
[10] Spence The Gate of Heavenly Peace p. 16

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