"From Dynastic State to Imperial Nation: International Law, Diplomacy, and the Conceptual Decentralization of China, 1860s-1900s," Late Imperial China, 42.1 (2021), pp.177-220. (original) (raw)
On July 8, 1890, Xue Fucheng (1838-94), the Qing government's ambassador to Great Britain, France, Belgium, and Italy, received an inquiry from the Zongli yamen, the Qing central bureau in charge of "affairs of various countries" (geguo shiwu) since the early 1860s. Yamen administrators wondered about the attitude of major European countries toward the new republican government established in Brazil in 1889. Citing official communication from the new Brazilian government regarding the change of the country's form of government and Brazil's continuous observance of international treaties and obligations, the Yamen conceded that replacing a monarchy with a republic was an established practice in the "Western" (taixi) international legal system; however, to regard the change of regime as "final" (dingju) depended upon whether or not the world's major independent countries (zizhu zhi daguo) recognized the new government. The Yamen asked Xue to report on European countries' reactions toward this regime change in Brazil, which would help Beijing decide whether or not to formally receive the new ambassador sent by the Brazilian Republic. Xue had negative opinions on the military coup that led to the establishment of a "democracy" (minzhu zhi guo, a standard translation of "republic" during this period). But Xue's major concern was that only France and the United States had formally recognized the new Brazilian government, while Britain, Russia, Germany, and Italy adopted a wait-and-see attitude. Xue recommended the same for the Qing, requesting the Yamen to suspend recognition
Sign up for access to the world's latest research
checkGet notified about relevant papers
checkSave papers to use in your research
checkJoin the discussion with peers
checkTrack your impact
Related papers
JSTOR is a not-for-profit service that helps scholars, researchers, and students discover, use, and build upon a wide range of content in a trusted digital archive. We use information technology and tools to increase productivity and facilitate new forms of scholarship. the perspective of the administrative structures set up in Mongolia, Xinjiang, and Tibet, it appears that both the ideology of 'manifest destiny' reflected in the official compilations and semiofficial historiography of the Qing period, and the modern notion of China as a timeless union of many 'nationalities', have obscured the tensions and internal contradictions inherent in the process of Chinese empire building.1 The inadequacy of these historical narratives suggests the need to examine more closely a number of important issues that affect all empires and enable one to compare Qing China with its European contemporaries. Among these issues are: how Qing dominion was established and maintained; the place of colonized territories and peoples within the spectrum of Chinese political and social institutions; how and to what degree colonized societies changed under Qing rule; and how the international position of China was affected by its ability to expand.
International Relations of the Asia-Pacific, 2022
Scholars have long read the shifts in late Qing China’s institutional framework for diplomatic interactions through a lens derived from the Western European diplomatic paradigm. However, such a methodology fails to accommodate the autochthonous perspective of the Qing bureaucrats who initiated these shifts in the first place. Drawing upon two case studies from the 1860s, the Zongli Yamen and the proposed Superintendent of Trade for the Yangzi, this article attempts to understand the motivations and priorities of the Qing in establishing new frameworks for diplomatic interactions in this period. The article argues that, for the Qing, it was not the establishment and the efficacy of these new institutions that was important. What mattered to them in this period was how these new institutions could eventually be abolished and an older, idealized form of practice reinstated in their place.
Modern Asian Studies, 2020
In 1896, Sir Halliday Macartney, Counselor of the Qing London legation, detained the revolutionary Sun Yat-sen on legation ground in an attempt to deport him back to China. Since then, the image of the legation as an ossified extension of a despotic government has dominated public imagination. This article proposes a new way of understanding the legation’s action: it exemplifies the legal activism of Qing diplomats in recovering judicial sovereignty which had been compromised by the presence of extraterritoriality and colonialism. Legations represented a broad range of interests of China through diplomatic negotiations and legal mediations, and brought unresolved disputes between foreign ministers and the Zongli Yamen in Beijing to the attention of their home governments. This article analyzes the mediation and collaboration performed by the London legation between the various levels of the Qing government and the British Foreign Office. It argues that Qing legations and their diplomatic representation abroad were essential to the construction and imagination of China as a sovereign state.
Power, Rights and Duties in Chinese History
The Australian Journal of Chinese Affairs, 1980
... My colleague, Dr Lo Hui-min, who gave ... There were those like Kang Youwei and Liang Qichao among the reformers in 1898 and Sun Yat-sen and Zhang Binglin (Chang Ping-lin) among the revolutionaries before 1911 who were primarily concerned with China's power to ...
Loading Preview
Sorry, preview is currently unavailable. You can download the paper by clicking the button above.