“Rethinking the Role of China in Global History, 1500-1800?”

Keynote Speech

Hong Kong Baptist UniversitySymposium on Cultural Education and

History

June 5, 2009

1894-1895: Sino-Japanese War:Japanese troops beheading violent Chinese/Manchu prisoners

• The MIT Crisis: Spring 2006

1911 Revolution:Cutting off Queues and Heads by the ROC forces

(Princeton Firestone Library).

Mark Tansey: “Triumph of the New York School”

Optical Illusion 錯覺 #1: Pyongyang: Captured Chinese generals

Optical Ilusions 錯覺 #2 and #3:Chinese Surrender at Weihaiwei

Followed by Peace Conference in Japan

Admiral Ding Ruchang 丁汝昌 : 海軍上將

Surrender at Weihaiwei: 2/1895

“Second” Sino-Japanese WarTreaty of Shimonoseki, 4/17/1895

War at Sea, 1894

Chinese vessels destroyed

Japanese Victory in the Battle of the Yellow Sea, 1894黃海的爭鬥

Dingyuan 定遠 →

(1884, Germany)

Zhenyuan, Flagship of the Beiyang Fleet

Franco-British Models

• French-built Matsushima, 旗艦 flagship of the Imperial Japanese Navy during the Sino-Japanese conflict

• Barrow warship

American News of the WarBritish Cartoon View of the 1894-1895Sino-Japanese War

Amusem

ents

Sino-Japanese War Theater, 1894-1895

Sino-Japanese War Theater, 1894-1895

Russo-Japanese War Theater, 1904-1905

China’s “Failure” / Japan’s “Success”1. Cultural arguments – openness to change2. Political arguments – rapidity of Westernization3. Social arguments – samurai traditions 武士 vs. civilian ideal 文人4. Economic arguments – lack of corruption5. Science & technology – Japan’s superiority in science?

Quicker-firing guns vs. Heavier guns 快生火槍 Japanese surprise attack at Yalu 沒有宣戰的突襲系 -- 萬國公法 ? Lack of unified Chinese naval fleet: four separate Chinese fleets Li’s supply lines: bombs with cement 炸彈充滿水泥不是炸藥

6. Russo-Japanese War 俄國日本戰爭 , 1904-1905: 軍事集結 -- 海軍戰艦和驅逐艦 ; roots of Pacific War .

7. Role of War and Boxer Indemnities 賠賞 :

1895--Sino-Japanese War: 200 million Kuping Taels is about 7.45 million kg of silver = US $3.8 billion at current prices (2 to 3 times annual Japanese government revenue 超過了每年日本政府 的收入兩三倍 !)

1900--Boxer Indemnity 義和團賠賞 : 450 million Taels of silver is about 16.75 million kg of silver = US $8.6 billion at current prices

The “Second” Sino-Japanese War, 1894-95 甲午戰爭 :First great naval battle employing steam-powered fleets

蒸汽動力的艦隊的第一次巨大海戰• Sino-French War of 1884-1885 and the 1894-1895 Sino-Japanese War and the failure of China’s

Self-Strengthening reforms after the Taiping Rebellion (1850-1864). • Test Case for global naval warfare 海戰的判例 : Qing navy (65 ships) ranked eighth in the world,

compared to Japan‘s (32 ships), which ranked eleventh. China navy superior in armor 軍用 甲狀armaments, and tonnage 噸位 . Most ships European-made. Port Arthur 旅順口 = 亞洲的直布羅陀

• 14,000 men manned Japan‘s naval fleet of 32 warships 軍艦 and 23 torpedo boats 魚雷艇 . China’s navy divided into the Beiyang, Nanyang, Fujian, and Guangdong fleets. In 1894, these four combined had 65 large ships and 43 torpedo boats. The Beiyang fleet equaled Japan‘s entire fleet. Chinese ships were equipped with more modern, heavy guns, but the navy lacked an adequate supply and transport system 供應和運輸系統 to take the offensive 去在攻勢 .

• Yalu River 鴨綠江 naval battle on September 17th. Each side had twelve ships in the clash. China had the advantage in armor 裝甲 and weight in a single salvo 在唯一齊射的重量 , while Japan had a decided advantage in speed of ships and total amount of metal thrown in a sustained exchange of salvos 齊射被承受的交換 . Japan’s quick-firing guns 快生火槍 could fire three times more weight in shells than China's bigger 6" to 12" guns.

• Japanese industrialization accelerated after Chinese were forced to pay a considerable indemnity 賠賞 to the Meiji regime. The Japanese government used the indemnity as a windfall to bankroll a massive rearmament program to address the Russian expansion on the borders of northeast China. Korea and Taiwan were ceded to Japan and became colonies.

• The indemnity also meant that China's huge payments to Japan could not be used to augment the Qing dynasty's reconstruction projects. If the Qing government was unable to integrate development so that innovative institutions reinforced each other before this, the added weight of Japanese and European imperialism after 1895 tipped the scales.

甲午戰爭證明了日本的 “科學” 超過了而應該代替了中國的 “格致學”

New Perspectives

1. Why was their so much interest in the natural world 萬物 , medicine 中醫 , crafts 藝術 ?2. Who did it? Who opposed it? Why? Who paid for it?3. Why did Japanese curiosity about China begin with the Chinese language, but also carry

over to the scrutiny of contemporary Chinese statecraft, moral discourse, and medicine. Japanese literary, political, and economic encounters with China as “that other country” (ihō 異邦 ) in the eighteenth century became the multiple catalysts for the Japanese to reenvision themselves as “masters of Chinese learning.” They hoped to keep pace with and also eventually surpass the goliath on the Asian continent. In the Japanese imaginary of “China,” the goal was to learn from the most advanced state, society, and economy in the eighteenth century East Asian world.

4. This Japanese focus on China as the “model to emulate” 仿效的模型 in the eighteenth century was redirected to Europe in the nineteenth. Ironically, many of the historical aspects of the rise of Europe in global history after 1600 and the rise of the British Empire in the eighteenth century also were direct reactions to the Ming and Qing empires, its civil service, its powerful economy, as well as its tea and industrial porcelain production.

5. Vision of a state-sanctioned and profitable commercial system first emerged in Ming China, 1400-1600. China and the fantasy of commercial prosperity in Europe. China as the “economic engine” 經濟引擎 of the early modern world.

6. De-center Europe 動搖歐洲 from the “hub” of the wheel 輪中 ( 插孔 ). Release the “spokes” 動搖輪幅 from a mandatory orientation toward Europe 非必須的取向往歐洲 .

Early Ming Navy

The “First” Sino-Japanese War, 1592-981. Ming China: a coastal navy equipped with cannon 大砲 and firearms 火器 had

defended the China coast from Japanese pirates 倭寇 in the mid-sixteenth century, with eventual success.

2. Chinese naval power further revived when the Ming helped Korea to halt Toyotomi Hideyoshi‘s 豊臣秀吉 (1536-98) invasions of 1592 and 1598. Role of Korean 　朝鮮　“ turtle boats” 烏龜船 under Admiral Yi Sun-sin. C-K combined 500 ships/15,000 sailors vs. 300 ships/10,000 sailors for Japan.

Spanish Armada 西班牙艦 隊 , 1588: 130 ships/20,000+ sailors - including 22 fighting galleons vs. 200 English ships, assisted by the Dutch navy

“Koxinga” 鄭成功 defeats Dutch in Taiwan, 16623. Chinese naval revival lasted until the 1680s when Qing naval forces annexed

Taiwan – 1683: 300 ships 軍艦 /20,000 sailors. Thereafter Chinese still developed new types of sailing vessels, such as the Zhejiang junks first built in 1699. Chinese merchants used them in northern waters for the Ningbo-Nagasaki 寧波 - 長崎 trade between Japan and China, which lasted into the eighteenth century despite Japan's alleged closed door policies.

4. Influx of Korean artisans and technologies into Tokugawa Japan: Korean porcelain emulated in Japan Korean moveable type woodblock printing techniques used in Japan Irony of a Japan in semi-seclusion 鎖国 in 18th century with the Qing

dynasty under the Manchus on the march in Central Asia and Tibet.

Bracket “Modernity” --- Rethink the “Early Modern” World

Iron-clad Korean Turtle Ship 朝鮮烏龜船 -- world's first armoured warship

18th Century Reconstruction Modern Reconstruction

Woodblocks in Korea and JapanKorean metal type可移動排版 Japanese Buddhist type

Korean Ceramic Kilns 瓷窯(1200-1300 degrees C 攝氏 )

“Dragon” 龍窯 Kilns Outside of Seoul Side-Doors to Kilns

Qing Expansion in 18th Century

Map: Taiwan Straits in 17th Century

Zeelandia

Nagasaki – Ningbo Trade

Nagasaki Harbor

1646 1778

Nagasaki Foreign Community

唐館 (Tōjin yashiki 唐人屋敷 ) Dejima: Dutch Enclave

The New Terms of Trade between China and Japan in the Eighteenth Century十八世纪中日贸易的新条件

• The Tokugawa chose to delegitimize the Ming or Qing claim of being the “Middle Kingdom” 中國 by referring to China instead as a kuni 邦 called “Chūka” 中華 (Chinese: Zhonghua), “ihō” 異邦 (lit., “that different country,” Chinese: yibang), Seito 西土 (Chinese: Xitu), or Shina 支那 (Chinese: Zhina).

• The Tokugawa government sought to discourage conflict and allowed the “tally trade” (kangō 勘合 ; Chinese: kanhe) with Ming China to resume via Ningbo 寧波 in a new form after 1715. To enter Nagasaki harbor, where the China trade had been concentrated since 1635, Qing vessels now had to formally accept—for the first time—Japanese terms to receive trading credentials (shinpai 信牌 , Chinese: xinbai; Nagasaki tsūshō shōhyō 長崎通商照票 ).

• Nagasaki 長崎 was home to a “Chinatown” 唐館 (Tōjin yashiki 唐人屋敷 ), which during the peak of the trading season brought some ten thousand Chinese and Overseas Chinese to the city. But Tokugawa control of the trade also forced a decline in the number of Chinese ships arriving in Nagasaki during the eighteenth century from 70 to less than 20 yearly.

• The Qing state allowed both Japan (in Ningbo) and Russia (since 1689 in Nerchinsk 尼布楚 ) to trade in China outside the tribute system. It is interesting, however, that Japanese Buddhist missions to China continued during the eighteenth century, but they followed earlier Muromachi 室町 traditions of entry and referred to “China” as “Tang” 唐 .

• Arai Hakuseki 新井白石 (1657-1725), an alleged Sinophile 頌華者 in the shogun’s 將軍 inner circle who was proud of his Chinese poetry, played a pivotal role in drafting the new 1715 regulations. He feared that the exodus of mineral resources through the Nagasaki trade to China had caused shortages, which had restrained domestic trade and increased smuggling.

Chinese Learning and Early Modern Japanese Society中学与近世日本的社会流动的现象

• Between 1600 & 1800, Japan changed from a society dominated by samurai 侍 and an aristocracy (kizoku 貴族 ) to a commercialized society empowering merchants (chōnin 町人 ) and commoners (heimin 平民 ). One of these social changes was the rise of the classical scholar 儒士 as identifiable men of letters 文人 .

• Hayashi Razan 林羅山 (1583-1657) and Hayashi Gahō 林鵞鳳 represented the beginnings of a new social group in Japanese state and society: classical scholars Jusha 儒者 (“Confucians”) who were often commoners (heimin 平民 ). Many were originally from Buddhist ranks, but after the down-classing of Buddhism in the 16th century and warriors in the 17th, they turned to the teachings of Confucius for their new calling. Their excellent abilities to read and write in classical Chinese allowed the Tokugawa court to rely on them—and not the Buddhists any longer—to learn about events in China.

• In the eighteenth century, there were an abundant number of teachers who were classically literate samurai, merchants, physicians, or commoners. Many Japanese men began making livings 作業 as professional teachers in a private, merchant, or public schools 私塾 . For instance, Itō Jinsai 伊藤仁斎 , 1627-1705), a commoner, and Yamazaki Ansai, who began as a Buddhist monk, competed for students.

• The Taki 多紀 family established a school of medicine called the Seijukan 躋壽館 in 1765 as private medical school in their home in Edo in the eighteenth century. When the Tokugawa made it the government’s official medical school (Igakkan 医学館 ) for the new Kanpō 漢方 traditions of Chinese medicine in 1791, members of the Taki family occupied the top teaching posts until 1850s.

• Confucian “letters” wen/bun 文 signaled increased social status. Classical studies provided upward social circulation for themselves and their students, particularly those entering urban networks of patronage providing wealth and prestige. Minagawa Kien 皆川淇園 (1734-1807) in Kyoto was a model man of letters 文人 in the ancient capital. He became a leader in defining the role of Chinese learning and the scope of “Sinology” 漢學 (Kangaku) there. He also published a 1798 handbook for learning Kanbun 汉文 .

The Adaptation of Chinese Learning in Eighteenth Century Japan十八世纪日本人为何学习中学

• Need to reintegrate aspects of the history of Chinese medicine ( 中醫史 ) with themes associated with the intellectual and cultural history of classical learning ( 經學思想史 ) in Japan and China from 1600 to 1800. Normally these fields are studied separately as “Confucianism” ( 儒學 ) or “medicine” ( 醫學 ) in East Asia, with little effort to integrate them thematically in light of the history of ideas ( 學術思想史 ) or according to the cultural geography of classical learning ( 經學文化史 ) in East Asia. Doctors 醫家 , mathematicians 算學家 , and philologists 考證學家 shared the same classical texts known in East Asia as the Confucian “Classics” ( 五經 ), mathematical “Classics” ( 算經 ), and medical “Classics” ( 醫經 ).

• New classical trends in Qing China spilled over to Chosŏn Korea 朝鮮 and Tokugawa 德川Japan. In the late eighteenth century, in particular, Japanese scholars interested in Chinese classical studies learned and adapted the Chinese philological research techniques ( 考證 ) pioneered by Qing literati as paleography ( 文字學 ), etymology ( 訓詁學 ), and phonology ( 古音學 ) during a time when classical Chinese became an essential scholarly tool among newly emerging Japanese elites.

• The commercial exchanges of books and knowledge between China, Japan, and Korea in the seventeenth and eighteenth century marked the emergence, before the coming of the western powers, of a very loosely constituted East Asian community of textual scholars ( 東亞學術界 ), who specialized in empirical research 考證學 and philological studies 文獻學 of the Chinese Confucian and medical classics.

• If a brouhaha between Sinophiles “ 頌華者” and Sinophobes “ 貶華者” was in the works, it is surprising that Chinese learning had the upper hand in Japanese society for much of the eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries. Case of Mootori Norinaga 本居宣长 .

“Investigating Things and Extending Knowledge”格致學 , I: 耶穌傳教士前後

• 1347 -- 格致餘論 (Extra Treatises based on investigating things and expanding knowledge): Zhu Zhenheng 元 · 朱震亨 (1281-1358) 撰 .

• 1459 -- 格古要論 (Essential criteria for investigating antiquity): Wang Zuo 明 · 王佐編 .

• 1596 -- 格致叢書 (Collectanea of works inquiring into and extending knowledge”): 明 · Hu Wenhuan 明胡文焕编 , Wanli edition. – Bowu zhi 博物志 (Treatise on broad learning of unusual phenomena), by Zhang

Hua 张华 (232-300); – Xu bowu zhi 續博物志 (Sequel), by Li Shi 宋 · 李石 .

• 1626 -- 空際格致 (Investigation into material compositions of [sublunary] space): 高一志 撰 (A. Vagnoni), adapted from Aristotle's Meteorologica [Meteorology] issued by Jesuit College of Arts at the University of Coimbra (Lisbon 1593, Lyon 1594).

• 1648 -- 坤輿格致 (De re metallica, by Georgius Agricola, 1550): 汤若望 (A. Schall).• 格致草 (Draft for the inquiring into and extending knowledge): Xiong Mingyu 熊明遇

(1579-1649).• Kangxi era -- 格物窮理院 equals French Academy of Science• 1735 -- 格致鏡源 (Mirror origins of scientia, lit., “inquiring into and extending

knowledge”): Chen Yuanlong 陳元龍 (1652-1736).

1525 Jiangxi Provincial Civil Examination Policy Question on Calendrical Astronomy

Suzhou Local Examination in 1759蘇州歲科考試

Ming Candidates Gathering to Learn of Their Examination Rankings明代科舉候選人看 金 榜

Images of Chinese Astronomy

Verbiest’s 南懷仁 Astronomy Instruments

Early 18th Century French Tapestry of Qing Astronomy Bureau 欽天鑑 : The Jesuit Adam Schall 湯若望 points to the star map on the celestial sphere to instruct the Kangxi Emperor with armillary sphere 渾儀 to the right.

1669 Verbiest 南懷仁 Armillary Sphere 渾儀 for the Qing Astronomy Bureau 欽天鑑

Tychonic Armillary Sphere 渾儀 (Left)

Qing Court Armillary Sphere (Right)

1675 image of a Chinese astronomer with an elaborate star map. In the 17th century, Chinese astronomers collaborated extensively with Jesuit scholars, who brought the Copernican and Tychonic systems from Europe

Tychonic Celestial Sphere 第谷的天體 第谷 · 布拉赫 (Tycho Brahe, 1546 ～ 1601)

Optical Illusions 錯覺 : Sino-British Visions of the 1793 Macartney 馬戛爾尼 Mission to China

Qianlong tapestry of the Macartney Mission, 1793, hanging in Greenwich

British Cartoon of Macartney’s Audience with the Qianlong Emperor, 1793

天文館 planetarium

British Orrery from the 18th Century英國太陽系儀

Macartney’s Gifts

German Orrery :德國太陽系儀

Watt’s Steam Engine: 瓦特的蒸汽引擎

The Macartney Paradox 馬戛爾尼的矛盾Lord Macartney never presented the pulleys, air pump 氣泵 , chemical and electrical

contrivances, or even the steam engine models 蒸汽機模範 that he had on board. Nor did the mission present the chronometer 計時表 to determine longitude that Macartney also brought as a possible gift. The chronometer would have been more efficient than the Jesuit method for surveying that the Manchus used to appraise their domains. Instead the apparatuses were returned to the British East India Company or given to his ship‘s mechanic and mathematician cum astronomer, James Dinwiddie (1746-1815), who lectured on them and presented some experiments in Guangzhou to the English Factory, which was attended by Chinese merchants.

Macartney remarkably noted: “Had Dinwiddie remained at Canton and continued his courses, I dare say he might have soon realized a very considerable sum of money from his Chinese pupils alone.”

Chinese merchant interests in Dinwiddie’s experiments and contrivances in 1793 suggest that we should not be surprised when many Chinese quickly took notice of the engineering fruits of the industrial revolution after the Opium War 鴉片戰爭 .

格致學 , II: 基督教傳教師與洋務運動• 1849 – Bouwu xinbian 博物新編 , 合信氏著 (Dr. Benjamin Hobson, 1816-1873)• 1874 -- Gezhi shushi 格致書室 (Chinese Scientific Book Depot). • 1876 -- Gezhi huibian 格致彙編 : Shanghai Polytechnic in 1876-1877, 1881-82, 1890-92;

English title: The Chinese Scientific Magazine -- 傅兰雅 (J. Fryer, 1839-1928) 等編 .• 1884 -- Gezhi shuyuan 格致書院 (Shanghai Polytechnic) in Shanghai. • 1886 -- Gezhi qimeng 格致啟蒙 , 艾約瑟 (J. Edkins, 1823-1905).• 1886 -- Gezhi shuyuan keyi (huibian) 格致書院課藝 (彙編 ) -- China Prize Essay Contest,

Shanghai 1886-94, collected by Wang Tao 王滔 (1828-1897) as editor.• 1896 -- Gezhi jinghua lu 格致精華錄 (Record of the essence of science), by Wang Renjun

王仁俊撰 (1866-1914). Shanghai.• 1897 -- Gezhi guwei, 格致古微 , by Wang Renjun. Wuchang: Zhixuehui (Physics society).• 1897 -- Xixue gezhi daquan 西學格致大全 . 香港書局 . 傅兰雅 (J. Fryer) 辑• 1898 -- Gezhi xinbao 格致新報 (Revue Scientifique/Scientific Review), Shanghai. 龙云沈 主

编 .• 1899 -- Gewu Zhongfa 格物中法 , by Liu Yueyun 刘岳云 (1849-1917) 選 .• 1902 -- “Gezhixue yange kaolue” 格致學沿革考略 (Synopsis of the vicissitudes in the

history of science), by Liang Qichao 梁啟超 (1873-1929): 在《新民丛报》第 10 、 14 号发表 .

– Bowuxue 博物學 includes animals and plants 植動物 : “Natural history”; – Gezhixue 格致學 based on experimentation (shiyan 實驗 ); – Kexue 科學 based on mathematics (shuxue 數學 ) -- 在格致學之下Conceptual Velocity 觀念速度 : repetition 再產生 of concepts in titles and content.

John Fryer 傅蘭雅 : 1895

“Of course this looks to the general decay of the Chinese language and literature, and with them, the comparative uselessness of my many years of labor. Their doom seems to be inevitable, for only the fittest can survive. It may take many generations to accomplish, but sooner or later the end must come, and English be the learned language of the empire.”

新文化運動 : New Culture Movement敬告青年 : " 民主与科学 "

• Chen Duxiu 陳獨秀 (1879-1942), dean of liberal arts of Beijing University personalized Mr. Democracy and Mr. Science into two gentlemen in an article published in New Youth 新青年 magazine in 1919 . Aim was to destroy Confucianism and traditional arts and religion.

• Cultural ideology for general enlightenment.• 将科学 (Science) 与民主 (Democracy) 称为“赛先

生”与“德先生” -- 只有提倡民主、科学 , 拥护『德先生』、『赛先生』才能救中国」 .

• Chinese youngsters now pay tribute to “Mr. Democracy and Mr. Science” on Youth Day 青年节 .

Chen Duxiu 陳獨秀 (left) and Hu Shi 胡適 (right)

Feng Youlan/Fung Yu-lan馮友蘭 (1895–1990)

John Fryer 傅蘭雅 : 1895“Of course this looks to the general decay of the Chinese language and literature, and with them, the comparative uselessness of my many years of labor. Their doom seems to be inevitable, for only the fittest can survive. It may take many generations to accomplish, but sooner or later the end must come, and English be the learned language of the empire.”

The Reasons Why China Never Developed Science/科學

1. Religion: no concept of “God” 上帝 or “Nature” 大自然 as creator—creation-less cosmos2. Philosophy: no natural laws or logical method to verify knowledge 3. Holistic, “organicistic” world-view vs. mechanical world-view 4. Theory vs. Data: Use of metaphysical 形而上學 concepts to understand the world5. Role of numbers: numerology 命理學 vs. measurement 測量6. Limits of the Chinese language: arcane, visual, logically flawed; influence of 8-legged essay7. Education: stultifying examination system 科舉 and 8-legged essay 八股文 .8. No notion of intellectual progress—conservatism; return to golden past 復古理想9. Confucian mentality: moralism and lack of rationalization 缺少道德的合理法10. Power of Chinese state 專制制度— no autonomous zones; repression 11. Closed Chinese society and entrenched Confucian elite; “Amateur Ideal” 非職業理想 based on

mastery of the Classics12. Economy (I): anti-mercantile ideology 反貿易 ; weakness of merchants and commerce13. Economy (II): no concept of reinvestment 再投資 (Max Weber)14. Demography—labor surplus 勞工過剩 ; no incentives 刺激 for mechanization15. Anti-military ideology among elites

Problem of “Why Not?” Questions – “why didn’t the house next door burn down”?Heuristically interesting but historically misguided questions.

China’s “Failure” 格致 / Japan’s “Success” 科學

From Gezhi to Japanese “Science” 從 “格致學” 至 “科學” 的轉變 : 明治時代模仿宋朝

Song origins of “kexue”: 宋代 “科舉之學” 等於 “科學” ( 北宋陳亮的 說法 ) -- 諸科制度 (Lydia Liu)

China never had any “science” (= kexue) 中國從來沒有 “科學” 而只有了落後的 “格致學” (Fung Youlan)

Gezhixue never was “science” 甚至於 “格致學” 不是 “科學”