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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]

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]

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]

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]

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 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]

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 article discusses the origin of the term “Han traitor” (汉奸 Han jian) in history. It finds that the term was largely absent during most of the history in imperial China. Its first appearance occurred in the early Qing dynasty, or the later seventh century. Yet its meaning was rather different—“Han traitor” then meant those Han Chinese unwilling to follow the Qing policy in establishing rule over the Miao minority group in South China. Yet from the mid-nineteenth century when China suffered from the imperialist aggression, the term began to register a strong nationalist tone. It was used by the nationalists to refer first to those Chinese who supported the Qing dynasty and then to those who collaborated with the Japanese in World War II. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

As a historical study, this article attempts to objectively describe the state of modern China, its territories, and its peoples, and the process by which they came into being, focusing on how Chinese academic circles participated in reconstructing the historical narrative on “China” and the “Chinese people” in the 1920s and 1930s. It narrates a historical process: how mainstream Chinese academic circles participated in the movement to reconstruct “China” and the “Chinese people” after the fall of the Qing Dynasty, particularly in the 1920s and 1930s, under the impetus of the historical, political, and social context of modern China. To a certain extent, their efforts to absorb the “four borderlands” into “China” may have hastened the rise of modern China, with its unique territories and peoples. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Christianity, as practised by missionary educational institutions and the Young Men's Christian Association (YMCA) and Young Women's Christian Association (YWCA), was an important means of introducing and popularizing Western physical education and sport in modern China from 1840 to the 1920s. The research investigates how and why missionary educational institutions and the YMCA and YWCA contributed to the rise of physical education and sport in modern China. This analysis examines the activities of missionary educational institutions and the YMCA and YWCA in China during this period to uncover what really contributed to pave the way for Christianity, as well as led to this rise of Western physical education and sport in modern China from 1840 to the 1920s. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

By investigating four cases from the Qing Dynasty (1622–1911) and from the Republic of China (1911–1949), it was found that inter-village disputes normally arose because of uneven distribution of public resources in China's rural society. To settle the disputes, villagers tended to apply civil mediation, normally conducting endurance contests, rather than seek governmental arbitration. The authority and social order was thereby based on endurance contests. Conducting such contests was certainly advantageous to larger villages in their quest for more public resources. However, it simultaneously restricted their privatization of public resources, as the smaller villagers were able to equally raise their voices to resist them and to obtain their own public resources by proposing and participating in endurance contests. Although originally it was an unfair way of settling the disputes over uneven distribution of public resources in rural China, it gave hope to the disadvantaged to protect their own rights and interests at a time when governmental arbitration could not be relied upon. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article explores how the Qing (1644–1912) scholar Xie Qinggao (1765–1821) examined Europe in his Hailu and shows in what ways this work contributed to China's (re-)discovery of the Western world in the long eighteenth century. In his Hailu, which is usually translated as the Records of the Sea, Xie conjured up both factual and fanciful images of the Far West from the 1780s to the 1790s with a specific focus on Portugal, the Dutch Republic and England. In his highly vivid descriptions, Xie delineated some, in his eyes, characteristically Western customs, economies and religions with particular attention to the growth of these maritime countries (Chin. haiguo) and their expansions overseas. Despite its idiosyncrasies and a number of obscure details, Xie's study opened a new chapter in the Chinese understanding of Europe. Thanks to his work, some Chinese realised the need to revise their conventional understanding of Europe and to rediscover a continent located far beyond their tianxia worldview. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Gongju, or public offices, controlled by the local gentry class, were the grassroots authorities in rural Guangdong during the late Qing. These offices maintained their own armed forces and usually had powers of administration, tax collection, and self-defense, as well as judicial powers. They were considered the extension of prefecture and county governments. With the authorization of the prefecture and county governments, these offices had the power to deal with important legal cases. Although they came under attack during the 1911 Revolution, these offices were able to recover quickly in different forms. In the late Qing era, local gentry with official titles earned in middle-level or lower-level civil service examinations took the leadership roles in such grassroots offices, but they were replaced by people who had direct control over the armed forces during Republican times. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Copyright of Language & History is the property of Taylor & Francis Ltd 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.)

Copyright of Language & History is the property of Taylor & Francis Ltd 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.)

The Qing emperors, who ruled over China from 1644 to 1911, managed to bring large parts of Inner Asia under their control and extended the territory of China to an unprecedented degree. This paper maintains that the political technique of patronage with its formalized language, its emphasis on gift exchange and expressions of courtesy is a useful concept for explaining the integration of Inner Asian confederations into the empire. By re-interpreting the obligations of gift exchange, the Qing transformed the network of personal relationships, which had to be reinforced and consolidated permanently, into a system with clearly defined rules. In this process of formalization, the Lifanyuan, the Court for the Administration of the Outer Regions, played a key role. While in the early years of the dynasty, it was responsible for collecting and disseminating information concerning the various patronage relationships with Inner Asian leaders, over the course of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries its efforts were directed at standardizing and streamlining the contacts between ethnic minorities and the state. Through the Lifanyuan, the rules and principles of patronage were maintained in a modified form even in the later part of the dynasty, when the Qing exercised control in the outer regions more directly. The paper provides an explanation for the longevity and cohesiveness of the multi-ethnic Qing Empire. Based on recently published Manchu and Mongol language archival material and the Maussian concept of gift exchange, the study sheds new light on the changing self-conception of the Qing emperors. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Chen Qubin was an activist during the 1911 Revolution and an important essayist, thinker, and poet. This article details the highlights of his life and career in that era, offering a comprehensive discussion and analysis of how Chen changed from a traditional member of the literati to a committed revolutionary against the Qing dynasty. Though not so atypical of the time, the author argues, Chen's career path was par excellence for his generation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article discusses the tradition of silk birthing hanging gifts from the Ming and Qing dynasties in China from 1368 to 1911, with details on the practice of conserving shattered hangings. Topics include details on the presence of hangings at the Hong Kong Museum of History, details on the different precious materials, dyes, and threads present in silk hangings, details on the effect of storage conditions on deterioration of silk hangings, and details on the use of adhesive treatment to reinforce the painted silk.

An introduction is presented in which the editor discusses articles in the issue on the topic of revamping and reviving history education in the late Qing and early Republican China period.

An essay is presented on the historical study of Qing dynasty imperial landscapes, with a particular focus on the estate known as Bishu shanzhuang, or the Mountain Estate to Escape the Summer Heat. According to the author, studies of this estate have overemphasized its development under the Qianlong emperor, undervaluing the historic knowledge provided by its earlier conception and use under the Kangxi emperor. The use of designed landscapes as historical sources is discussed.

Taking as its setting the great Manchurian pneumonic plague epidemic of 1910–1911, this article examines the construction of epidemiological blame that targeted migrant labourers from the peninsula of Shandong employed in the hunting of the Siberian marmot (Marmota sibirica), a natural reservoir of the disease. The article demonstrates how Chinese epidemiologists sought to pathologize marmot-hunting migrants from Shandong as unskilled pestilent “coolies”, while at the same time valorizing Mongol and Buryat marmot hunters as a “native” counter-paradigm; a binary anthropology of skill and sanitation, which instituted “coolies” as an anthropological type essential to the construction of hygienic modernity in China. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

This paper seeks to show how geographically isolated yet historically and culturally significant southern mosques survived in late Imperial China. Long-distance donations to mosques in the Qing dynasty (1644 – 1911) in the forms of remittance payments, charitable donations, and real estate investments help to explain the continuous existence of Muslims in parts of southern China. Mosques in late imperial China could raise funds in a variety of ways, from Islamic teachers who went out on fundraising trips to scholars who emphasized the pivotal role of a particular mosque in the history of Chinese Islam, to Muslim officials who generously donated to mosques. This paper provides insight into how Islam survived in China throughout the imperial period, reveals the degree of interconnectivity between distant Muslim communities, and highlights the role that sacred geographies and circulatory networks played within the history of Islam in China. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In 1878, Britain developed the first systematic intelligence collection and analysis of China by a Western nation. Undertaken in response to intelligence failure and military defeat, the British Army in India established an intelligence section in Beijing using small numbers of Chinese-speaking British military officers. Their reports reveal their struggles to understand a culture and government radically different than their own and express a strong respect for Chinese military capabilities. The intelligence reports produced are a unique window into British history, intelligence practices and Chinese strategic thinking. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Western missionaries began to arrive in China in the late Ming and early Qing dynasties, prompting a meeting between Chinese and Western medicine. At first, the Jesuits placed Chinese medicine on an equal footing with Western medicine. Widening social disparities between China and the West, however, later caused Western people's valuation of Chinese medicine to sink. Christian hospitals flourished following the Opium War (1840-1842); and to a certain extent, medical missionaries began to acknowledge the value of traditional Chinese drugs. They used scientific methods to analyze the components of Chinese drugs but widely criticized the principles of Chinese medicine and slighted Chinese medical practitioners. Lacking an effective exchange between Chinese and Western medical circles, Western doctors universally questioned the basic value of Chinese medicine. After the Republic of China was founded, the missionaries' medical cause experienced internal and external changes. The development of medical schools at Christian universities provided the conditions for the missionaries to conduct in-depth research of Chinese medicine, while Western-trained Chinese doctors' introductions of Chinese medicine redressed the missionaries' misinterpretations of the canons of Chinese medicine. In particular, some medical missionaries, who had spent a long time in China and had studied the medical arts in conjunction with Chinese doctors, developed a "sympathetic viewpoint" via these interactions and began to recognize the value of Chinese medical principles, treatment experience, and drugs, setting a precedent for Westerners to understand and utilize the knowledge of traditional Chinese medicine. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Two recent studies, Johan Elverskog's Our Great Qing (2006) and David Sneath's The Headless State (2007), have made bold and fascinating contributions to overcoming the lingering legacy of representing and framing the pre-modern Inner Asian social and political order in terms of evolutionist, nationalist or nation-statist logics. Joining the cause and building on these works, yet critically examining them, this article argues that the late sixteenth and early seventeenth-century Mongolian political order was akin to that of the Holy Roman Empire and the 1640 Great Code was an Inner Asian parallel to the Treaty of Westphalia. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article details the task of the style subcommittee under the National Committee of the Qing History Project in finding and determining an appropriate style for the new ongoing Qing History, as well as the exchange of diverse views and disputes among scholars. By tracing the change of style in the history of historiography and focusing on the proposal and practices of recent late historians, the subcommittee decided after numerous consultations and meetings to adopt a new synthetic style for the Qing History, which will both reflect a continuity with traditional historiography and manifest contemporary characteristics and concerns. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The rise of the "New Qing History" school in the United States has opened new vistas for the study of Qing history. The school challenged the long-received idea of "sinification" in evaluating the dynasty and the non-Han Chinese regimes in general. It proposed to analyze the success and failure of Manchu rule in China from the Manchu perspective and focus on how Manchu rulers sought to maintain the Manchu ethnic identity throughout Qing history. All this could be useful for Chinese scholars of Qing history to explore new issues in their studies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The present study of Qing history has changed its trailing position in the studies of dynastic histories, possibly catching up with and overtaking those on other dynasties. The abundance of primary sources available for research on Qing history cannot be matched by those of any other dynastic history. These sources should be utilized fully and appropriately. To make further improvements, the field of the Qing history study still needs work to rid itself of the interference of ideology. The ongoing compilation project on the Qing History (Qingshi) requires all participants to maintain an attitude of "reverence and trepidation" (chenghuang chengkong) or the utmost respect, to try to avoid the negative influence of the common practice of haste and impatience that prevails today. While compiling the Qing History, contributors should pay special attention to the ethnic conflicts between the Manchu and the Han peoples. The conflicts continued throughout the entire Qing history, and intentional avoidance of the discussion of those conflicts is not recommended. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Based on a close examination of the 1870 government famine relief efforts in Zhili, this study reassesses some significant changes in Qing state power in the nineteenth century. Most previous research has sought to explain receding state power as a response to mounting pressures from an activist society. The famine relief efforts of 1870 demonstrate a less well-known but equally important aspect of the problem. While social pressures had undoubtedly worn away at the 200-year-old state machine, they also stimulated responses from it. While local activism had indeed taken over the levers that had slipped from the imperial government's hands, the challenges it presented jump-started the state machine, tightened its screws and set it on the path to restoration. In 1870, Imperial Commissioner Li Xingrui, under orders from his superior, Governor-General Zeng Guofan, executed a textbook operation of famine relief in Zhili. Challenges arose as wealthy locals wrestled with Li for control of the relief operation; government officials, too, sought private gain. Nevertheless, the commissioner and his superior conscientiously followed the Qing statutes, warded off these various challenges and completed the relief work. The display of state power during the operation was impressive, and was sweetened by a bureaucratic culture that condoned semi-legitimate personal gain in public affairs. The pairing of “stick and carrot” redirected the challenges to the operation from wealthy locals into a channel unique to China: an activist elite who sought to fulfill their ambitions by working within the existing system rather than by breaking away from it. Thus, Qing state power not only proved reasonably resilient in times of crisis, but also offered some hope for the successful building of a modern state. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article discusses various conservation and restoration techniques for unconventionally mounted Chinese artwork. Topics include details on the conservation of three panoramic tieluo interior decorations from the Qing dynasty displayed in the Qianlong Garden of the Palace Museum in Beijing, China; mention of the layers of the tieluo such as the painting, Xuan paper, and Qianlong Korean lining paper; speculation on the potential effect of moisture on the mineral pigments of the artwork; and details on the role of cleaning and paint stabilization in the conservation process.