Foreign Affairs (Yang-wu) Expertise in the Late Ch'ing: The Career of Chao Lieh-wen

Abstract

The capitulation of China to the Western powers' military, commercial, and diplomatic offensive by 1860 removed the immediate formal façade of resistance to improved Sino-western relations which the West had sought. Not so easily removed were the endemic institutional and cultural obstacles to China's understanding and effective handling of foreign affairs which accompanied these expanded relations. Increased involvement with the West, both at the capital and in the provinces, generated more complex problems and renewed suspicion which made a practical knowledge of the Western powers and their behavior all the more urgent. Yet in a society which had consistently underestimated and depreciated the importance of the West, the requisite knowledge of the Western world did not lie readily at hand, and specialists in foreign affairs were few. This article examines the career of one foreign affairs expert in this critical period. Its purpose is twofold: First, to illuminate the origins and quality of ‘foreign affairs’ expertise in China, broadly defined here as the understanding and dealing with the West (including the knowledge of foreign activities and policies in China, of characteristics of, and distinctions among, foreigners and foreign nations, and policies with respect to foreigners); and second (and closely related to the first), to examine the role and significance of the specialist in Chinese society.