by Odd Westad
One of the first great Chinese travel writers was Wang Tao. Born near Suzhou in 1828, this learned scholar got into trouble with the Qing during the Taiping rebellion and fled to Hong Kong. There he met James Legge, the eccentric Scottish missionary who was already engaged in the first translation of Chinese classics into English. In 1867 Legge invited Wang to join him in Scotland, and Wang set out on the long journey to Europe, traveling through Singapore, Sri Lanka, Penang, Aden, and Cairo before reaching Marseille. He then spent several weeks in Paris and London before arriving in the aptly named Scottish town of Dollar, where he settled down for two years amid the rush of industrialization, working with Legge on the translation of The Book of Songs, Yi Jing, and The Book of Rites. Wang, who also visited Japan after his return from Europe, wrote extensive notes about his travels, which he published after the Qing accepted his return to China.
The first Chinese travelers to North America were even more puzzled by what they saw than voyagers to Europe. Those who had seen both were perhaps even more perplexed. “The English and the Americans are closely related, they have much in common, but they also differ widely, and in nothing is the difference more conspicuous than in their conduct,” observed Wu Tingfang, one of China’s first ambassadors to Washington.14 The democratic politics in the United States puzzled those who came: How could there be, many asked, collective decision making on administrative matters, when there was such extreme individualism in economic matters? The many tongues spoken, the grime and confusion of the industrializing northern cities, and the confrontations over ethnic, racial, social, and political issues in mid-nineteenth-century America made many Chinese visitors prescribe the need for harmony and stability. But at the same time the technological advances fascinated them endlessly, especially the railroads and steamboats. “The train,” observed the Manchu visitor Zhigang in 1868, “is light, steady, and faster than Liezi [a legendary Daoist sage] riding the wind. It is constructed like a wooden house. . . . On both sides are rows of windows with three layers of glass, cloth curtains, and wooden shutters for protection against wind, rain, light, and dark.”15 Riding the “fire-wheeled vehicle” made Zhigang want to study it more closely, and he sent back to China a detailed description of how railroads were built.
Many Chinese travelers initially viewed the West as a form of anti-China, where Chinese values and mores were turned upside down. A few visitors wrote that this could not be otherwise, since Europe and America, after all, were on the other side of the world from China. Others sought explanations for what they saw in the West in the Chinese past, attempting to find periods in Chinese history that would be similar in organization and outlook to what they observed abroad, and speculating whether the foreigners had taken their inspiration from one or another epoch in China’s long development. The matter that preoccupied Chinese more than anything else was the absence of filial piety and the lack of a moral rather than a material justification for actions taken. “It is not that our emperors or prime ministers of each dynasty were less intelligent than the Westerners,” Liu Xihong exclaimed when visiting London in 1876, “but none among them strove to open up the skies or dig up the earth to compete with nature for enriching themselves. Our far-seeing ancestors also cared for the future, but not in the same ways as the English who always run at full speed to gain the advantage.”16
Besides the puzzlement over foreign languages, food, customs, and hygiene, Chinese travelers wondered constantly about the preference of people in the Western empires for material progress over moral self-betterment. Chinese travelers to the West reported—in bewilderment more than shock—on foreign political systems, on the role of women, and on racial hierarchies. And they worried about China’s survival in the encounter with countries as different and as powerful as those in the West. Observing the ongoing industrialization of the United States and some of the countries in Western Europe, Chinese travelers often commented on the destructive elements of the new technologies. The pollution, the changes in landscapes, and the impermanence of manners, methods, and lifestyles all shocked the visitors, even as Western products attracted them and the power and productivity of Western industry awed them. Many of those who came to visit chose to stay, either because they felt that foreign countries could provide a better life for them and their families than China could, because they despaired over the fate of China in its encounter with the West, or because they opposed the Qing regime. But even in the stories of most of those who returned, China and the West had changed their worldview—instead of one China as the center of the world and the adjudicator of morals, habits, and taste, the world had become a much bigger and more equal place, a place in which more choices would have to be made and where Chinese could be of many persuasions, political views, and state allegiances.
THE SINO-CENTRIC WORLD ORDER in East Asia took a long time to die. By the 1870s the new imperialist order was clearly visible, even to those who objected the most to the new shape of things. Having observed the changes within China and the weakness of the Qing, sometimes at close range through their missions to the imperial capital, or—in the case of Southeast Asia—to Guangzhou, the tributary states gradually reoriented themselves to a world in which the Western powers were dominant. Even the countries that were culturally and geographically closest to China—Vietnam, the Ryukyu islands, and Korea—realized a new era in their international affairs had arrived. For those further away, such as Burma and Thailand, the formal end of their relationship with the Qing state was almost an afterthought, coming well after the tribute missions had ended. The Qing world order ended in the same haphazard manner as it had begun, in spite of Chinese attempts at interpreting the new developments within the formal framework of ritual and precedent.
As we shall see in the next chapter, Korea’s was by far the most dramatic and destructive case of a country’s departure from the Sino-centric system. The Ryukyu (or, in Chinese, Liuqiu) islands—the long, sickle-shaped archipelago stretching from the southern tip of Kyushu toward Taiwan—set another example. For almost 300 years the Ryukyu kings had both been tributaries of the Qing and subject to the rulers of the southern Japanese domain of Satsuma. By the 1870s China’s position on the islands was slipping and with it the chance of upholding Ryukyu’s de facto independence. While continuing negotiations on the issue with China throughout the decade, Japan declared its single sovereignty over the islands in 1872, stationed troops there in 1875, and in 1879 annexed all of Ryukyu, abolished its monarchy, and transformed it into the Japanese prefecture of Okinawa. China’s attempts at appealing to US and British mediators failed. Ryukyu’s loss of independence was a harbinger of things to come.
In faraway Thailand, the leaders were also realizing that China’s paramount place in eastern Asia was disappearing fast. When the Thai tributary mission arrived in Guangzhou in 1853, it is likely that very few Thais or Chinese suspected that it was the last formal recognition of the Thai monarchy’s subservient position to the Qing. The Thai king’s minister for Chinese relations—typically, a man who himself was of Chinese descent—explained Bangkok’s view of what followed in an apologetic letter to the governor-general at Guangzhou in the mid-1860s:
Siam and Peking have long been friendly, and each time tribute was due, Siam always remembered to send it, so as to not harm the friendship that had so long been maintained. However, [in 1853]. . . , Siam[’s envoys] . . . were attacked by bandits who forcefully took away all of the emperor’s gifts given in return to the court of Siam. . . . When it came to the monsoon season of the Year of the Hare [1856]. . . , which was when tribute to China was due, it was learned that the rebels were causing even more trouble than before, and therefore the tribute was waived. Then [in 1860]. . . , it was again time to send tribute to China. This time it was learnt that the city of Canton was at war with England, and that the Governor-General himself was not residing there. If Siam were to send envoys, no one would receive them. Then [in 1862]. . . , it was learnt that England and France were penetrati
ng as far as Beijing and that Beijing was in the midst of a great war.17
By the 1870s the Thais knew that the old times would not return. They began reorganizing their Chinese tribute trade, which was always more trade than tribute, within the maritime routes now controlled by Britain and France. Only in 1882, did Bangkok unilaterally declare the official end of its subservient relationship to the Qing.
Given the way in which the imperialist powers had used the concept of international law to justify their subjugation of the Qing state, there was little reason for Chinese to believe that any state of theirs would be fully accepted within the Western-based system of major countries. Still, Chinese leaders showed a remarkable interest in understanding international law almost from the time of the very first Western attack. Parts of key texts, such as Emerich Vattel’s 1758 Law of Nations, had been translated by the 1840s, in the wake of the First Sino-British War. But after the foreign invasion in the late 1850s it became obvious that China needed to learn the principles on which the Western powers claimed to base their foreign relations. William Martin, a Presbyterian missionary, translated the American diplomat Henry Wheaton’s 1836 treatise Elements of International Law into Chinese in 1864. In spite of Wheaton’s parochial belief—different from Vattel’s universalism—that international law was solely an artifact of Christian civilization, the Qing grand council found it useful. They appealed to the emperor:
we, your ministers, have compared this book on foreign laws and found that it does not completely correspond to the Chinese system. But in it there are occasional passages that are useful. . . . We, your ministers, have guarded against making use of such books and following them, have told [Martin] that China has her own laws and institutions and that it would not be appropriate to refer to foreign books. Martin, however, has pointed out that although the Collected Laws of the Qing Dynasty have been translated in foreign countries, China has never attempted to coerce these foreign countries to follow them. It cannot be that just because a foreign book [has been translated into Chinese] China will be forced to follow its customs.18
By the 1890s some Chinese leaders had come to see international law as a possible protector of the interests of their empire. As Li Hongzhang, who had participated in many international negotiations on behalf of the Qing (and were to conduct more after the 1895 war with Japan), argued, “International law belongs to all the nations of the globe. If they observe it, they may dwell in quiet; if they neglect it, they are sure to have trouble.”19 Some scholars claimed that international law was similar to the principles developed during the Spring and Autumn period (722–481 BC) or the Warring States period (403–221 BC), epochs in which China had been divided into several states and on which Confucius’ teachings offer much commentary. But these comparisons did not prepare Chinese diplomats for dealing with their country’s interests. Neither did the language in which these early translations were couched, which often used the terms of Chinese ethics dealing with interpersonal relationships, thereby missing the fluidity of law and its subservience to power.
Despite its venerable system of sending envoys to foreign countries and its considerable reservoir of knowledge about neighboring states, Qing China had not sought to have permanent representatives abroad. Unlike Europe since the seventeenth century, the Qing empire did not recognize other countries (even in theory) as equals with which almost permanent negotiations were necessary. It therefore had had no need for diplomats in the European sense of the term. After the Western inter ventions and the great rebellions of the mid-nineteenth century, the Qing had to adapt to the European tradition, although with regret. Prince Gong, the sixth son of the Daoguang emperor and a central player in the Empress Dowager Cixi’s rise to power in the 1860s, impressed on the Court the importance of sending envoys abroad:
I believe that in recent years, foreign countries have come to understand China very well, whereas China’s knowledge of the outside world remains scant. The discrepancy is attributable to foreign diplomatic envoys being stationed in China, and the complete absence of Chinese missions abroad. This has led to the situation where foreign diplomats in China flout our rules and act inappropriately, and all we can do is try to mollify them. As we are unable to censor their conduct, we must try another approach. This situation is a cause of constant worry and unease to me.20
The competent but often dissolute Prince Gong was also one of the main forces behind the establishment, in 1861, of China’s first foreign ministry, the Office of the Affairs of All Countries, the Zongli Geguo Shiwu Yamen, or Zongli Yamen. Although at the start regarded as a temporary, second-tier office in the imperial bureaucracy, the Zongli Yamen soon became a central mediator between the Qing Court, the provinces, the military, and foreigners. It also established the College for Interpretation (Tongwenguan), a school that trained future diplomats in foreign languages and Western learning and that became one of the centers for translation and publishing of foreign texts on everything from physics to international affairs.
Like the Zongli Yamen, the Imperial Maritime Customs Service was a locus for Sino-Western cooperative contacts. It was foreign-staffed and was often used by the foreign powers to collect reparations from China after wars and skirmishes. But it also made translations, conducted social and statistical investigations, and helped found the Chinese post office. During the late Qing era, it went from being seen as a foreign imposition to becoming an important source of government income and a training ground for Chinese officials. The transformation in the Chinese view of the Customs was mostly due to the work of Robert Hart, its Irish-born Inspector-General, who served from 1861 to 1907. During his long tenure, the young man from Portadown in Northern Ireland grew into the chief foreign confidant of the Beijing Court. While his officials, men from more than twenty countries, drew Chinese ire by policing the harbors of the foreign concessions (and often also the main rivers and coastal areas), Hart was a symbol of a foreigner who was, above all, a servant of the Qing.
By 1900 the Qing had begun setting up a viable network of foreign missions. Its first embassies were established in London, Berlin, and Tokyo in 1877, followed by ones in Washington and Moscow in 1878. They were staffed by trained diplomats from the Tongwenguan and other imperial officials. Some Chinese embassies proved themselves equal to their tasks, while others became little more than drags on Beijing’s coffers. Amid its many rages about money misspent and information lost in transit, the Qing realized that it had among its ambassadors some people of outstanding talent, such as Guo Songtao, the first ambassador to London and a major Qing politician in his own right, who had helped organize the Qing response to the Taiping Rebellion. Zeng Jize, son of the Qing leader Zeng Guofan, the man who dominated Chinese politics in the wake of the great rebellions, replaced Guo in London and later served in Paris and Moscow. Zeng also acted as China’s chief diplomatic troubleshooter in the early 1880s, negotiating the Treaty of St. Petersburg with Russia. Diplomats such as Zeng were influential in Beijing because they not only reported realistically on the power of the West but also stressed a Confucian approach to world affairs. Looking at London, Zeng confided to his diary:
Just like one may imagine ancient China by looking at the West today, one may imagine the future of the West by looking at China today. A day will certainly arrive when one will return to the original state of things and when one will seek neither ingeniousness nor complexity, but only simplicity. Because material resources are limited and are not sufficient for the needs of all countries in the world.21
DURING THE LATE NINETEENTH CENTURY, the central areas of China gradually incorporated a new foreign presence as Western traders, missionaries, and officials began settling in the country. The Qing state wavered between accommodating the newcomers and the states that supported them, and resisting the foreign presence. At the local levels, Chinese and foreigners interacted, sometimes cooperatively, sometimes in conflict, but always in puzzlement over each others’ habits and views. By 1900 the Sino-Western amalga
ms in taste and technologies that were emerging in the cities had further divided China into two parts: a vast countryside in which the foreign presence was negligible or nonexistent and an archipelago of urban islets where a new society was developing. This new China was international, with outposts in Southeast Asia and the Americas, and with people inside the country who straddled Chinese and Western customs. But it was unsure of itself, caught between being a creation of Western imperialism and a sometimes sincere hope of rescuing the nation through foreign methods, money, and machines. As the twentieth century began, it was the tensions between the new and the old, and between the urban and the rural—both of which had been exacerbated by the foreign presence—that threatened to split China apart.
The foreign presence weakened the Qing state by reducing its autonomy, but it also helped preserve it by favoring it against its enemies in the late nineteenth century. To many observers it seemed the perfect exploitative relationship: The Western powers made use of the Qing’s weakness to extract privileges from it, but supported it so that it did not collapse entirely, only then to exploit it a little bit more. The reality was quite a bit more complex. The Qing became quite adept at maneuvering between foreign powers for advantage and never consciously became a tool of foreign interests. The leaders at Court were hoping and waiting for a day when China would be strong enough to confront the outsiders. At the same time, elite Chinese themselves became good at exploiting the Qing state for their own purposes, presenting private gain as public business. It was a climate of intense political and economic competition, in which foreigners had most of the advantages, but by no means all of them.
Meanwhile foreign concepts and ideas washed in over China, buoying those minds that were looking for a way out for their country and for themselves. As happened in the West, revolutionary thought often centered on the relationship between science and society, feeding on the belief that Charles Darwin’s theories of development also had a significance for human affairs. Mai Menghua, born in 1875, echoed the views of European and American social Darwinists: