China’s Paths to Modern Technology: From Institutional Innovations to Confucian Scholarly Learning of Arts, 1860-1885

Abstract

Driven by Western imperialism, the late Qing reformers embarked on a new path towards institutionalizing technology-related matters for attaining China’s technological independence. Hitherto, overwhelming attention has been given to the training and translation programs in the Fuzhou Navy Yard and the Jiangnan Arsenal, but the influence of both institutional models in Chinese intellectual history has been overlooked. This article recasts our understanding of the origin of both models (jiqiju for industrial manufacturing and yiju for education) in the context of borrowing and imitating Western methods, and demonstrates how the two models stimulated the Confucian scholarly learning of arts. It argues that these pre-1885 efforts and debates on rewarding talent changed the trajectory of the Chinese intellectual pursuit of technology and paved the way to reforming the entire educational system after 1895.