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Pinellia Tuber (the dried tuber of Pinellia ternata (Thunb.) Makino [Araceae]) (PT) is a crude drug used in traditional Chinese medicine (TCM) and Japanese Kampo medicine. PT is subjected to additional processing before use in TCM because of its toxic, while the processing has not been used in Kampo medicine. The aim of this study is to clarify the reason why the differences about the processing of PT between TCM and Kampo medicine have been appeared. We investigated successive literatures published in China and in Japan from the Han dynasty to the modern age. The descriptions about the processing of PT in China had appeared since the Later Han dynasty as washing, and after that, various processing methods have been recorded, such as boiling, steaming, making cakes, and fermenting to prepare PT malt (PTM) with various drug additives. The objective of the processing for PT was not only to remove its toxicity but to change drug properties, and several kinds of processed PT had been developed to treat different types of "phlegm" in the Ming dynasty. The current Chinese Pharmacopoeia recommends the use of processed PT to avoid the toxicity, and registers unprocessed PT as well as three kinds of processed PT except for PTM which had been deleted in 2015 edition. These processing methods for PT have been established in the Qing dynasty. The oldest description in Japan was appeared in 1363, and the processing methods had been influenced by the literatures in the Song dynasty. After that, the processed PT in Japan had mainly been PTM until the 18th century. In 1738, Shuan Kagawa wrote that PT should not be processed because its pharmacological effects disappeared and the toxicity of PT disappeared by preparing its decoction without processing. Then, the processing of PT has been unpopular, and the Japanese Pharmacopoeia has registered PT since 1939 without any processing. Compared to TCM, Japanese Kampo medicine has tended to avoid ideologism based on traditional knowledge and to adopt positivism. This policy has reflected the differences in the processing of PT between Kampo medicine and TCM. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

China has a long history of wine-brewing. Traditional Chinese drinking games are a unique and mysterious part of the Chinese drinking culture. In this paper, we deal with the development of Chinese wine first, and then we take big events as reference to uncover the history of the traditional Chinese drinking games chronologically. After introducing the representative drinking games from each dynasty, it could help people understand the general development of the traditional Chinese drinking games. The results show: (1) the Chinese wine-brewing origins from the saccharomycetes, matures in Tang and Song Dynasties, and popularizes in Yuan, Ming, and Qing Dynasties. (2) The first traditional Chinese drinking game is pitch-pot, and it emerges in the later of Spring and Autumn Period. Its system grows mature in the Tang Dynasty. The Qing Dynasty is a united period for the collection of traditional Chinese drinking games. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Since the late Qing dynasty, Chinese scholars have confronted the challenges of indigenisation: what are the limits of (Western) universalism, and how can social science, history, and anthropology become 'Chinese'? This article deals with a series of Chinese 'native anthropologies', from Republican‐era outlines of ethnology and anthropology, to current anthropologies of history, urban experience, and immorality. Rather than an assessment of the merits and flaws of indigenisation in these debates, I analyse the social practices of attention management that decided which scholars and texts became influential, and which ones were ignored. These practices of attention management include the grammars, media, and institutions, within which interaction networks were established and scholarly communities formed. What held the attention of many fellow anthropologists was the aura of the local conveyed: a sense of incommensurability based on the unlikely identification of the anthropologist with the subject of study and with the intended reader. The aura of the local, I argue, appeared precisely when new grammars (such as empiricism and social theory), media (e.g. academic journals, books), and institutions (universities, government offices) made it increasingly difficult for anthropologists to construct shared understandings with the people they studied and the readers they wrote for. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The are 12 pieces of biographies of Gao Gong written by authors in the Ming and Qing dynasties in which the attitude towards Gao Gong was positive, then negative and finally positive again. The final evaluation about Gao Gong is near the historical fact. To amend Gao Gong’s Biography in History of Ming Dynasty of Chinese Book Company edition, it is needed to abide the principle that the comment must come from the history and comprehensively analyze the historical materials. Meanwhile, an impartial principle must be followed and must not be prejudiced by first impressions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article looks at how globalization in the nineteenth century was inextricably entangled with localization in the Canton–Hong Kong–Macau nexus on the southern fringe of China by tracing the growth of its unique medical culture. It explains the 'glocalizing' process by tracing the development of this medical culture, which consists of knowledge construction and institution building, in the context of highly volatile epidemiological conditions aggravated by increasingly heavy inter-regional trade and migration. It traces the dynamic circulation of people, materials, ideas, and practices in this southern edge of China, which was traditionally connected to southeast Asia and shared ecological backdrops that produced similar epidemiological experiences. The Canton nexus in the nineteenth century saw the growth of native medical knowledge that focused less on theoretical innovation than on the efficacy of therapeutic strategies. These ideas were likely to have been informed or reinforced by new anatomical knowledge disseminated by Western medical missionaries on the ground early in the century. The medical culture in the region was also marked by the formation of a series of local institutions that were fusions of Western-style hospitals and native merchant-run charity halls where diseases were studied and treated, and new public health management negotiated and implemented by experts from different traditions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In the light of 19th-century attempts to universalize history and international law, the purpose of this article is to show how the theory of an Ancient Chinese international law matured and disseminated within one politics of history and helped generate another at the end of the Qing Dynasty. On the one hand, the middleman William Alexander Parsons Martin, who as part of his Christian mission and in order to make international law more acceptable to the Chinese, translated systematically international law into Chinese and attempted to universalize it by finding a proto-international law in Ancient China. On the other hand, Chinese scholars and officials sought to use Martin's theory to universalize Confucianism and rectify international law according to what they believed to be their own superior morality and history. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

It is a wise choice for a backward country to explore overseas education bases to find the training for urgently needed talents. In 1900, the Qing government began actively sending students to study advanced technology in Japan. From that time, Tokyo Higher Technical School (THTS) became an indispensable overseas base for Chinese students studying abroad. Although the educational resources of THTS were not superior to those of the imperial universities, returning THTS graduates played a greater role in the industrial modernisation of China than the graduates from imperial universities. This article shows that the role of importers of technology is not only determined by the technology they have acquired, but also highly influenced by a variety of factors, such as opportunity and social demand, presenting a complex and changeable pattern in different contexts. For developing countries, the 'appropriateness' plays a more important role than the 'progressiveness' of the imported technology. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article looks back at the historical conditions that fostered the rise of congshu, texts published in print as collections, as a scholarly medium in mid-Qing China by highlighting a case study of the serialized collection Zhaodai congshu (Collectanea of the Glorious Age), associated with the editorship of Zhang Chao.

Rendered in paintings and sung in lyric poetry, birds and flowers asserted the mandate of the emperor and defined an imperial aesthetic in eighteenth-century China. Whether it was a peacock from the west or a peony flower from the south, each represented an object-subject relationship that attracted the covetous gaze of the Qing dynasty (1644-1911) court. This study focuses on images of the peony, historically regarded as the "King of Flowers," to probe the tremendous marshaling of labor and resources that put them to work as possessions. Through words and images, imperial artists used peonies to map critical nodes of the Qing Empire and form a visuality of conquered subjects: from the cultural heartland of Han Chinese scholars to European missionaries in the capital of Beijing, and finally to Buddhist devotees in Tibet. Meanwhile, the peonies that began their journey as ephemeral objects of southern Chinese gardens ultimately faded from memory along with their messages of loyal and dissent. Thus, although court artists used peonies to construct a totalizing image of the Qing as a global power, the biographies of these objects instead challenge the relationship between the Qing court and the things it possessed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper is primarily concerned with the Chinese history and rural society, using the example of Sanmentang village as a case, to illustrate the internal relations of timber trade activities and regional social change in the downstream areas of Qingshui river basin. It probes into the complicated relationship between nongovernmental contracts and local timber trade during the period of late Ming dynasty (AD1368-1644) and early Qing dynasty (AD1644-1911) in China. It explores regional social history, social structure changing process and its main driving factors. The findings reveal the direct effects of commercial activities on regional economic development, and its indirect impacts on local community. Findings also reveal the historic significance of stone tablets and contractual documents in old China. Finally, relationship of "timber trade → economic development → social change" is shown to be evident. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A network of seaside and hill resorts created by foreigners gradually took shape in China during the late Qing and Republican periods. Such places were both a touristic novelty in China and the focal point of a type of tourist experience that was modern in a variety of ways. This article examines tourist accounts, tourist guidance material, and other sources, in an attempt to understand the major habits, norms, perceptions, and meanings of tourism to the seaside and hill resorts as a new type of tourism in China, from its inception to the downfall of the Nationalist government in 1949. For this purpose, it explores three aspects that were central to resort tourism: its strong association with an idea of refuge, its identification as an ideal experience, and its important physical component. While the article aims at an overall analysis of this new element of tourist culture in China, it also seeks to locate it within the wider contexts of tourist culture and of the broad motivations and anxieties of this period. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article discusses the features of late imperial Chinese judiciary, the bureaucratic elements of the judicial system influencing criminal investigation and prosecution during Qing dynasty, and the examination of case records involving the homicide under King Qianlong's reign.

If we were asked to recall a coastal city of early modern China, most of us would choose Shanghai, Canton, Xiamen, or Macau. These port cities became famous for facilitating trans-regional sea trade that linked the Qing Empire to the rest of the world. Attentive observers know that all of these cities are located on the Southeast China coast, by which we mean the coastal areas south of Shanghai. Taking Shanghai as the dividing line between the northeastern and southeastern coastlines, the port cities of the south are far more likely to be familiar to us than are those of the north. I consider this phenomenon (i.e. the focus on the coast of early modern China) to be a "Southeast China centrism." And although we might all concede that some southeastern seaports were vital to transoceanic interactions, it is shortsighted to ignore the northern port cities and the role they played in connecting China with the maritime world. In this article I investigate the importance of Northeast China's port cities by focusing particular attention on the less familiar coastal seaport of Dengzhou. By detailing and examining the political and economic importance of this port city in the early modern period, I will show that Qing China's northeastern coast was no less important than the southeast. Even if China's northern port cities might not have been as economically vibrant as those in the south, we should not overlook their functions and histories. Indeed, they also attained unique patterns of political and economic development throughout the long eighteenth century. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article discusses the political and cultural importance of the Qing sable tribute for the expression and maintenance of imperial authority by focusing on the Solon, the largest sable-hunting group of the Qing dynasty in Heilongjiang. The political use of fur tribute items at the Qing centre reveals how the privilege of wearing fur defined the boundaries of the ruling hierarchy and, therefore, why sable tribute throughout the dynasty was a mechanism for maintaining relations between the Manchu court and the hunting population. The high demand for sable and other furs by the Qing emperor and other members of the political elite explains why the Qing empire needed the hunting population and their native places in the borderlands. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A society and scholarly culture united in its use of one language dominates the general view of Late Imperial China’s sciences. Recent studies have suggested, however, that in the past, as in the present, multilingual practices might have been the norm. Asian-language historians have shown that Chinese script embraced many tongues, intonating the characters in different dialects and giving them new meanings in Japanese, Korean, or Vietnamese. Rather than assuming that a hegemonic approach to language was a given in historical China, this essay suggests that we should ask why—or even if—this was the case, given that scientific knowledge was continuously transmitted to China from other learned traditions (Persian, Indian, European) and that new objects and practices entered Chinese learned discourse from diverse vernacular cultures that flourished on the local level throughout the empire. The essay discusses how to understand scientific and technological developments against changing views of Late Imperial China as a culture enmeshed in plurilingual practices. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Humanitas Taiwanica is the property of National Taiwan University, Humanitas Taiwanica and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

In the literature, the ‘Overview Maps of Imperial Territories’ orHuangyu quanlan tu皇輿全覽圖, is mostly referred to as ‘the Jesuit atlas of China’. The reason is that this early eighteenth-century atlas of all Qing China’s territories plus Korea and Tibet is assumed to have resulted from European missionaries importing European cartographic practices. In this essay, I argue that this view is outdated and can no longer be sustained. By revisiting the background of the missionaries’ involvement in cartographic exchanges between Asia and Europe, the techniques used for surveying Qing territories and the production of the resulting atlases, I show that the mapping project behind the ‘Overview Maps of Imperial Territories’ is best understood as a creative answer to the unique needs of Qing frontier management and imperial control, made possible by the integration, in mensurational and in representational terms, of European and East Asian cartographic practices. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Fang Dongshu and his Hanxue Shangdui played an important role in the conflict of Hanxue (...) and Songxue (...) in the middle Ching. There were plenty of studies focused on his sharp reprimand and debate to the scholars of Hanxue displayed in Hanxue Shangdui. Nonetheless, his another book Ba Nanlei Wending included more abundant resources which could reflect his concept, theory of self-cultivation, and standpoint of Neo-Confucianism. In short, the exegesis of "mind (Xin)" and "will (Yi)" of Fang was strongly inclined to Zhuxi, though the interpretation of "sincerity (Chengyi)" was innovatively changed. Fang's concept of "vigilance in solitude (Shendu)" was transformed as a supplementary method of "chengyi", and the meaning of restriction was extraordinarily emphasized. The viewpoint of the development of Neo-Confucianism was also constructed in Ba Nanlei Wending, most prestigious scholars in the Ming dynasty and the middle Ching was regarded as heterodoxy. More over, Fang redefined the definition of "Neo-Confucianism biography (Daoxue Zhuan)" for the abrogation of it in History of Ming (Mingshi). [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article explores concubinage, a widespread form of quasi-marriage in Qing China (1644-1911), and its relationship with motherhood and social mobility. By examining legal codes and court records, this research challenges the academic paradigm, mainly based on literati writings, that portrays concubines as reproductive tools for their husband-masters and their husband-masters' wives. It shows that bearing or raising sons or daughters helped concubines achieve upward social mobility recognized and protected by law and that motherhood remained the major source of power and security for concubines in the Qing. After household divisions, concubine-mothers gained lifelong custodial rights of property, which formally consolidated concubine-mothers' upward mobility from daughters or widows in lower-class families to matriarchs in well-to-do households. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study examines how Chosŏn Korean ambassadors' encounters with Qing entertainment impacted their views of the Qing dynasty in China based on their travel accounts written during the eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries. During diplomatic trips as ambassadors, select Chosŏn literati were able to experience new and exotic forms of foreign culture. This article focuses on Qing entertainments, including fireworks, lantern festivals, and plays, and related aspects such as theater facilities, that captured the attention of the traveling ambassadors. Through direct experience with Qing entertainments, traveling Chosŏn dignitaries gained first hand experience of Qing commercial and technological development. Some of these witnesses came to the realization that the Qing had become a successful ruling dynasty, which dismantled previously held assumptions by most Chosŏn literati that the Manchus were barbaric and uncultivated. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Traditional researches on Chinese calligraphy tend to emphasize the analysis of stylistic lineages and the artistic aspect of works of calligraphy. By contrast, the purpose of this paper is to examine how Chinese calligraphy was practiced in Hong Kong in the twentieth and pre-twentieth century, and the historic and societal circumstances in which works of calligraphy were produced. Based on a thematic framework, the work examines pertinent issues in Hong Kong calligraphy including 1.) Chinese intellectuals' encounter with the West; 2.) The propaganda of the revolutionaries; 3.) The pride of Qing dynasty's "left-over subjects"; and 4.) From erudition to contemporary life. Calligraphic works under examination are viewed as both art objects and vehicles projecting a strong sense of social and cultural identity. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article examines an eighteenth-century French Jesuit's translation of the final chapter of the early Qing collection of vernacular stories Doupeng xianhua 豆棚閒話 (Idle Talks under the Bean Arbor), which became a "philosophical dialogue" of a "modern atheist Chinese philosopher." The trajectory of the text is examined by analyzing the layers of meaning superposed upon it by a succession of agencies: the original author Aina Jushi 艾衲居士, a Jiangnan literatus who philosophized on the fall of the Ming dynasty; Father François-Xavier Dentrecolles, the Jesuit missionary who translated the text with extensive commentaries of his own to make a case against atheism; the Parisian editor Jean-Baptiste Du Halde who published the translation in the landmark of Jesuit sinology, Description de l'Empire de la Chine et de la Tartarie chinoise (1735); the engravers in Paris and the Hague who remolded its cosmological diagrams to conform to their own scientific and aesthetic standards; and finally, its European re-translators and readers, some of whom used it as a weapon against the Jesuits and the Catholic Church. The gains and losses of the Doupeng xianhua during this process are discussed, as well as the new light brought by the French translation on its circulation in Qing China. Finally, the challenge this atypical case poses to received narratives of the Sino-Western cultural exchange through the Jesuit mission is assessed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Emperor Qianlong (1711-1799, r. 1735-1795) published his imperial poetry collections at regular intervals during his reign. This article reconstructs the gradual process of routinization of these activities through a close reading of the collections' prefaces and postscripts. Understanding this process helps us to understand the subtlety of the intra-court communications between Qianlong and his officials, which contextualizes how Qianlong's intent was delivered, received, and actualized in courtly practice. This routinization process also had a certain influence upon Qianlong and his successors, and suggests a possible reason behind Qianlong's large poetry production. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We employ a new, commodity-level dataset on the flow of goods between fifteen major treaty ports to estimate a general-equilibrium trade model for China in the late Qing era. The distribution of welfare effects depends critically on each port's productivity, China's economic geography as it influences trade costs, as well as the degree of regional diversity in production, which increases the potential gains from trade. We utilize this framework to quantify the size and distribution of welfare effects resulting from new technology and lower trade costs that emerged during the Treaty-Port Era. Our results suggest that the new trade with foreign countries led to significant changes in domestic trade relationships. There was a limit to how much could be gained through increased domestic trade, however, because differences in productivity across regions were relatively low. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper constructs a quantitative history of the homicide rate in Qing China and investigates its social and economic drivers. Estimates based on historical archives indicate that this annual rate ranged between 0.35 and 1.47 per 100,000 inhabitants during the 1661–1898 period, a low level unmatched by Western Europe until the late 19th century. China's homicide rate rose steadily from 1661 to 1821 but declined gradually thereafter until the turn of the century. Although extreme, homicide represents a random sampling of the entire distribution of interpersonal violence; hence the homicide rate serves as a proxy for overall violence, and its rise implies a decline in personal security. We use national and cross-provincial panel data to show that population density, state capacity, local self-governance, interregional grain market integration, and grain price level (which captures crop failure and other survival distress) are all statistically significant drivers of the homicide rate in 18th- and 19th-century China. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper situates itself within the context of entangled histories and establishes a link between the well-known Ordos poet and historian Kesigbatu and the missionaries of the Congregation of Scheut. There is evidence that Kesigbatu was in contact with the missionaries, not only because of the proximity between the Boro Balγasu mission and his native region, but also as part of his profession as a judge. Moreover, he was helpful in providing members of the congregation with access to rare Mongolian manuscripts. It is little known that several of Kesigbatu's poems are explicitly devoted to the Scheut mission at Boro Balγasu. These poems fall into two categories, as they include either serious allegations or lavish praise. The paper traces the intersections between Kesigbatu's biography and the Congregation of Scheut and analyses how the missionaries were perceived by a Mongolian contemporary. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article is a survey and critique of recent endeavours to establish statistical foundations for a chronology for the great divergence based upon trends and levels in relative wages. Our reading of the bibliography in Chinese labour history, together with a preliminary investigation into other primary sources, suggests that the Kuznetsian paradigm for empirical economics may not be viable for the construction of analytical narratives for the Chinese and other premodern imperial economies in South and West Asia. Nevertheless, two datasets currently in print will continue to be quoted to lend support to numerically grounded speculations for levels and trends in real wages and welfare for the families of wage-dependent urban workers in China over the eighteenth century. Statistical evidence for the Ming and Qing dynasties calibrated for the purposes of comparing real wage levels for wage-dependent labour between China and western Europe can, however, be placed on a spectrum for accuracy and inferential analysis that runs from 'unfounded guess work' to 'plausible conjectures'. The unwelcome contention of this article is that the data published and potentially available for China (and probably for India and the Ottoman Empire) stand close to the unfounded guess work end of that spectrum. Meanwhile, and as a speculative conclusion, we offer a conjecture that the 'real wages' for Qing China's tiny proletariat, whose income included high proportions of wages in kind, have remained as elusive as they were when the real wage debate began a decade ago. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article presents a report from a June 2-4, 2016 ancient history conference hosted by the Humboldt Universität zu Berlin university in Berlin, Germany. Topics of presentations delivered include the reactions of native North Americans to knowledge of ancient Roman and Greek cultures, Arabic construction of ancient history, and periodization of the Han, Ming, and Qing dynasties of China and their characterization as ancient versus modern.

This article examines the “playful eight-legged essay” as a form of literary parody and discusses its circulation in printed editions of The Story of the Western Wing and The Story of the Lute in late imperial China. The rise of the playful eight-legged essay was part of a philosophical and literary tradition of “game-playing,” and occurred in the context of publications that appropriated canonical genres for fashionable entertainment. Reading the playful compositions against the generic conventions of the standard examination essay, on the one hand, and the original drama commentary, on the other, the author explores the playful eight-legged essay as an increasingly autonomous mode of critical commentary that was independent from, yet still associated with, the dramatic text. Employing dramatic impersonation, the essays opened up a playful space for the staging of passion and extended the appeal of the original play by involving the reader in its imaginative performance. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this article, Huang provides a historical account of the way intellectuals have conceptualized democracy, representative assemblies, and political parties from the end of the Qing dynasty to the beginning of the Republican period. He outlines thirteen items that characterize Chinese democratic thought during this period, before tracing the historical origins of each. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

The article discusses official and unofficial perspectives of torture in the Ming and Qing dynasties of China. Topics discussed include the difference between torture and torment, the practice of torture according to late imperial Chinese law being legal only when it was applied as part of a legal proceeding by a judicial official, and handbooks written to shed light on the role of torture in the judicial process.

The article discusses the Qing dynasty in the context of Chinese history. Topics discussed include modernization theory in respect of China, the assumption that modernity and Confucianism are incompatible, the divide between the modern and traditional period of Chinese history being the Opium War, and the reading of Manchu documents by scholars.

In the 1880s King Kojong, ruler of the Korean Kingdom of Chosŏn, implemented balance-of-power politics, seeking to attract American aid to free Chosŏn from the interference and control of Qing China. This study seeks to demonstrate how his decade-long effort conformed to the logic of balance-of-power politics in keeping with traditional East Asian tributary interstate practices. Kojong looked to the United States for assistance to counterbalance Qing in Chosŏn. His policy of playing the "American card" against the heavy-handed Chinese government was typical balance-of-power politics. Kojong's American policy of the 1880s was characterized by the following features. First, in order to achieve his goals, Kojong employed the classical Chinese maxim of befriending a distant state and engaging in conflict with a neighboring state. Second, Kojong employed "soft balancing," by which he actively sought to win the goodwill and friendship of the American government and create closer Chosŏn-United States ties short of a military alliance. Third, Kojong conducted balance-of-power politics within the framework of the East Asian tribute system. His goal was to achieve full autonomy in the domestic and foreign affairs in his kingdom while continuing the ritual practices and conventions of the Qing-Chosŏn tributary relationship. In sum, Kojong's American policy of the 1880s conformed to the logic of balance-of-power practices under the East Asian tribute system. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article studies the New Qing History approach that arose in the US in the 1980s and the ensuing responses to it, and how these responses can be understood in the context of American China studies, twentieth-century historiographical trends, and Chinese nationalism. It argues that the New Qing History approach should be considered in a contextualized and de-politicized way. After examining how Chinese-born scholars responded to the controversial issues (sinicization, the nature of the Qing dynasty/Empire, and the definition of China/Zhongguo) provoked by New Qing History, the article suggests that sinicization should no longer be used as an uncontestable interpretative framework for studies of Chinese history. Instead, it favors a historicized conceptualization of China emphasizing its open, inclusive, and integrative character, as well as the uniqueness of Qing China's expansion. The article also demonstrates the New Qing History approach's positive influences in diversifying primary sources and its contribution in promoting borderland and non-Han studies. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

This study reviews family business in mainland China from 1872 to 1949 and provides evidence of its early development and its origins in 1872 when the first modern manufacturing firm was founded. We analyse the social, economic, and political environment in which family firms in mainland China were embedded to improve our understanding of how this unique organisational form was established and developed. Our analyses cover the late Qing Dynasty and the period from 1912 to 1949 during which the Republic of China (ROC) ruled mainland China. Implications for current family business theory and practice are discussed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article presents the historiography of Chinese capitalism, focusing on the study of the late Qing tea trade. Topics covered include the basic materials describing the tea merchants of Huizhou, China in the late Qing period, an exploration of how a form of abstract time regulated the tea production process, and an analysis on the use by labour overseers in Huizhou of incense sticks to regulate the efficient completion of tasks.

The significance of theSenzai Maru’s 1862 journey to Shanghai was great. From this opportunity, Japan not only learned from its neighbor the danger of closing off one’s borders and refusing to change, but also the importance of expanding its horizons and “learning from the world.” From these lessons, Japan transitioned from “expelling barbarians” toward “enlightenment,” from conservative to “reformist.” After successfully overthrowing the Tokugawa shogunate, Japan’s Meiji reforms thrived. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Contrary to the long-standing idea of a scientific failure in early modern China as compared to Europe, some recent work has emphasized the existence of a tradition of ‘evidential’ research in the natural sciences, antiquarianism, and geography, especially during the Sung, Ming, and Qing periods. This article seeks to develop this new perspective by offering a comparative history of the genres of travel writing and ethnography in early modern Europe and Ming/early Qing China. We argue that there were qualitative as well as quantitative differences in the way that these genres functioned in each cultural area. Even when we find apparent similarities, we note different chronological rhythms and a different position of these genres of travel writing within a wider cultural field—what we might term their ‘cultural relevance’. The specific nature of Chinese state imperialism—or, conversely, the particular nature of European overseas colonialism—played a role in determining the type of ethnographic approach that came to predominate in each cultural area. These parallels and differences suggest a fresh perspective on the cultural origins of the ‘great divergence’. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

In 1766 a set of chinoiserie tapestries produced by the Beauvais manufactory was presented to the Qianlong emperor on behalf of the French administration. Chinoiserie has conventionally been understood as a frivolous or superficial European response to China's material culture; viewed from this perspective, the tapestries would seem to be a most unsuitable gift for the emperor. Yet Qianlong not only received the hangings, but he had a European-style palace built to house them. This article examines the circumstances surrounding the French offering, the Chinese priests who brought the gift from France to Beijing, and the meanings the tapestries could communicate in a diplomatic context marked not by official contact between the French and the Qing, but through an informal diplomacy negotiated through objects. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society Hong Kong is the property of Royal Asiatic Society Hong Kong and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

An introduction is presented in which the editor discusses articles published in the issue on topics including Tibeto-Mongolian Buddhism, translations of Jesuit mathematical and calendrical works in the 18th century, and knowledge system in the Qing period.

By examining transformations of Manchu-Chosŏn relations from 1616 to 1643, the author argues that the Manchu regime invoked its new position of the 'Central Kingdom' to construct its politico-cultural identity as 'Zhongguo' before 1644. After it imposed a 'younger brother' relationship on Chosŏn in 1627, the Manchu regime developed a new political discourse regarding Chosŏn, the Ming, and other political entities. In this way, it started claiming centrality in the Chinese world. It also expressed the goal of transforming into Zhongguo and began barbarianizing other countries as a concurrent process of its Sinicization. By further imposing the Zongfan (a.k.a. tributary) relationship on Chosŏn in 1637, the Qing started to replace the Ming's central position in the Chinese world and eliminate its former identity as barbarian. The intensive Qing-Chosŏn communications between 1637 and 1643 strengthened the Qing's identity as Zhongguo and contributed to the rise of the 'Chosŏn Model' for Qing China. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This research note draws upon secondary sources to describe the role of western shipping companies in China during the late stages of the Qing dynasty, 1840–1911. Driven by industrialisation in Europe and North America and a rapid increase in global trade, the world shipping industry expanded greatly during this period. Keen to take advantage of this growth, the British, French, German, American and Japanese governments adopted policies designed to develop and support their national shipping industries, and to help them access the new markets in China. As a result, western shipping companies quickly came to dominate both coastal and international shipping in China. This pre-eminence is outlined in an overview, and then in more detail in three chronological sections, before possible lines of research-based enquiry are identified in the conclusion. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Beginning in the early eighteenth century, a bifurcated structure of authority in the Kham region of ethnographic Tibet frustrated attempts by both the Lhasa and Beijing governments to assert their unquestioned control over a myriad polities in the borderlands between Sichuan and Tibet. A tenuous accommodation of this structure persisted from the early eighteenth century until the first two decades of the twentieth century when powerful globalizing norms—territoriality and sovereignty—transformed both the understanding and expectations of territorial rule held by Qing and, later, Republican Chinese officials. Absolutist conceptions of these norms prompted an ambitious endeavour to shatter the bifurcated structure and undermine the Dalai Lama's spiritual influence on Kham society. Infrontier imperialism is used to analyse the incomplete implementation of resulting acculturative and incorporative policies, inflected by these two norms, which challenged the monasteries’ indirect influence on the lay rulers of Kham, initiating a struggle for authority that persists to this day. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

As evolutionary theories were introduced into China, and the principle of evolution was established in the last years of the Qing dynasty, it became a pressing problem to fix the position of China in an evolutionary sequence. Many kinds of evolutionary orders emerged around the year 1900, among which the order from savage society to patriarchal society to militant society proposed by Yan Fu’s Shehui tongquan, translated from Edward Jenks's A Short History of Politics, was the most influential. To explain Yan Fu’s purpose in translating this work, the political and intellectual situation of China and the works he had read but had not translated should also be taken into consideration, besides his expositions through the preface, comments and translation of this work. In Shehui tongquan, Yan Fu labelled China as “patriarchal as well as militant,” and on many occasions expressed the wish for China to rise above patriarchal society and enter militant society. His label of Confucius as “Sage of patriarchal society” shook the position of Confucianism in China. Meanwhile, Yan Fu criticized the tendencies of conservatism, xenophobia and anti- Manchuism in contemporary China. His criticism of conservatism and xenophobia was widely accepted and occasioned no debate, while his criticism of anti- Manchuism became involved in the debate between the revolutionary party and the constitutional party. Zhang Taiyan refuted Yan from the aspect of understanding “nationalism” correctly. There were also some faults in Zhang's refutation. However, his opinions that there are differences between social science and natural science, and that the particularity of China should be taken into consideration in studying Chinese society, were very insightful. Yan Fu’s introduction of a social evolutionary sequence, and his location of Chinese society therein, were influential among intellectuals until the 1920s and 1930s, around which time it was replaced by a five stage theory. But the pattern of analysing Chinese society from general truth or general rules did not change. Actually, Herbert Spencer had once refuted Auguste Comte’s practice of taking different forms of society as different stages in the evolutionary series, but he himself also accepted the existence of a principle of evolution, and used “universal,” “general,” and “special” to differentiate them, in a way that is not completely clear. Yan Fu’s works were often aimed at specific occasions rather than something unchanging. It should be noted that, in his late years, especially after the breakout of the First World War, Yan experienced a re-valuation of eastern and western cultures, as well as of “militant society,” and reaffirmed the value of traditional Chinese culture. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The 1911-1927 period represented a window of opportunity for the creation of a Chinese military structure with a professional officer corps. After the fall of the Qing dynasty, Jiang Baili emerged as a rare military theorist who had intellectual status, a nuanced understanding of civil-military affairs, and both domestic and foreign military training. The failure of Jiang Baili to influence China's military development was mainly due to his individual difficulties in focusing his intellectual talents on real-world issues. After producing two seminal works in the 1910s, Jiang lived for another twenty years as a marginalized, increasingly eccentric military analyst. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]