Zhang Zhidong Research Articles

Beijing-Hankou railway concession: a lost cause for Britain in 1897–1898

ABSTRACT The struggle for railway concessions was a critical factor influencing the China (Far Eastern) Crisis of 1897–1898, which was related to the Great Powers’ scramble for concessions and spheres of influence in the Middle Kingdom. Great Britain played a major role in this process as well as in the general development of trade with China. After China’s defeat in the war with France (1884–1885), prominent Chinese dignitaries (Li Hongzhang, Shen Xuanhuai, Zeng Guofan, Zhang Zhidong, Zuo Zongtang) initiated the so-called Self-Strengthening Movement, which was to include the construction of railways to preserve China’s independence. However, it turned out that there was not enough capital in China to carry out this plan. The war with Japan (1894–1895) exposed China’s weakness and gave rise to a heavy reliance on foreign capital. The founding of Imperial Railways of North China (between Beijing and Mukden) and the support of the mighty viceroy Li Hongzhang had extraordinary importance for the construction of railways. The real partition of China into spheres of influence by the Great Powers brought some limits to British activities. A concession to construct the strategically important Beijing-Hankow railway was received by a Belgian syndicate in 1898. This provided the opportunity for Russia’s influence to expand to Yangzi. All of it led to a temporary setback in the British “railway policy” in China.

From Statecraft to Western Learning: The Curriculum Reform of Hubei-Hunan Academy During Zhang Zhidong’s Reign as Governor of Hubei

Hubei-Hunan Academy is an educational institution founded by Zhang Zhidong, which is the experimental field of educational reform during his tenure as governor of Hu-Guang. Its curriculum has gone through several stages, such as the statecraft of the world, the study of the current affairs, and the Chinese essence and Western utility, finally changed to a new style school. The curriculum reform of Hubei-Hunan Academy is a reflection of the powerfully changes in Zhang Zhidong’s educational thoughts during his period of supervising Hubei. Due to the lack of attention to the imperial examination system and the overemphasis on generalist education in the curriculum, the talent training of the Hubei and Hunan Academy did not actually achieve the goal of “being a famous minister and being a famous scholar”.

The untimely Don Quixotes: “The old school within the new school” during the May Fourth period

From the late Qing to the May Fourth period, there were two lines of intellectuals when it came to thought, concepts, and spiritual nature. One was the literati of the romantic school from Kang Youwei 康有爲 and Liang Qichao 梁啓超 of the Hundred Days’ Reform to the New Youth of the May Fourth, while the other was the Neo-Confucian intellectuals from Zeng Guofan 曾國藩 and Zhang Zhidong 張之洞 to the Xueheng group 學衡派. The Xueheng group were figures within the New School who held classical sentiments and could be called the “old school within the new school.” During the May Fourth period, while Enlightenment School intellectuals were active in the arena of public opinion, the Xueheng group intellectuals held fast to the “new temple” of the academy. Within the Xueheng group, however, unlike academy intellectuals such as Chen Yinke 陳寅恪 and Liu Yizheng 柳詒徵, Wu Mi 吳宓, and Mei Guangdi 梅光迪 wanted to be public intellectuals influential in society who could compete with Hu Shi 胡適 and Chen Duxiu 陳獨秀 for the right of discourse in public space. In the end, they could not escape the fate of marginalization due to their misjudgment of both the time and space. Furthermore, the departure and misplacement of the actions and concepts of Wu Mi and Mei Guangdi also harmed the image of the character of the new classicists.

U.S. Influences on Chinese Educational Reform

An analysis of the writings of Kuang Qizhao, a Qing official who spent time in the U.S. from 1874 through 1882, indicates that the initial stimulus for China’s educational reforms began much earlier than 1895. Based on his observations of schools and his interactions with the intelligentsia of Connecticut, Kuang came to the radical conclusion that universal education for both males and females would be the key to China’s wealth and power. He also believed that religion and tradition were crucial for inculcating the morality he saw as necessary for an effective modern society. Kuang played a role in establishing some of China’s first colleges; he promoted his educational reform ideas through his textbooks and newspapers; and he influenced some of China’s most important educational reformers, with Qing official Zhang Zhidong initiating significant educational and military reforms based on Kuang’s ideas.

The Dawn of Science as Cultural Authority in China: Tianyanlun (On Heavenly Evolution) in the Post-1895 Debate over the Engagement with Western Civilization

There is an intriguing puzzle to be found in the historiography of science in modern China: Yan Fu's 嚴復 (1854--1921) Tianyanlun 天演論 (On Heavenly Evolution), which was published in 1898 as the Chinese translation of Thomas Huxley's Evolution and Ethics (1893), is widely celebrated as the most influential book in modern Chinese intellectual history. And yet, this science-based book has received little,—if any,—credit in the history of science. Taking this puzzle as a clue, this article argues that On Heavenly Evolution constituted a historic breakthrough in a three-centuries-long struggle to win cultural authority for Western science in China, with the ultimate goal of persuading the Chinese to embrace Western civilization as a whole. The context within which On Heavenly Evolution played this pivotal role was the historical debate over the preservation or abandonment of China's quintessential teachings (jiao 教), which took place in the aftermath of China's catastrophic defeat in the first Sino-Japanese war of 1895. It is well-known that Yan Fu and Zhang Zhidong 張之洞 (1837--1909), the powerful architect of the New Policy Reform (1898--1912), held polarized positions in this debate over whether or not to abandon the most cherished institutions and ethical norms of Chinese civilization. What most scholars do not realize, however, is that these two towering figures based their positions on two opposing conceptions of Western science/technology: Following the strategy set up by Matteo Ricci (1552--1610) in the seventeenth century, Yan Fu fashioned Western science as Neo-Confucian gezhi 格致 (Investigation of Things to Acquire Knowledge) to win cultural authority for it, and thereby created a unique local conception of Western science as “Western gezhi” (xixue gezhi 西學格致). Vehemently rejecting Yan Fu's conception of “Western gezhi” and the resulting status of Western science as cultural authority, Zhang Zhidong created the notion of “Western mechanical arts” (xiyi 西藝) instead and promoted it as an official category in his reform agenda. By making visible their debate over the proper conception of Western science/technology, this article draws readers’ attention to the historic breakthrough moment when Western science became a major source of cultural authority in China. Along the way, it further argues that what was at stake in the debate over China's quintessential teachings—from Yan Fu's perspective,—was nothing less than the universality of “Western civilization” and therefore a wholesale adoption of it in China,—the very first time this radical idea was proposed in Chinese history. When On Heavenly Evolution—as a concrete manifestation of Yan's conception of “Western gezhi”—rose in importance to become the most influential book of modern Chinese thought, Western science finally succeeded in becoming the trusted foundation not only for the universalism of Western civilization, but at the same time also for the Neo-Confucian Way, while also paving the road for “Mr. Science” to exercise a previously unimaginable influence in twentieth-century China. Situating this Chinese debate in the context of the rise of the globally circulating conception of “Western science” in the late nineteenth Century, this article demonstrates the importance of investigating how non-Europeans embraced, challenged, and reconfigured the primacy of science relative to technology, which was taken for granted in that conception.

Neither Traitor nor Nationalist – Zheng Xiaoxu’s Intellectual Trajectory

ABSTRACT Known for his loyalism towards the Qing dynasty after its collapse, Zheng Xiaoxu remains a controversial figure in modern Chinese intellectual history. A former protégé of Zhang Zhidong, he openly declared the Republic of China as his enemy state and served Manchukuo – Japan’s puppet state in northeastern China – as prime minister. Rather than resorting to the typical conception of Zheng as a ‘traitor of the Han’ (hanjian), this article examines Zheng’s political and intellectual journey from the late Qing period until his death in Xinjing (Changchun) – the capital of Manchukuo – through an in-depth reading of his diary. It shows that Zheng’s political standpoint remained consistent throughout his life. Insisting upon the open-door policy and the Kingly Way (wangdao), he believed that cooperation with Japan to establish Manchukuo was the only way to save Asia, including the Han Chinese. He further argued that whilst he was aware of his racial origin, nationalist and nation-state ideology that built upon ethnicity were simply not his creed.

Yuan Shikai: A Reappraisal by Patrick Fuliang Shan

Reviewed by: Yuan Shikai: A Reappraisal by Patrick Fuliang Shan Clemens Büttner Patrick Fuliang Shan. Yuan Shikai: A Reappraisal. Contemporary Chinese Studies Series. Vancouver: University of British Columbia Press, 2018. 321 pp. $49.95 (cloth). According to Patrick Fuliang Shan, the author of Yuan Shikai: A Reappraisal, many previous research works on and assessments of the life and work of Yuan Shikai have suffered from two deficiencies: they either were affected by politico-ideological tendencies that made an objective evaluation of the Republic of China’s (中華民國 Zhonghua minguo) second provisional and first regular president impossible or they suffered from insufficient access to primary sources that would have allowed for a better understanding of Yuan’s motives and actions. For these reasons, Shan sees “an urgent need for a twenty-first-century biography of Yuan Shikai” (7) that presents a “fair appraisal and an objective assessment” (9) of this important figure of Chinese history. Accordingly, Shan’s book is largely based on primary sources taken from the recently published comprehensive Yuan Shikai quanji (袁世凱全集 Complete works of Yuan Shikai), a collection that also encompasses hitherto unknown or inaccessible material,1 and he draws heavily upon the Chinese-language scholarship of roughly the last 30 years that—as Shan emphasizes—has already become free from past ideological dictates to condemn Yuan.2 Shan presents the life and work of Yuan Shikai in chronological fashion. The first two chapters of his book are dedicated to Yuan’s family background and his youth, chapters 3, 6–8, and 10–12 focus on his political career from his time in Korea (beginning in 1881) to his demise as disgraced would-be emperor in June 1916, while chapters 4, 5, and 9 concentrate on Yuan Shikai’s actions when tasked with modernizing the Chinese armed forces and when faced with the challenges of the Hundred Days’ Reform (戊戌變法 Wuxu bianfa; June to September 1898) and the 1911 Revolution (辛亥革命 Xinhai geming), respectively. Throughout his book, Shan argues that the combination of a reliable social network (as well as often-positive foreign opinion) and his considerable individual talents propelled Yuan’s career: family connections facilitated his entry into the military profession in 1881 and his deployment to Korea, and it was due to the endorsement of prominent [End Page E-3] figures like Zhang Zhidong (張之洞 1837–1909) and Liu Kunyi (劉坤一 1830–1902) that Yuan, in 1895, became the organizer and commander of the future Newly Established Army (新建陸軍 Xinjian lujun). During both the Hundred Days’ Reform and the 1911 Revolution, Yuan Shikai was regarded by leading personnel across the political spectrum as a capable intermediary and leader, and he rose to the presidency of the Republic for the same reason. Whenever he held a responsible position, Shan stresses, Yuan dutifully and capably performed his tasks and promoted political, administrative, educational, and economic reforms. Nonetheless, as Shan reiterates throughout, Yuan’s career was also often marred by controversy: officials begrudged him his quick political rise, his opponents blamed him for the First Sino-Japanese War (甲午戰爭 Jiawu zhanzheng; 1894–1895), the 1898 reformers declared him guilty of thwarting the Hundred Days’ Reform, he was regularly denounced by other officials during his time in Shandong (1899–1901) and Zhili (1901–1909), and he was intensely disliked by the Qing regent, Zaifeng (載灃 1883–1951). In addition, doubts regarding the sincerity of his allegiance to the Republic began to be voiced soon after his ascendancy to the presidency in 1912. Nonetheless, argues Shan, it was above all the last chapter of Yuan’s political career, the ill-fated attempt to restore the monarchy in China in 1915–1916, that caused the decades-long condemnation of his personality and his life’s work as an egotist’s ruthless pursuit of absolute power. In his book, Shan questions this narrative by proposing a different interpretation of Yuan’s actions and motives. Even his purportedly most nefarious acts—among them the creation of an army that allegedly was only loyal to him (66–71), his supposed betrayal of the 1898 reformers (81–86), the repression of the Boxers in Shandong (89–93), the undermining of the parliamentary system in 1913–1914 (188–94), the signing...

A Coin for China? The Monetary Standards Debate at the End of the Qing Dynasty, 1900–1912

This article examines debates about monetary standards in the final years of the Qing dynasty. As silver depreciated on the world market, Qing statesmen discussed whether to adopt the gold-exchange standard or to stay on the silver standard. These debates took place on a conceptual and practical level: Should and could the Qing dynasty adopt the gold-exchange standard and what were the economic, political, and symbolic implications of doing so? The article contributes to the history of the late Qing dynasty by focusing on the monetary thought of figures more famous for their other roles: Zhang Zhidong, Liang Qichao, and Kang Youwei. It shows how the monetary standards debate had complex links to international finance, conceptions of sovereignty, central-provincial relations, and public finance. The article concludes by demonstrating how these debates continued in the next decades, becoming a central issue in modern Chinese history.

Reappraising Zhang Zhidong: Forgotten Continuities During China’s Self-Strengthening, 1884-1901

Abstract The recent historiography of China’s late nineteenth-century Self-Strengthening movement emphasizes the successes in Chinese state building. My research expands upon this trend through the perspective of the prominent governor-general Zhang Zhidong 張之洞 (1837-1909) and his military reforms. From 1884 to 1901, Zhang consistently pursued the creation of new military academies and western-style armies with the aim of providing an army capable of defending China. At the turn of the century, Zhang’s military apparatus was arguably one of the best in China. However, his role as a military pioneer of this era was often obscured by the wider narratives of Chinese reforms or subsumed under the reforms of more notorious officials such as Li Hongzhang or Yuan Shikai. Ultimately, the study of Zhang Zhidong’s reforms reveals an often-missed continuity in successful military reform starting in the 1880s and contributes to the developing historical narratives of successful late Qing state building.

Railway Finance and National Credit: A Study of Chengdu-Hankou Railway Protect Crisis as a Center

The Revolution of 1911 leading to the collapse of the Qing Dynasty started with the Railway Project Crisis (1911, May) in Sichuan Province, the studies of which have focused on the political and economic game of railway project and reserved capital between both factions, i.e. constitutionalist and revolutionaries, and the Qing Government, but there are a few of researches from the financial point of view, especially, from the perspective of national financial credit as the starting point. In the final analysis, the game interaction between national capital and private capital aims to control the railway monopoly resources. The awakening of national self-awareness of rights, the struggle of local-central power and profits segmentation as well as the magnification of the consciousness of ethnic group all were connected through the new thing of railway finance. The join force from each faction was formed under the private capital financing, with the slogan of breaking the agreements and railway project protection, the vested interest groups were attacked under the shelter of state-owned capital. Because of the private capital financing network represented by the stock by rent extraction, the struggle was abnormally fierce and tough. Construction of railway via foreign debts, in fact, originated from Zhang Zhidong, who referred to the German and Japanese experiences of construction of railway via foreign debts, with the purpose of retaining our sovereignty. That can be seen from his repetition in his memorial. Sheng Xuanhuai, a trader directly inheriting the cause, knew the nature and rights of private capital unclearly. Especially, he nationalized the special financial capital, i.e. Sichuan people’s stock by rent extraction in the simple and crude way, and lacked of in-depth understanding and macroscopic view. Even so, from the perspective of actual long-term rights and interests of the shareholders, the railway state-owned policy by the Qing Government is similar to the policy of original merchant-operated railway. The problem is that at this point, the Qing Government lost credit because of fake constitutionalism in politics and Zhaoxin stock bankruptcy in economics, but applied the foreign railway financial form mechanically to the Chengdu-Hankou railway with loss of political and economic credit. In the face of the private financial groups in the tight-knit network as well as the fierce and persistent struggle, it is no wonder that the Qing Government had “ineffable surprise”. The historical event enlightened that: the form of railway finance is not confined to the state-owned or private-owned or government-merchant joint management forms, the key is that the government providing the state-owned capital should have enough credit in politics and economics, fully consider the benefits of private capital, and give necessary attention and response to reasonable political demands. In this sense, undoubtedly, the credit is the first importance for railway finance with long earning cycle.

Comment on ‘Mathematical structure of the three-dimensional (3D) Ising model’

The review paper by Zhang Zhi-Dong (Zhang Z D 2013 Chin. Phys. B 22 030513, arXiv:1305.2956) contains many errors and is based on several earlier works that are equally wrong.

“Sagt an, ihr fremden Lande …” Ostasienreisen: Tagebücher und Fotografien (1888–1901) by Otto Franke (review)

Reviewed by: “Sagt an, ihr fremden Lande …” Ostasienreisen: Tagebücher und Fotografien (1888–1901) by Otto Franke Lydia Gerber (bio) Otto Franke. “Sagt an, ihr fremden Lande …” Ostasienreisen: Tagebücher und Fotografien (1888–1901). Edited by Renata Fu-sheng Franke and Wolfgang Franke. Institut Monumenta Serica / Collecteana Serica. Nettetal: Steyler Verlag, 2009. 527 pp. Illustrations, with extensive explanatory footnotes, an index of personal names, and a list of the more than one hundred photographs included in this volume. Hardcover € 80,00, isbn 978-3-8050-0562-3. Otto Franke (1863–1946) was one of the foremost representatives of the field of Chinese studies in Germany. From 1910 to 1923, he held the first chair of sinology in the newly founded Colonial Institute in Hamburg (later Hamburg University), and in this position, he defined for future generations the parameters of one of the leading Chinese studies programs in Germany. He expected rigorous study of both the spoken language and classical Chinese. In 1923, Franke transferred to Berlin University, where he taught until his retirement in 1931 at age sixty-eight. His numerous publications spanned the field of Chinese studies, incorporating research of the Confucian classics, namely the Chunqiu; investigations of economic and geographical topics; local history with a focus on the relations between Manchus, Han, and Mongols in Manchuria; and a discussion of contemporary political changes in China. His five-volume Geschichte des Chinesischen Reiches is beyond a doubt his most remarkable accomplishment. In this seminal work, Franke abandoned commonly held Western notions of the Chinese past as unchanging and instead presented Chinese history within a traditional German historiographic framework of political and military history. It has recently been reprinted by deGryuter.1 Among the next generation of eminent sinologists mentored by Otto Franke was his son Wolfgang (1912–2007), who edited this volume in collaboration with his daughter Renata Fu-sheng Franke. Apart from his contributions to the field of Chinese studies, Otto Franke has also been noted for his crucial role in creating the framework for the German-Chinese College in the German Lease Jiaozhou (Kiautschou) in 1908, in collaboration with Zhang Zhidong.2 The texts and photographs in the volume at hand predate Franke’s eventual fame and were written at a time when Franke served as a translator for the German Consular Service in various posts in China. The main body of this monograph (pt. 2, pp. 33–394) consists of meticulously transcribed travel diaries, which Wolfgang and Renata Franke had fortuitously discovered among Otto Franke’s effects. Beginning with Franke’s travels to his post as a translator in the German consular service in Beijing in 1888 and ending with a trip to Formosa under Japanese colonial rule in 1901, they cover a decade’s worth of observations of North and East Asia. Included are brief trips to Japan (1894) and Korea (1899), several journeys within China from his postings in Beijing and Shanghai, and, most [End Page 587] remarkable, a return trip from Beijing to Berlin. Here he first followed the tracks of two Jesuit missionaries engaged in the negotiations of the Sino-Russian treaty of Nerchinsk in 1689, and later traveled through Siberia on horseback and wagon, eventually to use the first tracks of the partly constructed Trans-Siberian railway. Franke’s diary entries for this journey, which lasted from June 12 to October 22, 1896, cover more than a hundred pages of this volume and are testament to Otto Franke’s energy, persistence, and sense of adventure. More important, all these diaries highlight Franke’s powers of observation, which were perhaps unmatched at the time. Having received his PhD in Sanskrit and comparative linguistics (1886) in Göttingen before he began to study Chinese in Berlin, Franke explores Buddhist texts and temples in China (for example, Putuoshan Island, 1891; Tiantaishan, 1893), in Manchuria (Jehol/Chengde, 1890), and later in Mongolia (1896) with an expert’s eye. There are equally detailed observations about the economic situation in the areas he visits, including agriculture, animal herding, the quality of forests and waterways, and the living standards of local populations. He occasionally reports conversations with locals about the impact of political changes on their region. We...

International Law as World Order in Late Imperial China: Translation, Reception and Discourse, 1847-1911 (review)

Reviewed by: International Law as World Order in Late Imperial China: Translation, Reception and Discourse, 1847-1911 Thomas Buoye (bio) Rune Svarverud . International Law as World Order in Late Imperial China: Translation, Reception and Discourse, 1847-1911. Leiden: Brill, 2007. x, 322 pp. Hardcover $99.00, ISBN 978-90-04-16019-4. Rune Svarverud's International Law as World Order in Late Imperial China: Translation, Reception and Discourse, 1847-1911 is an impressive work of scholarship that deserves a serious reading from scholars of legal as well as intellectual history of late imperial China. Svarverud wants to show "how international law was translated, interpreted and received in China as a theoretical framework for conducting international relations, and how a Chinese discourse on questions related to China's role and identity in international relations developed from and within the theories of international law" (p. 3). At the outset, Svarverud clearly notes that his work is not diplomatic history but intellectual history. The author is interested in the discourse of international law in China and how this discourse changed from the latter half of the nineteenth century to the end of the Qing. Deftly sidestepping the simple dichotomy of Western international law and traditional Chinese views of inter-state relations, Svarverud acknowledges the complexity of traditional diplomacy and posits four competing perspectives on international relations in the late Qing. Adopting a relatively compact historical narrative, Svarverud takes the Lin Zexu's pre-Opium War efforts to translate works as his starting point and the Sino-Japanese War as the critical turning point in the Chinese discourse on international law. According to the author, the intellectual adaptation of international law as a theory, which began in the wake of Sino-Japanese War, was consolidated during the Russo-Japanese War. Chapter 1 addresses linguistic issues, defines the intellectual pedigree, and frames the meta-narrative of the work. Wisely acknowledging that a number of studies "reveal that the Chinese court conducted their foreign relations on a much more flexible basis with larger fluctuations over time" (p. 12), the author delineates two traditional frameworks—the tribute system and an analogous system of private trading—and two modern frameworks—social Darwinism and international law—for interstate relations. Aside from a gentle remonstrance of John Fairbank's claim that "the great traditions of the Chinese world order" made adjustments to Western international law difficult, Svarverud's work broadens the field of inquiry rather than toppling existing interpretations. Chapter 2 primarily provides a succinct overview of the history of international law in the West. While the chapter offers nothing new or controversial, it will likely be a welcome tutorial for Sinocentric scholars. The tension between theory and practice, which is always just below the surface in this work, comes to the fore in this chapter. By insisting on focusing on the "processes of intellectual adaptation of international law as a theory in the Chinese discourse" (p. 27), the author does not feel compelled to address lessons that Chinese intellectuals may [End Page 163] have learned from diplomatic confrontations that occurred prior to the translation of major works on international law in the nineteenth century. Comparing Chinese translations of legal terminology in three major Western works on international law, chapter 3 demonstrates the author's formidable linguistic skills. The work of foreign translators in the employ of Chinese officials, Peter Parker, W. A. P. Martin, and John Fryer, provided the first comprehensive Chinese versions of major Western works on international law. Svarverud's painstaking analysis of these works illustrates the linguistic hurdles that Western international law posed for early translations. Chapter 4 looks at the early discourse on international law prior to the Sino-Japanese War. The author examines the opinions of an array of Chinese observers including Guo Songtao, first ambassador to London and Paris; Zheng Guangying, merchant and reformer; Wang Tao; and Zhang Zhidong. While Chinese opinion varied on key points, many agreed that a relatively weak China might gain some protection from adherence to international law. Svarverud concludes that prior to the Sino-Japanese War, experience and knowledge in international law were lacking. However, the realization "that China can only be recognized in international affairs if she...

On Chinese, European & American universities

past three decades have seen an unprecedented expansion of higher education and, in the most recent time, efforts at reform and restructuring.1 My own university, Harvard, has overhauled its undergraduate curriculum in a comprehensive fashion for the 1⁄2rst time in thirty years. European universities have witnessed even more thoroughgoing changes in the structure of undergraduate education. But perhaps nowhere on earth have recent decades seen more revolutionary change in higher education than in the People’s Republic of China. Thirty years ago, Chinese universities were just reopening after the catastrophe of the Cultural Revolution. Today they are poised for positions of international leadership in research and education. The case of Wuhan University, arguably China’s oldest modern university, illustrates the dramatic changes the Chinese system of higher education has undergone in the past century. Wuhan and the surrounding province of Hubei have long been important centers of commerce, scholarship, and political leadership. It was the great reforming Governor-General Zhang Zhidong, who founded in 1893–1⁄2ve years before Peking University began–the “Self-Strengthening Institute” that would become Wuhan University. That university would be a witness to central events of China’s twentieth century: it was in Wuhan that the revolution that overthrew the Qing dynasty in 1912 began; Wuhan hosted one of the two contending Nationalist governments in 1927, and the retreating government of Chiang Kaishek in 1938. In the early People’s Republic, Wuhan became a great industrial sector. Today, western Hubei, upriver from Wuhan, is home to the largest engineering project in world history, the Three Gorges Dam (and even a “Three Gorges Dam University”). Wuhan University had a strong history of growth before 1949. It was then nearly destroyed during the Cultural Revolu-

Peking University: Chinese Scholarship and Intellectuals, 1898–1937 (review)

Reviewed by: Peking University: Chinese Scholarship and Intellectuals, 1898–1937 Margherita Zanasi (bio) Xiaoqing Diana Lin. Peking University: Chinese Scholarship and Intellectuals, 1898–1937. Albany: State University of New York Press, 2005. xi, 232 pp. Hardcover $75.00, ISBN 0-7914-6322-2. Paperback $24.95, ISBN 0-7914-6322-2. In her book on Peking University, Xiaoqing Diana Lin analyzes the early history (1898–1937) of the most famous academic institution in modern China. As her book demonstrates, since its establishment in 1898, Peking University has played an important role in China’s intellectual life, struggling to define new relationships between education and the state as well as between Western and Chinese education. Established by the Qing government as part of the imperial bureaucracy in response to China’s defeat in the Sino-Japanese war, Peking University was intended to strengthen the Chinese empire by introducing Western knowledge while reaffirming the empire’s neo-Confucian identity. In its early stages, therefore, Peking University embodied Zhang Zhidong’s self-strengthening formula of zhongxue wei ti, xixue wei yong (Chinese learning as principle, and Western learning as application). Zhang Zhidong, in fact, was responsible for designing the university’s first long-lasting curriculum in 1903, following a series of short-lived curricula drafted by Liang Qichao, Sun Jianai, and Zhang Baixi. As the university gradually gained its independence from the state—due to the demise of the examination system, the fall of the Qing empire, and the political uncertainties of the early Republican period—its relationship with state and politics became more complex. During his years as chancellor of Peking University (1917–1926), Cai Yuanpei resolutely affirmed the university’s independence from the state. Cai’s protection of the university’s independence was not just a reaction against the marriage of Confucianism and politics that had characterized the imperial period, a connection most famously embodied by the examination system. It was also a product of Cai’s vision of modern education. Influenced by the German model—Cai had studied in Germany—he viewed modern education as “a core of moral and theoretical knowledge” (p. 48) detached from immediate political and social utilitarian goals. Although Cai still wanted Peking University to be an important tool for the modernization and ultimate regeneration of the Chinese nation, he aimed at achieving these self-strengthening goals by developing a new form of knowledge, educating new citizens, and preparing them for self-government. As Lin explains, “Instead of direct participation in the government, [Cai] actively sought to fashion nationalism from the realm of education, severing the traditional connection between education and politics” (p. 48). The first steps of Peking University, therefore, exemplify two of the main issues that were to characterize most of its life in the Republican years: the complex relationship between the university on the one hand, and on the other the [End Page 137] state and China’s political life at large. These early years also reveal a second important theme: the struggle to find a balance between the introduction of Western intellectual trends and what many perceived as the preservation of Chinese identity (an idea as controversial at the time as it is today). While Zhang Zidong’s curriculum kept Western knowledge confined to what he perceived as practical sciences—such as law and political science—while leaving humanities as the exclusive realm of “Chinese learning,” Cai Yuanpei and his successors strove to integrate both forms of knowledge. From this point on, the faculty at Peking University attempted to incorporate traditional Chinese scholarship “into a more universal discourse on learning” (p. 65). The goal was to develop a new universal form of knowledge that combined both methodologies (Western and Chinese) while ultimately transcending both of them. Historicism and evolution theories became, for example, the main trends in the university’s new historical studies and important tools for the integration of Chinese learning into the new “universal” intellectual discourse (see especially chap. 4). Lin’s analysis of the thought of Peking University’s faculty reveals the extent to which, in these years, Chinese intellectuals filtered Western ideas through familiar philosophical paradigms and used them to address very local (that is, culturally and historically...

Within the Human Realm: The Poetry of Huang Zunxian, 1848-1905 (review)

FEATURES J. D. Schmidt. Within the Human Realm: The Poetry ofHuangZunxian, 1848-1905. Cambridge Studies in Chinese History, Literature and Institutions . Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1994. xi, 355 pp. Hardcover $39·95> 'SBN 0-521-46271-1. This study ofHuang Zunxian ^"iï.S and his poetry is divided into three parts: Biography, Criticism, and Translations. Part 1 consists of"The Poet as a Young Man," "Huang, die Diplomat," and "Reform and Reaction." Part 2 contains "The Theory ofdie Poetic Revolution," "The Practice ofRevolution," "Traditional Themes," "Foreign Climes," "The Brave New World," "The Development of Huang Zunxian's Satire," "The Late Satirical Poetry," "Huang Zunxian and Modern Science," "Quatrains of1899," and "Fin de Siècle." Part 3 consists of "Early Verse (ca. 1864-1868)," "The Growing Talent (1868-1877)," "Tokyo (1877-1882)," "San Francisco (1882-1885)," "Return to China (1885-1890)," "The Empire on Which the Sun Never Sets (1890-1892)," "Singapore (1891-1894)," "War and Reform (1894-1899)," and "Retirement (1899-1905)."1 Huang was a native ofJiayingzhou JskM i+1 (present-day Meizhou $H'H ) in normeastern Guangdong, and a member of a Hakka (Kejia) %¦% family, which, like so many Hakka families ofthe area, had originally moved from northern China and setüed diere during the Song and Yuan eras (tenth to thirteenth centuries ). Huang's family had achieved local prominence by the time ofhis greatgrandfather , and Huang's father, Huang Hongzao 1frz%Îà (1828-1891), had a long and distinguished official career and is remembered primarily in history for his management of supplies to die Chinese army during the Sino-French War (18821884 ) in southern Guangdong and Vietnam. Huang Zunxian's own official career began in 1877 when he became Counselor to the Imperial Chinese Legation in Tokyo, a post he filled until 1882 when he was appointed Consul General in San Francisco. He stayed in California until 1889, returned briefly to China, and 1890 found him installed as Counselor to die Chinese Legation in London. The next year Huang became Consul General in Singapore, where he remained until 1894. Zhang Zhidong W^-ift (1837-1909),© 1996 by University then Acting Governor-General ofLiangjiang (Jiangsu, Anhwei, and Jiangxi), had ofHawai'i PressHuang appointed in early 1895 to the staffofhis Office ofForeign Affairs ( Yattgwuju :$-$rM)) and put him in charge ofcases concerning missionaries and otiier foreigners. In November 1896 Huang was summoned to two audiences witìi the 3o6 China Review International: Vol. 3, No. 2, Fall 1996 Guangxu emperor, whom he impressed both with his progressive attitudes and by his eyewitness accounts of the successful Japanese reform and modernization movement initiated and fully supported by the government of the Meiji emperor in Japan. The Guangxu emperor subsequently requested copies of Huang's Riben zashi shi EJ ;£-#-??F (Poems on Japanese miscellaneous subjects), which Huang had composed during his posting to Tokyo, and Riben guozhi EJ ^-H t t £-£-$ J&&E, (d) "Advocacy of the Idea that Peoples ofthe World Should Unite" \% %1A%kBI &&fë; and (2) "The Hopelessness ofUnrealized Ambition" ^" &$Mt tfl&fe. Chapter 5, "Formal Considerations of Huang Zunxian's Poetry" -^i^Sifoii fy£jfe, is divided into four broad sections: I. "Distinctive Characteristics of Diction " t#"S"#'|l: (1) "Adopt Dialect Expressions and Popular Sayings" #¦$] Tj f ' fë4t, (2) "Use Vernacular Speech" i$JH éj ?*, (3) "Do Not Avoid Buddhist Expressions" ^i€# £f#, and (4) "Use New Terms in Classical Verse" ??$\£? /v#. II. "Syntax and Rhetoric" ¿J i£-if#: (1) "Reiteratives/Reduplicates" 44, (2)"Repetition ofExpressions" 4 A, (3) "Repetition ofSyntax" 4$t, (4) "Parallelism " # fct, (5) "Parallel Couplets" €,$!% (6) "Antithesis" #Ltfe, (7) "Anadiplosis" TS Ä, (8) "Metaphor" tbÄ., (9) "Tendencies to Free Verse" ItX-ib, and (10) "Allusions " /H -&/ III. "Composition" ^ ^&&: (1) "High and Wide Angle ofVision " &}%,%%£, (2) "Flexibility ofNarrative Viewpoint" AYA»**, (3)"The Use of Contrast to Create Tension" JiI if Jt$Jitfé? , (4) "Clarity of Unity and Coherence" /| :k. fr93, (5) "The Use of Syntactic Repetition to Enhance Effects H%%;tk4"H J^An J^ Ji^.,and (6) "Natural Transitions in Tone of Speech" !§¦&.## É #*. IV. "Characteristic Expression ofWorks as a Whole" Hr tt43Ur.#J# &: (1) "Complexity of Imagery" Ä ^-IHi and (2) "Vividness of Color" &%$f-ty.* Chapter 6, "Stylistic Considerations ofHuang Zunxian's Poetry" ^"^,li-lf ô\jJïU$-î&, is divided into two broad sections: I. "Elements...

Military Reforms, 1895-1908

Editor's Note: Among its many virtues, this article uses the correct names for various armies in an age of reorganization and name changes. It uses the often-encountered term xinjun correctly and generically, to mean new forces, new army, new armed forces, or, after 1904, simply Army—as distinct from the earlier Xinjian Lujun or Newly Created Army of 1895 under Yuan Shikai, sometimes abbreviated as Xin Jun (New Army). After the major army reorganization of 1904-1905, the armies of Zhili Province under Yuan Shikai, of Hubei Province under Zhang Zhidong, and of Sichuan Province under Xiliang (see the article by He Yimin, below) were often simply referred to as Beiyang Xinjun, Hubei Xinjun, and Sichuan Xinjun, respectively—best translated Beiyang Army, Hubei Army, and Sichuan Army. In the present translation, English renditions are guided by Ralph L. Powell, The Rise of Chinese Military Power 1895-1912 (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1955), still the leading analysis in any language of late Q...

BENDING STRENGTH OF MOLECULE AND THE STERIC REPULSIVE POTENTIAL BETWEEN MOLECULES OF LIQUID CRYSTALS

摘要 定义了反映分子刚性的物理量，称为抗弯刚度Ｋ．给出了用具体的化学键结构和键的力常数计算Ｋ的方法．计算得ＰＡＡ，ａｎｉｓａｌｄｅｈｙｄｅ ａｚｉｎｅ和ＢＡ的Ｋ分别为３．１７×１０4，２．９３×１０4，４．１７×１０4ｎｍｋBＫ．导出了分子间位致弹性排斥势．提出了处理弹性棒分子体系的统计物理方法．对ＰＡＡ作了具体的数值计算，并讨论了向列序形成的微观机制：吸引势是主要的，但位致排斥势起十分重要的作用． Abstract A new concept called the bending strength K of molecule is introduced, which can be calculated from the concret structure of molecular chemical bonds and the force constants of th: bonds, and the method of calculation is given. For example for PAA, anisaldehyde azine and BA, K is ３．１７×１０4，２．９３×１０4，４．１７×１０4ｎｍｋBＫ， respectively, from calculations. The elastic repulsive potential between two molecules is deduced and the statistical method for the system of elastic rod-like molecules is presented by means of cell model. A detailed calculation is made for PAA. The microscopic mechanism for forming nematic order is discussed and it is concluded that the attractive potential is aomininant, but the effect of steric repulsive potential is also important. 作者及机构信息 杨国琛, 张志东, 白晓平 1. 河北工学院应用数学物理研究所 基金项目: 国家自然科学基金和河北省自然科学基金资助的课题. Authors and contacts YANG GUO-CHEN, ZHANG ZHI-DONG, BAI XIAO-PING 1. 河北工学院应用数学物理研究所 参考文献 施引文献