Qing History Research Articles

The New Qing History in the Making of “China”: A Response to Devin Fitzgerald

The New Qing History in the Making of “China”: A Response to Devin Fitzgerald

DE-CENTERING CHINESE HISTORY

What would Chinese history look like if we were to examine it from the perspective of the peoples living along China's periphery? How might a non-Chinese perspective challenge the dominant themes in Chinese historiography, themes which represent Chinese history as a linear narrative arising from the Central Plain and its original inhabitants, the Han Chinese? If, for example, we rely solely on Chinese sources to tell us about Chinese-Jurchen/Manchu relations during the first half of the seventeenth century, we will have privileged Chinese sources, affirmed the authority of the Chinese perspective, and suppressed voices that might offer an alternative perspective. Only an aggressive deconstruction of such “authoritative” Chinese texts can expose biases and logical inconsistencies, unpack cultural tensions that demand more rigorous scrutiny, and tease out into the open silenced voices from spaces buried deep in the text. Those historians who engage in such a methodological approach, however, run the risk of being accused of applying fanciful postmodernist conjecture or presentist interpretations to the past. This is why the recent (since the 1980s) addition of Manchu language sources to our examination of Qing history (1636–1912) has had such a seismic impact on the field.

‘요동사’와 그 이후 : 참여자와 관찰자의 시각

The History of Liaodong, published in 2004 by Hankyu Kim, has been one of the hottest issues in the studies of early Korean history. Kim’s new paradigm advocates that the History of Lioadong or Manchuria should be separated from the mainstream Chinese history. It in turn means that Old Joseon and Goguryeo, which Korean people believe as the integral parts of their ancient realm, are more properly considered as parts of the Liaodong history. It goes without saying that nationalist historians both in Korea and China have severely criticized the History of Liaodong.BR This study first argues that Korean scholars’ criticisms about the History of Liaodong do not seem to have been valid, rather revealing the weak points for the national history which embraces both Manchuria and the Korean peninsula in their ancient realm. It further associates the History of Liaodong with the so-called New Qing History in America and, especially, the Mansenshi of Japanese colonialist historians. The similarities among the three historical paradigms appreciate the scholarly significance of the History of Laiodong. Korean scholars’ criticisms of Kim as a follower of the colonialist history are indeed biased and groundless.

The Qianlong Emperor’s Letter to George III and the Early-Twentieth-Century Origins of Ideas about Traditional China’s Foreign Relations

This article examines the famous edict in which the Qianlong emperor responded to the British embassy led by Lord Macartney to China in 1793, which has often been interpreted as a symbol of the Qing dynasty’s ignorance and narrow-mindedness. An examination of a wider range of archival documents suggests that the quotation does not reflect the Qianlong emperor’s response to the British embassy, which was primarily to see it as a security threat, but rather eighteenth-century British concerns with protocol and their influence on Chinese and Western scholars in the early twentieth century, when the letter first began to circulate widely. The focus here is on Chen Yuan, Shen Jianshi, Xu Baoheng, and other scholars who edited the first volumes of published materials to emerge from the Qing archives, as well as Jiang Tingfu, Deng Siyu, and John K. Fairbank, who used these materials to create a lasting narrative of the Qing. Looking at how the letter has been interpreted illustrates both the role of archivists as co-creators of history and the extent to which many of our ideas about Qing history are still shaped by the tumultuous politics of China’s early twentieth century.

Re-envisioning Manchu and Qing History: A Question of Sanitization

Re-envisioning Manchu and Qing History: A Question of Sanitization

On Meng Sen’s teaching and lecture notes of Ming and Qing history at Peking University during the 1930s

ABSTRACTWhile teaching the histories of the Ming and Qing dynasties, Meng Sen (1869–1937), developed three textbooks in the 1930s: Lecture Notes on the Ming History (明史讲义 Mingshi jiangyi), Lecture Notes on the Qing History (清史讲义 Qingshi jiangyi), and Lecture Notes on the History of the Founding of the Manchu State (满洲开国史讲义 Manzhou kaiguo shi jiangyi). In these book titles, the term “history” refers specifically to “standard history.” In tracing Meng Sen’s original intention in producing these textbooks, all three works suggest the author’s desire to write history. He wrote Lecture Notes on the Ming History to prepare a future revision of the History of the Ming (明史 Mingshi); similarly he wrote Lecture Notes on the Qing History and Lecture Notes on the History of the Founding of the Manchu State with the intention to revise the Draft History of the Qing (清史稿 Qingshi gao). Meng Sen summarized Sima Guang’s (司马光, 1019–86) view of history as “imitating the good and avoiding the bad,” which he believed represented the “essential meaning of history.” Meng followed Sima Guang’s model in compiling the Lecture Notes on the Ming History and Lecture Notes on the Qing History, as shown in their style and format. By comparison, his writing of the Lecture Notes on the History of the Founding of the Manchu State attempted to merge the traditional annals–biographic style with narrative history from the West, or to pour old wine into a new bottle. Meng Sen presented his innovative efforts at Peking University, introducing young scholars to standards for history writing, and doing his utmost to guide and encourage his students; some of whom became noted scholars in the study of Ming and Qing histories.

Polyandry and Wife-Selling in Qing Dynasty China: Survival Strategies and Judicial Interventions by Matthew H. Sommer

Reviewed by: Polyandry and Wife-Selling in Qing Dynasty China: Survival Strategies and Judicial Interventions by Matthew H. Sommer Rubie Watson Polyandry and Wife-Selling in Qing Dynasty China: Survival Strategies and Judicial Interventions by Matthew H. Sommer. Oakland: University of California Press, 2015. Pp. xiv + 478. $80.00 cloth, $80.00 e-book. In Polyandry and Wife-Selling in Qing Dynasty China, Matthew Sommer presents, with clarity and precision, a fascinating argument about a neglected but important subject in Qing history. His study, which uses large samples of court records, provides impressive insights into the full reach of the Qing state. Sommer’s arguments rest on his examination of more than 1,200 legal cases involving wife-selling as well as various forms of what he calls polyandry, polyamory, and marital prostitution. His sample includes 400 local cases from Ba and Nanbu Counties (巴縣, 南部縣) in Sichuan, as well as smaller samples from Baodi County 寶坻縣 (Zhili) and Xinzhu County 新竹縣 (northern Taiwan). Most of his 800 central cases involve homicide and were reported to the imperial center for review. In addition to his reliance on these sources, Sommer includes discussions of 107 wife-sale contracts (culled from his court samples) and two local surveys of customs compiled during the early twentieth century. Finally, in chapter 10, published casebooks from Qing and Republican gazetteers are used to explore judicial reasoning. Sommer’s local cases date mostly from the years between 1800 and 1899, whereas the vast majority of his central cases cover the period 1736–1820 and represent all provinces, although those from “the traditional core provinces” predominate. Three-quarters of Sommer’s local cases are from Ba County, which includes the city of Chongqing; the vast majority of these concern wife sales. Based on extensive documentation, Sommer maintains that wife-selling and other transactions involving married women were by no means rare. Court records of “illegal marriage practices,” he argues, “reveal only the tip of the iceberg” (p. 11). During the Qing dynasty, Sommer reminds his readers, there was a hardening of gender hierarchies, expanding commercialization, increasing poverty, and sex ratio imbalances. Adding concubinage to this mix meant that many poor men found it difficult, if not impossible, [End Page 576] to marry. Expanding studies of Qing law “to include … illicit custom and community regulation” (p. 2), Sommer writes, not only allows for a fuller understanding of how communities dealt with prohibited (and stigmatized) practices like wife-selling, but also offers important insights into the power of state laws and regulations to govern people’s lives. Sommer’s study provides us with a nuanced assessment of the ways in which local officials enforced (or failed to enforce) state mandates. Finally, although Sommer does not make this claim, Polyandry and Wife-Selling significantly contributes to what we know and how we as scholars think about Qing China’s vast system of “transactions in people.” Sommer’s arguments are forceful and bold, and it is with some trepidation that I summarize his 383 pages of text. The author argues that in what he (and others) call “brideprice-heavy” marriages, husbands could and did buy and sell wives. Among the poor, Sommer writes, “no clear distinction can be drawn between marriage and the traffic in women in Qing dynasty China” (p. 2). Women, Sommer points out, were victimized in these transactions, but they also had and displayed agency; that is, a wife’s acquiescence, and sometimes active cooperation, made these practices possible. For many desperately poor Chinese, wife-selling was a family (or, for some husbands, an individual) survival strategy. Sommer opposes definitions of Chinese marriage that privilege elite constructions and customs. Implied in his argument is a challenge to understand Qing marriage as a continuum: it is “impossible to sustain,” he writes in his introduction, “the clear-cut binary distinction between marriage and sex work that was basic to Qing law and elite ideology” (p. 2). Finally, Sommer considers how magistrates decided routine wife-selling cases. His research leads him to cast doubt “on the ability of the imperial center to impose its will [its mores] on society through the local courts” (p. 371). In fact, Sommer shows that many local judgments regarding wife...

Making China Modern: From the Great Qing to Xi Jinping by Klaus Mühlhahn

Reviewed by: Making China Modern: From the Great Qing to Xi Jinping by Klaus Mühlhahn Thoralf Klein (bio) Klaus Mühlhahn. Making China Modern: From the Great Qing to Xi Jinping. Cambridge, MA: The Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, 2019. xii, 717 pp. Hardcover $39.95, ISBN 978-0-674-73735-8. Already in its sheer physical dimensions, Klaus Mühlhahn's new history of modern China is an ambitious undertaking. In over 600 pages of text—not counting the appendices—the author traces the development of the country from the Manchu conquest in 1644 to 2017. Not only the book's scope, but even more its title is reminiscent of two similarly monumental studies, and a comparison with them elucidates the perspective and characteristics of Mühlhahn's work: The China that Immanuel Hsu saw on the ascendant in his The Rise of Modern China, first published in 1970, was the revolutionary state of Mao Zedong. Jonathan D. Spence's The Search for Modern China, on the other hand, was written in the period of uncertainty following the Tian'anmen massacre of 1989 and accordingly exudes a great deal of skepticism regarding China's modern trajectory. By contrast, the China Mühlhahn wishes to explain is the global superpower of today, and he thus provides the first truly twenty- first-century history of modern China. Moreover, the semantics of his book's title suggests that modern China did not simply rise, nor was it out there to be found; rather, its emergence was the product of human action. In the introduction, Mühlhahn identifies institutional change and innovation as the key factor in the making of modern China. In so doing, he shows himself to be more indebted to the modernity paradigm than he is ready to admit, despite emphasizing that modernity could always build on China's own historical legacies (see p. 3). The book is neatly divided into four parts at three chapters each, roughly following the chronological trajectory. Within the chapters, however, Mühlhahn organizes his text into thematic blocks, which, especially in the first two sections, allows for a loosening of the chronological corset and a systematic discussion of specific topics. Overall, the text tilts towards the contemporary: approximately 250 years of Qing rule are dealt with in 180 pages, just under one and a half times the space required for the just twenty-seven years of the Mao era after 1949. In addition to the focus on institutions, a number of approaches hold the narrative thread together. Mühlhahn places more emphasis on economic history than is customary in general histories, providing lots of fascinating new insights into the transformation of China. Intellectual history is another staple of the work, while the environmental perspective, although flagged in the introduction, makes a more uneven appearance, occasionally missing where one would expect it, for example in conjunction [End Page 328] with the Great Leap Forward. Finally, wherever possible, Mühlhahn places the development of China into its international and global contexts. In the first part, Mühlhahn traces the conquest of China by the Manchu Qing dynasty, its heyday in the eighteenth century and its demise at the hands of imperialism and domestic crises and rebellions in the nineteenth. With regard to the Qing takeover of power, he concentrates on those institutions that the dynasty inherited from its predecessors, not least the examination system. This brings him more into line with the older Sinicization thesis, rather than with New Qing History and its emphasis on what set the Manchu rulers and elites apart from the Han Chinese majority. Moving on into the nineteenth century, Mühlhahn provides an intriguing account of how the economic depression under the Daoguang Emperor (1821–1850) weakened the Qing state, then goes on to show how the onslaught of Western imperialism led to a wholesale restructuring of China's economy, shifting the center of activity from the interior to the coastal areas and increasing the urban-rural gap. Mühlhahn rightly stresses the adverse effects of imperialism, as well as the resilience of the Qing government which led to China not being colonized like other parts of the world...

Empire and Identity in Guizhou: Local Resistance to Qing Expansion by Jodi L. Weinstein

Empire and Identity in Guizhou: Local Resistance Qing Expansion, by Jodi L. Weinstein. Studies on Ethnic Groups in China Series. Seattle & London, University of Washington Press, 2014. xiii, 217 pp. $75.00 US (cloth) $30.00 US (paper). With Empire and Identity in Guizhou: Local Resistance Qing Expansion, Jodi Weinstein adds the rich body of English-language monographs on the relationships between China's late imperial empires and non-Han peoples living on the borderlands of China proper. This literature grows out of one of the major insights of the new Qing history: that the last dynasty, the Qing, founded in 1644 by conquering Manchus, established an empire that extended far beyond the borders of China proper, incorporating many non-Han populations. Long treated as just another Chinese empire ruled by foreigners who quickly embraced Chinese ways, the Qing has now come be seen as fundamentally different in nature in part at least because of its territorial ambitions and the distinctive strategies it designed prosecute them. What contribution does Empire and Identity in Guizhou make this revisionist history of the Qing? First, it fleshes out our knowledge of the Qing imperial project in a little studied area, Guizhou, one of the poorest provinces of the empire and home a variety of non-Han peoples. More specifically, it introduces one of these peoples, the Zhongjia, who have not received much attention from Western scholars. Second (and more importantly), it highlights the resistance of the Zhongjia, treating them as active agents in shaping their relationship with the Qing. Here Weinstein draws on the approach of the anthropologist Jean Michaud to show how members of this group created viable livelihoods and maintained their identity while negotiating the imperial state's plans for standardization and centralization (5). Weinstein's argument is set out clearly in four substantive chapters. first describes the landscape, human and natural, of Guizhou and describes the ethnic mosaic of the province, which was also home to, among others, Lolo, Nasi Yi, and Han peoples. The Consolidation of Qing Rule (chapter three) concisely narrates the largely successful efforts of the Yongzheng emperor (ruled 1722-1735) bring the Zhongjia, perceived be violent and uncivilized, more tightly under Qing control. Here Weinstein applies many of the insights of James Scott about what it means see like a state. heart of Weinstein's argument is set forth in the next two chapters. Livelihood Choices in the Mid-Eighteenth Century (chapter four) illustrates Weinstein's application of the approach the Zhongjia; she narrates three cases that show Zhongjia men and women making livelihood choices that engaged them in the manipulation of Indigenous religious networks, Indigenous beliefs (the power of charms bring wealth and good fortune), and Han institutions--all of which empowered them undermine the state or openly call for rebellion. …

Moving Beyond “Sinicization” and “Manchu Characteristics”: Can Research on Qing History Take a Third Path?

EDITOR’S ABSTRACTYang proposes to marry the many insights procured by New Qing History to the idea of “Hua-ization,” the alternative to the sinicization thesis, by internalizing the multidirectional blending of ethnic communities. This proposed third path would combine and integrate valuable insights from both the old Qing history and New Qing History schools.

New Qing History and the Problem of “Chinese Empire”—Another Impact and Response?

EDITOR’ ABSTRACTLi Aiyong starts from a thorough analysis of the academic background, theories, and approaches of New Qing History. This suggests that its emergence in North America and the controversy it continues to cause in China have to be understood within the respective academic traditions and cultural environments and calls on Chinese academia to actively impact the writing of Qing history overseas.

New Qing History: Dispute, Dialog, and Influence

This article studies the New Qing History approach that arose in the US in the 1980s and the ensuing responses to it, and how these responses can be understood in the context of American China studies, twentieth-century historiographical trends, and Chinese nationalism. It argues that the New Qing History approach should be considered in a contextualized and de-politicized way. After examining how Chinese-born scholars responded to the controversial issues (sinicization, the nature of the Qing dynasty/Empire, and the definition of China/Zhongguo) provoked by New Qing History, the article suggests that sinicization should no longer be used as an uncontestable interpretative framework for studies of Chinese history. Instead, it favors a historicized conceptualization of China emphasizing its open, inclusive, and integrative character, as well as the uniqueness of Qing China's expansion. The article also demonstrates the New Qing History approach's positive influences in diversifying primary sources and its contribution in promoting borderland and non-Han studies.

“New Qing History”: An Example of “New Imperialist” History

EDITOR’S ABSTRACTSeeing New Qing History as a “malicious attack on a sovereign country” by “Western imperialists,” Li explicitly differentiates between a “wrong” and a “right” perspective on Qing history. In his view, the only legitimate standpoint is one that takes the People’s Republic of China’s territorial reach and “ethnic unity” as a necessary and natural result of history.

Manchu Sinicization: Doubts on the Ethnic Perspective of New Qing History

EDITOR’ ABSTRACTZhang Jian believes that an all too narrow definition of the word “sinicization” by New Qing historians has created a conflict where there is none, namely, between Manchu sinicization, properly understood, on the one hand, and Manchu ethnic identity on the other. Zhang argues that tensions can be seen as the result of “sociopolitical class-based differences between officials and citizens.”

Recent Additions to the New Qing History Debate

ABSTRACTThis introduction gives a brief overview of the articles included in this issue. It also briefly introduces both the general context of the New Qing History debate and its recent development.

Changes over Time in Qing History: The Importance of Context

Changes over Time in Qing History: The Importance of Context Paul Cohen When I received my doctorate (1961), it was not uncommon for westerners to see Qing China as sui generis, something fundamentally different from the countries of the west. China was a static, unchanging civilization. It was a strange place, hard to understand. And it existed in a state of isolation, hermetically sealed from the rest of the world. China, most western students seemed to agree, would benefit greatly from becoming more like us. American interpretations of nineteenth-century China tended, in the 1950s and 1960s, to lean heavily on the concepts “western impact” and “Chinese response.” The central question, as enunciated by John Fairbank, was “Why did China not respond to foreign encroachment earlier and more vigorously?” Because this was the key question, there was a strong tendency to characterize the non-western-related aspects of nineteenth-century China (state, society, economy, thought) in terms of their “remarkable inertia” (Fairbank). An influential perspective that went hand in hand with the impact-response approach was modernization theory, in particular that aspect of the theory that emphasized the division of China’s long history into traditional and modern phases (modern generally referring to the period of significant contact with the modern west). This approach was based on the assumption that Confucianism and modernity were fundamentally incompatible and that the traditional order had to be torn down before a new modern order could be established. Around 1970, however, this pattern of thinking began to be challenged by an emerging body of scholarly opinion that, in defining the relationship between “modern” [End Page 10] and “traditional,” questioned the implication that they were dichotomous, mutually antithetical conditions. We now began to see China as having undergone mammoth changes prior to the western onslaught (Kuhn), and as the old picture of an unchanging or cyclically changing China was discarded, we started to take a much closer look at developments within China. This more China-centered approach had several identifying features: its starting point was China, not the west; it attempted to cope with the complexity of the Chinese world by breaking it down into smaller spatial units (see Skinner’s concept of macroregions); it took seriously phenomena that were taking place in the lower strata of Chinese society (making possible the study of popular history and culture); and it was highly receptive to the techniques and strategies of disciplines other than history (e.g., anthropology). The China-centered approach began to take hold around 1970. It resulted, among other things, in a very different understanding of Chinese history in the nineteenth century. The consensus of earlier American scholarship had been that the great divide between the modern period of Chinese history and the traditional period was the Opium War. A growing consensus after around 1970 shifted to the view that the true watershed event of nineteenth-century Chinese history was the Taiping Rebellion (see Kuhn and Rowe). Although there are countless issues in the late Qing for the probing of which a China-centered approach remains appropriate and desirable, there are many other issues where this is plainly not the case. Illustrations would be scholarship that poses questions of a broadly comparative nature (such as the work of Wong and Pomeranz), or that examines the behavior and thinking of non-Han ethnic groups within the Chinese realm (e.g., Manchus, Mongols, Tibetans) or the migration of Chinese to other parts of the world. Such work — and there are many other possible examples – raises questions about the boundaries of “Chinese history” in the late imperial era and, indeed, in some instances the very meaning of the word “China.” Similar questions have also been raised, explicitly or implicitly, in studies of the environment, medicine and health, gender, women, publishing, and a host of other topics, which have become increasingly prevalent in recent years. [End Page 11] A principal new context in which Qing China has come to be seen in the past few decades has been that of Eurasia as a whole (see Lieberman, Perdue). The facts relating to the Qing haven’t changed, Kent Guy reminds us. “What has changed is the context, political and...

1995∼2015 Achievement in Ming-Qing Historical Studies and New Prospects on Them

#1995~2015년 명청사 연구 성과 #사회경제사 #대외관계사 #신청사 #사상사 #1995∼2015年明清史研究成果 #社会经济史 #对外关系史 #新清史 #思想史 #1995∼2015 achievement in Ming-Qing historical studies #social and economic history #history of relations between China and Korean peninsula in Ming-Qing period #New Qing history #history of thoughts

INTRODUCTION: MOVING THE HISTORIOGRAPHY WEST

Twenty years ago, a graduate orals field in modern Chinese history—however that term was defined—would probably not have included more than a handful of works on any area, other than the Northeast, that had not been ruled by the Ming or any area that lay west of today’s Lanzhou-Chongqing railway. Today, research on West China abounds. Some of the reasons for that development come straight from contemporary headlines. They include the “Develop the West” program that the People’s Republic of China (PRC) has put in place since 1999; unrest in Tibet and Xinjiang; spectacular (and controversial) infrastructural projects like the railroad to Lhasa, huge southwestern dams, and oil and gas pipelines linking Xinjiang to East China; and stories about the economic, environmental, and geopolitical significance of enormous mining concentrations like the rare earths complex at Bayan Obo (白云鄂博) and the coal boom in the Ordos (鄂尔多斯; both in Inner Mongolia). Other reasons are historiographic. The new Qing history, 1 emphasizing the Manchu-ness of that empire and the relationship of that heritage to the empire’s success, has quite naturally increased interest among non-PRC scholars in thinking about the Republic and the PRC as successors to that dynasty in particular. In contrast, PRC historiography has more often treated the Qing as the culmination of a less differentiated “traditional” legacy that arises from the entire imperial period, generating a narrative that has considerable overlap with the “sinification” thesis to which the new Qing history is often contrasted. 2 Meanwhile, the increasingly

The New Qing History and it's Prospects

The New Qing History and it's Prospects

Recent Trends in Ming-Qing History : Strong Traditions of Socio-economic Research and New Interest in Inner Asian world

Korean scholarship in Ming-Qing history over the past two years has witnessed a range of issues and topics discussed, including various dimensions of local societies in China proper growth in commercial economy throughout the empire, cultural and material exchanges between Beijing and Seoul, etc. Most notably, several publications of monographs on the topics of social structure, economic development, and environmental changes in the Ming-Qing periods are a major achievement in this field which demonstrates the high status of Korean scholarship in Ming-Qing studies. In addition to this rich and long tradition on socio-economic approaches, the past two years of Ming-Qing studies observed a steady increase in research on topics relevant to Manchu distinctiveness and the Inner Asian tradition, one of the many subjects that differentiated the rule of the Ming from that of the Qing. It is important to note here that this recent trend in Manchu distinctiveness and the Qing Empire would not have emerged without the rich tradition of pursuing socio-economic approaches in Korean academia of Ming-Qing history. Understanding of the significant roles of non-Han people in Qing history cannot be reached unless the economic and cultural aspects of Han Chinese society are fully assessed and explained. Therefore, a variety of research on China Proper and frontier regions, Han Chinese society and the world of non-Han people, Chinese materials and Manchu documents, are all equally necessary and important for our balanced understanding of Ming-Qing history.