Chinese Political History Research Articles

Liberalism and Confucianism as Normative Powers within Chinese-European Relations

This article is concerned with the normative power of cultural values within Chinese-European relations. It proposes that dialogue between European and Chinese stakeholders within educational, cultural, sociological, and philosophical institutions is of the utmost importance in paving a possible way for overcoming the current political crisis. European engagement with Chinese thought in early modernity and the recent reception of early Western liberalism in China both show that there is potential for a non-exclusionary assessment of the “other” in both political cultures. European policy should be aware of its historic potential for critical engagement with Chinese political history.

The Political Development of Contemporary China from the Perspective of Historical Political Science

The political development of contemporary China defies existing political theories. The framework of “political science” based on the ‘rational man hypothesis’ has proven to be fallible in terms of correctly envisioning China’s future. Appertaining to the Chinese political history, historical political science offers not only epistemology and methodology of the subject, but also an ontological element, for observation. With respect to historical political science, contemporary Chinese politics is considered to be the natural genetic extension of the Chinese civilization as well as a continuous and unified development process spanning over a period of 70 years ever since the People’s Republic of China was founded. Historical political science, deemed to be a tailored research approach for the development of contemporary Chinese politics, essentially adds further value and significance to this discipline.

“The Retreat of the Forests—The Advance of the Tree Plantations”

“The Retreat of the Forests—The Advance of the Tree Plantations” Brian Lander (bio) Review of Ian M. Miller, Fir and Empire: The Transformation of Forests in Early Modern China. Seattle: University of Washington Press, 2020. 296 pp. Hardcover $40.00, isbn 978-029-574-733-0. Over the past two millennia, most of the once vast forests of South China have been replaced with ecosystems built by and for humans. While the flat lowlands are used for agriculture, large areas of South and Central China too hilly for farming have instead been planted with a slower-growing crop: trees. Ian Miller’s pioneering Fir and Empire tells the story of how silviculture developed in the Yangzi River Valley under the Song, Yuan, and Ming dynasties (960–1644). The book shows that “despite the near total absence of bureaucratic forest management, China’s general-purpose fiscal policies enabled an astonishingly productive commerce in timber and other forest products” (p. 8). In contrast to early modern European state-run forestry, Miller explains, China’s state did not take direct control over woodlands, but provided the administrative support to regulate the timber market and to allow people to register forested land as legal [End Page 242] property. This book is an important contribution to the historiography on China, which rarely addresses the administration of woodlands, and to the well-developed field of forest history, which rarely mentions China.1 The fact that China’s empires did not directly administer woodlands is not only important for understanding the history of silviculture but also for understanding why forests have not been a popular area of historical research. Unlike topics of interest to governments, such as water control, there are no treatises on privately owned woodlands. Fortunately, printing became common during the period covered by the book, and vastly more written sources are available from this time than from any earlier period. But information on woodlands is scattered across this large body of texts, making it difficult for historians to find. As Miller notes in the appendix on sources, what made this research possible was the digitization of texts, which allowed him to search a vast corpus of documents for specific words. Because he found so many useful texts, the book’s bibliography of primary sources is a useful reference, though it would have been more useful if it had included Chinese characters. In any case, it is worth noting that this book is an example of the type of scholarship being made possible by digitization. The first chapter begins by arguing that before the eleventh century timber in China was obtained from natural forests that could be cut freely because woodlands lay outside of the state-enforced system of private property. It was also cut from forests in western frontiers and floated downstream. Miller argues that the pivotal changes in timber policy were the result of the Jin Empire’s conquest of the Song in 1127. This forced the (now Southern) Song Empire to relocate to the lower Yangzi, where it lacked access to western forests and was forced to find new sources of timber. The solution was to extend administration over nonagricultural land, turning areas that the state had previously ignored into private property that could be legally bought, sold, and taxed. By guaranteeing private ownership of hilly land, the state provided the stability and legal protections that made it profitable for private actors to plant that land with trees. This was essential because it would be too risky for anyone to manage woodlands over decades without a strong guarantee that they would be the ones to cut and sell the trees. As historians of China will be aware, this transition from direct state control over the economy toward a more laissez faire economic policy in this period was an important turning point in Chinese political history more generally. As with modern capitalism, what might superficially appear to be a “free market” was in fact the result of robust administrative structures that guaranteed private property rights and facilitated commerce in order to increase overall economic productivity and tax revenue. Miller is therefore quite right to describe these administrative reforms as the roots of...

Explorations in Authority in the Daodejing: A Daoist Engagement with Hannah Arendt

The present study is an attempt to liberate the thought of the Daodejing from the constraints imposed on it by both traditional Confucian exegesis and modern Western sinological methodologies in the effort to engage the thought of the work more directly. Because the language and thought of the Daodejing are somehow oddly foreign to the Western traditions of analytic philosophy and sinology, this study attempts to make the Daodejing more familiar by recourse to the tradition of continental philosophy, in this case by taking recourse to Hannah Arendt and in particular to her seminal essay on authority. Engaging Arendt’s understanding of authority, this study offers a new look at the thought of the Daodejing by discussing issues that lie at the heart of its political vision, including natural versus political authority, power and coercion, and the relation between authority, tradition, and religion. This study also attempts to situate the fate of the Daodejing’s conception of authority in Chinese political history, and it concludes with a brief look at the contemporary comparative philosophical project that brings the Daodejing into conversation with continental philosophy.

"The Meandering Course of Chinese Political Thought"

"The Meandering Course of Chinese Political Thought" Philip J. Ivanhoe (bio) Youngmin Kim. A History of Chinese Political Thought. Cambridge, UK and Malden, Massachusetts: Polity Press, 2017. x, 288 pp. Paperback $24.25, isbn 978-0-7456-5247-4. A History of Chinese Political Thought is a masterful and highly accessible account of the intersecting and often-competing expressions of political philosophy that have flowed through and shaped Chinese history, showing the complex interplay between changes in material conditions and conceptions of what such changes imply, aspire to, or might represent.1 Professor Kim weaves trenchant philosophical analysis together with careful historical detail, drawing upon a wide range of sources and making skillful use of secondary literature from Chinese, Japanese, Korean, and Western sources. The book bristles with original insights, challenging many traditional ideas not only about Chinese political thinking but also and more basically about what China has been and what it has meant to be Chinese. This is far and away the most interesting and revealing study of the history of Chinese political thought available and is essential reading for anyone seeking to gain an understanding of one of the [End Page 186] world's great civilizations and fully appreciate its protean and ever-evolving character. Kim describes one of his primary goals as providing "a theoretically informed long-term historical narrative" (p. viii) of Chinese political thought. This narrative is theoretically informed in at least the following two ways: (1) it takes seriously the ways in which Chinese intellectuals understood themselves and their political activity (i.e., their theories of self, value, governance, culture, etc.) and deploys these as part of the explanatory apparatus to describe, analyze, and explain what happened in the meandering course of history, and (2) it draws upon and applies a range of contemporary theories about the nature of social, political, and historical phenomena in order to further this goal. I will return to these two features of the work in the course of my comments, but first it is important to make clear some of the ways in which Kim's approach quite dramatically breaks with past attempts to provide a history of Chinese political thought and note some of the implications his approach has for scholarship in other areas of Chinese studies. Kim provides a fair and balanced description of the best classic and contemporary studies of Chinese political history and argues that all of them are "dominated by ahistorical and nationalistic perspectives" (p. viii). While there is no conceptual reason to assume it to be true, it turns out there is a common flawed assumption underlying such work—work that spans a wide range of theoretical approaches and political sensibilities—which is that there is some single, enduring essence to Chinese political thought that establishes some eternal realm of China; constitutes the character of what it is to be Chinese; and unifies the history of Chinese society, culture, and politics. Kim's book is founded on the claim that no such essence exists, and he builds his account of the history of Chinese political thought on the rubble of this foundational claim. Aside from overthrowing widely held essentialist views about the nature of Chinese thought and culture, within both the academic world and the popular imagination, Kim's view poses profound challenges to a number of contemporary thinkers who propose that the world, and particularly the West, should study China in order to understand, appreciate, and learn from the wisdom of its purported enduring essence. An important assumption lying behind this advice is that China presents a system of political governance founded on some timeless political theory that has enabled it to endure intact throughout its long history and weather the kinds of trials and tribulations that have led to the collapse of other great civilizations. The problem is clear: if there is no enduring essence to Chinese political thought, there is no eternal realm of China; no shared sense of what it is to be Chinese; and no unified and homogenous society, culture, and politics. This does not in any way imply that the study of Chinese political thought is not valuable or that the world does not have...

Introduction

Introduction

西村成雄著『中国ナショナリズムと民主主義 : 二〇世紀中国政治史の新たな視界』

西村成雄著『中国ナショナリズムと民主主義 : 二〇世紀中国政治史の新たな視界』

Travel Experiences and Aspirations: A Case Study from Chinese Youth<i> </i>

Understanding cultural values is vital in tourism as these influence an individual’s travel experiences and expectations. Students represent an important segment of the international tourist population, and Chinese student tourists are an increasingly significant part of that segment. It is therefore important to understand how cultural values influence Chinese students’ experiences and aspirations. Will their past travel experiences influence future aspirations? Using data collected from a free-elicitation method, this paper reports on the travel experiences and aspirations of 284 Chinese students. It explores the notional link between past experiences and future aspirations and discusses the impact of Chinese political history and cultural values on tourist experiences and motivations. Implications for marketing are drawn out.

Editorial

Editorial Kristin Stapleton West China is the topic of this special issue. Four of the articles were presented in earlier form as part of a panel at the 2014 annual meeting of the Association for Asian Studies. They address Chinese conceptions of Kham and the “Northwest,” as well as development projects for these regions, such as Third Front railroad construction and the exploitation of northern Xinjiang’s oil fields in cooperation with the Soviet Union. Guest editor Kenneth Pomeranz provides an insightful introductory essay that draws out some of the broader implications of the articles and traces the patterns in Chinese policy toward the western regions revealed in the four studies. As he and our authors show, over the course of the twentieth century, many people were determined to make the West China hinterland more central in national economic and political planning in a variety of ways and for a range of reasons. This issue’s book review section presents assessments of three new works on Chinese political history: Elizabeth Remick’s comparative study of the regulation of prostitution in three cities during the Republican period; the English-language translation by Michael Hill of Wang Hui’s analysis of China’s transition from empire to nation-state in the twentieth century; and Yiching Wu’s history of radical critiques of Maoism during the Cultural Revolution. We thank our reviewers for their contributions. The reviews are listed in the printed journal and available to all as a pdf online at www.maneyonline.com/doi/suppl/10.1179/1521538515Z.00000000063. [End Page 167] Copyright © 2015 Twentieth-Century China

THE ART OF WAR CORPUS AND CHINESE JUST WAR ETHICS PAST AND PRESENT

ABSTRACTThe idea of “just war” is not alien to Chinese thought. The term “yi zhan” (usually translated as “just war” or “righteous war” in English) is used in Mencius, was renewed by Mao Zedong, and is still being used in China today (zhengyi zhanzheng). The best place to start exploring this Chinese idea is in the enormous Art of War corpus in premodern China, of which the Seven Military Classics is the best representative. This set of treatises served as the military bible in imperial China from 1078 CE. Ideas analogous to ius ad bellum and ius in bello can be found in these texts. These norms are present in these military texts, elaborated in subsequent commentaries, understood as a matter of fact in Chinese political history, and recently and briefly acknowledged by a few Chinese military scholars in the mainland and in Taiwan. This Chinese just war ethics has its distinctiveness vis‐à‐vis James Turner Johnson's articulation of the Western classic view. It differs from Johnson's claims that military lethal violence is intrinsically morally neutral and that last resort is not a primary consideration in deciding for war. Contemporary Chinese People's Liberation Army (PLA) military publications show that the PLA understands the general idea of just war, but they acknowledge only the ad bellum part, not the in bello components.

Hajime ABUMIYA, A Study of Zhang Shizhao and Modern Chinese Political History

Hajime ABUMIYA, A Study of Zhang Shizhao and Modern Chinese Political History

Chinese Workers: A New History

Jackie Sheehan traces the background and development of workers clashes with the Chinese Communist Party through mass campaigns such as the 1956-7 Hundred Flowers movement, the Cultural Revolution, the April Fifth Movement of 1976, Democracy Wall and the 1989 Democracy Movement. The author provides the most detailed and complete picture of workers protest in China to date and locates their position within the context of Chinese political history. Chinese Workers demonstrates that the image of Chinese workers as politically conformist and reliable supporters of the Communist Party does not match the realities of industrial life in China. Recent outbreaks of protest by workers are less of a departure from the past than is generally realized.

From Paris to the Paris of the East and Back: Workers As Citizens in Modern Shanghai

Workers have figured prominently in a series of political confrontations that have changed the face of modern China. From the May Fourth Movement of 1919 to the June Fourth Massacre of 1989, working-class participation has proven critical. Although these famous milestones in Chinese history are, for good reason, usually regarded as student—rather than labor—protests, the involvement of members of the working class was far from incidental. The spectacle of workers marching outside their factory gates to engage in protest not simply as laborers, but also as citizens, has been a notable feature of Chinese contentious politics at critical junctures throughout the twentieth century. This phenomenon, moreover, carries implications that extend beyond the borders of China itself. Worker participation in the watersheds of Chinese political history turn out to hold international ramifications as well.

Monarchs and ministers: the Grand Council in Mid-Ch'ing China, 1723-1820

This book describes the transformation of Ch'ing governance from monarchical rule to ministerial administration, presenting a wholly new account of the Grand Council's founding and rise to dominance. This period has been viewed as an era of intensified government centralization and increasing autocracy, but Bartlett persuasively demonstrates that this characterization must be modified in the light of her findings. Bartlett identifies the inner-outer court dichotomy - often studied in earlier dynasties but never before in the Ch'ing - as the key framework for understanding Grand Council development. She conclusively shows how the council arose from the Yung-cheng Emperor's attempt to enhance his own power by establishing several small subordinate (and not at all grand) inner-court staffs to bypass the outer-court bureaucracy. A single centralizing and managing body worthy of the title 'grand' came into being only after Yung-cheng's death. As a result of the council's first century of growth, imperial power was subtly undermined even though it continued in force. Bartlett argues that it was the council's consolidated power as much as the strength of the monarchy that enabled the Ch'ing dynasty to achieve greatness in its middle years - defeating the Mongols and enlarging its territories - and at the end prolonged its life in spite of foreign incursions, internal rebellions, and infant emperors. The Grand Council is the only high privy council of imperial China for which substantial documentation survives. For this book Bartlett traveled to both Taipei and Beijing to consult the newly available archival sources in both Chinese and Manchu necessary for her research. Her feat of archival reconstruction is a tremendous service to the entire field. Her findings on the Grand Council's patterns of growth, particularly such factors as inner-court informality and secrecy, the far-flung eighteenth-century military campaigns, the tripling of paperwork, and the manipulation of communications, will be useful to scholars studying similar phenomena in other periods and contexts, as Bartlett suggests in connection with the rise of the Ming grand secretaries. Monarchs and Ministers offers a lively and fresh account of eighteenth-century Chinese political history that will engage the general reader as well as China specialists in many fields.

A Different Kind of Missionary: Soviet Advisers in China in the 1920s

This paper develops the thesis that some 260 Soviet advisers and staff working in China at various times in the 1920s had a significant influence both on their times and on later Chinese political history, even though their enterprise ended in failure and they returned to Russia in the summer of 1927 defeated. Why did they go to that distant? What work did they do? What experiences did they have? How did they react to the Chinese scene? What happened to them after their return to Russia?

The People's Republic of China: reflections on Chinese political history since 1949

The People's Republic of China: reflections on Chinese political history since 1949

Recent Japanese Studies of Modern China's Political History

The objective of this article is to introduce and review recent Japanese studies of modern Chinese political history from the 1911 Revolution to the founding of the People's Republic of China. The works reviewed were published between 1969 and 1977, and are treated here under these headings: (1) the 1911 Revolution, (2) warlord politics and the May Fourth Movement, (3) history of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP), (4) history of the Guomindang, and (5) mass movements. It should be noted at the outset that, partly because of limited space and partly because of my desire to emphasize internal history, many important works had to be excluded, including general histories, works on international relations, and studies on Manchuria and Taiwan. A brief look at the works published during this period reveals that research has been based on a variety of different senses of the problems to be addressed. Consequently, it is impossible to evaluate them with a single standard. Thus the works will be examined largely in terms of the following five standards.

The Structure of Communist Politics

The past decade has witnessed a general advancement in comparative studies of communism. Yet, in comparing the conceptual development of the Soviet-East European and Chinese Communist fields, one is struck by the peculiarly arrested state of the Chinese side. By comparison, the “Kremlinologists” have produced a veritable storehouse of analytical tools with which they have contributed to the explanation of the nature and functioning of the Soviet political process and Soviet-East European interrelationship. Relatively little conceptual development is discernible in the China field. In this brief essay on comparative developments in the study of communism, I will attempt to compare the concepts which Western scholars have evolved to analyze the politics of the Communist world, account for different approaches, and analyze Chinese political history to determine the most meaningful approach. I speak of the nature and functioning of the political process in a restricted sense—the ways in which leaders interact, how political positions are attained and maintained, and, in general, the structure of leadership politics in the Communist world.

S. Eto, A Study of Modern Chinese Political History

S. Eto, A Study of Modern Chinese Political History

Teng Hsiao-p'ing: a Political Profile

Writing some four hundred and fifty years ago, the founder of the modern realist school of political analysis struck the mark. “The first impression that one gets of a ruler and of his brains,” Machiavelli observed, “is from seeing the men that he has about him.” To the student of the terrain of post-1928 Chinese political history, the prominent positions of Chiang Kai-shek's Chekiang clique in the Kuomintang and of Mao Tse-tung's Hunan faction in the Chinese Communist Party are obvious landmarks. Yet the difference in the political styles of Chiang and Mao, as revealed in the men around them, has been less emphasised. Chiang Kai-shek's trusted political and military associates, with some exceptions, have been either members of his own family or natives of his own province of Chekiang in east China. Mao Tse-tung, while revealing similar parochialism in selecting and retaining associates from his native province of Hunan, has nevertheless shown more imagination and less inflexibility than Chiang.