China and Japan

by Ezra F. Vogel

  more about who should determine the intent of overseas study— the au-

  thorities, both Chinese and Japa nese, or the students themselves.

  In the spring of 1903 it was an international crisis that put the Chinese

  students in Tokyo at odds with their government in Beijing: Rus sia’s refusal

  to finalize the withdrawal of its 100,000 troops from Manchuria, as agreed

  to with Britain, Japan, and China the previous year. As avid readers of Japa-

  nese newspapers, Chinese students in Tokyo were well informed, fully

  aware of Rus sia’s new demands for concessions from China as well as fa-

  miliar with arguments from some prominent Japa nese that going to war was

  the only way to curb Rus sian ambitions. In their view, the silence from Bei-

  jing made China look weak and indecisive, inviting yet another round of

  humiliation at the hands of the foreign powers. What ever their par tic u lar

  politics, virtually all the students saw themselves as Chinese patriots, re-

  sponsible for a forceful response. Five hundred turned out in Tokyo at a “re-

  sist Rus sia” rally, and dozens wrote articles lambasting Qing officials for

  their incompetence. They also or ga nized sympathy protests in Shanghai

  and Beijing, and even offered to volunteer for military ser vice against the

  . 167 .

  china and japan

  Rus sians. It was all for naught in terms of pressuring Beijing, however.

  Japan broke off its yearlong negotiations with Rus sia on February 6, 1904,

  and two days later launched a surprise attack on the Rus sian Navy at Port

  Arthur. China claimed neutrality in the war that followed.

  By far the largest student protest occurred in the fall of 1905 when, in

  the excitement of Japan’s victory over Rus sia, the number of Chinese

  students in Japan shot up to nearly 10,000. As in the Seijo Gakko inci-

  dent regarding admissions to Japan’s premier military acad emy, student

  anger was triggered by a change in the rules— the announcement by Japa-

  nese authorities, with Chinese agreement, of new guidelines both for stu-

  dents and the schools catering to them. But the students caught po liti cal

  undertones in this new attempt to define what the overseas study experi-

  ence was meant to be. Their objections were less about stricter controls

  per se and more about the motives of the authorities issuing them. Was

  the Japa nese government treating Chinese students fairly and on a par

  with its own students? Was the Chinese government standing up for its

  students or col uding with Japan to curtail their personal freedoms? Were

  China’s leaders patriotic enough, or even competent enough, to push back

  against foreign intervention? These were the basic issues— the be hav ior of

  Japan as the new imperialist, the capabilities and loyalties of Han Chinese

  versus Manchus— driving what started small, then grew into larger circles of

  protest. In 1905, an estimated 4,000 students were involved in clashes with

  the authorities; 2,000 left Japan in protest, though most quickly returned.

  Still, by 1909 student numbers had dropped to 5,000. In the ultimate irony,

  nearly all Chinese students left Japan in 1911 as the forces for change engulfed

  China’s 2,000- year- old imperial system. Meant to infuse the system with

  new talent and moderate reform thinking, China’s Japan- trained youth ulti-

  mately contributed to its demise.

  Japan- Trained Students and the End of Imperial China

  What Sun Yat- sen wanted from Japan was not lessons in Meiji- style state

  building but financial backing for his proj ect to overthrow the Qing regime.

  His friends were primarily in the Japa nese and overseas Chinese business

  communities, not in Japa nese mainstream official circles, though he did try

  to make inroads there as well and he shared their vision of a pan- Asian

  . 168 .

  Japa nese Lessons for a Modernizing China, 1895–1937

  future. He was on the margins of politics in the years around 1900, seeking

  an interview with Konoe, support from Shimoda Utako, and to exploit

  Inukai- Miyazaki- Konoe connections. Official China was not overly wor-

  ried. Zhang Zhidong had expressed it best when he responded to Konoe’s

  perceptive question about whether Sun was a threat to the regime by dis-

  missing him as a “small- time thug.”

  With some notable exceptions, such as Ji Yihui, an 1899 gradu ate of the

  Kobun Institute, Chinese students regarded Sun Yat- sen as something of

  a curiosity in his efforts to market revolution, a person worth meeting but

  unconnected to their lives. Sun was completely out of touch with students

  between 1903 and 1905, as he was off on a Europe- U.S. fund rais ing tour.

  However, luck was in his favor. His return to Japan in July 1905 could not

  have been better timed. Japan’s defeat of Rus sia, a huge Eu ro pean power,

  excited Asian nationalists and sparked a surge in the number of Chinese

  students making their way to Japan, either to attend school or to or ga nize

  antiregime activities. Even so, it was not a sure thing that Sun could seize

  the moment and get this restive group, with its multiple viewpoints on re-

  form and revolution, to join the new revolutionary organ ization he had es-

  tablished in Tokyo. His backer, Miyazaki Torazo, had to make the initial

  contacts. There was not great enthusiasm. The several hundred students

  who did appear at the inaugural meeting of the Revolutionary Alliance

  (Tongmenghui) represented but a small percentage of the thousands of stu-

  dents Sun had hoped to attract.

  Even among the most vocal anti- Qing students in Tokyo, Sun’s initial bid

  to capture a leadership role was a hard sell, despite the appeal of his clearly

  articulated vision for national revival. Huang Xing and many others were

  not willing to immediately disband their own radical groups from diff er ent

  regions of China to join the Sun- led organ ization. There were also clashes

  within the student group between Sun’s people and the constitutional re-

  formers who backed Liang Qichao. The Tokyo government was not happy

  either, particularly about harboring an organ ization calling for regime change

  in China, when that regime was recognized as legitimate by the rest of the

  international community. In 1907 Japan acceded to a request from Beijing to

  expel Sun Yat- sen, a move that propelled him over the next several years into

  a new round of re sis tance activities in South China and fund rais ing efforts

  targeting overseas Chinese in Southeast Asia, Eu rope, and Amer ica.

  . 169 .

  china and japan

  After 1905, students trained in Japan were the dominant ele ment in the

  Revolutionary Alliance. Slipping into Shanghai and beyond from Tokyo,

  they were prominent in the mounting number of terrorist attacks and small

  uprisings that spelled danger to the Qing state. In their everyday lives, many

  held teaching posts in China’s new schools or were officers in the new army.

  Others were employed as clerks in businesses along China’s coast. All were

  well placed to sign up new revolutionary recruits and to pass on anti- Qing

  lit er a ture that originated among the Chinese students still in Japan. Fer-


  reting out those involved in revolutionary plots was an impossible task.

  But what left the Qing regime most vulnerable was an even more in-

  sidious phenomenon. Although most members of the revolutionary groups

  were students returned from Japan, the majority of the returned students

  were not revolutionaries but law- abiding ordinary folk with liberal leanings,

  whether they were educators, businessmen, bureaucrats, or in the military.

  Many found jobs in the new technical and financial agencies that the Chi-

  nese government had established after 1901. Of the 1,388 foreign- trained stu-

  dents hired by the government between 1906 and 1911, 90 percent were

  gradu ates of Japa nese schools. Another highly influential segment of the

  Japan- educated group served in the provincial assemblies that were elected

  in 1909 as part of the late- in- the- game government- sanctioned move toward

  constitutional rule. Provincial membership lists suggest that the numbers

  here were substantial, accounting for as many as 20 percent of the total in

  some cases. What ever their brand of politics, the returned students brought

  a new, pragmatic, and professional perspective to a country producing few

  gradu ates from China’s homegrown, nominally modern public schools

  (which had roughly 80,000 gradu ates at all levels over the entire 1902–1909

  period). They were open- minded, patriotic, and confident that China could

  bootstrap itself into a global position of power in the future. They also felt

  alienated from Qing rule and impatient with the slow pace of reform. With

  its support eroded, the Qing dynasty simply crumbled in 1911 under the

  weight of its incapacity to govern. Yet destabilizing and decentralizing forces

  remained strong, jeopardizing the new republic from the start.

  After 1911, Chinese youths seeking the benefits of a modern education

  had options other than going to Japan. For one thing, they could stay at

  home and enroll in one of the new schools staffed by teachers trained in

  Japan. Opportunities were also opening up for Chinese students to study

  . 170 .

  Japa nese Lessons for a Modernizing China, 1895–1937

  in Western countries, particularly the United States and France. Some took

  advantage of the 1908 decision in the United States to apply its Boxer in-

  demnity funds (awarded to the United States in the Boxer Protocol) to a

  scholarship program for Chinese students. By 1911, 650 Chinese students

  were studying in the United States under such auspices, and by 1918 the

  number reached 1,124. After World War I, the Chinese government estab-

  lished a work- study program in France that drew some 6,000 students,

  though the formal study part of the program was of questionable value.

  Still, for reasons of politics, proximity, and the pocket book, Chinese stu-

  dents continued to enroll in Japa nese schools up to the outbreak of the

  Second Sino- Japanese War in 1937. Although nearly all students returned

  to China in the heady days after the 1911 Revolution that ended the Qing

  dynasty, there was soon a reverse flow as Yuan Shikai’s clampdown on op-

  position politicians signaled a turn toward autocratic rule and an uncertain

  future for China’s youth. In 1914 about 4,000 Chinese citizens were offi-

  cially listed as students in Japan. The figure remained steady at 3,000 to

  4,000 over the next several years, dropping only when po liti cally active ele-

  ments within the group left Japan to protest Japan’s deal making for con-

  cessions in China, notably after the Twenty- One Demands in 1915 and the

  award of Shandong province to Japan in the Versailles Treaty of 1919. Still,

  in 1936–1937, on the eve of the Second Sino- Japanese War, there would be

  between 5,000 and 6,000 Chinese students in Japan, the highest number

  since 1914. In part this reflected the Japa nese government’s continued efforts

  to attract Chinese students and, in practical terms, the impact of a favor-

  able exchange rate. Altogether, the draw of Japan for Chinese youth would

  remain the same as it had been from the beginning: it offered the possibility

  of a low- cost, modern education and greater freedom of action.

  Lessons Learned, Partnership Deferred

  Study in Japan changed Chinese minds. As Ji Yihui said in his valedictory

  speech at the Kobun Institute in 1899, “If we compare our thinking with three

  years ago, we are real y diff er ent people.”12 Arriving in Japan as young men

  from Sichuan, Hunan, or Guangdong, Chinese students began to see them-

  selves as the Japa nese public saw them: Chinese, pure and simple, foreigners

  from a neighboring country once great but that had fal en behind in the eyes

  . 171 .

  china and japan

  of the rest of the world. If proof were needed of China’s diminished stature

  and Japan’s rise, daily life in Tokyo confirmed it. Tokyo was visibly modern,

  well run, and more open than China po liti cal y, with multiple outlets for the

  expression of public opinion. Students were drawn to this new openness and

  admired the Japa nese power on display in the war against Rus sia, even as they

  resented Japa nese restrictions on their own freedom of action and feared

  Japan’s alignment with Western imperialism. The Qing government was in-

  creasingly in the students’ crosshairs, too, attacked for its incompetence, cor-

  ruption, and inability to confront Japan and the other powers. Study in Japan

  turned Chinese students into nationalists and taught them the powers of

  protest, the press, and public opinion in effecting change. Zhang Zhidong’s

  idea of controlled reform in a controlled society was swamped by the thou-

  sands of students he had sent to Japan on his own initiative, now arguing in

  print or in person for an immediate end to Qing imperial rule.

  Chinese officials on study tours to Japan were more mea sured in ap-

  proach, but they too were impatient with the pace of change at home.

  What they witnessed firsthand in Japan was an experiment that seemed to

  be succeeding, a pos si ble model to follow in getting China’s modernization

  pro cess moving forward, fast. Their Japa nese hosts, well schooled in China

  studies, were properly respectful of China’s past culture, but when it came

  to the mechanics of modern development, they felt they were the ones with

  lessons to offer. Chinese visitors agreed, took careful notes, and published

  and distributed trip reports. Total y pragmatic in their outlook, eager to work

  within and not against the bureaucracy, their reports on what they learned

  in Japan provided an added spark to get new schools started in China and

  new agencies upgraded in the interest of more efficient government.

  In the same way, mirroring Japan’s own experience in learning best prac-

  tices from the rest of the world, China’s policy of hiring Japa nese advisers

  to work in China seemed a potential win- win situation, with Japan in-

  creasing its influence and China its institutional know- how. China’s Japa-

  nese hires, many of them Western- trained, made significant contributions

  in a range of key sectors, from law to education to railways. Prominent Japa-

  nese legal scholars spent years in China coaching their Chin
ese counter-

  parts in constitutional law and helping to write modern civil and criminal

  codes. Experienced administrators worked with China’s reform- minded bu-

  reaucrats on public security, putting in place a police acad emy and a cen-

  . 172 .

  Japa nese Lessons for a Modernizing China, 1895–1937

  tralized structure of police agencies. Japa nese military officers trained staff

  in Zhang Zhidong’s and Yuan Shikai’s provincial administrations, coordi-

  nating these efforts with instruction provided to Chinese students enrolled

  in military schools in Japan. Top executives with Japan’s Imperial Railway

  advised their Chinese employers on modern railway development. And, as

  the capstone of advisory ser vices, Japa nese educators introduced ele ments

  of a Japanese- style national school system, from teacher- training institutions

  at the top to kindergarten education below. Most Japa nese hires went to

  China with high hopes, believing that their unique knowledge of China

  made them a better fit than other foreign contractors to work with their

  Chinese counter parts. Most came away disappointed that they could not

  achieve more. Bureaucratic obstacles and unpredictable politics on the China

  side, plus Japan’s opportunistic policies and World War I, intervened to limit

  the extent of official bilateral cooperation.

  The late- Qing pivot to Japan had its greatest long- term impact in deter-

  mining the career paths of thousands of Chinese youths who represented

  the next generation of Chinese leaders. Some of the most impor tant figures

  in twentieth- century China got their start in Japa nese schools. Lu Xun and

  Guo Moruo, literary giants of international reputation, attended secondary

  school in Japan, Lu Xun before 1911 and Guo Moruo just after. Both were

  headed toward careers in medicine but detoured to lit er a ture and the mission

  of diagnosing China’s national condition through the written word, in all

  genres and in a new vernacular style. For Lu Xun’s brother, noted essayist

  Zhou Zuoren, study in Japan cemented a lifelong devotion to foreign lit-

  er a ture, translation, and the Japa nese aesthetic. As public intellectuals, all

  three had to navigate the sometimes- perilous shoals of Chinese politics.

  This was equally true of the many Chinese gradu ates of Japa nese univer-