Review of 'The Politics of Rights and the 1911 Revolution in China'

Reviewed by: The Politics of Rights and the 1911 Revolution in China by Xiaowei Zheng Peter J. Carroll Xiaowei Zheng. The Politics of Rights and the 1911 Revolution in China. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 2018. 358 pp. $90.00 (cloth), $29.95 (paper). That the Railroad Rights Recovery movement helped trigger the 1911 Revolution and that the New Policies (1901–1911) are ripe for reconsideration as a period of formidable Qing state resurgence are verities of modern Chinese historiography. Nonetheless, scholarly analysis of these areas has often been macroscopic, not always connecting the high-flown rhetoric of constitutionalism, revolution, and statism with the nitty-gritty of local political and economic advantage. Xiaowei Zheng’s superb book advances significantly our understanding of both these subjects, effectively linking universal political aspirations to parochial interests and ambitions through a focused examination of factional maneuvering, discursive battles, and bloodshed over state and popular rights in late Qing Sichuan. In particular, she elucidates how the Railroad Rights Recovery movement—or, rather, concerns regarding the administration and ultimate ownership of railroads and the dispensation of their economic benefits—catalyzed the articulation of contending perspectives regarding popular and state rights and powers. She demonstrates the centrality of socioeconomic interest and rights to notions of national and provincial citizenship and of state vs. popular power and legitimacy. As such, Zheng’s study contributes to several important areas of historiography and is in conversation with keystones of scholarship such as Ralph Huenemann on the Railroad Rights Recovery movement, Li Hsiao-t’i on popular enlightenment societies, Chang Hao on intellectual transformation, and Min Tu-ki and Peter Zarrow on state administration and ideology.1 It also complements province-centered studies of the 1911 Revolution by Mary Rankin and Joseph Esherick by providing a granular look at the advent and immediate fate of the revolution in Sichuan.2 Yet Zheng’s ultimate subject is far grander: in sum, she provides a clear and compelling narrative of the advent of modern politics in China. The first chapter characterizes nineteenth-century Qing Sichuan provincial administration and notions of political legitimacy as the status quo ante, in contrast to the wholesale transformation effected by the rise of popular self-determination and sovereignty, political rights, and anti-Qing activism, which are detailed in the subsequent seven chapters. Throughout the study, Sichuan’s perceived isolation—the product of its distance from Beijing and the North China civilizational heartland, its economic and social backwardness in comparison with the littoral zone, and its southwestern, border location—is invoked by historical actors to underscore the remarkably radical and inclusive nature of the popular railway protection movement and the consequent contestation and rejection of Qing imperial power. Few would have imagined it, but the first dramatic and consequential provincewide revolution involving modern nationalism, rights, and citizenship broke out in marginal, tradition-bound Sichuan, not in Zhejiang, Guangdong, or Hubei. Zheng traces reformist currents that promoted the power and rule of the monarch vs. those of the people, along with the emergence of constitutionalism, in the 1890s and 1900s. She then focuses on the appropriation and development of these ideas in Sichuan, highlighting the actions of figures such as Pu Dianjun (蒲殿俊 1875–1934), the leading constitutionalist and chair of the Provincial Assembly whose influence on Sichuan was later compared to that of Lenin and Trotsky on Soviet Russia. Despite being dispatched by [End Page E-10] the state to study law in Japan, Pu, like many cultivated to direct state-led reform, became a champion of popular power, initially in conjunction with the Qing and finally against it. His transformation was partly driven by his support of the Sichuan Railway Protection Association. Escalating conflicts regarding foreign loans and the potential nationalization of commercially owned lines moved Pu first to accuse the state of violating both the commercial code and constitutional principles, then to adjure it and endorse revolution. Acting Governor-General Zhao Erfeng (趙爾豐 1845–1911) initially cooperated with railroad rights activists but earned their enmity by enacting the Qing Court’s increasingly stringent demands for control over railroads and by deploying troops against people protesting railroad policy (which had led to the detention of Pu, whose release...

Xiaowei Zheng. The Politics of Rights and the 1911 Revolution in China.

The Politics of Rights and the 1911 Revolution in China. By Xiaowei Zheng. Stanford, Calif.: Stanford University Press, 2018. xi, 358 pp. ISBN: 9781503601086 (paper, also available in cloth and as e-book).

The Politics of Rights and the 1911 Revolution in China by Xiaowei Zheng

The Politics of Rights and the 1911 Revolution in China

A revolution in China in 1911 toppled that country’s monarchy. China’s new government initiated a series of reforms, including outlawing a variety of forms of gender discrimination. However, enforcement of the new laws proved to be uneven, and Chinese women continued to be excluded from gaining their full civil, political, and economic rights.

Foreword by Edwin o. Reischauer Preface, 1983, by John K. Fairbank Introduction 1. The Chinese Scene The Contrast of North and South China's Origins The Harmony of Man and Nature PART 1: THE OLD ORDER 2. The Nature of Chinese Society Social Structure The Peasant: Family and Kinship The Market Community Early China as an "Oriental" Society The Medieval Flowering The Gentry Class The Chinese Written Language--The Scholar Chinese Writing The Scholar Class Nondevelopment of Capitalism--The Merchant 3. The Confucian Pattern Confucian Principles Government by Moral Prestige Early Achievements in Bureaucratic Administration The Classical Orthodoxy Neo-Confucianism Chinese Militarism Individualism, Chinese Style The Nondevelopment of Science 4. Alien Rule and Dynastic Cycles Nomad Conquest The First Sino-Foreign Empires The Manchu Achievement The Nature of Chinese Nationalism The Dynastic Cycle 5. The Political Tradition Bureaucracy Central Controls Government as Organized "Corruption" Law Religion Taoism Buddhism Chinese Humanism Folk Sects and Peasant Rebellion PART 2: THE REVOLUTIONARY PROCESSS 6. The Western Invasion European versus Chinese Expansion The Arab Role The Ming Explorations Early Maritime Contact The Jesuit Success China's Impact on Europe The Tribute System The Canton System and Its Collapse The Treaty System Extraterritoriality The Demographic Disaster 7. Rebellion and restoration The White Lotus as a Prototype The Taiping Heavenly Kingdom The Taiping Religion Taiping Communism The Nien and Other Rebels The Restoration of Confucian Government "China's Response to the West" in Retrospect 8. Reform and revolution The Self-Strengthening Movement Imperialism and Reform in 1898 Revolutionaries versus Reformers Sun Yat-sen Liang Ch'i-ch'ao Dynastic Reform and Republican Revolution The New Nationalism The Revolutionary Leadership 9. The rise of the Kuomintang The Search for a New Order The Collapse of Parliamentary Democracy The Republic's Decline into Warlordism The Growth of Urban Nationalism The May Fourth Movement The Student Movement and New Literature The Nationalist Revolution The Kuomintang-Communist Alliance The Nationalist Accession to Power 10. The nanking goverment Political Development Party Dictatorship Rights Recovery The Rise of Chiang Kai-shek Echoes of Confucianism Roots of Totalitarianism Progress toward Industrialization Transportation Industry Banking and Fiscal Policy Public Finance Local Government The Rural Problem 11. The Rise of the Communist Party Vicissitudes of the First Decade The Attractions of Communism The Comintern's Difficulties The Rise of Mao Tse-tung The Maoist Strategy Yenan and Wartime Expansion Organization of Popular Support Wartime Ideological Development The New Democracy Liberation PART 3:THE UNITED STATES AND THE PEOPLE'S REPUBLIC 12. Our Inherited China Policy American Expansion and Britain's Empire America's Role within Britain's Informal Empire The American Ambivalence about China The Evolution of the Open Door The Integrity of China The Nature of the American Interest America's Contribution and the Fate of Liberalism 13. United States Policy and the Nationalist Defeat American Aid and Mediation The Nationalist Debacle The "Loss of China" in America Our Ally Taiwan 14. The People's Republic: Establishing the New Order Political Control Coalition Government The Party, Government, and Army Structures The Mass Organizations Law and Security Economic Reconstruction Land Reform Social Reorganization Thought Reform Communism and Confucianism Criticism, Literary and Political The Korean War and Soviet Aid 15. The Struggle for Socialist Transformation Collectivization of Agriculture The First Five-Year Plan The Struggles with Intellectuals and with Cadres China in the World Scene The Great Leap Forward The Communes 16. The Second Revolution Mao and His Opponents The Two Approaches to China's Revolution The Sino-Soviet Split The Growth of Bureaucratic Evils Cadre Life Mao Revives the Revolution: The Socialist Education Movement Repoliticizing the Army The Cultural Revolution The Aftermath Mao Tse-tung's Monument 17. Perspectives: China and Ourselves Our China Policy and the Wars in Korea and Vietnam New Perspectives of the 1970s China Today in the Light of Her Past Echoes of the Dynastic Cycle Processes of Modernization Problems of the New Order Epilogue, 1983 Suggested Reading 1983 Addenda to Suggested Reading Index to Suggested Reading General Index Credits for Illustrations