The Anxious Triumph Read online

  Zhōngguó – the Middle Kingdom – the ‘land within the four seas’ (i.e. the ‘world’), whose history stretched back two thousand years, had become a quasi-colony of the West. Weak against external enemies, China was equally weak at home. The absence of a strong central government meant that no single authority could prevent provincial and military officials and corrupt landlords from appropriating an increasing share of public wealth. As the old Chinese proverb says: ‘The mountains are high and the emperor is far away.’ Peasant discontent was common. This turned into a major revolution, the Taiping Rebellion (1850–64), arguably the world’s most destructive and ‘bloodiest civil war’.47 It resulted in the death of at least 20 million people, perhaps more, mainly due to war-induced starvation and diseases. The ideology of the Taiping was a curious mix of Christianity and older Chinese radical thought. Its programme was a harbinger of twentieth-century peasant communism – the end of landlordism, the distribution of land, equality between the sexes, and a ban on opium and gambling. The rebellion was crushed not so much by the central government but by the provincial administrations whose power was threatened.48 The repression was harsh and led to the growth of provincial power at the expense of the centre.49

  China further lost control over its own destiny as it endured the emigration of a significant proportion of its population (35 million in the nineteenth century), the famine of 1876–9, the Sino-Japanese War of 1894–5, which resulted in the loss of Korea and Taiwan, and the Boxer Rebellion of 1899–1901. There were also natural catastrophes unparalleled in Europe: in 1855, during the Taiping Rebellion, the Yellow River changed its course, causing catastrophic floods. Although the great river had flooded many times, it was the first time it had taken a different path since 1194. It continued to be unstable, freely wandering from its usual trajectory during the rainy seasons; there followed another disastrous flood in 1889.50 Peasant unrest continued, concurrent with the progressive breakdown of the Qing imperial state. In Hunan many followed the Taiping rebels, but probably more in the hope of doing away with landlord exploitation than for ideological reasons. Banditry and tax resistance became widespread.51 In north China heavy rains destroyed crops in 1872, followed by the great north China famine of 1876–9, and more floods in 1890–95.52 In the course of the nineteenth century millions of Chinese died of famine and millions more were displaced.53

  By the end of the century China had been forced to sign further ‘unequal treaties’ not only with the United Kingdom, but also with the United States, Russia, France, Germany, Japan, and other countries. To all intents and purposes, the country had lost sovereignty. The failure to modernize was the major reason. In the first half of the nineteenth century the Qing emperors had done all they could to prevent the modernization of the country. By 1860 reforms, after the ravages brought about by the Opium Wars and the Taiping Rebellion, seemed inevitable. In 1861 the advent of Tongzhi, the new emperor, then a mere child, was acclaimed as the beginning of a new era in Chinese history. But while in Japan reforms (under the reassuring name of the Meiji Restoration of 1868) changed the country for ever, the Tongzhi Restoration was a half-hearted affair of the upper classes rallying round the tottering throne of their ruler (who was five when he acceded to the throne; effective power at court was in the hands of his mother the Empress Dowager Cixi).54 The ‘restoration’ did not sap the traditional Confucian basis of Chinese society, but neither was Confucianism used as a basis for reforms.55 The Tongzhi’s economic goal was to restore the traditional agrarian economy because the vast majority of the population lived on the land and the government derived most of its income from a land tax. The principles of ‘exalt agriculture’ (chung nung) and ‘disparage commerce’ (ping shang) continued to be regarded as the only desirable basis for the Chinese economy. The goal was an austere and stable agrarian society, not a modern industrial society (the goal of the Japanese after 1868).56 The de facto leader of the restoration, Zeng Guofan, who as a general had fought against the Taiping, wrote a letter of instruction to local officials:

  If the farmers suffer too long the field will be barren and uncultivated. If the army has no food, it will certainly give trouble to the people. If the people have no food they will certainly follow the bandits. If the bandits have no food, they will become roving bandits and create disorder on a large scale, and there will be no end to it. Therefore the first duty of magistrates today is to ‘exalt agriculture’.57

  Stability remained a forlorn hope. China continued, for one hundred years and beyond, to be constantly disrupted by civil wars, foreign intervention, and social unrest. There were some changes: after 1860 there was a movement in favour of adopting Western methods of education, and a new line of thinking emerged in 1875, when the authorities stressed the importance of enriching the people.58 There was some industrialization: shipbuilding, textiles, armaments; students were sent abroad, railways were built, and steelworks started production. Although less vigorously than in Meiji Japan, the Chinese government did take on modern tasks such as reforming the banking system and currency, standardizing weights and measure, raising taxes, creating a proper police force, and building modern infrastructure such as telegraphs.59 But it was all rather unsystematic. The central government remained in the hands of those, like Empress Dowager Cixi, who were hostile to modernization.60

  China could not industrialize ‘spontaneously’, as the British are alleged to have done. Small enterprises remained small. Industrialization was conducted by the state or by foreigners. The strength of the West led to a growing feeling in China that the ‘West wind is blowing East’, that change was being forced upon the Chinese by the impact of the West. After the burning of the Summer Palace by British troops in 1860, the Chinese authorities finally set up a Foreign Office, the Zongli Yamen, accepted foreign diplomats, and (in 1873) no longer required them to kowtow to the emperor. Pressures to modernize came from friendly Westerners such as Robert Hart.61 In a memorandum to the Zongli Yamen, entitled ‘Observation by an outsider’, he stressed the importance of railways, steamships, and the telegraph, explaining that this would make China strong and better able to resist international servitude.62 Although the Customs Service had been imposed by the Western powers on China, and buttressed foreign privileges and extraterritorial rights, Robert Hart was technically an employee of the Chinese government, with a profound sense of loyalty and obligation to the Chinese. When he took over the post of Inspector General, he wrote to his staff: ‘The first thing to be remembered by each is that he is the paid agent of the Chinese Government for the performance of specified work, and to do that well should be his chief care.’63

  Painfully slowly, China modernized like a wounded giant, kicked and tormented, and deeply divided. By 1911 the country had been able to build only 8,900 kilometres of railway lines.64 By comparison Russia had 66,000 kilometres and Italy, so much smaller, 16,400 kilometres. Even the construction of such a puny railway network had been difficult and had been opposed by reactionaries. The modernizing North China Herald of 22 April 1867 summed up the conflict thus: ‘To us, railways mean free intercourse, enlightenment, commerce and wealth; to the mandarins, they suggest rowdyism, the overthrow of time-honoured customs and tradition, disturbance and pain.’65

  Why was modernization in China such a painful process? In The Religion of China: Confucianism and Taoism (1915), Max Weber explained that Confucianism and Taoism had been obstacles to capitalist development in China, and though he was careful to add that ‘It is obviously not a question of deeming the Chinese “naturally ungifted” for the demands of capitalism’, he thought that ‘a rational economy and technology of a modern occidental character was simply out of the question’.66

  Well before Weber, some members of the Chinese intelligentsia recognized that China could no longer pretend to be the representation of Celestial Perfection. The scholar Feng Guifen, in an essay included in his collection Chiao-pin-lu k’ang-i (Personal Protests from the Study of Chiao-pin, 1861), wrote that though
China is larger than Russia (or so he thought), the United States, France, and Great Britain:

  we are shamefully humiliated by those four nations in the recent treaties – not because our climate, soil or resources are inferior to theirs, but because our people are really inferior … Why are they small and yet strong? Why are we large and yet weak? We must try to discover some means to become their equal.67

  He pointed to four areas of inferiority: use of manpower, agriculture, the art of ‘maintaining a close relationship between the ruler and the people’, and the ability of linking theory and practice. ‘The way to correct these four points lies with ourselves, for they can be changed at once if only our Emperor would set the general policy right. There is no need for outside help in these matters.’

  The road to reform was exceedingly difficult. Inspired by Feng Guifen, the scholar (and general – see above) Zeng Guofan, one of the great conservative modernizers of the nineteenth century, launched a series of initiatives aimed at importing Western know-how.68 This was all the more important since Zeng was completely committed to the preservation of traditional Confucian hierarchies, to order and tranquillity in a world that had been repeatedly plunged into turmoil by wars, chaos, and natural catastrophes. Yet to achieve such essential goals he believed modernization was necessary.69

  But there was no period of relative calm during which China could adapt to the necessary reforms. The calamities continued: further humiliation by Japan in the Sino-Japanese War of 1894–5, leading to the loss of Taiwan and the end of Chinese control over Korea. Japan, with the Meiji Restoration, had successfully reformed, and it had now joined the Western club by defeating China. The shock to China’s self-esteem was considerable. What had once been ‘an inaccessible and insignificant island kingdom at the eastern edge of Chinese Civilization’ (and which had been heavily culturally indebted to China) had now become like a ‘Western Power’.70 Japan too modified its image of China. The latter was no longer the revered land of sages and learning imagined by intellectuals, but a country peopled by an undisciplined rabble led by untrustworthy leaders.71

  In China, Zhang Zhidong, a leading reformer and government official, warned that ‘the country is now in extreme danger’ and lamented that ‘Chinese officials and people elect to remain blind, stubborn, and proud as of old … If we do not change soon what will become of us? European knowledge will increase more and more and Chinese stupidity will become more dense … The foreigners will suck our blood … will swallow us down body and soul.’72 Frightened at the possibility of the country being dismembered, a reform movement – the so-called Hundred Days Reform Movement of June to September 1898 – emerged. It was ostensibly led by the young Guangxu emperor (who had succeeded Tongzhi in 1875 and was Empress Dowager Cixi’s nephew) but was inspired by Kang Youwei, then China’s leading reformer. It advocated a revolution from above, as Japan and even Prussia had achieved, with the state taking charge of promoting the economy.73 It was stopped in its tracks by conservative opponents backed by Empress Dowager Cixi. The defeat by Japan had made reforms imperative, as a growing section of public opinion realized. China, after all, had lost yet again, yet again had to pay indemnities, yet again had to give up sovereignty, and had been humiliated, yet again.74 The reformers’ plans were adopted in principle by the emperor, but not the recommendation that there should be a constitution, a national assembly, and that the emperor and the people should rule ‘jointly’.75 Emperor Guangxu was placed under house arrest and his closest advisers were executed.76 What had particularly alarmed the empress were proposals to modernize the state bureaucracy.77

  Eventually, the Imperial Court was compelled to accept change. The Boxer Rebellion (the appellation ‘Boxer’ is Western) was an anti-foreign, nationalist movement led by the Righteous Harmony Militia, purporting to support the Qing rulers and brandishing the slogan: ‘Protect our country, drive out foreigners, and kill Christians.’78 In 1899 the rebels began to attack Western legations and missions, virtually forcing the Qing to authorize war against the foreign presence in China. Stories of Chinese cruelty and savagery made their way into the Western press. In London the Daily Mail reported on 7 July 1900 that the entire diplomatic community in Beijing had been put to the sword.79 This false story reinforced support for an eight-nation expeditionary force – Britain, the United States, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, Russia, and Austria-Hungary – to intervene for ‘humanitarian’ reasons. On 14 August 1900 they seized Beijing, forcing the Empress Dowager Cixi and the Guangxu emperor to flee to Xi’an. They were allowed to return only after signing an agreement to pay 450 million ounces of silver over thirty-nine years.80 In January 1901, utterly defeated and humiliated, the emperor, directed by a reluctant Empress Dowager Cixi, issued an edict which declared that:

  The weakness of China is caused by the strength of convention and the rigid network of regulations. We have many mediocre officials but few men of talent and courage … The appointment of men of talent is restricted by regulations which are so rigid that even men of extraordinary talent are missed. What misleads the country can be expressed in one word, selfishness (ssu), and what suffocates all under heaven is precedent (li).81

  By now it had become obvious to all, even to the most pig-headed of reactionaries, that stagnation was not an option, and the Imperial Court, long divided between conservatives led by the Empress Dowager Cixi and reformers such as Prince Gong, reluctantly decided to embrace modernity and launch a new set of reforms inspired by Feng’s self-strengthening movement. In any case, the Qing court had long stopped being in charge of events, limiting itself to reacting to them.82 In 1901 a letter was circulated among the provincial officials of the vast empire eliciting proposals for reforms. The response of two important provincial governors (and leading reformers), Zhang Zhidong (Chang Chih-tung) and Liu Kunyi (Liu K’un-i), turned out to be particularly influential:

  In general there are three important factors in building a nation: good administration, wealth and strength … The reorganization of the Chinese political system is to serve as an instrument for bringing about better administration. The adoption of Western methods is for the purpose of attaining wealth and strength.83

  So China attempted to follow in the footsteps of Japan, swallowing its pride and learning from the West, from Western universities, Western schools, and Western military academies.84

  The pressures for reform accelerated further after Japan’s victory against Russia in 1905.85 That a European country should be defeated by Japan was a sign that modernization ‘worked’ and that modernization included some forms of popular involvement, however limited. Reformers such as Liang Qichao, active during the Hundred Days Reform Movement of 1898, returned from their Japanese exile to advocate a constitutional monarchy.86

  In December 1905 the Qing government sent a high-level mission to Japan, England, the United States, Germany, and France to study political reforms. The East was learning from the West, while Europeans (and Americans) did not take the slightest interest in Japanese or Chinese culture, displaying once more the provincialism of the hegemon. China’s reform movement was still conservative. The slogan of the reformers was ‘import from the West its practice not its ideas’, as in the formula (tĭ-yòng) popularized by Zhang Zhidong in his Exhortation to Learning (1898), ‘the old learning is the fundamental thing; the new learning is for practical use.’ The old learning was China’s. It was fundamental (tĭ). The practical (yòng) knowledge was Western.87 Zhang Zhidong was no wild progressive. As Viceroy of Huguang he had ordered, in 1900, the execution of Tang Caichang, who had advocated a constitutional monarchy.88 Zhang Zhidong had ruled out democracy (which leads to disorder and will bring ‘not a single benefit but a hundred evils’) and personal liberty (‘that is even more absurd’). But he urged his countrymen to learn from the barbarians in order to control the barbarians: ‘if we wish to make China strong … we must study Western knowledge’.89

  Qing officials thought that the development of indust
ry could not be left to the initiative of private entrepreneurs. But in the second half of the nineteenth century new kinds of merchants emerged known as compradors, dependent on foreign firms and foreign trade, who also brought new ideas into the Chinese merchant class.90

  One of the leading reformers was in fact a ‘comprador’ merchant called Cheng Kuan-ying (usually reformers were senior civil servants and intellectuals).91 Cheng Kuan-ying advocated shang-chan, which means economic warfare (as opposed to ping-chan, military confrontation) but is usually translated as economic competition. He was among those who believed that reforming China meant reforming the institutions which held back its economic development rather than developing its military power to withstand Westerners and the Japanese.92 So it was necessary to elevate the social status of the merchant, reform the tax system, change the examination system, modernize agriculture, promote commerce and industry, and establish technological schools.93 In other words, provide some of the conditions for capitalist development.