Late Qing Research Articles

From “Resist Manchus” to “Anti-Japanese”

Nationalist thought existed in ancient China, and the traditional nationalist thought in China, including the late Qing Dynasty, carried strong “racism” color, which was used by the ruling class to distinguish between “foreign and domestic” and justify orthodoxy. During the Anti-Japanese War, due to the unprecedentedly serious national crisis, the nationalist thought of nationalism continued to awaken. Both the Kuomintang and the Communist Party advocated national unity and encouraged the army and the people in their own different ways. So far, the historical context of clarifying nationalist thought has obviously shifted from the contradiction between “Han people and barbarians” to the contradiction between the Chinese nation and foreign invaders. Therefore, it is not difficult for us to glimpse a modern context from the evolution of modern nationalist thought during the two Sino-Japanese War.

Walking in “Masses and Elites”: Investigation into Donald MacGillivray’s Missionary Strategies in China (1888–1930)

From his arrival in China in 1888 to his departure in 1930, Canadian missionary, Donald MacGillivray (季理斐), was in China for more than 40 years. According to changes in the Chinese missionary situation, the key target of his mission was frequently adjusted. From his initial work in the early days in North Honan, to his work with officials and intellectuals in Shanghai in the late Qing Dynasty, then to students, women, and children in the Republic of China, Donald MacGillivray continued to preach to both the masses and the elites. His approach was flexible, ranging from oral preaching to academic publications. Relying on his interpersonal network, MacGillivray paid close attention to the social changes occurring in modern China. An evaluation of his activities in China can not only reveal the impact of individual missionaries in the process of Western learning and the transformation of Chinese knowledge in modern times, but also provide insight into the integration of Christianity into the indigenization process of China.

Introduction of Western Medicines into China and Improvement on Decoctions during Modern China

Abstract: During the late Qing dynasty (1840 A.D.-1912 A.D.), a large quantity of Western medicines entered China, which continuously impacted the traditional Chinese medicine (TCM) market and revealed the shortcomings of Chinese medicines. Some personages in the TCM community followed the trend of learning from the West, and attempted to reform TCM, with the improvement on decoction becoming an important aspect of this effort. Through debates and trials, the improvement on decoction underwent three stages of conceptual evolution: “taking Chinese medicines as the foundation and referring to the dosage forms of Western medicines”, “introducing Western techniques to serve the preparation of decoctions” and “integrating the theories of TCM and Western medicine to improve decoctions”. The study on the improvement on decoction highlights the effective complementarity between modern TCM and Western medicine in the field of pharmacy, and provides valuable experience and support for the reevaluation of the value of TCM in contemporary society.

The Language of Nation-State Building in Late Qing China: A Case Study of the Xinmin Congbao and the Minbao, 1902–1910

The Language of Nation-State Building in Late Qing China: A Case Study of the Xinmin Congbao and the Minbao, 1902–1910

Institutionalising global mining knowledge: the rise of engineering education in late Qing China, 1870–95

Abstract The history of mining education in late Qing China has received relatively little attention in scholarly literature. Through the lens of institutionalising global mining knowledge, this article addresses the following questions: How did the demand for expertise within the framework of mining bureaucracy evolve under the impact of Western imperialism? How did mining education enter scholarly discourse and become eventually institutionalised in the late Qing China? Drawing on evidence from the collections of Sheng Xuanhuai's archive series, it investigates two previously overlooked ‘failures’ of Sheng's mining-related enterprises, namely his earliest mining practices in Hubei in the 1870s and his proposal for establishing a mining school in Shandong in 1888–89. It then reconnects these efforts with the histories of Western learning, late Qing mining bureaucracy, the monetary crisis of that era, and the global recruitment of engineers despite a pronounced distrust of foreign expertise. It argues that these seemingly discrete efforts or ‘failures’ in fact paved the way for initiating China's first engineering university as well as other mining colleges in around 1895 and eventually led to the rise of engineering education before the entire educational system was transformed in China.

Transnational networks of human resources and knowledge in East Asia: a case study of Taiwan merchant Wang Xuenong (1870–1915) and his trading company

Abstract Taiwan is an island and trade has always been the locomotive of its economic development. From the 1620s to the 1960s, cane sugar was Taiwan's most representative export commodity. Yet little attention has been paid to the business strategies of sugar traders and the changes in their thinking. How did the Takow (Kaohsiung) merchants who first went to Japan and Hong Kong to conduct cross-border trade in person learn about international trade and build a network of human resources that crossed borders, especially after the 1870s? And how did they face the great changes of an era in which tradition and modernity were intertwined, so that, following the regime transfer in the 1890s from the Qing Dynasty to the Japanese empire, they were able to expand their business territory and become major sugar merchants in southern Taiwan? This article examines the career of Wang Xuenong—a well-known sugar merchant in Taiwan during the Meiji period (1868–1912). It attempts to explain, from the perspective of cross-cultural knowledge transfer and human resource strategies, why and how sugar merchants such as Wang, who had gone to Japan in the early years of the Meiji Restoration for purposes of cross-border trade, introduced a trading company system that incorporated a mixture of East Asian and Western elements. It further investigates how they expanded their business from the sugar trade into a wider commercial domain that included mechanical rice milling and steamship transport. Finally, it looks at how their actions affected a transformation of Taiwan's commercial culture from the late Qing Dynasty to the early days of Japanese rule, and the historical significance of these changes in Taiwan's transitions towards industrialisation and modernisation.

Conceiving an Alternative: The Ideological Underpinnings and Political Blueprints of Chinese Federalism

Abstract This article contributes to the hitherto limited scholarship on the Chinese federalist movement in the 1910s and 1920s by conducting a thorough investigation of its ideological underpinnings and political blueprints. It compares the federalist ideas, plans, and activism of three thinkers—Zhang Taiyan, Zhang Shizhao, and Chen Jiongming—who stood firmly against the centralist trajectory of state-building in China after 1911 and advocated the formation of a Chinese federation. It argues that Chinese federalists, instead of emulating Western models, critically engaged with a broad spectrum of ideologies—Daoism, Buddhism, social Darwinism, parliamentarianism, guild socialism, anarchism etc.—when formulating their federalist agendas. Emphasizing the Chinese tradition of self-government, which underwent reinterpretations during the late Qing and early Republican periods, this article examines the extent to which Chinese federalism presented an alternative to Western political modernity.

Making Knowledge in the Local Settings: Vernacular Education and Cantonese Elementary Textbooks

A growing number of Protestant missionaries engaged in vernacular education in the late nineteenth century. To meet the demands of the new era, Christian church education faced challenges not only in its curriculum design but also in the way it presented new knowledge. Previous studies have focused on church education at the tertiary level while overlooking the elementary level. This article discusses vernacular church education and vernacular textbooks at the elementary level in the late Qing, with specific reference to Youxue baoshen yaoyan 幼學保身要言 (The Human Body for Children). It argues that the demand for spreading new knowledge urged Protestant missionaries to compile vernacular textbooks and present Western knowledge in the local settings. Vernacular church education should be regarded as the precursor of indigenous education proposed by the late Qing Court. The local dialect, Cantonese in this case, bridged the linguistic gap between new terms and children’s cognition and became an effective means of presenting new knowledge. Vernacular textbooks had an unparalleled significance in the cultural sphere of dialect writing, since the language of textbooks could drastically influence the writing and reading habits of the young generation and further influence people’s attitudes towards dialects and dialect literature.

Study on the Influencing Factors and Mechanisms of the Evolution of the Architectural Characteristics of Guangfu Ancestral Halls in the Ming and Qing Dynasties

This paper discusses ancestral hall architecture within the context of the Cantonese folk lineage in the PearlRiver Delta. Using a typological research approach and chronological analysis, various factors that have influenced the evolution of ancestral hall architecture are analyzed. The study specifically investigates the features of ancestral halls during the Ming and Qing dynasties. Three periods of ancient China are analyzed: The transition from Ming to Qing, the mid-Qing dynasty, and the late Qing dynasty. The variables of each period and how they influence the evolution of architectural typological features are identified. Based on our analysis, architectural features are related to economic and social factors, materials available, and craftsmanship of the construction workers.

Impact and response: Debate on the necessity of female education in the late Qing Dynasty and the early Republic period

The late Qing Dynasty and the early Republic of China were the periods of rapid changes in Chinese society. People’s thoughts were wandering between persistence and innovation. Influenced by the introduction of Western ideas, missionaries and advanced Chinese intellectuals advocated women’s education and the establishment of girls’ schools. Influenced by the traditional social division of labor, feudal ethical thoughts and heavy historical accumulation, it has not received unanimous support, and this resistance mainly comes from conservatives. Under the pressure of public opinion from all walks of life, women’s right to education was initially established. The debate on the necessity of women’s education presents the characteristics of impact and response, reflecting the rise of feminism and the awakening of women’s self-consciousness.

Missionary’s Envision of Children in Late Qing China: Children’s Education and the Construction of Christian Discourse in Child’s Paper

In the late Qing Dynasty, religious periodicals by Western missionaries were made legal in China, and subsequently became an important manner of their missionary cause. Among them, Child’s Paper 小孩月报 (1875–1881) by John Marshall Willoughby Farnham, a Protestant missionary from the United States, endeavoured to convert child readers by carrying children’s stories of moral and emotional education. By concentrating on the educational elements of Child’s Paper, this article inspects how conversion was achieved via the intertextual interpretation of Christian doctrines within these educational elements. Specifically, how the image of little Christians and urchins, respectively, represents salvation and redemption in Christian morals. This article holds that the missionaries’ stress on the authority of Christian discourse in the education of Chinese children makes evident an increasing emphasis on the reformative effects of Christianity on Chinese children. Moreover, the conversion-education efforts by missionaries also construed helping Chinese children gain a cross-cultural perspective on Western religion, and arguably inspired later Chinese intellectuals’ to create newspapers for the purpose of the pre-primary education of Chinese children.

A Historical Review of the Comparative Study of Mohism and Christianity during the Late Qing and Republican China Periods

A Historical Review of the Comparative Study of Mohism and Christianity during the Late Qing and Republican China Periods

Harmony and Hegemony: A Comparative Analysis of Chinese Civilizations through the Ages

This paper embarks on a comprehensive journey through the epochs of Chinese civilizations, unraveling the intricate threads that weave together the tapestry of its rich history. The paper seeks to explore the dynamic evolution of Chinese societies from ancient times to the modern era, employing a comparative lens to illuminate distinctive features, contributions, and challenges across different epochs. Beginning with the cradle of civilization in ancient China, the analysis traverses the early dynasties, scrutinizing their cultural, philosophical, and technological advancements. The imperial era witnesses the flourishing of governance, arts, and innovation under the Han, Tang, and Song Dynasties. Ming and Qing Dynasties, characterized by peaks and declines, unravel tales of maritime exploration, cultural integration, and foreign invasions. The narrative then unfolds into modern China, tracing the transformative phases of the late Qing and Republican era, the seismic shifts brought about by the Communist Revolution, and the subsequent economic reforms leading to China's resurgence on the global stage. A pivotal aspect of this exploration lies in drawing connections between Chinese civilizations and other contemporaneous societies. The course paper delves into parallel developments, interactions, and exchanges with neighboring civilizations, offering a nuanced understanding of China's place in the larger tapestry of human history. As the analysis navigates the continuities and transformations within Chinese culture, it addresses challenges and controversies, including historical disputes, preservation dilemmas, and contemporary debates surrounding the trajectory of Chinese civilizations. In conclusion, this course paper not only serves as a historical retrospective but also offers insights into the intricate interplay of harmony and hegemony within Chinese civilizations. By employing a comparative approach, it aims to contribute to a deeper understanding of the unique features, enduring contributions, and global significance of China's multifaceted cultural journey.

Reflecting on the Distinction between Philosophical Daoism and Religious Daoism Based on the Transmission and Transformation of the Concept of “Philosophy”

The distinction between philosophical Daoism and religious Daoism is widely influential yet highly controversial. The current popular empirical methods often overlook the vicissitude of the concepts underlying the reception history of this distinction. Therefore, this article adopts the method of intellectual history, based on the transmission and transformation of the concept of philosophy, to examine the rationales of the establishment and reception of this Daoist distinction. Here, we present that, though the Confucian tradition of ranking Daoist figures provided soil for this Daoist distinction, the establishment of the dichotomy with terminological awareness should be attributed to the cooperation between Victorian Protestant intellectuals and their late Qing Confucian collaborators. The concept of philosophy that pursues eternal wisdom and truth and traces the origin of all things has played an essential role in the establishment of this distinction. The thought of Laozi and Zhuangzi was valued and preferred in mainland China because of its deemed congruence with this Western concept of philosophy, while other more religious branches of Daoism were belittled. However, the philosophies of anti-metaphysics engender a new paradigm of thinking. On the one hand, under the influence of logical positivism and its successors, natural science has become an excellent model for other studies. In light of empirical methods, the distinction between philosophical Daoism and religious Daoism becomes an erroneous and inefficient metaphysical distinction. On the other hand, inspired by continental philosophers such as Nietzsche, Heidegger, and Derrida, scholars gained a new perspective on understanding the thought of Laozi and Zhuangzi. Thus, a new consensus emerges: eternal truth based on concepts and logic distorts the real world of life. According to this, the distinction between philosophical Daoism and religious Daoism is only an imaginary and conceptual distinction, which does not apply to the understanding of living Daoism.

Study on the Translation of Culture-loaded Words in The File No.113

All nations in the world have generated many culture-loaded words full of cultural origin and emotional attachment in the evolution of social life. Due to the huge differences between Chinese and Western cultures, it is difficult for translators to find the equivalent expression when translating culture-loaded words. Chen Hongbi is an outstanding female translator in modern times, and her translation of the English detective novel Le Dossier No.113 was very popular in the late Qing Dynasty. From the perspective of eco-translatology, this study takes Chen Hongbi's The File No.113(《第一百十三案》) as an example and analyzes the translation of culture-loaded words in the text. In the late Qing Dynasty, the social demand for female intellectuals, the academic demand for detective novels and the interest demand of publishing houses formed a sound ecological environment for Chen's translation of foreign detective novels. Chen adapted himself to this ecological environment with his translation ability and love for detective novels, thus choosing to translate Le Dossier No.113. In the process of translation, Chen reaches the adaptation and transformation of culture-loaded words from three dimensions linguistic dimension, cultural dimension and communicative dimension. This study describes how Chen Hongbi accurately conveys the meaning of culture-loaded words to the target readers based on the ecological environment of translation through the mechanism of "selection" and "adaptation", which is helpful to understand and explain the choices made by the translators in order to realize the communicative intention and adapt to the context of the late Qing Dynasty. By analyzing Chen's successful translation of the detective novel, this study hopes to make readers realize the value of her translation as well as her adaptation and selection in translation so as to provide references for future translators to consider deep adaptation and selection when translating culture-loaded words.

Transcultural Mediterranean in the History of Chinese Travelogues: Oumei manyou riji as a Case Study

Chen Yifu 陳一甫 (1869–1948) and his son Chen Dayou 陳達有 (exact dates unknown) are the authors of a rare travelogue, Oumei manyou riji 歐美漫遊日記 [Diary of a journey in Europe and the United States]. The text is a fundamental milestone in the late Qing and Republican era odeporic production. As much as the father and son were well-known in the scholarly milieu of the epoch, they were in the first place entrepreneurs, not literati or diplomats, unlike most of the authors of previous travelogues of this historical phase. The focus of this article is the representation of the Mediterranean portion of the Chens’ travels, particularly the description of relics both as cultural finds and as comparison examples. By highlighting fresh elements and representations that the authors’ backgrounds involved, the article aims to assess if and to what extent the Mediterranean was perceived in Oumei manyou riji as a “transcultural space,” as defined by David Tomas, and what new research perspectives this provides for the study of late Qing and Republican era odeporic production.

Editorial II. Design education in China

China’s design education stems from education in craft and fine art. The beginning of China’s design education can be associated with artist Li Ruiqing, who was a scholar of the Imperial Academy. During the late Qing Dynasty, in 1906, he established the subject of ‘Crafts and Pictures’ at the Nanjing Educator School, which is now Southeast University. During the next 100 years, China’s design education passed through four stages: a focus on patterns and crafts, crafts and ornament, ornament and design, and creative design. The Japanese model of design, which is reflected in the first three stages and can be traced back to the Bauhaus design education system, had as its purpose ‘to educate the Craftsman-Artist’ (Chapkova & Zhang, 2019; Bredendieck, 1962, p. 15). Therefore, art and ornament have long been considered important parts of design, and the history of China’s design education represents the development history of fine art institutes to a certain degree (Wu, 2001).

Cross-regional Participation in National Graduate Admission Examination:The Historical Implications of Shuntian and Shanxi Provincial Examination in the Late Qing Dynasty

In the late Qing Dynasty, Renyin and Guimao rural examinations were the last two rural examinations in the history of Chinese imperial examinations. However, under the intrusion of domestic troubles and foreign invaders, the Qing Court had to adopt a compromise method in order to continue the tradition of selecting scholars through the imperial examinations and pick out and promote talents. The imperial examinations were held in Shuntian County in Henan Province and in Shanxi Province in Shaanxi Province, which led to the rare phenomenon of borrowing Wei in the imperial examinations of thousands of years. When the implementation process of the two provinces of the provincial exams borrowed exams are compared, it is found that there are many differences between the two provinces in terms of the time priority, the complexity of admission and delivery, the dispatch of officials and the content of the examination. However, from the perspective of the examination concepts such as the objectives and principles of the borrowed exams, the two provinces have obvious common features, including paying attention to the simplicity of the township examination organization, respecting the independence of provincial township examination, and adhering to the fairness of the imperial examination. From the perspective of the past, the practice experience in the late Qing Dynasty is similar to that in the present. It has important historical revelation for improving the management level and ability of the modernization of the postgraduate entrance examination. Firstly, we should strengthen the construction of the national system of the postgraduate entrance examination in different places, secondly, we should attach importance to the construction of standardized examination centers in different provinces and regions, and thirdly, we should improve the coordination mechanism of the resources of the postgraduate entrance examination in different places.

Contribution and Modern Public Debt: On the Nature of Patriotic Public Debt in the Late Qing Dynasty and the Early Republic of China

Contribution and Modern Public Debt: On the Nature of Patriotic Public Debt in the Late Qing Dynasty and the Early Republic of China

Theoretical Frameworks and Empirical Insights: Unraveling Wuyi’s Furniture Design from Late Qing to Republic Era

Theoretical Frameworks and Empirical Insights: Unraveling Wuyi’s Furniture Design from Late Qing to Republic Era