T3, Week 1

Revision II

A new vision?

We have seen these two video clips when we started.

Now are we watch them again after six month of studying. Do you have a fresh eye in seeing them? Do you notice more things?

Do they have different meanings to you from previous viewing?

1) A film representation of the 1908 coronation of the last emperor of China.

2) A video record of 2008 president inauguration of the ROC in Taiwan

What do they tell us about the history of modern China?

A movie representation of the last emperor Puyi (1906-1967)’s coronation in 1908https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YnEOZSNtcJI

Taiwan’s President Inauguration - May 20, 2008https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EsGjkRBCBUQ&list=FLro0e6XviatO_t1WrSaW7nw&index=53

The History of modern China (HI294)

(NOT, ‘HI294 The Rise of Modern China’—wrong title; but exam will have this one)

The History of Modern China (HI294)?• History: What is history?

• Records and representations of the past which differ from the present, and the future. It’s a conception of time that divides the everyday reality and the continues flow of human and environmental activities.

• History is not a lesson, but a database.

• The database contains information of a society (a group of people), relations between the society’s members and with other societies, and with the environment.

• This can be divided into political, cultural, social, economic, military and other aspects of the history (the database).

• This database is alive and keeps changing; thanks many to the way of accessing it and to the new discoveries.

• (More about history as database, the past, the present and the future in Revision II)

The History of Modern China (HI294)

• China: What is China?

• What does the database ‘China’ tell us about humanities in general?

• About what happened in the past two hundred year in the eastern part of what we called the Eurasia-African landmass—the geographical territory that we vaguely defined as China?

• About it’s relations with the rest of the world.

• A political entity?• Four major political powers, the governments—the Qing Empire, ROC, PRC, and

ROC in Taiwan. Others, Hong Kong, Macao, • Changed from a dynastic empire to a republic (at least in name)

• A economic system?• It changed from a predominantly agrarian society with well-developed market

system to a industrial urban society.

The History of Modern China (HI294)

• Who are the Chinese?

• Modern Chinese national identity was developed in the last two decades of the Qing: • Before the late nineteenth century, to be Chinese meant to be ‘cultured people’; or

people who lived under the ‘Confucian’ culture.

• This ear was the time when China stopped being an empire; but becoming a nation (in the size of a continent).

• Nation building in following western ways:• Three Reforms ; 1911 Revolution ; 1919 May Forth protest

• New nation / new people --a new Chinese identity was formed.

• Overseas Chinese, migrated to all over the world, during the past two hundred years in particular—Singapore (70%); what does overseas Chinese tell us about territorial China and being Chinese?

The History of Modern China (HI294)

• Modern: What does modern mean?

• Rationality: Rationality is a new thing (wrong). Human rationality was in place when we first figured out how to use tools—stone axe to carve a sharp spearhead in order to effectively kill a pray is a rational thinking.

• An Enlightenment invention?—this is more about the imagination of the self being ‘modern’ and being different from the past (history), and from others—its an Western invention.

• What is the difference of what we call modern then?

The History of Modern China (HI294)

• Modern is all about a self-perception.

• The difference of the history of past 200 years is in degree not in nature.

• This self perception is• ‘Vanity of vanities! All is vanity’ (Ecclesiastes 1). • It was part of the western imperial ideology.

• Modern as a way of thinking, played a major role in the history. • The idea, concept of ‘progress’, ‘development’ as driving forces in history.

• It spurs and encourages changes; changes as the norm, and a human-centred conception of the world (in contrast of god-centred, or environment-centred)

• Literature: Bruno Latour, We Have Never Been Modern, 1993

The History of Modern China (HI294)• Modern is a conception of time. • Perception of Time: modern means we are different; and now is different.

• Different conception of time• The relation between the Past / Present / Future• Before the concept of modernity arrived in China in the second half of the 19th

century, cyclical theories of history--dynastic cycle was the norm.• The conception of modern arrived in the late 19th and early 20th century. • But the old China’s conception was not unique:

• Compare: ‘What has been is what will be; and what has been done is what will be done; and there is nothing new under the sun.’ (Ecclesiastes 1).

• This conception of time and the self made a huge difference in history

Ways of understanding interpretation interventioncutting through history

Eight Major Events

• The Qing’s Conquering of the Ming, 1644

• The First Opium War, 1839

• The Taiping Rebellion, 1850

• Reform Movements, 1861

• The 1911 Revolution, 1911

• The Second Sino-Japanese War, 1937

• The Communist Revolution, 1949

• From Communism to Capitalism, 1978

• In chronological order--

• The Civil Service Examination • The Intellectuals • Law and Social Order • Gendered China • The Lower Classes • Politicized Youth • The Chinese Believers • Migrating Chinese

• Eight themed conceptions (ways of understanding) cutting through the history

Eight Major themes

Reforms

• Self Strengthening movement• 1861 Wen Xiang, Yishu, central government• Provincese: Li Hongzhang, Zeng Guofan, Zhang Zidong

• 1898 Hundred Days' Reform

• 1901 New Policy

• 1978 Deng Xiaoping Reform

• Other Social reforms: adaptation of western ways of interactions by old institutions and cultures etc.

• Focusing on the state or the government

Revolution

• 1911 Republican Revolution

• 1949 Communist Revolution

• 1966-1976 Cultural Revolution

• Taiping , rebellion, war (Revolution) 1851-1864

• Socio and cultural revolutions: gender revolution; democratic movements; education revolution; technological revolution……

Focusing on dramatic changes in politics and others

Century of Humiliation

• 1839 The First Opium War, 1842 Nanjing Treaty

• 1856-1860, Second Opium War, Beijing convention, Tianjin treaty

• 1885 Sino-French War

• 1895 Sino-Japanese War

• 1900 Boxer War

• 1915 Yuan, Japan 21 demands, (May Ninth)

• 1919 WWI, Shandong,

• 1937 Sino-Japanese war

• 1949 establishment of the PRC

• Focusing on how China as a nation suffered Western imperial aggression.

• A narrative of the history that acts as a historical force that has the effect of spurring China for development and other governmental and socio initiatives

• (the power of words, of ways of thinking, of discourse)

Systems of government_ the Qing

The Emperor

Personal finance rites war punishment works

The Grand Council

The Grand secretariat

The 18 Provinces

Systems of government—ROC in Taiwan

Systems of government—PRC, the party system

Systems of government—PRC, the state system

Internal collapses

• Starting in the late eighteenth century

• Dynastic cycle / fast growing population

• Entrenched vested interest in the bureaucratic system (tired after one and a half century of prosperity)

• Social mobility was not as great as before

• An elitism was settled in the social political order and took control of the government; the state was for the few not for the majority.

Modernisation of China and the West• The major driving force and source of changes—western inspirations (mid 19th)

• New knowledge was imported; and consequently new knowledge invented.

• But these were not wholesale adaptation which was impossible, given that there were existing infrastructure and ways of thinking.• Internal actors with their own views and ways.

• Western knowledge joined in the existing knowledge; and caused major reconfiguration of existing order.

• Unfortunately these new knowledge came with imperialism (including racism, cultural imperialism, elitism (imperial China had there own versions of all these.)

• It’s a bitterness of revolution, transformation (Rona Mitter, Bitter Revolution)

• Western invasion did forced a major regeneration: 1911 and 1949 revolution is no longer an dynastic revolution (break of the traditional political system)

• Nationalism as a spur for new identity, new forms of internal cohesion

• Social Darwinism; the fittest survival international environment

• Imports and invention of technological knowledge and practices

• Imports and innovation of social science, political science and other forms of knowledge.

• Creative adaptation of western political institutions (republic), political ideologies (democracy, communism) education system, economic management

• 1911 Revolution, as an attempt of introducing politic democratisation

• 1949 Revolution, as an attempt of inducing economic democratisation but seizing the political power to force a structure of economic redistribution

• But the reality and the nature of transformation were far more complicated than the revolutionist understood

Periodization, modern China when did it start?

• Opium War 1839 –Eurocentric? China’s response to the West (Fairbank and others)

• Late Ming / early Qing (as early modern): new definition of modernity—taking into account internal dynamics and having a global history perspective: • Traditional China was an ever changing society with its own internal dynamics

• China centred approach ; economic historians tend to go this way

• Literature: The Great Divergence—Pomeranz; The World System: Five Hundred Years or Five Thousand? Frank & Gills ; ReORIENT: Global Economy in the Asian Age, Frank

• Moreover, continuation of everyday life practices, way of thinking, and the culture in general, among other things, in the post 1911 and post 1949 ears that lasted well into 21st century—the imperative to start modern Chinese history from 1644 at least.

• Narrow definition of modern, that is the conception of time and a developmental state taking control of the society—1861 reform as starting point of modern.

Four disruptions in historiography of China

• They are regimes of knowledge and order. They create a way of seeing; and forged a narrative of the history; often a history in its own image

• Caused major disruption in historiography, meaning preventing us from properly understanding what is database China?

• 1. Imperialism: imperial ideology; it can be Eurocentric ideas; often justification for war and aggression – the necessity in provincializing Europe.

• 2. Chinese Nationalism. Century of Humiliation narrative; its about the history the nation—a history that is bound to nation building projects. The history is funding myth of the nation. ROC in Taiwan (KMT plus other new political parties); PRC (CCP) have different views. They forced their own understanding on its people and on the world. (Rescuing History from the Nation, Duara)

• 3. Nation-state framework: We see China as a nation or as the other (exotic, otherness, as a block). What we don’t want to do is to study China just to confirm /reinforcing our own position (prejudice), the self-image.

• 4. Elitist perspective: the very nature of academia / university setting could make us blinded from a broader perspective (our limited life experience confined our imagination); Tend to focus on major historical figures, macro history, emperors, and politicians; we need to understand historical forces such as real people on the street who silently made a difference to the history.

Things we did not cover much

• Environmental changes

• History of technology

• History of medicine

• ……

• We missed history of religion, the lower classes, overseas Chinese (history of migration)