Modernization in late Qing China (1861-1910) and Meiji Japan (1868-1912)

2003 ◽  
Author(s):  
Chin-kiu Wong
Keyword(s):  
Meiji Japan ◽  
Late Qing ◽  
Late Qing China

Rediscovering the Yellow River and the Yangtze River: the Circulation of Discourses on the North–South Dichotomy between Late Qing China and Meiji Japan

2019 ◽  
Vol 16 (1) ◽  
pp. 33-51
Author(s):  
Fei Chen
Keyword(s):  
Yangtze River ◽  
Yellow River ◽  
Narrative Structure ◽  
The Yellow River ◽  
Meiji Japan ◽  
Late Qing ◽  
Liang Qichao ◽  
The North ◽  
Southern Chinese ◽  
Late Qing China

AbstractMany novels, poems, and academic works produced in the last decades of Qing China were characterized by a structure of North–South dichotomy. While existing studies have investigated the root of this narrative structure in Chinese traditions, this article tries to uncover Japan's lesser-known role in the revitalization of traditional discourses. It first discusses how Japanese intellectuals, such as Shiga Shigetaka and Naitō Konan, reconfigured Chinese discourses on the North–South dichotomy as theories to assert Japan's superiority over China. It goes on to examine how Liang Qichao appropriated Japanese theories to mobilize southern Chinese to participate in state politics. It then explores how Chinese revolutionary students in Japan exploited Japanese intellectuals’ and Liang's discourses to promote a cross-provincial consciousness by representing China as a river-based region writ large. Lastly, it reveals how the restructured discourses on the North–South dichotomy were manipulated by revolutionaries after they flowed back to China.

The Concept of “Self-Government” across Cultures: From the Western World to Japan and China

Cultura ◽  
2018 ◽  
Vol 15 (2) ◽  
pp. 53-72
Author(s):  
Donglan HUANG
Keyword(s):  
English Word ◽  
Western World ◽  
Meiji Japan ◽  
Local Elites ◽  
Late Qing ◽  
The Qing Dynasty ◽  
Qing Government ◽  
Provincial Autonomy ◽  
Traditional Counterpart ◽  
Japan And China

Abstract This paper focuses on the change of the meaning of “self-government” after it was introduced from Western world into East Asia in late 19th and early 20th century. By surveying the process of translation and dissemination of the concept “self-government” as well as the institutionalization of local self-government in Japan and China, the author points out that in Meiji Japan, the meaning of the word “selfgovernment” underwent significant changes from “freedom” which means antiauthoritarianism that was transmitted in the English word “local-government” to sharing the responsibility of national administration as embodied in the German word “Selbstverwaltung” along with the establishment of Prussian modeled local selfgovernment system. In late-Qing China, on the other hand, the term “localgovernment” was accepted as “self-reliance” as a way to achieve national prosperity and independence by enhancing individuals’ capacity, or “provincial autonomy” as a step to overthrow the Qing Dynasty. Qing government enacted a set of “selfgovernment” laws with reference to Japan’s system, but it turned out to be the same as its traditional counterpart enforced by local elites to offer public services under the profound influence of the Confucian tradition of xiangguan(local heads) in ancient China instead of incorporating the local elites into the state administrative system.

Vernacular Capitalism and Intellectual History in a Gujarati Account of China, 1860–68

2021 ◽  
pp. 1-26
Author(s):  
Michael O'Sullivan
Keyword(s):  
South China Sea ◽  
Intellectual History ◽  
Southern China ◽  
Western Indian Ocean ◽  
Port Cities ◽  
Late Qing ◽  
Modern Capitalism ◽  
Late Qing China ◽  
History Of ◽  
The Many

This article examines one of the earliest Gujarati travelogues concerning China, written by Damodar Ishwardas—a Hindu resident of Bombay and a clerk for a Sunni Khoja commercial firm—and published in Bombay in 1868. Based on a three-year trip to the port cities of southern China, Ishwardas's text runs close to 400 pages and was patronized by a prominent stratum of Bombay's Gujarati-speaking commercial and bureaucratic elite. The primary intervention in this article is to analyze Ishwardas's account as a neglected relic of vernacular capitalism and vernacular intellectual history. Furthermore, the text presents an opportunity to reexamine the history of the Indian intellectual and mercantile engagement with late Qing China, especially before anticolonial nationalism and pan-Asianism supplied new paradigms for Indian writing on East Asia beginning around 1900. It further points to the many unstudied Indian materials that have yet to be integrated into the study of modern capitalism in the regions from the South China Sea to the western Indian Ocean.

Capital, Empire, Letter: Romanization in Late Qing China

2021 ◽  
Vol 46 (3) ◽  
pp. 223-246
Author(s):  
Uluğ Kuzuoğlu
Keyword(s):  
Late Qing ◽  
Late Qing China

scholarly journals Self-Strengthening Movement of Late Qing China: an Intermediate Reform Doomed to Failure

2016 ◽  
Vol 8 (2) ◽  
pp. 148 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jason Qu
Keyword(s):  
Western World ◽  
The Political ◽  
Trade Policies ◽  
Qing Empire ◽  
Late Qing ◽  
Imperial Court ◽  
Late Qing China ◽  
The World ◽  
World Trend ◽  
Economy System

<p class="1Body">Despite of strong economy including highest GDP gross and self-sufficient feudal economy system, the late Qing Empire fell behind the world trend with its isolationist trade policies. As the Western world caught up technologically, economically, and politically, the former biggest economy had suffered from consecutive losses in wars. In order to preserve the feudal regime, the initiative reform, termed the Self Strengthening Movement was grandly carried out. However, without the true support from the supreme power on one hand, and without the support of the populace on the other, the Movement was an intermediate reform in attempt to preserve the royal system and forestall its continued decline. In policy, the reforms envisioned Western-style modernization without adjusting the political order, yet the entrenched conservatism of the Qing Imperial Court proved to be the decisive hindering factor in the failure of the Movement.</p>

scholarly journals CORPSE ADMONITION: WU KEDU AND BUREAUCRATIC PROTEST IN LATE QING CHINA

2017 ◽  
Vol 2 (1) ◽  
pp. 109-143
Author(s):  
Ying-kit Chan
Keyword(s):  
Twentieth Century ◽  
Unintended Consequence ◽  
Late Imperial China ◽  
Political Issues ◽  
Late Qing ◽  
Late Imperial ◽  
Arbitrary Power ◽  
Late Qing China ◽  
Imperial China ◽  
Further Development

AbstractIn late imperial China, an extremely small number of bureaucrats adopted corpse admonition (shijian尸諫) to protest with their death what they regarded as inadequacies or failings in the imperial structure. This article introduces the case of Wu Kedu 吳可讀, who killed himself to protest the designation, by the late Qing empress dowagers Ci'an and Cixi, of Guangxu as the emperor, and as the adopted son of Xianfeng and not as the heir to Tongzhi. The article argues that Wu Kedu's suicide, which was highly praised during and after its time, was an attempt to sway bureaucratic opinion to put a check on the arbitrary power of empress dowagers, but instead had the unintended consequence of reinforcing it. More importantly, Wu Kedu's corpse admonition was a precursor of the outpouring of voices of remonstrance over political issues at the turn of the twentieth century, leading to further development of the Chinese “constitutional agenda.”

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