In this chapter we will examine Wu Tingfang's relationship to this new social and political force. He had close ties to it, and as an official of mercantile background, he exemplified its hybrid nature. His social connections and business interests brought him into close contact with it, and he renewed these contacts during extended leaves from official duty when he resided in Shanghai, Hong Kong and Guangzhou.1 While in office he promoted many of the new elite's goals to the best of his ability. Understanding his role in late Qing politics helps to clarify the relationship between the modern urban elite and the Qing polity.
Earlier, when we examined Wu Tingfang's role in Li Hongzhang's mufu of the 1880s, we noted that the modern foreign affairs officials were one of the key links between the modern bourgeoisie and Qing officialdom. We considered Wu as a member of the first generation of modern foreign affairs officials. As was true for Li Hongzhang's administration, modern foreign affairs officials were also needed by the central government when it set about, as it did after the Boxer catastrophe, to modernize its foreign relations and promote reform. With his background in law, diplomacy and railway
2. Joseph W. Esherick, Reform and Revolution in China: The 1911 Revolution in Hunan and Hubei (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1976), pp. 66–67. See also Ernest P. Young, The Presidency of Yuan Shih-k'ai: Liberalism and Dictatorship in Early Republican China (Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 1977), pp. 9–13; John H. Fincher, Chinese Democracy: The Self-Government Movement in Local, Provincial and National Politics, 1905–1914 (New York: St. Martin's Press, 1981), pp. 37–46; Edward [J. M.] Rhoads, “Two Cheers for 1911,” Modern China 5, no. 1 (Jan. 1979): 127–36. 3. Bastid-Bruguiere, “Currents of Social Change," pp. 558–59.
4. On the significance of officials' leaves of absence, see Fincher, Chinese Democracy, p. 32.
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management, Wu was able to play an important role in several areas of late Qing politics: in addition to diplomacy, he played a major role in the Qing state's efforts to stimulate commerce and industry and to promote law reform. The positions Wu held from 1902 to 1911 indicate the range of his activities as a high level foreign affairs official:
Co-Commissioner (with Shen Jiaben), Revision of Law Codes, 13 May
1902-12 May 1906;
Co-Commissioner (with Yuan Shikai, Zhang Zhidong, Sheng Xuanhuai and Lu Haihuan [1840–1927]), Revision of Commercial Treaties, 26 Oct. 1902-7 Sept. 1903;
7
Junior Councillor, Foreign Ministry, 28 May–7 Sept. 1903; Senior Vice-President, Board of Commerce, 7 Sept. 1903–14 Jan. 1904; Junior Vice-President, Foreign Ministry, 14 Jan. 1904-10 Feb. 1906; Junior Vice-President, Board of Punishments, 10 Feb.−12 May 1906; Co-Director (with Zhang Bishi [1840-1916]) of the Guangdong Yue-
Han Railway, Apr.-May 1907;
Minister to the U.S., Mexico, Peru and Cuba, 23 Sept. 1907-13 Aug.
1909.5
Wu sought to use his positions to express strongly held nationalist convictions, through his diplomatic activities and reform proposals, and when appropriate, by mobilizing the strength of public opinion, that is, the modern urban elite, in support of specific policies.
In considering Wu's role as a foreign affairs official in the late Qing, it is instructive to compare his career with that of Tang Shaoyi, who might more properly be described as Wu's rival rather than his colleague. Born in 1860 (compared to Wu's 1842), Tang came from a similar social background to Wu. A native of Xiangshan district in Guangdong, Tang was the nephew of Wu's former associate Tang Tingshu and a member of the famous Chinese Education Mission to the United States of the 1870s, where he studied in Connecticut and then at Columbia University and New York University before returning to China when the CEM was ended.
6
In addition to similar social background, Tang and Wu both shared an approach to foreign affairs marked by modern nationalism, as Louis T. Sigel's study of Tang's political career indicates.' But in spite of these similarities, the differences are also noteworthy.
Most important is the fact that Tang Shaoyi was an intimate associate of Yuan Shikai and a cornerstone of Yuan's political power. Tang became part of Yuan's inner circle in the 1880s when Yuan was "Resident General" in
5. Titles and dates of appointment from Shilu.
6. Sigel, "T'ang Shao-yi”.
7. Ibid. See also Lee En-han, “T’ang Shao-yi: Diplomat and Politician of Late Ch'ing China,” Bulletin of the Institute of Modern History, Academia Sinica 4, part 1 (1973): 53–126.
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Korea and subsequently served as Yuan's major foreign affairs official when the latter was Governor of Shandong (1899–1902), then Customs Daotai at Tianjin when Yuan became Governor-General of Zhili Province in 1902. As Yuan's national political influence expanded, Tang's did too; when Yuan's national power contracted, so did that of Tang. Moreover, Tang developed his own political machine under Yuan's patronage. Known as the Communications clique or sometimes as the "Cantonese clique,” the most important figure in this network was Liang Shiyi. Under Tang's leadership the group took control of railways, telegraphs and other enterprises on behalf of Yuan Shikai. Under the Qing Tang reached his peak of political influence during the years 1905-8. He replaced Wu as Junior Vice-President in the Waiwu Bu in 1906 and then was appointed President of the newly created Ministry of Posts and Communications (Youchuan Bu) in 1906. In this capacity he succeeded in wresting control of railways from Sheng Xuanhuai. In the following year he was appointed Governor of newly created Fengtian Province, a post he held until he and his patron fell from power after the death of the Empress Dowager in 1908.8
By contrast, Wu was a loner. His main patron, Li Hongzhang, had died in 1901. Zhang Yinhuan, who might have served that role, had been driven into exile during the Boxer Uprising, where he died. Similarly, Liu Kunyi, with whom he had had a long relationship, died in 1902. While Wu had good relations (at least initially) with Yuan Shikai and Zhang Zhidong, the two most important regionally based officials of the late Qing period, he was not close to them in the way he had been to Li Hongzhang and Zhang Yinhuan.
Nor did Wu develop a network of intimate subordinates, as did Tang Shaoyi. Of the three foreign trained Chinese who played important roles in Li's mufu, only Wu survived to play an active political role in the twentieth century. (Ma Jianzhong, retired since the Sino-Japanese War, died in 1900, and Luo Fenglu died in 1903 after a lingering illness.) While there is some evidence that Wu tried to recruit able persons to serve under him, he was not powerful enough to dispense patronage.
This suggests that modern foreign affairs officials of bourgeois background could only function effectively when they enjoyed the patronage of powerful officials such as Li Hongzhang, Zhang Zhidong or Yuan Shikai and could not constitute an independent political force within the late Qing political arena. In the sections that follow, we shall see how Wu's role in the late Qing reform movement promoted the goals of the emergent bourgeoisie in China and how in turn the nationalist policies that he and others employed created new political circumstances making it more difficult for him to function as a Qing foreign affairs official. These difficulties led to a gradual loss of influence and great ambivalence towards the Qing regime.
8. On the Communications clique in the late Qing see Stephen R. MacKinnon, “Liang Shih-i and the Communications Clique,” Journal of Asian Studies 29 (1970): 581–602.
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From Shanghai to Beijing, December 1902-September 1903
141
Wu Tingfang returned to China in late December 1902, going directly to Shanghai to assume his duties as Co-Commissioner to Revise the Commercial Treaties. In September 1903 he moved to Beijing to take up his post of Senior Vice-President of the newly-formed Board of Commerce.
In many respects the two cities were poles apart: Shanghai the commercial capital and Beijing the political capital. Shanghai, with its dominating International Settlement and French Concession, was the center of foreign business influence in China and the center for the rise of the modern Chinese business community. The site of modern schools, a large student community also developed in the early twentieth century. Students and intellectuals, some writing from the relative safety of the foreign concessions, published widely on a broad range of modern subjects. Organizations such as the newly founded International Institute-Wu was a member of its advisory council-provided a cosmopolitan setting where the Chinese elite could meet with enlightened Westerners and discuss problems of mutual concern. All of these factors made the city an exciting place with perhaps the most "opened," or modern, atmosphere in China.9
As important as Shanghai was, however, it was Beijing that was to shape Wu's destiny during his first years back in China. With the high walls of the palace dominating the city of offices and officials, the atmosphere provided a sharp contrast to Shanghai, one that Wu was keenly aware of all his life." The dominant political figure was of course the Empress Dowager who ruled through a network of personally loyal key national and regional officials. Upon the death of Ronglu in March 1903, Prince Qing (Yikuang) became the key figure in the central government. While undoubtedly a capable administrator, he was unfortunately also notoriously fond of money and expensive gifts which those seeking his patronage found it necessary to provide, and he consequently amassed a large personal fortune during his years as high official. This weakness established a tone of corruption and decadence that made him a perfect foil for critics of the Qing, and it created an atmosphere that many officials, both traditional as well as foreign trained, found distasteful. It also appeared to verify the already prevalent contemptuous attitudes among Westerners towards Chinese politics."1
9. The Shanghai atmosphere is described in Mary Backus Rankin, Early Chinese Revolutionaries: Radical Intellectuals in Shanghai and Chekiang, 1902–1911 (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1971), chaps. 2–4. On Wu and the International Institute see NCH, 30 Apr. 1903, pp. 855–59; 14 Aug. 1903, p. 336.
10. Wu believed that Beijing's qi or atmosphere produced a stultifying conservatism. See Wu's Yanshou xinfa, p. 20. See also his warning about Beijing's atmosphere to U.S. Minister Paul Reinsch, in Paul S. Reinsch, An American Diplomat in China (New York: Doubleday, 1922), p. 9. 11. On Prince Qing's reputation see Shen Yunlong, “Zhangwo wanQing zhangbing zhi Yikuang," in his findai zhengzhi renuu shuping 2:70–80. See also Morrison to Bland, 1 Feb. 1902; Morrison to Chirol, 7 July 1902, Morrison, Correspondence 1:177, 198. On Westerners' stereotypes of Chinese political corruption, see Jerome Chen, China and the West: Society and Culture, 1815-1937 (Bloomington, Ind.: University of Indiana Press, 1979), pp. 42–43.
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Allied with Prince Qing in national politics was the rising figure of Yuan Shikai. From his position as Governor-General of Zhili Yuan began to exert political influence at a national level, at first through trusted subordinates and eventually through his own political positions.12 As part of Yuan's drive to increase his power, in late 1902 he had begun to move against Sheng Xuanhuai. Sheng held, among other positions, those of Director-General of Railways, Director-General of the Imperial Telegraph Administration and Director-General of the CMSNC. Using the pretext of Sheng's retirement to mourn the death of his father, Yuan succeeded in removing Sheng from his position in the telegraph agency, placing his subordinate Wu Zhongxi in charge there, and then used the anti-Sheng bloc of shareholders in the CMSNC headed by Xu Run to unseat Sheng from his position of dominance there. Xu and Yang Shiqi, the latter a trusted intimate of Yuan's, assumed control of the Company until Yuan's fall from power in 1908.13
These dynamics played an important role in Wu Tingfang's political life after his return to China. The support of Yuan Shikai and Prince Qing was an essential ingredient in his career at that stage. As noted above in Chapter 4, Yuan recommended Wu to the Court in April 1902 as a suitable figure to handle law reform together with Shen Jiaben, and then secretly memorialized in July 1902 recommending Wu as an exceptionally talented person who should be suitably entrusted with responsibility by the Court.14
Wu's return to China coincided with Yuan's moves against Sheng Xuanhuai. The sources strongly suggest that Wu was willing to ally with Yuan against Sheng, although earlier Wu had been close to Sheng. In 1896 Wu had arranged for his brother-in-law He Qi to work as Sheng's secretary, although as we noted above in Chapter 3 that did not work out. Selections from published materials from the Sheng Xuanhuai Archives in Shanghai indicate that Wu and Sheng worked closely together in 1898 while negotiating the Yue-Han Railway contract (more on this later in this chapter). They apparently had an understanding that Sheng would recommend Wu to the Court as his replacement after Wu's three-year term in Washington was over, and Sheng also offered to help Wu purchase an office as metropolitan official.15
Whatever the case in 1898, however, by 1902 Wu was in Yuan's corner. He had close ties to Xu Run and the "Cantonese faction” of shareholders in the CMSNC he was a major shareholder in the Company himself—and was presumably not ill-disposed to Yuan's maneuvering against Sheng.
Wu replaced Sheng initially in the negotiations with the United States and Japan to revise their commercial treaties, although within a few months Sheng joined the team of negotiators again. These negotiations proved unexpectedly
12. MacKinnon, Power and Politics, pp. 63–66.
13. Feuerwerker, China's Early Industrialization, pp. 73–76; 120–22.
14. See Chap. 4, nn. 106, 108.
15. Sheng to Wu, 22 May 1898 (GX 24/4/3) and 25 June 1898 (GX 24/5/7), Sheng Xuanhuai, Weikan xin'gao, ed. Beijing Daxue lishixi jindaishijiao yanjiushi (Beijing: Xinhua, 1960), pp. 70, 72.
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difficult. The Chinese negotiators, who ultimately included Zhang Zhidong, Yuan Shikai, Sheng Xuanhuai, Lu Haihuan and Wu, hoped that the U.S. and Japan would be willing to use the just-negotiated Sino-British Commercial Treaty (the Mackay Treaty) as a model. In that treaty, Britain had agreed to permit China to raise the ceiling on import tariffs from 5% to 12.5% so that China could use the extra 7.5% customs revenue to meet the Boxer Indemnity payments. In exchange, China agreed to abolish the internal transit taxes on imported goods (the so-called lijin), which had long been hated by foreign businessmen. In addition, China agreed to open Changsha, Wanxian, Anqing, Huizhou and Jiangmen to British residence and trade.16
Both the U.S. representatives, however, and those of Japan, refused to use the Mackay Treaty as a model. Japan's draft called for a customs increase to only 10% and for the opening of thirteen new treaty ports. Wu was convinced that these demands were unreasonable and a show of diplomatic bluff, and should therefore be firmly rejected. A recent study of Wu's role in the late Qing reform movement by Zhang Cunwu concludes that Wu's assessment was largely correct.17
One of the factors accounting for Japan's stiffened attitude and also for a similar attitude on the part of the United States was the situation in Manchuria. In April 1903 Russia announced a postponement of its scheduled 8 October withdrawal from Manchuria. The U.S. responded by using the Shanghai negotiations to force a test of Russia's intentions. In a hasty and ill-prepared manner, the U.S. demanded that its treaty include the opening of two treaty ports in Manchuria, Mukden (Shenyang) and Dadonggou (Tatungkou), along with Beijing. When China refused to make Beijing a treaty port, the U.S. substituted Harbin, which was administered by Russia and hence not within China's power to "open," and then finally substituted Andong (Antung) for Dadonggou, thereby ending what Michael H. Hunt has termed "the farce of the Americans in search of a treaty port. "18
The demand for Manchurian treaty ports posed a problem for the Chinese negotiators and their superiors in Beijing. Public opinion in Shanghai, Guangzhou and among students and merchants overseas was strongly anti- Russian, with some proposing that China ally with Japan against Russia. But Yuan Shikai, Zhang Zhidong, Prince Qing and other leading officials in charge of foreign relations feared that approval of the Manchurian treaty ports by China would provoke Russia and embroil China in war with its northern neighbor, a war that China would almost certainly lose. They sought to get the United States to agree to a mere verbal assurance that China would
16. For a summary of these negotiations see Stanley F. Wright, China's Struggle for Tariff Autonomy, 1843–1938 (Shanghai: Kelly & Walsh, 1938), pp. 353–68.
17. Ibid., p. 382: Zhang Cunwu, “Qingmo zhengzhi gaige yundong zhong de Wu Tingfang,” in Zongtong Jiang Gong shishi zhounian jinian lunwen ji, ed. Zhongyang yanjiuyuan (Taibei, 1976), pp. 935-37.
18. Hunt, Frontier Defense and the Open Door, pp. 70–71.
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open the ports after the Russian withdrawal, but the Americans kept trying to force China to make a public stand on the treaty port issue.19
Moreover, the Chinese negotiators preferred to have these ports as "self- opened" ports rather than "treaty" ports, as they wanted to retain Chinese sovereignty in them as a step towards their goal of eventual transformation of the treaty port system. This was also very much part of Wu's outlook as we shall see below. The issue of self-opened ports as opposed to treaty ports was never fully resolved although the United States and Japan eventually did agree to a formula to open the cities after the Russian withdrawal.20
Zhang Cunwu's study cited above notes that it is difficult, given the available sources, to determine precisely what Wu's own role in these negotiations was. This is partly because memorials were issued in both the names of Wu and his fellow commissioner, Lu Haihuan, and the foreign source materials are not helpful on this score, and also because Wu and Lu were obviously not free agents in these negotiations but subject to the guidance of Zhang, Yuan and Prince Qing. Nonetheless, it is clear that Wu played an important role. The negotiations earlier between the Chinese and the British had been impaired by the difficulties in interpretation, with Wen Zongyao (b. 1875) and a host of others, including Zhang Zhidong's key English-language specialists Liang Dunyan and Gu Hongming, assisting in the translation. Wu's ability to handle English and to prepare drafts in Chinese and English made him invaluable in the Sino-American negotiations, as Lu and Sheng acknowledged in requesting that he remain in Shanghai to continue the negotiations in July 1903:
Although the U.S. treaty is progressing smoothly, there are still issues that have to be pressed for in negotiation; as Wu Tingfang has been the original negotiator it is appropriate for him to handle it from start to finish. Moreover, for western language [negotiations] we need Wu Tingfang to manage personally in order to achieve the best results.21
This request was made in response to developments concerning Wu in Beijing. On 22 April 1903, the Court issued an edict acknowledging the importance of economic development as part of an overall plan for national reform. In response to a memorial by Zaizhen, the Court had already agreed to establish a Board of Commerce (Shang Bu); now Zaizhen, Yuan Shikai and Wu Tingfang were ordered to establish a code of commercial law. Following the Court's approval of the new law code, officials would be appointed to establish
19. Ibid., pp. 71–72. On the public's response see Rankin, Early Chinese Revolutionaries, pp. 75–77; Zhang Kaiyuan, “Xinhai Geming yu Jiang-Zhe zichan jieji,” pp. 263–64.
20. Hunt, Frontier Defense and the Open Door, pp. 74–76.
21. From Lu Haihuan, 17 June 1903 (GX 29/5/22), “Cables received,” China, Foreign Ministry, Waijiao dang'an, cited in Zhang Cunwu, “Qingmo zhengzhi gaige yundong zhong de Wu Tingfang,” p. 935. See also memorial of Zhang Zhidong, Lu Haihuan and Sheng Xuanhuai of 24 Sept. 1903 (GX 29/8/4), Qingji waijiao shiliao 166:19.
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the new ministry. Zaizhen, Yuan and Wu were instructed to deliberate on the nature of the new ministry and develop guidelines for it.22
This was a very important charge indeed, and one dear to Wu's heart. Zaizhen was the eldest son of Prince Qing. He had headed a special mission to England in 1902 to attend the coronation of King Edward. His brief trip abroad and contact with his foreign educated attachés, Liang Cheng and three other former CEM students, had inspired him to suggest a variety of reforms, of which this proposal was one. Obviously well intentioned and well connected through his father, Zaizhen was nonetheless inexperienced. He was also something of a playboy and his entertainments were later to give fuel to those who disapproved of the Shang Bu.23
Given Zaizhen's inexperience and Yuan Shikai's numerous other duties and responsibilities, it is understandable that Wu Tingfang came to play the major role in shaping the Shang Bu. In spring 1903, while engaged in the negotiations with the Japanese and U.S. treaty representatives, Wu and Zaizhen began a correspondence on the subject of the new ministry, with agreement that it would delay matters too much to wait until the commercial law code was developed before establishing the Board,24
But the question of Wu's own status was unsettled. On 28 May an edict was issued appointing Wu Junior Councillor in the Waiwu Bu. This was a low- ranking appointment that was in fact unsuitable, given Wu's experience and reputation in diplomacy, and which may even be viewed as insulting. Evidence is only circumstantial, but Wu was probably offended at the low level appointment; certainly he did not accept it and refused to go to Beijing and take it up when he was ordered to come to Beijing in June 1903 and continue the treaty negotiations there. Not only did the U.S. object to continuing negotiations in Beijing, but neither was Wu making any efforts to transfer the negotiation site to the capital. On 18 June, just six days after being ordered to come to the capital to continue negotiations there, Wu received a second edict ordering him to continue the negotiations in Shanghai and to proceed to Beijing when they were completed,25
By summer 1903 the negotiations with the U.S. had stalemated over the question of the Manchurian treaty ports. In May Wu and Lu had proposed
22. Shilu 514:4726b; DHL 5:5013–14.
23. Qian Shifu, Qingdai zhiguan nianbiao 4:3015. On the other CEM students in his entourage see NCH, 26 Feb. 1902, p. 392. On Zaizhen's scandalous behavior (“gambling and whoring”) see Hart to Campbell, 11 May, 20 July, 4 Aug. 1902, Sir Robert Hart, The I.G. in Peking: Letters of Robert Hart, Chinese Maritime Customs, 1868–1907, ed. John King Fairbank et al., with an Introduction by I.. K. Little (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1975), 2:1312, 1320, 1323. See also Zaizhen's record of his travels, Zaizhen and Tang Wenzhi, Yingzhao riji (1903; reprint, Taibei: Wenhai, 1971). 24. Wellington Chan, Merchants, Mandarins, and Modern Enterprise, p. 165.
25. Shilu 515:4737a; 516:4742a, 4745a. Foreign comments ranged from “Wu's ability ignored," (30 May 1903, p. 3) to views that this appointment was necessary for Wu to receive higher appointment in the future (NCH, 28 May 1903, p. 1071; Conger to Hay, 2 June 1903, no. 1302, "MCD."
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that the Court take the initiative in the matter by directly asking Russia if it had objections to opening the treaty ports in Manchuria. If Russia said yes, then the Waiwu Bu could tell the Americans to deal directly with them instead of using China as their buffer, and if Russia said that it did not object, then China could seize the initiative by opening the two ports itself and resolving the situation.26 As the Russians had privately made it very clear to Prince Qing and Lianfang (the latter being Senior Vice-President in the Waiwu Bu) that they did indeed object to the opening of the new treaty ports, the Prince and Lianfang chose to ignore Wu and Lu's suggestion and use a variety of delaying tactics instead. These tactics upset the Americans, some of whom became convinced that Prince Qing and others were in collusion with the Russians. These views were echoed by radical critics in Shanghai, whose publications strongly suggested that Prince Qing had been bribed by the Russians.27
Wu and Lu's plan indicates that they would have liked the Court to be bolder in formulating policy than it proved to be. Similarly, they wanted the Court to be more assertive in moves to restore China's sovereignty in the treaty ports. The incident that brought this issue to the fore was the famous Su Bao Case of 1902, when Zhang Binglin (1868–1936) and Zou Rong (d. 1905), publishers of a violently anti-Manchu newspaper, were arrested in the Shanghai International Settlement. The Qing Government unsuccessfully attempted to have Zhang and Zou extradited and tried under its jurisdiction. On several occasions Wu was approached and asked to help in the negotiations for their extradition, but Wu did not comply.28
Y. C. Wang is certainly correct in suggesting that Wu (and Lu) were reluctant in part because they did not believe extradition was likely and also because they disapproved of harsh measures against radical intellectuals.29 In fact, while Minister to the United States, etc., Wu had managed to find indirect ways to help Liang Qichao escape capture by Qing authorities, and while Wu was certainly not associated with any of the radical groups, he was not unsympathetic to many of their views.30 But it is noteworthy that Wu and Lu responded to the Su Bao Case by memorializing the Court proposing
26. Hunt, Frontier Defense and the Open Door, n. 58, pp. 73-74.
27. See, e.g., Guomin riri bao huibian, 1903–1904, no. 1 (1903). On U.S. belief in Chinese collusion with Russia see Hay to Rockhill, 24 July 1903, William W. Rockhill, Papers (Harvard University). See also Hunt, p. 73.
28. Jin Ding to Duanfang, 16 July 1903 (GX 29/int.5/22); Duanfang to Wei Guangtao, 17 July 1903 (GX 29/int.5/23), Xinhai Geming, ed. Zhongguo shixue hui (Shanghai: Renmin, 1957) 1:425– 26, 466. On the Su Bao Case see Rankin, Early Chinese Revolutionaries, pp. 70–193; Michael Gasster, Chinese Intellectuals and the Revolution of 1911 (Seattle: University of Washington Press 1969), pp. 37-42; J. Lust, "The Su-pao Case: An Episode in the Early Nationalist Movement,” Bulletin of the School of Oriental and African Studies, University of London 27, part 2 (1964): 408–29; Y. C. Wang, "The Su- Pao Case: A Study of Foreign Pressure, Intellectual Fermentation, and Dynastic Decline,” Monumenta Serica 24 (1965): 102–212.
29. Y. C. Wang, “The Su-Pao Case,” p. 128.
30. Ding Wenjiang, Liang Rengong xiansheng nianpu 1:101.
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reforms in the administration of the Shanghai Mixed Court aimed at the restoration of Chinese sovereignty. In contrast to the radicals, Wu accepted the Qing state as a viable symbol of national sovereignty and would try to use it as a vehicle to protect China's sovereignty as long as possible.31
Having rejected the post of Junior Councillor in the Waiwu Bu, Wu was aiming for a more substantive position in the Shang Bu. Staffing of the new bureau was the subject of much maneuvering by people hoping for an appointment in it. Of these, the most important was Sheng Xuanhuai, who was certainly the most qualified person available in view of his control of railways and long experience in a variety of industrial and commercial enterprises. But he was frozen out of the Shang Bu, it is clear, because of the struggle he was engaged in with Yuan Shikai for control of China's modern industrial sector. The Shang Bu was to be Yuan's tool in the struggle. As Sheng's confidant in Beijing, Tao Xiang, wrote him in July 1903:
On the various matters concerning the establishment of the Shang Bu, it's not necessary to go into detail. I recently heard that its regulations have been considered and they are planning to go ahead with its implementation. There has been a lot of speculation that Prince Qing will appoint Zixu [Wu Tingfang] as [Junior] Vice-President. No matter how much service to a superior [baoxiao] Qujiang [Zhang Yintang] does, he absolutely cannot suddenly rise to the level of Vice-President. Earlier he was given the title of "Special Deputy" [chaiwei]; probably he continued to provide service [baoxiao] some more, then received [the position of] Junior Councillor [in the Waiwu Bu]. It is surmised that Chunyang [Lu Haihuan] is to be President. But as [negotiations for] the commercial treaties are to be under the Shang Bu and the negotiators to be rewarded with positions in the Shang Bu, if Chunyang is to be President and Zixu [Junior] Vice-President, the [position of] Senior Vice-President is still unaccounted for. Perhaps it is destined for [Sheng] Gongbao? I have heard foreigners say that of high officials who thoroughly understand commercial matters, there is only [Sheng] Gongbao. Chunyang is very mild mannered and not too sharp. Zixu is closer but still not first-rate. The edict to continue negotiating the treaties stems from this. To establish the Shang Bu and not make suitable appointments is truly unreasonable.... For the Government to entrust the Shang [Bu] to Wu and not call upon [Sheng] Gongbao will give rise to a lot of suspicion and really raise eyebrows!32
Wu's appointment as Senior Vice-President to the Shang Bu, which was formally made on 7 September, was the result of two phenomena. The first was Wu's own hard work in sketching out in correspondence with Zaizhen
31. Wu and Lu memorial, 29 July 1903 (GX 29/6/4), Qingji waijiao shiliao 173:10–12.
32. Tao Xiang to Sheng Xuanhuai, July 1903 (GX 29/6), Sheng Xuanhuai, Xinhai Geming qianhou: Sheng Xuanhuai dang'an ziliao xuanji zhi yi, ed. Chen Xulu, Gu Tinglung, and Wang Xi (Shanghai: Renmin, 1979), p. 2.
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and Yuan the scope of the Shang Bu's activities and beginning work on the development of a code of commercial law. The second was that he was a suitable substitute for Sheng Xuanhuai, who was not acceptable to Yuan Shikai for reasons outlined above. A combination of his own talents and political connections, then, made possible his move to Beijing in fall 1903 under relatively auspicious circumstances, but as we shall see below, within less than a year he was ready to leave official life altogether.
Beijing and Shanghai, September 1903-September 1904
The Shang Bu was formally established on 26 September 1903 after a summer of deliberation involving a number of high national and regional officials, and reportedly rushed into implementation before all of the issues involved had been fully resolved because of the Empress Dowager's impatience. 33
As conceptualized by Wu, Zaizhen and Yuan Shikai, the Shang Bu had a
very
broad scope, as its organizational structure indicates. It was divided into four main departments as follows:
1. The Department of Trade: management of commerce, commercial schools,
granting monopolies, awarding patents, protection of merchants
2. The Department of Agriculture and Forestry: land utilization, reclamation,
farming, sericulture, pisciculture and forests
3. The Department of Industry: management of all industrial projects,
including railways, steamships, mining and roads
4. The Department of Auditing: handling taxation, revenue, banking, currency, trade and industrial fairs, standardization of weights and measures, arbitrating disputes involving commerce and industry34
This was a very ambitiously designed agency in several ways. As Wellington K. K. Chan has noted, the scope of jurisdiction claimed by the Shang Bu was bound to conflict with several existing bureaus and offices, such as the Board of Finance (Hu Bu), the Maritime Customs (under the Waiwu Bu), the commissioners for the trade of northern and southern ports, commissioners for commercial negotiations, and the directorship of the railway system.
35
In part the grandiose structure reflected Wu's desire to create a truly new and modern agency that could bypass the existing bureaucratic structures and effect a highly centralized reform effort. This intent was also symbolized by the modern regulations Wu implemented. Gatekeepers were prohibited from taking bribes as entrance fees, and the staff was to be paid on a new and higher scale. In fact, as Wellington Chan notes, “the whole tone of the new
33. Wellington Chan, Merchants, Mandarins, and Modern Enterprise, p. 165.
34. Ibid.
35. Ibid.,
pp. 166-67.
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ministry, its style, and organization emphasized its new departure from the traditional structure."36
Wu's intent was also shared by Zhang Bishi (Zhang Zhenxun), the other key person to have input into the Court's plans to stimulate economic development. Zhang was an overseas Chinese millionaire who invested in several enterprises in China. In summer 1903 he was received in audience by the Empress Dowager, where he received an honorary title of Vice-President in the Shang Bu in exchange for a contribution of 200,000 taels to develop a commercial school to be run by the new agency. During his audience he presented an outline, which he subsequently fleshed out, for an expanded role for the Shang Bu as the overarching agency to conduct reforms stimulating economic development.37
During fall 1903 the Shang Bu presented a variety of proposals for reforms to the Throne. These included plans to publish a newspaper, to prohibit local officials from harassing merchants, especially overseas Chinese merchants, to establish procedures to handle commercial litigation, to stimulate agriculture by opening up new lands for cultivation, to develop a livestock industry, to establish agronomy schools, and to develop new regulations governing railways and mines.38
Especially important was Wu's work in developing a code of commercial law, which was vitally necessary to the success of the government's efforts. He had done some of the drafting while in Shanghai and circulated these sections to Chen Bi (1852-1928), the Board's Junior Vice-President, for his appraisal.39 The new code, which received Imperial approval on 29 December 1903 and was promulgated early in 1904, contained 131 articles in eleven sections and reflected the influence of Wu's British legal training. The law's first section contained definitions of commercial enterprises, recognizing partnerships, limited partnerships, joint stock companies and limited joint stock companies as the four major categories. The third section spelled out the rights and duties of shareholders, and the fourth and fifth dealt with management and accountability, respectively. The sixth dealt with the managers' meetings, the seventh with shareholders' meetings, the eighth with accounting, and the ninth, tenth and eleventh with company regulations, closure, and sanctions, respectively, 40
36. Ibid., p. 168.
37. Godley, Mandarin-Capitalists from Nanyang, chaps. 4-5. See also Boorman, Biographical Dictionary 1: 90–92.
38. DHL 5:5102–3; 5104–5; 5115; 5122; Zhang Cunwu, “Qingmo zhengzhi gaige yundong zhong de Wu Tingfang,” pp. 938–39. Sir Robert Hart expressed some concern to the Shang Bu officials about the broad range of activities being undertaken, but in general was very enthusiastic about the new board. See Hart to Campbell, 4 Oct. 1903, Hart, The I.G. in Peking, 2:1373. See also letter of 25 Oct. 1903, 2:1376.
39. See Zhang Cunwu, “Qingmo zhengzhi gaige yundong zhong de Wu Tingfang,” p. 940. Wu and Lu Haihuan also proposed establishing patent laws at this time. See Qingji waijiao shiliao 173:9–10. 40. Zhang Cunwu, “Qingmo zhengzhi gaige yundong zhong de Wu Tingfang,” p. 941; Tseng Yu- hao, Modern Chinese Legal and Political Philosophy (Shanghai: Commercial Press, 1930), p. 197.
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Although this company law had several drawbacks reflecting the speed with which it was drawn up, it was nonetheless an important accomplishment. It provided the bourgeoisie with a legal framework essential to its continued operation and sanctioned and granted legitimacy to its activities in a way that the traditional legal structure could not. As Fan Baichuan has recently observed, the flourishing of the bourgeoisie during the period 1904-8 was made possible by the fact that it had obtained rights enabling it to function legitimately and with relative freedom. The new law code was an important part of that new status.4
41
In his study of the merchantry and the Qing Government, Wellington Chan writes that the haste with which the Shang Bu was established and the inevitable conflicting claims of jurisdiction that resulted, as well as problems of inadequate funding, led to immediate problems for the new ministry that seriously hampered its effectiveness. (By November 1903 Zaizhen was denounced by a censor for unseemly behavior in a Beijing pleasure house, but he weathered the storm.) But it is also important to remember, as Fan Baichuan reminds us, that the Board's activities were an important factor in the rise of the bourgeoisie from 1904 on.42
A little over two weeks after Wu obtained Imperial approval for the commercial code, on 14 January 1904, he was suddenly transferred to the position of Junior Vice-President in the Waiwu Bu. The reasons for this remain in the realm of speculation. Zhang Cunwu suggests that Wu's demotion may have been due to the deficiencies in the code of commercial law. (In 1906 amendments were added to it, and in 1908 plans were made to have Japanese advisers draft a new one. In 1914 it was scrapped in favor of a new code as impractical and imprecise.) But it seems unlikely to me that these problems in the code should have been so immediately apparent to the
Court.
Rather, I think the explanation for Wu's transfer lies with a combination of other factors having to do with the question of who should control the Shang Bu. The problem arose immediately over the question of staffing the subordinate positions of Senior and Junior Councillor (cheng) and Senior and Junior Secretary (can). On 1 October an edict declared Xu Shichang (1855– 1939) as Senior Councillor and Tang Wenzhi (1865-1954) as Junior Councillor. On the same day, Shaoying was appointed Senior Secretary and Wang Qingmu (1860-1941) Junior Secretary.43
Xu Shichang was, according to Steven R. MacKinnon, probably Yuan Shikai's oldest friend and closest associate. A jinshi of 1886 and compiler of the Hanlin Academy, Xu had also been commander-in-chief of the Newly Created Army (Xinjian Lujun) under Yuan from 1896 to 1898, and an
41. Fan Baichuan, “Ershi shiji chuqi Zhongguo ziben zhuyi fazhan,” pp. 11, 12.
42. Ibid.; Wellington Chan, Merchants, Mandarins, and Modern Enterprise, pp. 165–68. On the denunciation of Zaizhen, see DHL 5:5101.
43. DHL 5:5119; Qian Shifu, Qingdai zhiguan nianbiao 6:3066, 3076.
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important liaison person for Yuan with the Court in Beijing. The position of Senior Councillor in the Shang Bu was an entry level position in the central government for Xu, who soon was appointed grand secretary and member of the Military Reorganization Council. In 1905 he was appointed, in addition, grand councillor, member of the Government Affairs Bureau, and vice- president of the Board of War. His appointment to the post of Senior Councillor of the Shang Bu was due to his intimate relationship with Yuan Shikai and also to his own competence, which was never in question."
44
There is less information available about the other appointees. The Junior Councillor, Tang Wenzhi, a native of Jiangsu Province, was a jinshi of 1892 who had served in the Zongli Yamen from 1896 to 1902, when he accompanied Zaizhen on his tour of Europe as a member of his suite. When Xu Shichang left the Shang Bu in December 1903, Tang moved up to the position of Senior Councillor and remained in that position until February 1906, when he was transferred to the new Ministry of Agriculture, Industry and Commerce (Nonggongshang Bu) as its Senior Vice-President before resigning upon his mother's death. He later had a career as a distinguished educational administrator in his native Jiangsu. He seems to have been a perfectly capable staff member.45
As to the other appointees to the lower ranking secretary posts, Shaoying and Wang Qingmu, less is known. Shaoying was a Manchu who was transferred to Junior Councillor in December 1903 when Xu left and Tang moved up. In 1905 he was appointed a member of the Commission to Investigate Constitutions Abroad and served as Senior Vice-President in the new Ministry of Finance (Duzhi Bu) from 1906 until the revolution of 1911.46 Wang Qingmu was a fellow provincial of Tang Wenzhi, and a jinshi of 1890. Along with Tang, with whom he appears to have had a close relationship, Wang had served in a clerical position in the Zongli Yamen for several years before his appointment in the Shang Bu. In December he moved up to Senior Secretary in the Shang Bu and stayed in that position until February 1906, when he moved up to that of Junior Councillor. Later in that year he was appointed Judicial Commissioner of Zhili Province but was forced to resign due to illness. He was active in the railway rights recovery movement in Jiangsu after 1907 as a leader in the company formed to rival the British concession for the Shanghai-Nanjing Line."
47
44. MacKinnon, Power and Politics, pp. 75–76.
45. See C. Y. Tang, “T’ang Wen-chih, Statesman and Educator,” Tien Hsia Monthly 5, no. 1 (Aug. 1937): 19–26. See also Tang Wenzhi, Rujing xiansheng ziding nianpu (reprint, Taibei: Wenhai, 1974.). 46. Qian Shifu, Qingdai zhiguan nianbiao 4:3059–64, 3066–67; Wei Xiumei, Qingji zhiguan biao 2:188.
47. Qian Shifu, Qingdai zhiguan nianbiao 4:3068, 3076–77, 3139; Wei Xiumei, Qingji zhiguan biao 2:242. On his role in Jiangsu railways see Zhang Kaiyuan, “Xinhai Geming yu Jiang-Zhe zichan jieji,” pp. 267–69. See also Lee En-han, China's Quest for Railway Autonomy, 1904–1911: A Study of the Chinese Railway-Rights Recovery Movement (Singapore: Singapore University Press, 1977), pp. 43, 92, 113-14.
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Whatever the qualifications of these people, Wu preferred to bring in his English-educated protégé Gong Xinming for one of these staffing positions, but he lost out to Zaizhen in this struggle. In November Zaizhen memorialized to accuse Gong of attempting to bribe his way into a post in the Shang Bu (hardly an unheard of practice). Gong was reprimanded and stripped of his title of expectant third class secretary in the Board of Works. 48
The incident with Gong showed the limits to Wu's power in the Shang Bu. Yuan Shikai and Zaizhen controlled the appointments of all major staff positions in the Shang Bu, including that of Chen Bi.49 This struggle brought to a head Wu's inability to truly direct policy in the Shang Bu in spite of his high position in the body. It suggests that his relationship with Yuan Shikai was no longer so strong as it had been earlier in the year and that Yuan did not view him as trustworthy enough to protect his interests in the Shang Bu. By mid-December a disheartened Wu told a New York Times correspondent that he was disgusted with official life in Beijing and claimed that Zaizhen, whose only qualification was his hurried trip around the world in 1902, vetoed most of his proposals. "I see no hope for China,” he told the reporter.50
Wu's transfer to the Waiwu Bu can be viewed in part, then, as a consequence of his losing out in the power struggle with Zaizhen and Yuan Shikai. In what may have been an effort to save Wu's face, a week after Wu's departure from the Shang Bu Zaizhen wrote a long memorial praising Wu's accomplishments and requesting Imperial approval to consult with him as needed about the new code of commercial law and other matters.51
In spite of Zaizhen's acclaim, there is no disguising the fact that Wu's transfer to the Waiwu Bu was a demotion from the position of a Senior Vice- President to that of Junior Vice-President. Although the Waiwu Bu was a powerful and important ministry, Wu could not exercise the same latitude as in the Shang Bu, where only Zaizhen as President was above him. In the Waiwu Bu there were several above him: from Lianfang, the Senior Vice- President, to Qu Hongji(1850–1918), the President, and finally to Natong as Huiban Dachen or Assistant Controller, and Prince Qing as Zongli Dachen, or Controller.52
48. DHL 5:5100–5101. Gong was said to have been educated in England and to have been Wu's protégé, with significant attainments. The NCH commented: “There are not a few of the friends of the unlucky Kung Hsin-ming [Gong Xinming] who, knowing the progressive ideas and intelligence of the man, strongly declare that there cannot be any truth in such an accusation, and that most probably Kung Hsin-ming's simple nature made him the victim of his numerous and more crafty rivals." 20 Nov. 1903, p. 1072.
49. On Chen Bi see MacKinnon, Power and Politics, pp. 85, 195–96; Tang Wenzhi, Ziding nianpu, p. 50. Chen and Xu were Yuan's men; Tang and Wang were Zaizhen's recommendees. It's hard to say who promoted Shaoying.
50. NYT, 24 Dec. 1903.
51. DHL 5:5118.
52. Guo Tingyi, Shishi rizhi 2: app. 13–14. On Qu see Wei Xiumei, Qingji zhiguan biao, 2:129. On Natong, see ibid., p. 52.
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On the other hand, it was not an inappropriate appointment. Wu replaced Gu Zhaoxin (d. 1907) as Junior Vice-President, while Gu was transferred to the Shang Bu as its Junior Vice-President, Chen Bi having moved up to the position of Senior Vice-President. Gu had been criticized, at least by the American diplomats in Beijing, for his "complete ignorance of foreign matters."53 Wu's appointment to the Waiwu Bu was said to have been upon the recommendation of both the British and Japanese ministers. As George E. Morrison wrote to J. O. P. Bland, as Wu's "appointment was the consequence of Satow [British Minister] and Uchida's [Japanese Minister] advice to the Wai Wu Pu [Waiwu Bu] it is one to be applauded. Besides he is a useful friend and can be more useful."54 Similarly, Sir Robert Hart commenting on this and other changes to his colleague wrote that “all these things mean change and reform and promise better later on.
”55 And U.S. Minister Conger wrote to Secretary of State Hay that "while on its face this seems to be a set- back, yet it is really a promotion and will be very satisfactory to most foreigners here, as we have always felt the lack on this Board [Waiwu Bu] of any personal knowledge or acquaintance with foreign affairs. "56
With his transfer from the Shang Bu, Wu could turn his attention both to foreign relations and law reform. On 23 January he and Shen Jiaben memorialized the Court requesting an allocation of 30,000 taels to accomplish two immediate tasks: finding personnel and translating legal works. This request was granted, and in spring 1904 Wu worked to get the law reform project set up. These efforts will be discussed more fully in Chapter 6.57
China's foreign relations in spring 1904 were dominated by the outbreak of war between Russia and Japan. There are hints in the documents that Wu would have liked China to assume a more active role, even while declaring its neutrality, but it was really too late in the day for China to shape events in Manchuria until the war's outcome could be seen. 58
Wu's hand could be seen immediately in negotiations with the U.S. over Chinese immigration legislation. Earlier the Qing Government had declared its intention to renegotiate its treaty with the U.S. when it expired in December 1904. Conger proposed that negotiations begin in summer 1904 to be concluded sometime after the November elections. On 2 February Wu Tingfang called upon Conger to say that Prince Qing had not realized it was
53. NYT, 15 Jan. 1904, p. 2. Shilu 523:4827a. On Gu, see Wei Xiumei, Qingji zhiguan biao 2:90. 54. Morrison refered to Wu as "that blatant ass." Morrison to Bland, Morrison, Correspondence 1:248.
55. Hart to Campbell, 7 Jan. 1904, Hart, The I.G. in Peking, p. 2666.
56. Conger to Hay, 15 Jan. 1904, no. 1475, “MCD.”
57. Shilu 524:4833a.
58. Wu pushed the Waiwu Bu for early ratification of treaties with the U.S. and Japan in fall 1903 and promoted a last-minute effort to seek mediation of the conflict between Russia and Japan. See Conger to Hay, 29 Oct. 1903, no. 1324, 12 Jan., telegraph, 28 Jan., telegraph, and 30 Jan. 1904, no. 1490, “MCD"; Satow to Lansdowne, 13 Jan. 1904, FO 17/1642; 18 Jan., no. 17 (confidential), 25 Jan., no. 25 (confidential), FO 17/1636; 26 Jan. 1904, FO 17/1624.
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an election year in the U.S. and as the notice of the proposed termination of the treaty on 7 December might prove an embarrassment to the U.S. administration, they would be willing to "join in any satisfactory method which might put the discussion of the question of the renewal of the Treaty over until next year, if such a method could be devised.” But it was apparently too late, unless the Qing Government were to formally withdraw the announcement of its intention to renegotiate the treaty.
59
Hay tried to get the Waiwu Bu to withdraw the annulment notice, arguing that the chances of getting a better treaty were nil given the strength of anti- Chinese immigration sentiment in the U.S. But Wu apparently appraised the situation differently and believed U.S. public opinion could be mobilized to reform the immigration laws in China's favor.
Conger tried to persuade Prince Qing to continue the treaty for another ten years, arguing that Theodore Roosevelt and Hay had China's interests "at heart." The Prince replied that if only laborers were to be kept out, China would not object, but as the implementation of the laws presently stood, even a Chinese banker could not enter. In reporting to Hay, Conger noted, confidentially, "I am satisfied that the real opposition comes from Mr. Wu T'ing-fang, and that Prince Ch'ing's [Qing] arguments were furnished by him."60
I think this is an accurate assessment of Wu's role in this matter. Conger and Hay kept trying all through spring 1904, although at that very time the immigration issue was brought to the fore as a result of difficulties U.S. immigration inspectors were making for organizers of the Chinese exhibit at the St. Louis Exposition. By 20 April Conger reported to Hay that it seemed useless to persist in the request that China withdraw its notification, for China was quite determined on the subject. "I am quite sure,” he added, "that Mr. Wu T'ing-fang is wholly responsible for the present situation and action of the Chinese Government. 162
61
Since the available Chinese sources do not indicate precisely how decision- making occurred in the Waiwu Bu, it is difficult to prove that Conger's perceptions were correct. But given Wu's history of combating U.S. immigration policy while Minister to the United States, etc., and his having raised the possibility of a boycott of U.S. goods, I think it is quite likely that he exerted the full weight of his influence within the Waiwu Bu in pursuit of reforming the U.S. anti-Chinese immigration laws, and at one point at least seems to have thought that he should be appointed special commissioner to renegotiate the treaty in summer 1904.63
59. Conger to Hay, 2 Feb., telegram; 6 Feb. 1904, no. 1494, “MCD.”
60. Conger to Hay, 1 Mar. 1904, no. 1524, "MCD."
61. Conger to Hay, 15 Mar 1904, no. 1540, “MCD.” On the St. Louis Exposition, see Zhang Cunwu, Guangxu sayi nian Zhong-Mei gongyue fengchao, 2d ed. (Taibei: Zhongyang yanjiuyuan, Jindaishi yanjiusuo, 1982), pp. 8-10.
62. Conger to Hay, 20 Apr. 1904, no. 1582, “MCD." See also ibid., 4 Apr. 1904, no. 1561.
63. Dongfang zazhi 1, no. 7 (Aug.-Sept. 1904), “Waijiao,” p. 120.
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In these and other negotiations involving railway and mining rights, and which will be discussed subsequently, Wu did play an active role in the Waiwu Bu in spring 1904. In July 1904, however, he memorialized requesting permission to resign due to illness. This permission was denied and he was granted one month's sick leave instead. He left Beijing immediately for Shanghai, arriving there in mid-month.64
The precise nature of Wu's illness is unclear, but he was ill. He later wrote that this illness led to a major change in life-style for him. He became a convert to strict vegetarianism and developed a regimen of light eating, mild exercise designed to improve his qi, ether or material force, and abstinence from alcohol and tobacco. (He later wrote that he tried to persuade Cixi to become a vegetarian, and he often harangued foreign diplomats on the virtues of temperance, much to their annoyance.) 65
While the illness was apparently genuine, it had a “diplomatic” dimension as well. Although officially “not at home" to visitors because of his illness, he nonetheless was able to give some hints of his dissatisfactions with the situation in Beijing. On 22 July the North China Herald carried a letter from Beijing stating that Wu's application for sick leave “was really due in the first place to his disappointment at the conservatism of his colleagues, none of whom had the courage to back him up in recommending reforms in the administration of the government,” while in a related story the Herald noted that “it is an open secret in Mandarin circles that Mr. Wu will not return to Peking, but ask for leave to resign upon the completion of his one month's sick leave.”66
By the time his one month's leave was up, however, Wu seems to have changed his mind. He asked for another month's leave, and was granted twenty more days to recuperate, after which he was to return speedily to Beijing and resume his duties.67
What made Wu decide to return? Since I have found no published statement explaining his decision, what follows is speculative. The atmosphere in Shanghai in summer 1904 was very exciting, especially compared to that of Beijing. Scores of Japanese victories in battle with the Russians had stimulated the development of nationalist feeling in the city. Reform and radical publications flourished, with penetrating (and sometimes scurrilous) critiques of Qing policies receiving careful attention by an expanding literate public. These latter were Wu's people: he was part of them and they appreciated him, and I believe this appreciation encouraged him to take advantage of the impact of the war in hastening reforms on the Qing state.
64. DHL 5:5196.
65. On Cixi, see Wu's Yanshou xinfa, p. 6; NCH, 25 Aug. 1905, p. 438. On efforts to convert foreign diplomats see Wu's America Through the Spectacles, p. 201; note by E. T. Williams, Chinese Secretary, U.S. Legation, in Rockhill to Secretary of State, 10 Dec. 1906, encl. 474, Case 1519/19-20, (U.S. National Archives). See also Qu Hongji's preface to Yanshou xinfa.
66. NCH, 22 Aug. 1904, pp. 194–95.
67. Shilu 532:4906b.
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Something of this appreciation may be seen in the reformist publication Dongfang zazhi (Eastern miscellany), which began publication in 1904 and carried items of interest to the Shanghai elite, including information about U.S. immigration policies, problems with the Chinese exhibit at the St. Louis Exposition, and developments in railway and mining investments. In its July/ August 1904 issue the Dongfang zazhi had a long article about Wu's role in attempting legal reforms, in which the motivation of the abolishing extraterritoriality was clearly spelled out and acknowledged as an important national goal. Using the example of the way that leading Japanese statesmen in the 1870s and 1880s set about to reform their laws so as to end extraterritoriality, Wu expressed his hope that China could do likewise. Noting the difficulties Mutsu Munemitsu had faced in this endeavor, and which now faced Wu, the magazine commented: “As we view the current situation with respect to foreign affairs, our generation hopes that Vice-President Wu will
persevere and obtain the success that Mutsu achieved.”68
I am not sure whether Wu viewed the new atmosphere resulting from the war as creating anew the opportunity to pursue law reform, as Zhang Cunwu suggests, or whether the fact that he was so appreciated by the Shanghai public gave him additional vigor with which to go forth and do battle once again with Beijing's gray walls and yamens. Perhaps something of both was involved. At any rate, he returned to Beijing in September 1904 with renewed energy and purpose. This time he lasted longer-eighteen months-before he was ready to call it quits.
The Impact of Nationalism
The flowering of nationalism that occurred during the Russo-Japanese War affected the Chinese political scene in a profound way. In this section I would like to show how the dynamics of the new nationalism served to weaken Wu Tingfang's political position by creating tensions that made it difficult for him to operate effectively.
The first way that the new nationalist movement weakened Wu's position occurred as foreign diplomats reacted with bewilderment, indignation and anger at China's-and Wu's-efforts to be more effective in combating imperialist inroads. Their hostility was damaging to Wu because in part his political position required keeping their "goodwill," especially that of the United States and Great Britain. Their increasing hostility to him lowered his usefulness to the leaders of the Waiwu Bu. Two examples from late 1904 to early 1905 illustrate this process: Wu's efforts to protect China's position in Tibet and assume an active role in determining the political outcome of the Russo-Japanese War.
68. Dongfang zazhi 1, no. 6 (July-Aug. 1904), “Shiping,” p. 29.
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A crisis over Tibet had been brewing since 1903, when a British expedition led by Sir Francis Younghusband fought its way to Lhasa and forced the Tibetans to agree to the Lhasa Convention. In this Convention, the Tibetans were forced to pay an indemnity of £500,000, with payments spread over a 75-year period and with British military occupation during that entire period. Article IX of the Convention gave Britain many rights and privileges. Not only did Chinese nationalists such as Wu object, but also the Russians. The Qing Resident in Lhasa, Yutai, had failed to protect Chinese interests in Tibet by allying with Younghusband in the hope that he could use the British to reassert his authority over the rebellious Tibetans. Even if Russia did nothing to counter the British move in Tibet, it was still an objectionable situation for Chinese nationalists, and if Russia did strenuously object there was the likelihood of yet another war between two foreign powers fighting over another chunk of Chinese territory,69
Upon returning to Beijing in September 1904 Wu immediately informed the British Minister, Sir Earnest Satow, that China would not sign the Adhesion Agreement to the Lhasa Convention because China objected to the 75-year military occupation of the region and because Article IX would make Tibet into a "vassal state" of Britain. According to Satow's report to his superiors, Wu (“a bit of a gossip,” said Satow) “abused Yutai [Youtai] as entirely ignorant of foreign affairs and . . . as incompetent as all other Manchus." Wu declared his intention to move negotiations to Beijing, a move Satow opposed.70
Wu followed up this protest by leaking the contents of the Convention to the Chinese press, leading to a great public outcry. This act shows that Wu wanted to mobilize public opinion on behalf of a strong stance by the Qing Government on Tibet. This introduced a new element into the diplomatic relations between China and Britain, one that Satow found “obnoxious,” and Wu followed this up by arranging for Tang Shaoyi to be appointed commissioner to negotiate with the British in Calcutta. Wu probably wanted Tang to handle these negotiations because he viewed him as the most competent person for the job, and he persisted in spite of Tang's reluctance to leave China and Yuan Shikai's desire to retain him in Tianjin."1
Tang returned to Beijing in September 1905 after eight months of negotiations. The Adhesion Agreement later signed in Beijing in April 1906 by Tang and the British represented one of China's few victories in foreign relations at that time. From having previously only informally recognized China's position as a suzerain in Tibet, Great Britain now acknowledged China's sovereign rights there.72 Most of the credit for this accomplishment must of course go to Tang, but Wu deserves some credit too, for being quick
69. For background on Tibet see Li Tieh-tseng, Tibet Today and Yesterday (New York: Bookman Associates, 1960), pp. 92–97.
70. Satow to Lansdowne, 22 Sept. 1904, unnumbered, FO 17/1639.
71. On Tang's reluctance and Yuan Shikai's protests, see Sigel, "Tang Shao-yi,” pp. 139–40.
72. Ibid., pp. 137–60; Lee En-han, “T’ang Shao-yi,” pp. 75–81.
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enough to recognize the dangers for China and acting promptly to save the situation, and for insisting on dispatching Tang in spite of his and Yuan's displeasure at the appointment.
British Minister Satow was quite outraged by Wu's acts. In December he wrote to his friend, the American W. W. Rockhill, that “we were going on very smoothly here, when suddenly Wu Ting-fang returning from Shanghai put his oar in and persuaded Prince Ch'ing [Qing] that they ought not to agree to the convention."73 In fulminating against Wu in June 1905, Satow wrote to the British Foreign Office, privately, that
having been called to the Bar at Lincoln's Inn, he fancies himself a great authority on law! . . . I strongly suspect him of having given the Tibetan convention last year to the same native paper, and it was certainly he who persuaded the Chinese government to refuse their adhesion, and sent T'ang Shaoyi to Calcutta. (That little game has however, not proved very successful. The proposal that we should recognize the sovereignty of China in Tibet is pretty impudent considering their failure to control the Lamas at Batang which is actually in Chinese territory.)74
Foreign diplomats in China during this period in general held many unfavorable stereotypes of Chinese as passive, cowardly, untrustworthy, dishonest and fearful. They believed that Chinese statesmen responded only to force and that the only way to deal with them was to coerce them.75 They were hardly prepared to accept them as social equals, in spite of some social interactions at dinner parties, and they were in general unprepared for assertions of Chinese nationalism by people such as Wu who could not be made to fit the stereotypes. While at first looking forward to Wu's serving in the Waiwu Bu in the belief that he would be helpful to them, the foreign diplomats came to view him as “impudent” and untrustworthy.
Foreigners' hostility to Wu may also be seen in their reactions to Wu's efforts to have China play an active role in the settlement of the Russo- Japanese War. Wu hoped to obtain British approval for the dispatching of a special mission, perhaps headed by himself, to the various western nations to oversee China's interests in whatever mediation process was to occur.76
The British reaction to this idea was emphatically negative. Satow told Wu that he strongly disapproved and that he did not think there was any official who was competent to lead such a mission; if such a person existed he should be made minister of foreign affairs and instruct his diplomats abroad at the appropriate time, but in his opinion it would be "premature and therefore unwise" to send such a mission. In a "very confidential" dispatch reporting his conversation with Wu to Lord Lansdowne, Satow wrote:
73. Satow to Rockhill, 22 Dec. 1904. Rockhill, Papers.
74. Satow to Campbell, 14 June 1905 (private), FO 17/1672.
75. The American viewpoint is summarized by Hunt, Frontier Defense and the Open Door, pp. 46–49. 76. Alarm Bell (Jingzhong Ribao), 15 Sept. 1904.
Wu Tingfang and the New Nationalism 1902-1905
Mr. Wu was evidently disconcerted at my strongly expressed disapproval, and from his slipping out a suggestion that the proposed mission would resemble that of Mr. Burlingame to the Western Powers in 1868 and 1869, I'm inclined to believe that he had some idea either of heading it himself or that it should be proposed to my United States colleague.
159
Satow added that he had come to form an unfavorable opinion of Wu's abilities, and that his diplomatic colleagues joined him in his estimation that Wu was unfit to head “any high diplomatic mission":
From the opportunities I have had of conversing with Mr. Wu I am not led to form such a high opinion of his abilities as his career in America was thought to warrant. It is said, I believe with truth, that the eloquent and learned speeches which he was in the habit of delivering to American audiences were written for him by a very competent gentleman connected with the press, and I certainly have detected no signs in him of a capacity for their composition.77
As public figures often do have ghostwriters prepare their speeches, it would not be so surprising if Wu had employed an American to assist in public relations, but what is important about this is that in fact it was Wu's competence that Satow (and the Americans too, as we shall see) found so irritating and inexplicable, given their stereotypes about Chinese.
When Wu objected to the customs revenues at the Manchurian city of Niuzhuang (Newchuang) being placed in a Japanese bank and requested that these funds be transferred to the Chinese treasury, Satow strongly urged Wu to desist, and this advice plus Satow's strong words against the proposed mission abroad were approved by the Foreign Office. As far as Britain, the United States (and Japan) were concerned, China was to continue to remain "neutral" about the fate of Manchuria!78
This western hostility paralyzed the Waiwu Bu. Although Wu still pressed for the dispatching of a special mission, the other ministers split over the desirability of this act.79 In the end, nothing was done until June 1905, when Wu again proposed, and again met with hostility, that China send a special commissioner to participate in, or at least observe, the Portsmouth negotiations.
Even when Wu acted in a way consonant with British, Japanese and U.S. interests, it was resented. On 7 January 1905 the Russians handed the Waiwu Bu a note charging that Chinese in Manchuria were violating China's neutrality by joining with Japanese forces. The note threatened to reconsider whether Russia would continue to recognize China's neutrality. Wu drafted a long
77. Satow to Lansdowne, 14 Sept. 1904, no. 332 (very confidential), FO 17/1639.
78. Satow to Lansdowne, 22 Sept. 1904, FO 17/1639; Lansdowne to Satow, 19 Oct., no. 281 (confidential); 12 Nov., no. 305; 16 Nov., no. 307, FO 17/1635.
79. A report of the Asahi Shimbun, in Alarm Bell, 9 Dec. 1904.
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reply to this note refuting each charge in detail and then sent it to Reuters as well as a Beijing newspaper at the same time that it was handed to the Russian envoy. As in the case of the Tibetan affair, Wu used the press as a way of mobilizing public opinion behind the government. This time the Americans took umbrage at Wu's action. The chargé d'affaires for the U.S. Legation in Beijing wired the State Department that "from the tenor of the reply [to the Russian note], with its many references to international law, I should judge that Wu-ting-fang played a conspicuous part in its preparation; and his desire to have it promptly published may have been actuated more by vanity than malice. In any case, he is not to be trusted.”80
Actually, foreign irritation had been steadily rising all through 1904 over questions involving railway and mining concessions. In many parts of China, regional elites had begun to oppose these concessions and expressed desires to retain control over rails and mines themselves. In Sichuan, for example, the Waiwu Bu turned down a British syndicate's request to construct a railway from that province to Hankou because the gentry of Sichuan and Hubei were, with the support of Zhang Zhidong and the Governor-General of Sichuan, Xiliang, forming their own company for the purpose of building the line. This was to be followed by similar efforts elsewhere to cancel concessions or construct parallel lines.81
Moreover, many Chinese were raising questions about the nature of the foreign concessionaires, some of whom had obtained broad concessions earlier but not attempted to begin operations. This was especially true of the amalgam of British syndicates like the Peking Syndicate and those of the speculator John Lister Kaye. In meetings with Satow in spring 1904, Wu had raised questions about the reliability of these concessionaires and expressed annoyance at their refusing to fulfill the terms of their contracts.82
The British and other representatives were especially irritated over the movement to reclaim mining rights. Early in 1904 the diplomats began a series of protests against Hunan's provincial mining regulations as too restrictive.83 Provisional mining regulations issued by the Shang Bu in spring 1904, which Wu had drafted, were also vigorously objected to as contrary to the provisions of the commercial treaties negotiated in 1902 and 1903 which promised to permit foreigners to engage in mining. As complaints mounted,
80. Loomis to Coolidge, 14 Jan. 1905, telegram, and Hay to Coolidge, 17 Jan. 1905, telegram, "MCD." See also Satow to Lansdowne, 18 Jan. 1905, no. 25 (confidential), FO 17/1670.
81. The most comprehensive accounts of the rights recovery movement are Lee En-han's China's Quest for Railway Autonomy, his “China's Response to Foreign Investment in Her Mining Industry," Journal of Asian Studies 28, no. 1 (Nov. 1968): 55–76, and his WanQing de shouhui kuangquan yundong (Taibei: Zhongyang yanjiuyuan, Jindaishi yanjiusuo, 1963). On Xiliang's policies see Roger V. Des Forges, Hsi-Liang and the Chinese National Revolution (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1973), pp. 58-70.
82. Satow to Lansdowne, 2 Mar. 1904, no. 72, FO 17/1636.
83. Lee En-han, WanQing shouhui kuangquan, pp. 72–82; Satow to Lansdowne 15 Mar. 1904, no. 89, FO 17/1636; Conger to Hay, 22 Mar. 1904, no. 1544, “MCD."
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Zhang Zhidong asked to take charge of the mining regulations. In December 1904 Wu handed an augmented set of mining regulations over to Zhang, who had them reviewed by a British mining engineer and others on his staff. 84
Soon provincial gentry in Anhui attempted to expel the British owned Peking Syndicate, which had received permission to engage in copper mining in the province.85 All these events were extremely annoying to British diplomats accustomed to dealing with a more docile Chinese leadership.
Satow was especially angry with Sheng Xuanhuai for obstructing mining and related railroad plans by the Peking Syndicate in Shanxi and Hebei because these would conflict with the Hanyeping iron works, which Sheng controlled. Satow also blamed Sheng for the movement begun among gentry in Jiangsu and Zhejiang to overturn the Shanghai-Nanjing concession and to construct competing lines. Starting in spring 1904 he began directing a stream of complaints to the Waiwu Bu about Sheng's behavior.86
Sheng Xuanhuai was also coming under fire domestically as the railway concessions and loans he had contracted with various foreign groups were criticized by rights recovery advocates. In spring 1904 he was accused by a censor of profiting from land purchases made in the name of the railway company, and the Shang Bu was ordered to investigate. As the Shang Bu was controlled by Sheng's opponent, Yuan Shikai, there was the strong likelihood that this investigation would snowball into something larger. Sheng's position was gravely threatened.8
87
The attacks on Sheng Xuanhuai affected Wu Tingfang's position as well. In particular, the movement to annul the contract with the American China Development Company (ACDC) for the Yue-Han line had a serious impact on Wu. Wu had negotiated the original contract in 1898 as Sheng Xuanhuai's agent, and the contract was renegotiated after the Boxer crisis of 1900 to provide an even larger loan than previously. Following the Boxer disturbance, many American investors sold their shares in the Company, and these were eagerly picked up by Belgian interests, who were following an aggressive railway policy in China. These sales were in violation of Article 17 of the contract. Wu knew of the sales and had informed Sheng of the situation while engaging in a bitter but fruitless exchange with F. W. Whitridge, the Company's attorney, before leaving Washington to return to China. Apparently Sheng did not inform the Court of the sale to the Belgians because he was
84. Satow to Lansdowne, 21 Apr., no. 137, FO 17/1637; 6 July, 1904, no. 240, FO 17/1638; 15 Nov. 1905, no. 405, FO 371/21, China Trade, confidential [951] (no. 388); Rockhill to Root, 24 Nov., no. 153; 23 Dec. 1905, no. 177, “MCD”; Zhang Zhidong, memorial of 24 Dec. 1905 (GX 31/ 11/28), Zhang, Zhidong Quanji, “Zouyi,” 65:16–20.
85. DHL 5:5184–85; 5189–90; Qingji waijiao shiliao 182:20–27.
86. Satow to Lansdowne, 9 Mar., no. 83, FO 17/1636; 19 Nov., no. 390 (confidential), FO 17/ 1639; 22 Nov. 1905, FO 17/1642; Lansdowne to Satow, 2 Mar., 13 Aug., 4 Nov. 1904, FO 17/1642. 87. Lee En-han, China's Quest for Railway Autonomy, p. 75; Tao Xiang to Sheng Xuanhuai, Aug., 25 Oct., Dec. 1904, Sheng Xuanhuai, Xinhai Geming qianhou, pp. 7–8, 10, 12.
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anxious to obtain Imperial approval for the renegotiated contract, which was given in 1902.88
Problems of mismanagement and clashes with local people also plagued the railway venture. By 1904 these problems, especially the fact that the Belgians had obtained a controlling interest in the Company, had led to a great outcry. In response to this, Sheng warned the ACDC that China might nullify its contract because of the selling of shares to the Belgians. Sheng did not intend to truly cancel the contract at that time; correspondence with Wu at that time shows that they just wanted to force the Company to expel the Belgians.89
Barring that, Sheng and Wu hoped to arrange for the transfer of the concession to another American syndicate headed by A. W. Bash. Bash had been part of the ACDC when it had originally negotiated the Yue-Han concession. A personal friend of J. W. Foster and an acquaintance of Zhang Yinhuan and Wu, Bash came to China in fall 1904 in an effort to obtain the concession in lieu of the ACDC. Meanwhile many of the U.S. investors in the ACDC, who were dissatisfied with the autocratic policies of King Leopold, were making efforts to reestablish control over the company. They eventually did, when J. P. Morgan was persuaded to buy a large bloc of shares, but they were unable to do it fast enough to offset the rising tide of nationalist sentiment in China demanding a change.90
By fall 1904 the demand for recovery of the line had become impossible to ignore or refuse. In September and October 1904 large groups of gentry- merchants in Hunan and Guangdong held meetings pledging their opposition to the ACDC contract, and with some opposing the plan to award the concession to Bash's syndicate (“replacing Americans with Americans”). These events cannot have failed to have an impact upon Wu, especially as rumors spread that he and Sheng had both received bribes from the ACDC. Wu's bribe was said to have been $300,000 and Sheng's said to include payment of 3000 taels each month the contract was in effect.91
Since the question of bribery proved very damaging to Wu, it requires further discussion. The published source materials, plus unpublished archival materials that I have examined, contain nothing that proves the allegations. On the other hand, it is unlikely that this sort of thing would be written about. The original contract with the ACDC contained a provision in which 5% of the loan, after subtracting what it would cost to purchase land and
88. Whitridge to Hay, 20 Apr. 1901 (personal) and enclosures, Hay, Papers; Lee En-han, China's Quest for Railway Autonomy, pp. 55–60; Bays, China Enters the Twentieth Century, pp. 164–66.
89. See correspondence between Sheng and Wu during January 1904 in Sheng Xuanhuai, Yuzhai cun'gao, “Dianbao”: juan 40–41; Conger to Hay, 21 Jan. 1904, no. 1482, “MCD.” See also Lee En- han, China's Quest for Railway Autonomy, p. 62.
90. Lee En-han, China's Quest for Railway Autonomy, pp. 71–74. On Bash see NCH, 11 Dec. 1904, p. 1222.
91. Alarm Bell, 3, 4, 13 and 14 Nov., 2 Dec. 1904. The last item was entitled "Wu Tingfang swallows up the national debt himself."
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houses along the proposed route, would be used by Sheng's railway administration for various purposes, including expenses for the American railway engineers and others while they were in China.92
Materials recently published indicate that Wu and Sheng had negotiated a secret agreement by which 1% of that 5% was to go directly to Sheng. Sheng's letters to Wu suggest that Wu was worried about this secret payment. On 22 May 1898 Sheng wrote, "As to the secret agreement's provision to pay 1%, this naturally goes to the Imperial Railway Company, and in the future I will memorialize to show that there is no private [gain]."93
This apparently did not quell Wu's concern over these funds, for on 25 June Sheng again wrote to him in response to his letters. In this reply Sheng wrote that he was not motivated by private gain and in view of the heavy responsibility he bore, "as to the [5% for] entertainment expenses, there is nothing that cannot be told to others; as to retaining 1% of the 5%, which I have requested in several telegrams, it is for this and other types of other expenses and nothing else.” He said that when the Americans had previously been in China they had not required all the funds he had allocated for their expenses; hence, 4%, when added to this left-over amount, would be adequate to take care of them.94
Interspersed with these assurances were rejoinders to keep silent about this matter, much flattery, and offers to help Wu by recommending him as his replacement and also helping him to purchase a metropolitan office, as noted earlier. These can be read to imply that there was something not entirely on the up-and-up about all of this. On 29 July he wrote to Wu that he had sent the entire contract, including the provision for the return of 1%, to the Zongli Yamen, but that as the British loan for the Shanghai-Nanjing Railway and that from Belgium for the Lu-Han line did not contain provisions for the 5% expense account, “it is not convenient to make this publicly known as it could give Britain and Belgium a pretext [to protest the contract]. But whether Sheng did in fact report this to the Zongli Yamen or not remains unclear, and whether or not there was some additional monetary arrangement involving Wu and Sheng similarly is not known at this point. 96
The accusations of bribery were picked up by a censor, in sympathy with the Hunan gentry-merchants, who charged that Sheng and Wu had gravely mismanaged the Company's affairs. The Court ordered Zhang Zhidong and Cen Chunxuan, Governor-General of Guangdong and Guangxi, to investigate and secretly memorialize the results of their inquiries. Their secret memorial
92. Sheng Xuanhuai, Yuzhai cun’gao, “Zougao,” 21:10.
93. Sheng to Wu, 22 May 1898 (GX 24/4/3), Sheng Xuanhuai, Weikan xin 'gao, p. 70.
94. Sheng to Wu, 25 June 1898 (GX 24/5/7), ibid., p. 72.
95. Sheng to Wu, 29 July 1898 (GX 24/6/11), ibid., p. 86.
96. Lee En-han believes that Sheng did not report it. See his China's Quest for Railway Autonomy, p. 79 n. 14.
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does not appear
in either of their collected works or the standard compilations, and so I have been unable to uncover the results of their investigation. In December, however, Zhang Zhidong was entrusted with handling the Yue- Han matter, and Zhang's handling of the situation ultimately resulted in China's buying back the concession at the outrageous price of £6,750,000.97
Sheng Xuanhuai's confidant in Beijing, Tao Xiang, prepared a confidential account of these events for Sheng that is quite revealing and worth reproducing extensively here. After recounting the various opinions about Sheng's management of the Yue-Han affair, he wrote that "some say this is Mr. Wu's affair and not your responsibility. Some say that Zixu [Wu Tingfang] personally told others that this is Piling's [Sheng Xuanhuai] business and I [Wu] was only doing a good deed for someone else." Concerning Wu, he continued:
After Mr. Wu came back to the capital [in September] there was agreement among the government officials about awarding the concession to the other American company as a way of resolving the issue. Then unexpectedly the Guangdong gentry got agitated and began to strongly oppose Mr. Wu, saying that he had received 300,000 gold dollars. Some Hunan gentry in the capital took this up and asked Qu [Hongji], Zhang [Boxi] and others to represent them. Qu and the others put them off with evasive words, but behind their backs they nastily said: "If this Wang [Xianqian, a leader of the Hunan gentry] makes such a disturbance, who cannot talk about railways?” This word spread rapidly, which pleased the Hunanese; it seems the gentry won't agree [to switch to another U.S. company] but don't have a solution either. . When Bash came to Beijing this time, Mr. Wu avoided any suspicious [behavior]; Qu, manipulated by the gentry, refused to handle matters. [name illegible in document] said this is a British-American matter and not of concern to others. All pressed Na[tong] to act; Na said: "Why must I alone handle this hot wax candle; if the rest of the ministers are so afraid of trouble, why not turn it over to Nanpi [Zhang Zhidong]? Also this was Piling's [Sheng Xuanhuai] original intention.” All agreed and the Waiwu Bu sent a note to Bash asking him to go to Hubei and negotiate directly with Xiangshuai [Zhang Zhidong]. Qu and the others said, “Although we have evaded this, it is not a good policy." At this time Censor Huang's [Changnian] memorial was presented urging nullification [of the contract]. All were very pleased because such a large issue could be turned over to Nanpi to handle. After the edict was issued [to Zhang], some of the ministers in the Waiwu Bu said, “Having another large talent take responsibility for this means that this time we avoided troublesome words.” . . . Outsiders don't fully understand the reasons behind the Court's appointing Nanpi [Zhang]. There is a Secretary in the Board of Punishment named Liang Guangzhao who strongly opposed Mr. Wu and asked Dai Shaohuai [Jici] and Zhang Chugong [Boshi] to present a memorial for him on the subject, but the two gentlemen politely refused. Liang was furious
97. DHL 5:5248. On the buy-back see Lee En-han, China's Quest for Railway Autonomy, pp. 75–78; Bays, China Enters the Twentieth Century, pp. 169–77.
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and wanted to make a big fuss. Later his fellow provincials talked to him; just then the edict was issued [appointing Zhang Zhidong to handle the matter] and Liang stopped.98
One can see from this that Wu barely escaped a very nasty situation, and as it was he could not quite overcome the political damage. From this point on his fate was linked to that of Sheng Xuanhuai, regardless of their personal relationship.
Wu's relations with the Americans and British continued to deteriorate sharply in 1905. The U.S. attitude was especially noticeable and destructive of Wu's political position in the Waiwu Bu. In March 1905 Wu tried to have the newly-appointed U.S. Ambassador to the Netherlands, Dr. David J. Hill, appointed as one of China's two arbitrators for the permanent arbitration court at The Hague. (Hill was the McKinley Administration official to whom Wu had spoken so candidly during the Boxer crisis about the need to punish pro-Boxer officials). First the U.S. Minister refused to permit Wu to cable Hill in code, and then the U.S. State Department advised Hill to decline the appointment as Hay "feared there might be a certain embarrassment” for the U.S.99
By summer 1905, Sino-American relations were severely strained, partly because of China's intent to cancel the ACDC's concession for the Yue-Han Railway, and partly because of the movement to boycott U.S. goods in protest against U.S. immigration policy.
The 1905 boycott of American goods is considered by many as the first full-fledged manifestation of modern nationalism in China.100 Negotiations between the U.S. and Liang Cheng, China's Minister to the U.S., had been stalemated since December 1904 when the U.S. rejected China's draft for a new treaty. This draft treaty, undoubtedly drawn up by Wu Tingfang, granted the right of the U.S. to exclude Chinese laborers from the continental U.S. but abolished all restrictions for non-laborers. Hawaii and the Philippines were exempted from all restrictions. By May 1905 the boycott movement had publicly emerged in Shanghai, Guangzhou, Tianjin and other major cities. Supported by prominent members of the urban elites of these cities, the boycott committees were very well organized and nationally coordinated by the Shanghai committee.101
Wu was able to marshal support within the Waiwu Bu and among many high national and regional officials, in spite of the opposition of Yuan Shikai, of which we will speak more below. Partly their support was an expression of their own nationalistic outlook, and partly because they, like Wu, believed that a unified movement of this sort of “enlightened anti-foreignism," (wenming
98. Tao Xiang to Sheng, Dec. 1904, Sheng Xuanhuai, Xinhai Geming qianhou, pp. 16–18. 99. Coolidge to Hay, 6 Mar. 1905, telegram, “MCD.”
100. The most comprehensive recent account is Zhang Cunwu, Zhong-Mei gongyue fengchao. 101. Ibid., pp. 43–90. On the role of the Shanghai Chamber of Commerce in the movement see Zhang Kaiyuan, “Xinhai Geming yu Jiang-Zhe zichan jieji,” pp. 265–66; Ding Richu, “Xinhai Geming qian de Shanghai zibenjia jieji,” pp. 298–302.
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paiwai) would have a great impact upon U.S. public opinion and result in the reformation of the immigration laws. With his belief in the effectiveness of the boycott as a tactic to accomplish China's aims, Wu gave his full support to the movement, cabling the boycott committee to encourage it to persevere and not be misled by assurances of W. W. Rockhill, the new U.S. Minister to China, that the negotiations then underway in Washington could result in desired changes without a boycott. Wu hoped that the boycott would create conditions conducive for the renegotiating of the treaty by himself later in the summer.102 Wu's activities to garner official support for the boycott movement were especially irritating to the U.S. Upon his arrival in Beijing, Rockhill, having earlier been informed by his friend Satow of Wu's capacity as a “troublemaker,” formally asked Prince Qing to take immediate action to stop the boycott preparations. When no action was taken, he protested again. Prince Qing waited one full week only to reply defending the legality of the movement. Hence Rockhill became convinced that the movement had received official approval "if not actual official suggestion," and stepped up his pressure on the Court.103 The movement pleases the Foreign Ministry, he fulminated, “as [an] effective means to coerce us.
"104
Rockhill's hardened attitude towards Wu at this time may also be seen in the decisive rejection of feelers sent out by the Waiwu Bu about dispatching Wu to the United States as a special envoy to represent China's interests at the upcoming Portsmouth Conference. Wu hoped to combine this function with that of negotiating the new Sino-American treaty involving immigration. Japan, however, was completely opposed to China's participation in the peace conference in any form, maintaining that Japan would negotiate separately with China over Japan's role in Manchuria. By rejecting the feelers sent out by the Waiwu Bu, the U.S. and England condemned China to the continued role of humiliating passivity to which it had been earlier assigned. Thus Rockhill (as well as other foreign diplomats) dissuaded Prince Qing from taking any action with regard to the peace settlement, even something as seemingly aboveboard, given the U.S. commitment to the concept of the "open door," as a letter to Theodore Roosevelt asking the U.S. to use its good offices to protect China's sovereign rights. And Rockhill persuaded Yuan Shikai that to keep America's goodwill, China "must remain absolutely quiet until after the conclusion of terms of peace between Japan and Russia . . ."105
102. Wu to Boycott Committee, 21 May 1905 (GX 31/4/18), China, Foreign Ministry, Waijiao dang'an, as cited in Zhang Cunwu, Zhong-Mei gongyue fengchao, pp. 47-48. On Wu as special treaty commissioner see n. 63; NCH, 11 Aug. 1905, p. 320.
103. Rockhill to Secretary of State, 6 July 1905, reprinted in U.S. Dept. of State, "United States Foreign Relations, 1904-1905," Papers Relating to the Foreign Relations of the United States. (Washington, D.C.: Government Printing Office, 1906), pp. 206-7 (hereafter cited as “United States Foreign Relations, 1904-1905").
104. Rockhill to Secretary of State, 4 Aug. 1905, telegram, “MCD.”
105. Rockhill to Hay, 1 July 1905 (confidential), “MCD.” See also Rockhill to Secretary of State, 5 July, telegram, 6 July 1905, no. 24 (confidential), “MCD"; Satow to Lansdowne, 4 July, no. 236 (secret), and 8 July 1905, no. 239, FO 17/1672.
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The boycott finally started on 20 July and although it was a great and historic event, it did not result in the desired change of policy by the U.S. Although Theodore Roosevelt had recently indicated to John Hay that he intended, as Hay wrote, "to put a stop to the barbarous methods of the Immigration Bureau,"106 he, Hay and Rockhill bridled against any efforts by Chinese to assert themselves to right this injustice. On 22 August he wrote to Rockhill that he had originally planned to ask Congress to consider legislation improving immigration provisions for Chinese non-laborers, but the boycott movement and the cancellation of the Yue-Han concession had caused him to reconsider:
I have all along been intending to make that recommendation very strongly in my message. I only hesitate on account of the action of the Chinese government, or its inaction, in the matter of the boycott and in the matter of this Hankow [Hankou] railway concession. I may do it anyhow, but I wish you would in the strongest way impress upon the Chinese Government that the chance of my getting favorable action by Congress will be greatly interfered with by the failure of the Chinese to do justice themselves in such important matters as the boycott and the Hankow concession... I intend to do the Chinese justice and am taking a far stiffer tone with my own people than any President has ever yet taken, both about immigration, and so forth. In return it is absolutely necessary for you to take a stiff tone with the Chinese where they are clearly doing wrong. Unless I misread them entirely they despise weakness even more than they prize justice, and we must make it evident both that we intend to do what is right and that we do not intend for a moment to suffer what is wrong. 107
With the boycott underway and U.S. businessmen reporting their losses in panic-stricken tones, Rockhill notified the Qing Government that he viewed the boycott as a serious deterrent to the successful conclusion of the treaty negotiations then underway in Washington. On 5 August he stated that China would be held responsible for any losses sustained by the U.S. as a result of the Qing Government's failure to suppress the boycott. When these measures failed, Rockhill notified the Court on 14 August that the U.S. would suspend all treaty negotiations unless the boycott was ended. The U.S. would not hesitate to use force if necessary, the big stick being held in readiness.108
Given Rockhill's intransigence and threats, the Court began to waver. Yuan Shikai had always opposed the boycott, because he wanted to cultivate U.S.goodwill for what he undoubtedly felt was the more important issue of Manchuria. Accordingly, he banned the boycott movement in Tianjin and advised the Court against appearing to support it. Other regional officials
106. W. R. Thayer, The Life and Letters of John Hay (New York: Macmillan, 1915), 2:406–7. See also Rockhill to Hay, 17 June 1905, telegram, “MCD.”
107. Roosevelt to Rockhill, 22 Aug. 1905 (confidential). Rockhill, Papers.
108. See documents reprinted in “U.S. Foreign Relations, 1904–1905,” pp. 218, 220, 222.
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became alarmed when it appeared that the boycott leaders did not have complete control over the movement and that dangerous anti-dynastic sentiments were being voiced. These reports alarmed the Court, which finally yielded on 31 August and issued an edict suppressing the boycott. Except in the Guangzhou area, where it lasted over one year, the boycott soon disintegrated with the loss of Imperial sanction.109
As "the personality behind the boycott,” as American Magazine had it, for Wu the failure of the boycott to produce the desired changes in U.S. immigration policy was a severe blow to his reputation as an “America expert.” He had miscalculated the response of U.S. policy makers and the degree to which China could influence U.S. policy in this area. Moreover, he had overestimated the capacity of the U.S. leadership to accept China's new nationalism. Although some Westerners, such as Sir Robert Hart, could appreciate the potential of this new force upon Chinese politics and realize that it would be necessary to accommodate it, most could not.
110
The boycott, then, brought to a head the differences between Wu and Yuan Shikai that had existed at least since Wu's removal from the Shang Bu in January 1904. At the same time his involvement with Sheng Xuanhuai in the Yue-Han concession had damaged his relations with the other key regional figure, Zhang Zhidong. By fall, Qu Hongji, President of the Waiwu Bu, found it convenient in talking with Rockhill to blame Wu and Sheng for the cancellation of the concession and making Sheng Xuanhuai the scapegoat for British irritation over the rights recovery movement. Zhang Zhidong was similarly finding fault with Wu Tingfang's draft code of mining regulations for being too lenient to foreign interests! Wu's political position was clearly very weak.
Adding to this weakness was a physical impairment suffered on 29 September, when Wu was injured in a bomb explosion that occurred at the send-off for the officials appointed to the mission to investigate constitutional structures of various nations, a mission that Wu by training and experience should have been on had his political position been stronger. The bomb was thrown by Wu Yue, an anarchist, and Wu suffered a permanent hearing impairment in both ears as a result. It must have been deeply shocking to Wu as a harbinger of the deep
109. Decree of 31 Aug. 1905 (GX 31/8/2) translated in ibid., p. 225. On the boycott in Guangdong Province see Rhoads, China's Republican Revolution, pp. 83–91. On Yuan Shikai and the boycott see Li Zongyi, Yuan Shikai zhuan (Beijing: Zhonghua, 1980), p. 136; Zhang Cunwu, Zhong-Mei gongyue fengchao, pp. 67–75.
110. On Wu's as the "personality behind the boycott” see article by that name by D. R. Marquis in American Magazine 62 (May 1906): 74–75. On Hart's understanding of the new nationalism, he wrote to Campbell (11 June 1905): “Once they have realized the power of such combination, the people will do more to produce effect than the officials and in fact they now say 'our officials can't do anything and our govt. is powerless: let us show what popular union can do!"" Hart, The I.G. in Peking 2:1473.
111. On Qu see Rockhill to Secretary of State, 18 Aug. 1905, no. 62, “MCD"; Satow to Lansdowne, 12 Oct., no. 335; 18 Oct., no. 343 (confidential); 30 Oct. 1905, no. 355 (confidential), FO 17/ 1673. On the mining regulatons see n. 84, Zhang Zhidong memorial of 24 Dec. 1905.
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rifts separating the Qing Government from many radicals. Moreover, Wu was hospitalized for several weeks and greatly weakened.112
Wu's convalescence coincided with the return of Tang Shaoyi from his Calcutta sojourn. Within a short period of time Tang assumed a major role in Beijing. On 17 November an edict appointed him to Wu's slot as Junior Vice-President of the Waiwu Bu, with Wu transferred to the post of Junior Vice-President of the Xing Bu. Three days later, however, Tang took over Sheng Xuanhuai's position as Director-General of the Shanghai-Nanjing Railway, and his appointment in the Waiwu Bu (and Wu's transfer) was not made substantive until 10 February 1906. But during this period as a lame duck Wu appears to have played only a marginal role in the Waiwu Bu, with Tang playing a major role in the negotiations over Manchuria taking place with the Japanese representatives in Beijing.
113
As we look back over Wu Tingfang's role in the late Qing reform movement from 1902 until the end of 1905, his accomplishments are clear. As an ally of the new social forces emerging in the cities with their strong bourgeois component, Wu played an important role. First, in shaping the Shang Bu and devising China's first code of commercial law he helped to create a favorable political setting for the emergence of these new social forces in the political arena. Second, in helping to shape a more assertive foreign policy in Tibet, in Manchuria and with the United States over the Chinese Exclusion Laws, Wu was not acting alone but was very much in tune with the demands of the emerging urban public.
In examining Wu's role in the Waiwu Bu for a period lasting nearly two years, we have seen the way that he was caught in the middle between the demands of the new nationalism and the equally potent ones of the imperialist nations. His role was an ambiguous one in that as an expert on U.S. and British affairs, he could not afford to lose the goodwill of these nations, yet the policies he employed and the demands of the new forces emerging in China at that time ensured that he could not retain the favor of both sides.
We have recounted above the way that Wu was caught in the cross fire generated by the rights recovery movement and its demands for the cancellation of the Yue-Han Railway contract. This was not a simple scenario of merchants versus officials but one reflecting larger issues dividing the nascent bourgeoisie itself over the appropriate role to be played by foreign capital in China's development. Wu and Sheng were eager to see American investment in the railway project initially because they viewed railway concessions as a political tool with which to offset rising Russian influence in Manchuria and North China. Wu also was deeply skeptical about the ability of Chinese capitalists to generate sufficient capital for large projects without
112. On Wu's injuries see Tang Wenzhi, Ziding nianpu, p. 57; NCH, 29 Sept. 1905, p. 707. On Wu Yue and the assassination attempt see Rankin, Early Chinese Revolutionaries, pp. 107–8.
113. Decree of 17 Nov. 1905 (GX 31/20/21), Shilu 550:5060a; DHL 5:5434. On Tang's role in the Sino-Japanese talks in November 1905 see Cao Rulin, Yisheng zhi huiyi (Hong Kong: Chunqiu zazhi, 1966), pp. 45-49.
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resort to foreign loans. For both of these reasons, Wu was in favor of granting the concession to the ACDC and would have liked it to remain in Bash's hands after the ACDC betrayed China's interests. That Chinese merchant financing of railways was largely a failure under the Qing is testimony to the fact that Wu's (and Sheng's) position (and one may add Zhang Zhidong's as well) was not unrealistic. Where Wu and Sheng differed with Zhang was over the degree to which China should compromise in order to obtain the loans.114 What is obvious from the sources is that the foreign concessionaires themselves undercut Wu and the Qing Government in general by being unable to provide the capital to undertake the work they had agreed to when they obtained their concessions. This provided a raison d'être for the rights recovery advocates and made it difficult to support the foreign claims.
Wu's transfer to the Xing Bu must be viewed as a demotion of sorts. Even though he retained the same level position, Junior Vice-President, the Xing Bu could not compare in power or importance with the Waiwu Bu. But since he had been engaged in the massive law reform project since 1902, the transfer to the Xing Bu had an element of appropriateness to it which made it less of a blow to Wu's self-esteem than it might have been. In the next chapter we will consider Wu's role in the late Qing law reform project, his retirement, subsequent recall and final disillusionment with the Qing.
114. On Zhang Zhidong's skepticism about merchant-financed industrial projects see Bays, China Enters the Twentieth Century, pp. 169, 178–81. See also Chuan Han-sheng [Quan Hansheng] and He Hanwei, “Qingji de shangban tielu," Zhongguo wenhua yanjiusuo xuebao (The Chinese University of Hong Kong) 9, no. 1(1978): 119–72.
6
Towards a New Era 1905-1911
Reform and Revolution
As many historians have noted, the year 1905 was an important turning point in China's history. It saw the maturing of a nationalist movement stimulated by the Russo-Japanese War, in which the urban elites of the large cities organized themselves and emerged as a significant political force in the political arena. The year 1905 also marks the beginning of major structural reforms on the part of the Qing Government. Beginning that year with Wu and Shen Jiaben's first proposed legal reforms and following through with the dispatching of a mission abroad to investigate constitutional structures, the Court indicated its sincere intention to develop a modern constitutional structure.
From 1908 on, the emergence of a constitutionalist movement dramatically indicated the strength of the new urban and provincial elites, with their strong bourgeois dimension, and their determination to use the new organs of provincial and national assemblies to impress upon the Qing Court their desires in internal matters as well as foreign policy. The disaffection of the urban elites from the Qing, especially after 1910, led to a revolutionary situation that culminated in the 1911 revolution.1
During 1905-6 Wu Tingfang spent a good part of his energies on the law reform project but then resigned in May 1906, tired and disheartened. After over a year in retirement, however, he was recalled to duty to serve as China's Minister to the United States, Mexico, Peru and Cuba in September 1907. He was called back to China after completing only two years of a three-year term. Arriving in China in spring 1910 Wu refused to consider further service under the Qing and instead sought to use the new constitutional organs to obtain a decree abolishing the queue. When this effort failed, Wu led a
1. This process is described in detail in Fincher, Chinese Democracy, chaps. 4–6. For Guangdong see Rhoads, China's Republican Revolution, chap. 7; for Hunan and Hubei see Esherick, Reform and Revolution in China, pp. 91-98.
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queue-cutting movement that met with great success in China's major urban centers. Through this activity and through his organizing an anti-cigarette smoking society, Wu joined the Shanghai and Guangzhou urban elites awaiting the moment when the Qing Dynasty would fall.
In the sections that follow we will examine Wu's role in these various activities leading to the 1911 revolution, from the attempted law reforms to his tour of duty in the Western hemisphere, and culminating in the anti- queue and anti-cigarette movements of 1910–11. In addition to the process of gradual alienation from the Qing state that is observable in Wu's career during this period, another theme emerges: the issue of westernization in China's modernization movement. While a strong believer in using British models for changes in the political realm, as we shall see below in the discussion of judicial reform, Wu sought to draw the line against westernization in life-style by rejecting those aspects he found objectionable and promoting indigenous traditions that he viewed as more desirable in their place.
Wu Tingfang and the Law Reform Movement
Wu Tingfang played an instrumental role in the first phase of the late Qing law reform movement from 1902 to 1907. During this period Wu and Shen Jiaben began their work as commissioners in the project. They coordinated substantial translations from a number of law codes, proposed several immediate reforms to humanize the judicial system, and presented a draft procedural code. In the second phase of the reform effort from 1907 to 1911, Shen Jiaben presented a draft penal code and saw the Dynasty adopt a temporary "penal law in force” in 1910. While the late Qing law reform effort is often associated with Shen Jiaben's name in view of his dominant role in the latter phase of the movement, nonetheless Wu Tingfang played a very important role in the first phase of the reform movement. Of the nine memorials submitted by the two men from 1904 to 1906, Wu was the lead signatory on the first eight, even though he was the junior member of the team in terms of position and age. (The last memorial was submitted one week before Wu's resignation with Shen as the lead signatory but showing the clear mark of Wu's influence.) Moreover, some of the memorials have a personal quality as in his reply to censorial criticism, indicating Wu's stamp. Also, Wu's forte (rather than Shen's) was the selecting, translating and compiling of materials from foreign codes, and this was an important dimension of the Commission's work in the first phase. For all of these reasons, then, it is clear that Wu played a major role in the first phase of the law reform project under the Qing.2
2. My argument is based on Zhang Cunwu, “Qingmo zhengzhi gaige yundong zhong de Wu Tingfang," pp. 954–56. For a recent account that attributes the entire enterprise to Shen Jiaben see Li Guangcan, “Cong Shen Jiaben de zouyi he xiulu kan ta de falu sixiang," Jindaishi yanjiu, 1982, no. 3: 201–15.
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The Law Reform Commission was funded upon Wu and Shen's request in January 1904, and by 15 May of that year the agency was officially opened. By spring 1905 the translation work was well underway, the Commission having engaged Japanese legal experts as advisers and hired returned students from abroad to do the translations. These included substantial portions of German, French, Russian and Japanese laws, focusing on penal codes. Wu himself selected relevant British and American materials and then took charge of compiling all the translations into a large compendium. This work was finished by 1905 and provided the basis for the subsequent proposed changes."
Anticipating negative reactions among officialdom to their proposed changes, Wu and Shen selected a step-by-step method of introducing innovations rather than presenting an entire corpus of changed law all at once. The first step was revealed in three memorials of 24 April 1905. The first of these reported on the work of the commission to date, advocated the elimination of 344 redundant statutes in the Qing code, and advocated the elimination of three especially cruel punishments. These last were: (1) three cruel methods of execution: death by slicing, beheading the corpse, exhibiting the head, (2) collective liability for the entire family of a criminal, and (3) tattooing for certain crimes. Wu and Shen's reasons for advocating the abolition of these practices were, first that the essence of good government lay in humaneness (renzheng), and that second, this was the first step towards the eventual abolition of extraterritoriality, as the greatest disparities between Chinese and western law systems lay in the degree of severity and the types of punishments. These reforms would bring China more in line with prevailing practices in the West and enable it to follow in Japan's footsteps towards the abolition of extraterritorial privileges for foreigners.1
Their second memorial followed recommendations made in 1902 by Zhang Zhidong and Liu Kunyi in advocating the complete renunciation of the use of torture in the judicial process and the abolishing of corporal punishments in favor of fines and sentences in workhouses or rehabilitation centers (xiyisuo). The rationales for these humanizing reforms were, as in the first memorial, the emphasis upon compassion in governance and the need to introduce these changes so as to eventually end extraterritoriality. They recognized that the mere issuance of an edict would not suffice to transform the judicial system. Hence they advocated that provincial officials establish modern police agencies to take over investigative functions. With police collecting evidence proving guilt or innocence, the need to use torture to extract confessions would be avoided. They also proposed that a system of workhouses be established throughout the Empire. (Wu and Shen subsequently elaborated on how to avoid corporal punishment in sentencing robbers.)5
3. DHL 5:5325–28.
4. Ibid.
5. Ibid., pp. 5328–32; 5342–43.
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Their third memorial of 24 April proposed establishing law curriculum at the regional and national level to provide trained personnel to staff the courts. At the national level, there should be a law academy patterned after Japan's leading institution, with recruitment by examination. At the regional level law should be included in the new educational curriculum being developed by the Ministry of Education. Clearly, the purpose of the latter was to train a body of modern legal specialists who, as we shall note below, were seen by Wu and Shen as an essential part of the reformed judicial process.
These proposals received enthusiastic support from the Qing Court. In an edict of 25 April, the Empress Dowager ordered the abolition of the cruel punishments Wu and Shen had specified and forbade the use of torture by officials. As for the third memorial, the head of the Ministry of Education, Sun Jia'nai, was ordered to consult and report on it, and his report was favorable as well.7 On 6 May a compiler of the Hanlin Academy, Wu Yinpei, memorialized in support of the proposals and urged that the system of police and reformatories developed in Zhili by Yuan Shikai be used as a model by other provincial officials in implementing the reforms. His proposal too received clear endorsement from the Throne. 8
Even those who opposed the new measures raised more questions concerning the step-by-step method Wu and Shen employed rather than the principle of leniency itself. A censor, Liu Pengnian, noted that foreign nations did not employ torture to obtain confessions because they had police forces and fully developed judicial processes that included the use of lawyers and juries. He expressed concern that unscrupulous people would try to take advantage of the new system, leading to a great backlog of unsolved cases, unsolved because without using torture to obtain confessions the magistrate's hands would be tied. He proposed that China should draft procedural and penal codes first, making a sharp distinction between civil and penal offenses (which did not exist in the Qing code), and retain the use of torture in penal cases.9
Wu's response to Liu was heated and emotional. He cited his personal experience abroad and work in the Hong Kong police court to indicate that he did not think Chinese were any different from Westerners (same blood and qi) and if the system worked in Hong Kong without producing a large backlog of unsolved cases, it could work in China too. In view of the social evils that the use of torture produced, in the form of the common people's fear of the yamen and the ease with which the yamen's personnel could abuse their power for improper ends, Wu felt that it was imperative to abolish all use of torture. 10
6. Ibid., pp. 5383–84; Zhang Cunwu, “Qingmo zhengzhi gaige yundong zhong de Wu Tingfang," p. 945.
7. DHL 5:5383–84.
8. Ibid., pp. 5338, 5339. On Yuan's police reforms see MacKinnon, Power and Politics, pp. 151–63; Li Zongyi, Yuan Shikai zhuan, pp. 123–25.
9. DHL 5:5356-59.
10. Ibid.
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A recent study of the subject by Bernard Hung-kay Luk concludes that Liu's comments were "reasonably well-informed and realistic," differing from Wu only in tactics rather than principle, and Wu's response was “somewhat emotional and personal." Since Liu proposed retaining torture for penal cases the differences with Wu were not merely tactical; Wu wanted to see the total abolition of torture in the judicial process. As Zhang Cunwu's study points out, Wu's angry response indicates his fear that Liu's objections could have nipped the entire project in the bud and therefore required his strenuous objections. This analysis makes sense. One may argue that Wu overreacted to Liu's criticism, but if so that is a measure of his strong feelings on the subject of the use of torture, his fear that the reforms would prove impossible to implement, and concern for the long-range prospects for the recovery of sovereignty in the treaty ports.11
A second critic, a censor named Qian Nengxun, also raised concerns that the Chinese people were not ready for these changes and would subvert the intent of the new system. He thought it would be better to retain the use of torture until the police and prison system were all in place. He too advocated the separation of civil and criminal process. Both the Bureau of Government Affairs and the Board of Punishment issued strongly worded memorials opposing Qian's views, another indication of the Court's full support for the reform measures.
12
There is more evidence that the Court made a determined effort to make sure that the new system was used. In July and August 1905 two officials were impeached for employing torture, and on 15 October Wu asked for, and received, another Imperial edict sternly warning officials not to evade the new regulations.13
Still more encouragement was received in fall 1905. The Court approved Wu and Shen's plan to dispatch two secretaries, Dong Kang and Wang Shouxun, to Japan to thoroughly research Japan's law reforms. This was evidence of what was to become the marked influence of the Continental code and the Japanese experience in the second phase of the Chinese law reform movement.
14
Also in fall 1905, Wu and Shen moved to implement proposals that Wu and Lu Haihuan had made in 1903 concerning the Shanghai Mixed Court. While Wu was Co-Commissioner in charge of the commercial treaties with Lu, the two of them had proposed, in response to the Su Bao Case, that a set of regulations be drawn up for the Chinese magistrate on the Mixed Court providing similar procedures and sentences as those used by the foreign judges. At that time as well as in 1905 Wu viewed this as the first step towards
11. Bernard Hung-kay Luk, “A Hong Kong Barrister in Late-Ch'ing Law Reform,” Hong Kong Law Journal 11, no. 3 (Sept. 1981): 347; Zhang Cunwu, “Qingmo zhengzhi gaige yundong zhong de Wu Tingfang," p. 948.
12. DHL 5:5360–62; 5362–64.
13. Ibid., pp. 5367, 5385, 5413-14.
14. Ibid., pp. 5412-13.
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the restoration of China's sovereignty in Shanghai. In 1905 he and Shen spelled out their vision that the Shanghai Mixed Court judicial structure could serve as a model for the rest of the nation to eventually employ. The new regulations were drawn up and Zhou Fu, Governor-General of Jiangsu and Jiangxi, was ordered to implement the changes. All of these were important changes. 15
As positive as the response of the Court and high officials was, the foreign response, especially that of the British, was not terribly encouraging. The diplomats and journalists duly noted the memorials and edicts and expressed skepticism as to the ability of the Court to enforce them. The end of extraterritoriality did not even occur to them. It did to Sir Robert Hart, who wrote to his subordinate that Wu's efforts were “a real success and will be followed by other ameliorations, but it is still a long, long way to extraterritoriality." What may have been possible in 1870 or 1880 (and that is debatable) was clearly out of the question for the foreign powers by 1905. On the other hand, Wu did not view these changes as ends in themselves and understood that restoration of sovereignty hinged upon many factors, of which the key one was law reform.16
In spite of the relative disinterest on the part of the western diplomats in Wu and Shen's efforts, the positive response from the Court and the majority of high officials was most encouraging to Wu. Although he was ill and probably very disheartened by his transfer out of the Waiwu Bu, he persevered to finish up what he viewed as his most important project, the Draft Procedural Code, which was submitted and commented upon one week before his resignation.
The Draft Procedural Code was an extraordinary document reflecting Wu's training in, and admiration of, British legal traditions. The Code represented a sharp departure from many Chinese institutional practices. Composed of 260 articles divided into five sections, its main innovations were the use of lawyers and the concept of trial by jury. Its main features may be summarized as follows.17
Civil and penal cases were separated. In general, there was to be a strict time limit set for litigation. The judges had the right to seclude themselves from public attention, and the court personnel was to be trained in the new system, not carried over from the old yamen system. Wu wanted a clean sweep. Trials were to be open, and defendants were entitled to stand rather than kneel before the judge. There was to be no punishment of relatives or tattooing, no corporal punishment, and no torture or verbal threats employed against defendants or witnesses.
15. Ibid., pp. 5413–14; 5459; 5463–64.
16. Hart to Campbell, 30 Apr. 1905, Hart, The I.G. in Peking, p. 2823; Satow to Lansdowne, 25 April., no. 137; 4 May 1905, no. 162, FO 17/1671. The NCH of 28 Apr. 1905, p. 210 carried a letter from "Sympatica” complaining that Westerners had not given the law reforms due notice nor acknowledged sufficiently Wu's role in them.
17. I have not personally examined the Draft Procedural Code. My account is based on summaries by Bernard Luk, “A Hong Kong Barrister," and Zhang Cunwu, “Qingmo zhengzhi gaige yundong zhong de Wu Tingfang.”
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In penal cases, the code specified under what circumstances a suspect could be arrested. Police had to have search warrants and in other ways had their power strictly delimited by the law. A suspect could be held for twenty- four hours before appearing before the judge and charged. This time period could be extended to seven days if necessary, and renewed for a maximum of ten times, totaling a maximum of seventy-one days in which a suspect could be held before being charged. If not charged within this period, the suspect had to be released. Bail was to be granted except for serious crimes. Accused had the right to see and have counsel cross-examine their accusers in court.
In civil and criminal cases alike lawyers were part of the judicial system. Their rights and behavioral standards were outlined in the code. Regulations involving the selection of a jury were similarly outlined. Regulations concerning testimony of witnesses were detailed. (It is worth noting that the testimony of wives was permitted in inheritance cases.) Procedures for appeal were spelled
out.
Finally, in cases involving Chinese and foreigners, where the foreigner had no consul to represent him or treaty relations with China, then he was to be tried by Chinese law. If a foreigner were to accuse a Chinese in a penal suit, the Chinese should be tried by Chinese law as if it were an ordinary suit involving only Chinese.
Bernard Luk has described this draft as "an English island in a stream of Japanese-style revisions," one that "with only slight exaggeration be called an English trial grafted onto the existing Chinese district magistrate's court.” There was no formal prosecuting structure nor mechanism for pre-trial examination. Luk concludes that "it is not clear how it was expected to work if it had been adopted."18
This, it seems to me, is a rather harsh judgement. Wu and Shen did not expect that this system could be immediately implemented, recognizing that it depended upon the development of a legal profession, a process that could not occur overnight, and upon the dissemination of information about this new system to those likely to form part of a jury selection pool. Rather I think they viewed it as an ideal to work towards, and it is clear that the ideal was that of the British system of justice. It was a code that, as Zhang Cunwu argues, upheld civil rights against the arbitrary exercise of power by police and judges, a feature far more marked in the Anglo-Saxon system of justice than in the Continental system. It is quite true that this represented a radical departure from Chinese legal traditions and helps to explain why the Qing ultimately opted for the Continental structure rather than the Anglo-Saxon mode. 19
Luk raises the question of why Wu "unrealistically" sought to have this law implemented and concludes that perhaps his Hong Kong experience had distorted his perceptions. Hong Kong as a “laboratory for an experiment
18. Bernard Luk, “A Hong Kong Barrister,” pp. 340, 352.
19. Zhang Cunwu, “Qingmo zhengzhi gaige yundong zhong de Wu Tingfang," p. 952.
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involving a British model in a Chinese community" meant that, according to Luk, the same model could not work outside of laboratory conditions.20
Realistic or not, Wu was deeply committed to these concepts of judicial administration and persisted in them even though the majority of his countrymen rejected them. Later as the first Minister of Justice under the Republic he tried to implement the same principles and met with similar lack of success, but it appears that these failures did not diminish his feeling that the British system of justice constituted the best in the world and that ultimately China would adopt it.21
Anticipating a strong reaction to the Draft Procedural Code from traditionalists, Wu and Shen tried to argue that it did not impinge upon the essence of China's cultural traditions. They did this by using the ti/yong, or essence/function dichotomy familiar to nineteenth century reformers and popularized by Zhang Zhidong. Thus their memorial argued that “penal law is the essence (ti) and procedural law is the function (yong)." Wu was arguing that one could alter the judicial structure without touching the major body of substantive law and thereby leave untouched the "common law” of Confucian familial relationships. I think this may have been more than a tactic; it reflected Wu's belief that one could separate the two and that it should be possible to selectively preserve key features in China's social system while making judicial reforms so as to recover China's lost sovereignty in the treaty ports.22
The Court was not convinced, however. Its response was an edict calling upon provincial officials to study the draft law to see whether or not it could be implemented. This was a far cry from the enthusiastic endorsement of the spring 1905 reform proposals. Wu resigned immediately, believing that his work was substantially over. He confidentially told a foreign friend that his work over, he preferred to resign rather than face the political storms sure to occur when the Empress Dowager died.23
Over the next year responses from the provinces drifted slowly back to Beijing, all questioning the desirability and practicality of the code. Most damaging was the criticism of Zhang Zhidong. In a lengthy and heated memorial Zhang charged that the procedural code went against China's traditions in a fundamental way and would undermine the code of familial authority that constituted the core of the Chinese polity. Zhang also argued, speciously, that law reform by itself would not lead to the restoration of sovereignty in the treaty ports unless China were a strong and powerful nation. The fury of Zhang's attack leads one to conclude that his opposition was not merely to the Draft Procedural Code per se but to the entire
20. Bernard Luk, “A Hong Kong Barrister,” p. 354.
21. See Chap. 7, pp. 227–28.
22. DHL 5:5504-6.
23. Pearl, Morrison of Peking, p. 173.
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enterprise of law reform based on Anglo-American legal principles.24 But by the time Zhang and the other voices in the chorus of disapproval had rolled in from the provinces, Wu had long since left Beijing.
Retirement and Last Service, 1906–1909
On 12 May 1906, one week after receiving the Court's lukewarm response to the Draft Procedural Code, Wu asked for, and received, permission to repair his ancestral graves in Xinhui, Guangdong. He left Beijing immediately and soon after submitted a long memorial requesting permission to permanently resign, claiming that the injuries he had sustained in the bomb explosion in September 1905 had left him permanently weakened.25
That there were other reasons for Wu's resignation were obvious to all observers. His gradual loss of influence in the Waiwu Bu has been recounted above, and the move to the Xing Bu had the quality of a demotion to it. Wu was not happy in that situation, especially as Shen Jiaben was reported to refer to Wu as "that foreign devil," but Wu waited until finishing the Draft Procedural Code before resigning. As a "prominent" Chinese official told W. W. Rockhill, Wu “had not come up to the expectations of the Peking Government," and would not be returning. This reflected Wu's estrangement from the centers of power under the Qing.26
After staying in his Shanghai home for a while, Wu visited Guangdong Province, presumably to take care of his family graves. He stayed for some time in the Guangzhou-Hong Kong area, engaging in some philanthropic pursuits and fitting the time-honored mould of the retired official. Wu's major semi-official activities during this period occurred in spring 1907 when Zhou Fu, his old associate from Li Hongzhang's mufu, arranged for Wu to be appointed Director-General of the commercial company in charge of the Guangdong portion of the Yue-Han Railway. Wu's appointment, together with that of the Singapore millionaire Zhang Bishi, represented Zhou Fu's effort to resolve the disputes that had arisen between the shareholders and the previous Governor-General, Cen Chunxuan, when Cen had tried to place the railway company under official control. Zhou hoped that Wu and Zhang Bishi would be acceptable to the shareholders while at the same time enable Zhou to maintain some measure of supervision over the company's affairs.2
27
In spite of this appointment (and there is some question about whether Wu accepted it), Wu's career under the Qing certainly seemed at an end, the
24. Zhang's memorial is summarized in DHL 5:5732-34. See also M. J. Meijer, The Introduction of Modern Criminal Law in China, 2d ed. (Hong Kong: Lung Men, 1967), pp. 79–100.
25. Shilu 558:5121b. Wu's memorial is translated by E. T. Williams. See Chapter 5, n. 65. 26. On "foreign devil," see E. T. William's note on the translation of Wu's memorial, cited in Chapter 5, n. 65. On the “prominent Chinese” see Rockhill to Root, 13 June 1906, no. 326, “MCD.” 27. Shilu 571:5230b-31a. Lee En-han, China's Quest for Railway Autonomy, pp. 103-6; Godley, Mandarin-Capitalists from Nanyang, pp. 156–57; Rhoads, China's Republican Revolution, pp. 91–94.
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combined result of advanced age (he was sixty-five years old in 1907) and disillusionment. In September 1907, however, Wu was appointed once again to the position of Minister to the United States, Mexico, Peru and Cuba. Declining at first, Wu accepted before long. 28
Wu's appointment coincided with the rise of Yuan Shikai to a position of paramount influence in the Beijing Government. On 4 September 1907 Yuan was appointed to the Grand Council and concurrently to the position of President of the Waiwu Bu as a mark of Cixi's great esteem for him. In spring 1907 Yuan and his ally, Prince Qing, had been subjected to a concerted attack spearheaded by Qu Hongji, a Grand Councillor and President of the Waiwu Bu, and Cen Chunxuan, whose most recent appointment was as Governor-General of Guangdong and Guangxi. By summer, their attempt to unseat Yuan had failed although sporadic attacks continued through the summer.29
One of Yuan's first acts as President of the Waiwu Bu was to appoint Wu to the post of Minister to the U.S., etc., to replace Liang Cheng, whose term of office had since expired. But surprisingly the United States balked at Wu's appointment and actually considered refusing to accept it. The circumstances surrounding these events were as follows: In May 1907 the United States had been informed by the Waiwu Bu, headed by Yuan's enemy Qu Hongji, that Liang Dunyan was slated for the post. This coincided with the Qu-Cen attack on Yuan Shikai, for Liang, a returned student from the U.S. who had previously served as Zhang Zhidong's secretary, was an indispensable figure in Yuan Shikai's Zhili administration as Customs Daotai for Tianjin. Dispatching Liang Dunyan to the United States would be a severe blow to Yuan's position. Unaware that Liang Dunyan's appointment represented an attack on Yuan, the U.S. officials were merely pleased to have someone who was obviously in an influential position appointed to the Washington post. Suddenly, in September 1907, the U.S. was informed that Liang was to be appointed Junior Vice-President in the Waiwu Bu, while Liang Cheng, who had been rumored to be slated for that post, was to be Director-General of the Guangdong portion of the Yue-Han Railway Company, while Wu Tingfang was to go to Washington as Minister.30
This news was received with some dismay in the State Department. The U.S. opposition to Wu within the State Department was headed by Huntington Wilson, third assistant secretary, who believed that Wu did not command enough political influence in China either with the Court or with the so- called "Cantonese clique" or Communications clique headed by Liang Shiyi. Therefore Wilson maintained that Wu's appointment should be rejected as
28. Shilu 578:5293a.
29. MacKinnon, Power and Politics, pp. 79–89.
30. Charles Denby, Jr., to Asst. Secretary of State, 18 Nov. 1907, Case 5971 (U.S. National Archives); Waiwu Bu to Rockhill, 4 May 1907, ibid. On Liang Dunyan see Yang Jialuo, Minguo mingren 11:38; Bays, China Enters the Twentieth Century, pp. 188–89.
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reflecting poorly on U.S. prestige. W. W. Rockhill, then on leave in Europe, was cabled to ask if Wu's appointment was unfavorable to American prestige or in any other way objectionable, and if reasons could be substantiated for possible rejection. We have already noted Rockhill's hostility to Wu at several points above. Although Rockhill mistakenly believed Wu lacked influence with the Court or with Yuan Shikai, he replied that he did not think it was possible to substantiate reasons for rejection.31
The U.S. chargé d'affaires in Beijing informally sounded out Natong, Senior Vice-President in the Waiwu Bu, and was rebuffed. Wilson, meanwhile, was trying to marshal evidence with which to reject Wu. J. W. Foster and ex- Senator Henry Cabot Lodge, solicited by Wilson, wrote that they considered Wu a "blackmailer,” but did not elaborate.32 I strongly suspect that their bitterness concerned Wu's role in the boycott movement and in the abortive Yue-Han concession, and may be seen as reflecting the continued feeling of the America China Development Company's investors that Wu was to blame for the cancellation of its concession. That their objections had little substance is indicated by the fact that Theodore Roosevelt chose to ignore them and to accept Wu:
My feeling would be strongly that we ought not to object to Wu. He is a bad old Chink [sic] and if he had his way he would put us all to the heavy death or do something equally unpleasant with us; . . . [but] I do not object to any Chinaman showing a feeling that he would like to retaliate now and then for our insolence to the Chinese.33
And that was as much of a nod as Theodore Roosevelt was willing to grant Chinese nationalism, and in its curious way it is a mark of respect for Wu.
As Michael H. Hunt notes in his study of Sino-American relations involving Manchuria, the hostile attitude of Wilson, Rockhill and others revealed "the way misinformation and prejudice influenced discussions of Chinese affairs in the State Department." Wu was well suited to the post in view of his previous experience and positions, and his appointment in fact indicated a measure of political influence with Yuan Shikai, who was definitely the key figure in Beijing by that time. The hostility of the American officials is partially understandable if one views Wu as a scapegoat for the various nationalistic policies that the U.S. found objectionable.3
34
31. Hunt, Frontier Defense and the Open Door, pp. 167–69.
32. Loeb to Adee (confidential) 29 Sept. 1907, encl. nos. 10-14, Case 5971 (U.S. National Archives). When I examined these materials, the enclosures of clippings and other materials provided by Foster and Lodge were missing, and so I have been unable to personally see them. 33. Roosevelt to Root, 26 Sept. 1907, Roosevelt, Papers, cited in Hunt, Frontier Defense and the Open Door, p. 168. See Warren I. Cohen, America's Response to China, p. 76, where TR's comment is seen as evidence that he approved of Chinese nationalism.
34. Hunt, Frontier Defense and the Open Door, p. 169.
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Had Yuan realized the degree of hostility towards Wu among U.S. officials and the degree to which Qu Hongji had contributed to that hostility by speaking against Wu to U.S. and British diplomats, it is debatable whether he would have made the appointment. Michael H. Hunt may be correct in observing that Wu's appointment "put a cloud" over Yuan's efforts to obtain U.S. assistance in limiting Japan's role in southern Manchuria; on the other hand it is impossible to prove that Liang Dunyan's appointment would have made a difference in the long run.
35
As part of Yuan's policy of seeking U.S. support in Manchuria, Wu negotiated a Sino-American Treaty of Arbitration, which was signed by him as plenipotentiary in January 1909 and ratified the following month.36 But Yuan's efforts were largely unsuccessful. In September 1908 Yuan's trusted subordinate Tang Shaoyi was deputed as special ambassador to the U.S. for the purpose of thanking the U.S. for the return of its share of the Boxer Indemnity funds. Although this was the publicly stated purpose of Tang's mission, he and Yuan hoped to involve the U.S. in a major rail and banking project in Manchuria using the returned Boxer funds as collateral. That the U.S. was uninterested in this or any other project of the sort was underscored by the fact that Secretary of State Elihu Root came to a “gentleman's agreement" with Japan (the Root-Takahira Agreement) acknowledging southern Manchuria as within Japan's sphere of influence and by the fact that this agreement was made public just as Tang arrived in the U.S.37
Except for the Arbitration Treaty, Wu's first year in Washington was less active diplomatically than was true of his first term in the U.S. W. W. Yen (Yan Huiqing, 1877-1950) has left us a charming account of the less official aspects of Wu's second term in the U.S. Yen served as Wu's Second Secretary of Legation. According to Yen, life for staff and servants in the large Legation at the corner of 19th and U Streets in the capital was like life in a big Chinese family, as living quarters were combined with office space. Other than a formal reception at which Wu presented his credentials to Theodore Roosevelt, there was only one other function at the White House before the Guangxu Emperor and the Empress Dowager died in November 1908 and the Legation went into a formal mourning period that was supposed to last for three years.
38
The formal mourning did not prevent Wu from accepting numerous speaking engagements outside of Washington. Yen drafted many of Wu's speeches and accompanied him on many trips, hitting the road to speak at university commencement exercises and to various special interest groups about China's progress and the need for fair treatment. Of special note were
35. Ibid.
36. Qingji waijiao shiliao XT [Xuantong]:1:21.
37. Hunt, Frontier Defense and the Open Door, pp. 170-78.
38. W. W. Yen [Yan Huiqing], East-West Kaleidoscope, 1877–1946: An Autobiography (New York: St. John's Press, 1974), pp. 40-44.
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Wu's speeches to several groups in the health food and vegetarian circuit. (Wu also was asked to write a piece for the Ladies' Home Journal about his views on diet and hygiene. Entitled "How I Expect To Live Long,” it was published in November 1909 on the eve of his departure from the U.S.)39
Wu may have had more success with the U.S. public than with his immediate family on vegetarianism. About Wu's vegetarianism, Yen wrote that the staff eluded Wu's urgings to follow his path by saying that when his immediate family did, they would too. Wu had a fixed daily routine, arising early, running up and down a small hill several times, and then working until about ten a.m. each day before the first of his two daily meals. About Wu's personality, Yen wrote:
In spite of his age, he was very active. Full of fun and humor and extremely good-natured, he was endowed with a strong personal magnetism, so that even strangers would be attracted to him and listen with pleasure to his conversation. This was partly due to his Chinese costume and his dignified appearance, and partly to his mannerisms, learned from his old patron, the Viceroy Li Hung-chang.
40
As noted earlier, the Guangxu Emperor and the Empress Dowager died in November 1908. Their deaths set in motion a train of events leading to Yuan Shikai's forced resignation from his posts on 2 January 1909. The Imperial deaths sealed the fate of Tang Shaoyi's mission as he too went into formal mourning and then departed from the U.S. for a leisurely return to China via Europe. As Yuan's appointee, Wu's position was similarly uncertain, but Wu continued with the plans he had underway for a major Latin American tour to Peru, Mexico and Cuba. His Latin American trips were experiences that left a deep impression on him.
Wu left Washington on 21 May 1909 en route to Peru and arrived in Panama four days later. During a ten-day stay in Panama, Wu saw the Panamanian President and had lengthy visits with the Chinese community. He subsequently memorialized to establish diplomatic relations with Panama as soon as possible. He reasoned that large numbers of Chinese laborers had been brought to Panama to construct the Panama Canal and it was possible that difficulties might arise with the local population at some point in the future; hence it would be wise to have a consulate there to assist the Chinese. Also, given the large U.S. interest in Panama it was quite likely that it would be annexed by the U.S. as Hawaii had been earlier, and if this were to transpire, China would be in a better position to resist the extension of the U.S. Chinese Exclusion Laws to Panama if it had already negotiated a treaty with Panama first. The Waiwu Bu approved Wu's plan and by the beginning of 1910 plans were in motion to establish a Chinese consulate in Panama.1
39. Ibid., p. 45. Wu, “How I Expect to Live Long,” p. 17.
40. W. W. Yen, East-West Kaleidoscope, pp. 45, 48–49.
41. Qingji waijiao shiliao XT:9–17–18; 12:22–23; for a survey of Wu's policies on behalf of Chinese in Latin America see Zhang Cunwu, "Wu Tingfang shiMeishi dui Zhong Nan Mei de waijiao yu huqiao," Si yu yan 13, no. 1 (May 1975): 28-36.
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On 15 June 1909 Wu departed by ship from Panama for Peru, with stops at various South American ports along the way. At all these stops overseas Chinese greeted the ship, and upon arriving in Callao, Lima's port, Wu was given a tumultuous reception by the Peruvian Chinese. Several weeks before Wu's arrival there had been a major anti-Chinese riot in Lima, and in its aftermath the Peruvian Government had imposed new regulations governing Chinese immigration. These were designed to stop the daily flow of new arrivals. Wu immediately plunged into negotiations with the Peruvian Foreign Ministry and then directly with the Peruvian President in an effort to protect the interests of the Peruvian Chinese, but found himself in conflict with the Waiwu Bu as to tactics.
Wu thought the chances of obtaining a good treaty would be stronger if it were to have a supplementary agreement limiting it to a ten-year period. If neither side had any objections at that time it could continue in force for another ten years, when it would come up for review yet again. He asked the Waiwu Bu for permission to negotiate this type of treaty, using as a model a treaty negotiated earlier that year with Canada. Wu also cited the example of the Anglo-Japanese alliance of 1902 which had a ten-year limit. The Waiwu Bu, however, rejected Wu's proposal, maintaining that it represented a bad precedent. Instead it proposed that China simply agree to a self-imposed restriction on Chinese immigration to Peru. Wu must have been displeased with these instructions as they represented a considerably less effective approach than his, and one bound to conflict with his nationalistic outlook as well as with that of the Chinese in Peru and neighboring Chile. (The Chinese community in Chile had earlier that year requested that a Chinese warship be dispatched to Chilean waters in a show of force and had requested their government's protection in the face of rising anti-Chinese sentiment.) The Waiwu Bu's advice was unrealistic and did not address the needs of the Chinese communities in Latin America.42
In spite of these instructions, Wu continued directing negotiations for a Sino-Peruvian treaty. These proved difficult, but Wu was prepared to wait in Lima until he could negotiate a treaty acceptable to the Peruvian Chinese. He took time out to tour Peru, and found himself feeling not a small amount of national pride upon taking a train ride high into the Andes and finding Cantonese peasants firmly implanted in those heights. But the differences that revealed themselves in the Waiwu Bu's instructions were to become even greater: while the treaty negotiations were still underway on 13 August Wu was shocked to receive an Imperial edict recalling him to Beijing!43
The reasons for Wu's early recall are not clear but probably reflect Yuan Shikai's fall from power. On 18 May, before Wu had left for South America, the Waiwu Bu had very confidentially informed W. W. Rockhill that it planned
42. On the treaty, see Qingji waijiao shiliao XT:5:42, 43. On the requests of the Chinese in Chile, see ibid. 3:32–33; 4:17–18.
43. Shilu XT:16:26a.
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to recall Wu in the near future and inquired whether Zhang Yintang would be acceptable. The U.S. eventually did reply that Zhang would be acceptable, but apparently Wu was not informed of these discussions. Most likely Wu's recall was related to the fall of Yuan Shikai in January 1909. Wu had been Yuan's appointee, and the Regent, with his bitter hatred of Yuan, most likely wanted a clean slate. But the timing of the recall was an embarrassment to Wu and to China. Wu hastily wound up negotiations and presented a draft treaty to the Waiwu Bu in which some of the onerous legislation was modified, but Wu felt he could have achieved better results if he had not been recalled. In 1916 he gave an interview to the Shanghai Times in which he recounted his disgust with the Qing Government's ineptness in recalling him while he was in the midst of negotiations.44
By mid-September Wu was back in Washington but only to catch his breath before departing on a trip to Mexico and Cuba. On 22 October he left by train for Mexico, the trip's purpose being to express thanks for the Mexican Government's condolences upon the deaths of the Guangxu Emperor and the Empress Dowager. Wu had negotiated China's first treaty with Mexico in 1898 (China's first modern equal treaty) but had never had the opportunity to visit that country; he very much wanted a chance to do so before leaving office.45
Again, W. W. Yen has left us a personal account of this trip. They were given a wonderful reception in Mexico by President Diaz, complete with special audience and official banquet. The envoys were colorfully dressed in costumes that were technically incorrect but very vivid, and Yen himself refused to bother with queue and official dress. “Quite irregular,” but Wu did not object. Upon departing the Mexican capital they were given a military escort to Veracruz and toasted with champagne upon their departure, with Wu "muttering softly, 'poison, poison.”” In Cuba they were given a large reception by the Cuban Government and by the Cuban Chinese, with the band striking up what was supposed to be the Chinese national anthem—actually a Cantonese folk
song.
46
By mid-November Wu was back in Washington preparing to depart. Among his final official acts were three memorials. The first reported that an agreement had been reached on reparations to the Peruvian Chinese merchants for damages sustained in the April riots. Wu's second memorial also reflected his recent travels in Latin America. As Chinese had settled in several Latin American countries in substantial numbers, they required their own diplomatic representatives for protection. Hence Wu's memorial requested that the Waiwu Bu establish diplomatic relations with many Latin
44. Shanghai Times of 24 Nov. 1916, encl. in Sammons to Secretary of State, 24 Nov. 1916 (U.S. National Archives), 893.00/2552. For the draft treaty see Qingji waijiao shiliao XT:8:7–15, 20-26; 9:15– 17, 10:37-39.
45. On Wu's role in Sino-Mexican relations see Sha Ding and Yang Dianqiu, “Zhongguo yu Moxige de shouci li de jianjiao ji qi yingxiang,” Lishi yanjiu, 1981, no. 6: 181–89.
46. W. W. Yen, East-West Kaleidoscope, pp. 46–48.
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American nations.47 Wu's third memorial was a request for an edict abolishing the queue, which will be discussed in the next section.
On 20 December 1909 Wu formally transferred the seal of office to Zhang Yintang. He leisurely left the United States, returning to China via England, where he and Li Jingfang, Minister to the Court of St. James (and Li Hongzhang's adopted son) were honored guests at a banquet of the Author's Club.48 Wu arrived in Shanghai in spring 1910 amidst much speculation about possible positions awaiting him. Wu, however, was uninterested in further service to the Qing and instead settled into retirement, once again, in Shanghai.49
Prelude to Revolution, 1910-1911
At home in Shanghai, Wu Tingfang became a part of the city's propertied elite, an amalgam of businessmen, members of the new professions, teachers, literati and officials, some like Wu living in retirement. The elite's strength was indicated by the vigor of its main administrative organ, the Shanghai General Chamber of Commerce, and in 1911 by the formation of its militia force, the Shanghai Merchants' Volunteer Corps Association.50
As a retired metropolitan level official, Wu was quite prominent. He devoted time and attention to the International Institute, an organization earlier formed by Gilbert Reid dedicated to the goal of increased mutual understanding between Chinese and Westerners. While in the U.S. Wu had raised substantial funds for the Institute, the most famous donor being Andrew Carnegie (Wu's “fellow student of Confucius”). Wu told Carnegie that a gift to the International Institute would make his name widely known and perpetuated in China. Carnegie replied that he did not want his name perpetuated in China, but donated $3,000 to the Institute. The Institute's brochure in 1911 had Wu's portrait on its cover and a prominent statement of his within lauding its work.51
Much of Wu's first year back in China was devoted to his campaign to get the Qing Court to issue an edict abolishing the queue. His first memorial on the subject had been written during his last days in the U.S. In it he wrote that many overseas Chinese, including those he had most recently met with
47. On the reparations, see Qingji waijiao shiliao XT:10:39. On establishing relations with other Latin American nations see ibid. 11:29–30.
48. NCH 15 Feb. 1910, p. 407.
49. The rumors were of appointments as tutor to the Xuantong Emperor, various diplomatic posts, and positions in the Waiwu Bu.
50. See articles by Zhang Kaiyuan and Ding Richu cited in Chapter 5, n. 1. On the Volunteer Corps see also Shen Weibin and Yang Liqiang, “Shanghai shangtuan yu Xinhai Geming,” Lishi yanjiu, 1980, no. 3: 67–72.
51. National Review 10, no. 4 (1 July 1911); NCH, 20 May, p. 491; 1 July 1911, p. 100. Brochure enclosed in no. 497, 22 Aug. 1911, FO 371/1092.
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during his Latin American trip, had expressed their dismay at having to wear a queue. The long braid had become an object of western ridicule as "feminine"; it was inconvenient when working with modern machinery, if not actually dangerous; and it was unhygienic as well. Wu tried to place the issue of the queue in a non-political context by arguing that it had nothing to do with political loyalty to the Qing. Wu felt that it was a hair style that was not suited to life in the modern world, and in fact many overseas Chinese dealt with the issue by coiling the braid up on top of their heads and covering it with a cap. Not only did overseas Chinese find it a nuisance, wrote Wu, but also many Chinese in China proper too. It was a symbol of something that was best left to China's past as it entered the modern world; its abolition would be a declaration of China's intention to continue its reforms and transform itself into a modern nation like Japan.
52
Wu's memorial made a sharp distinction between the queue, which he wanted to abolish, and the question of dress styles. Wu was quite distressed by the abandonment of Chinese clothing for western styles and felt that Chinese styles were far more comfortable and suitable than western fashions. If it was necessary to wear western style clothes when dealing with Westerners or when traveling abroad, then so be it; but Chinese dress should be retained for other occasions, as the Japanese did. He thought it would be a mistake to abandon China's clothes for the bizarre and unnatural “tyranny of fashion" that prevailed in the West.53
In this critique Wu was following many of the arguments made by Kellogg and the other social purity reformers in the U.S. (see Chapter 4), but it also suggests that Wu was concerned with the issue of westernization and sought to draw the line at questions of life-style as symbolized by dress. Wu was afraid that many Chinese would indiscriminately adopt all that the West had to offer; Wu wanted a more selective type of westernization based on deeper knowledge of the West.
In addition to the question of westernization, Wu was also concerned about repercussions for China's native silk industry if Chinese began to use western clothes in an indiscriminate manner. He himself experimented with using silk clothes in new styles, but apparently without success.54
Wu felt so strongly about the question of western clothing that in 1913 he formed a society to oppose western dress and vigorously protested to President Yuan Shikai about the Parliament's decision to adopt formal western attire. He proposed instead that the Parliament's costume be two outfits of modified traditional pants and jackets, one in Chinese manufactured silk for winter and one in Chinese cotton for summer.55
52. I have only seen the translation of Wu's memorial in NCH, 5 Aug. 1910, p. 309.
53. The term is from Wu's America Through the Spectacles, p. 79. See also his Yanshou xinfa, pp. 21b- 22a.
54. Carl Crow, China Takes Her Place (New York: Harpers, 1944), pp. 125–26.
55. Wu's Minguo tuzhi chuyi, pp. 62–65a.
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Wu's first memorial to abolish the queue and retain Chinese dress was not acted upon by the Qing Court. Accordingly Wu drew up a second, longer memorial on the same subject in July 1910. In this memorial he reiterated the arguments he had presented in the first one and stressed that the opinions in the memorial not only represented his personal views but also those of the majority of Chinese,56
This memorial was similarly shelved but the issue was taken up by the National Assembly when it opened in fall 1910. Amidst politically loaded resolutions calling for the early convening of a Parliament and demanding that Prince Qing be impeached, the National Assembly also dealt with the queue. In response to a petition forwarded to the body from the Beijing Chamber of Commerce by the Ministry of Agriculture and Commerce, the National Assembly passed a resolution in December 1910 calling for the abolition of the queue and recommending changes in dress style. This latter was said to have caused a panic among hatters, clothiers, furriers, silk merchants and those in allied trades.5 57
The decree issued on 21 December discouraged changes in dress style, using Wu's arguments about harm to China's domestic textile industry, and did not mention the queue at all, in spite of the fact that Zaitao, the influential uncle of the infant emperor, advocated cutting the queue. Once again the National Assembly passed a resolution calling for an edict to cut the queue and change dress style, and once again the request was refused. The decree of 30 December read, "Further discussion is useless."58
Having exhausted the avenues of limited constitutionalism, Wu turned to direct action. On 15 January 1911 the Rational Diet Society (of which more later) called a meeting in a popular Shanghai meeting place, Zhang's Gardens, attended by five to six thousand people. Wu personally did not attend (it would have been unseemly) but sent a letter to the assembled group announcing that he had removed his own queue and declaring his support for the meeting. Perhaps as many as one thousand people publicly removed their queues at this meeting. In similar actions throughout the major cities of China in spring 1911, thousands more followed their example.59 Commenting on Wu's activities, the North China Herald wrote that although his proposed reforms could not fail to provoke opposition from the Manchus, Wu “has had the courage of his convictions.”60
While not of such obvious political importance as the queue-cutting movement, Wu's other activities during the period preceding the 1911 revolution are significant. As mentioned above, Wu organized the Rational
56. Reprinted in Dongfang zazhi 7, no. 8 (Sept. 1910): 98–100.
57. Jordan to Grey, 26 Dec. 1910, FO 371/1082.
58. Guo Tingyi, Shishi rizhi, p. 1376.
59. On the queue-cutting movement in Guangdong see Rhoads, China's Republican Revolution, pp. 205-6.
60. NCH, 20 Jan. 1911, p. 123.
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Diet Society (in Chinese, Hygiene Society or Weisheng Hui). The Society was said to have two to three hundred members and met fortnightly in Wu's home for lectures on the dangers of alcohol, tobacco and meat-eating. In 1911 the Society established a vegetarian restaurant in Shanghai that subsequently became well-known for its excellent food. The Society's decision to sponsor the queue-cutting meeting was based on the supposedly hygienic issue that the queue was injurious to health in the modern age. Much as Wu and his fellow vegetarians tried to disassociate themselves from the political and anti-Manchu aspects of the queue-cutting drive, these were apparent to all.61
An offshoot of the Rational Diet Society was the Anti-Cigarette Smoking Society, reorganized in June 1911. The reorganized Society's officers included among some of the most important figures in Shanghai: Chen Zuling, Chair of the Shanghai General Chamber of Commerce, Shen Tunhe, a prominent comprador, and Li Pingshu (1853–1922), head of the Shanghai Self-Governing Bureau and the Shanghai Merchants' Volunteer Corps Association, were all appointed vice-presidents of the society, and a key person was Wen Zongyao, formerly Chinese Resident in Tibet and a leading representative of the Cantonese mercantile community in Shanghai.62
The goal of the Society was, through books, placards and public speaking, to inform the public about the dangers of cigarette smoking to the health and to try to discourage ordinary people from spending their hard earned cash on cigarettes. Wu felt strongly about the dangers of tobacco and devoted a chapter to the subject in his Yanshou xinfa (New methods to prolong life), written in 1914.63
While the question of cigarette smoking was certainly appropriate within the context of hygiene, it is worth noting that as in the case of Chinese versus western clothing, it suggests a concern with the overt manifestations of westernization and a desire to draw the line against westernization of the Chinese life-style. While tobacco had been smoked in China for several centuries, cigarettes were a recent introduction from the United States. The first (American) companies began producing and selling cigarettes in China in 1890, and the quantities consumed rose greatly after 1902 with the establishment of a virtual monopoly by the British American Tobacco Company. Although there were Chinese tobacco manufacturers (the leading firm got its start during the 1905 boycott of American goods), the cigarette was a visible symbol of the West, especially the United States,64
61. Ibid., p. 159; Crow, China Takes Her Place, p. 16; on the restaurant also see NCH, 19 Aug. 1911, p. 477.
62. NCH, 17 June 1911, p. 754.
63. Wu, Yanshou xinfa, chap. 13.
64. Sherman G. Cochran, “Big Business in China: Sino-American Rivalry in the Tobacco Industry, 1890-1930" (Ph.D. diss., Yale University, 1975), chaps. 1–2.
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The anti-cigarette movement was said to have spread widely within a short period of time in summer 1911. According to an account in the North China Herald in August 1911, societies had been formed in many provincial capitals, with thousands of people pledging to abstain from smoking.65
In the long run, of course, the Society was unable to eradicate the use of tobacco or cigarettes from China, but its formation suggests the kinds of issues that "westernized” Chinese such as Wu grappled with: how much, what kinds, and what pace of culture change was appropriate for China. That there were no easy answers then as now is clear.
From May 1911 on a revolutionary situation developed in China over the main issue of nationalization of China's trunk lines, which was heatedly opposed by the shareholders of the major lines, including the Cantonese shareholders in the Yue-Han line. Many propertied Chinese in Shanghai had already been fed up with the Qing after the Court's inept handling of the financial crisis of 1910, and the new issue mobilized many to try to force the Court to pay heed to the new organs of public expression, the Provincial Assemblies and the National Assembly.66
In late September a large rally was held in Shanghai attended by about one thousand Cantonese residents to hear two delegates from the Guangdong Railway Protection Association en route to Beijing to try to lobby against the nationalization scheme. Wu Tingfang was one of the speakers at this rally, in which the main theme was the need for the Court to place all significant issues before the Provincial Assemblies before deciding policy. The meeting did not oppose the nationalization plan per se but announced that approval would be withheld pending discussion by the Provincial or National Assemblies.67 Summing it up later for the participants was Gu Hongming, erudite English scholar born in Singapore and late member of Zhang Zhidong's staff. The issue, said Gu, was whether "the reform of China . shall be decided and monopolized by a few persons who happen to have the Prince Regent's ear and others who are in power; or shall it be carried out by and with the full and free consent of the nation.”68
A few days after the publication of Gu's comments the answer was apparent: a soldiers' mutiny at Wuchang quickly became a signal to local and provincial elites throughout Southern and Central China to establish their independence of the Qing. Revolution was at hand, and with it a new role for Wu.
65. NCH, 19 Aug. 1911, p. 476.
66. On the financial crisis of 1910 see Fan Baichuan, "Ershi shiji chuqi Zhongguo ziben zhuyi fazhan," p. 24. For relevant documents see Marie-Claire Bergere, Une crise financiere a Shanghai a la fin de l'ancien regime (Paris: Mouton, 1964).
67. NCH, 30 Sept. 1911, p. 851. On the Railway Protection Association see Rhoads, China's Republican Revolution, pp. 207–8; Qiu Jie, “Guangdong shangren yu Xinhai Geming,” in Jinian Xinhai Geming qishi zhounian xueshu taolunhui lunwen ji, ed. Zhonghua Shuju bianji bu, pp. 373–78. 68. NCH, 7 Oct. 1911, p. 34.
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In 1914, when he was temporarily retired, Wu set thoughts to paper in his Minguo tuzhi chuyi (Crude thoughts on ways to govern the republic).69 In this work he set forth his views on the need for a strong state tempered with respect for the law and the nurturing of the individual's right to be protected against the arbitrary exercise of power. He wanted a state to promote industrial and commercial development on behalf of the nation and to guard against officials' exploitation of these enterprises for private gain. He hoped to see universal education, using reformed simplified characters, and the training of young Chinese in technical subjects and modern managerial methods. And he was greatly afraid that the leaders of the Republic would be unable and unwilling to implement these ideas, and therefore would be unable to succeed where the Qing had failed.
And why had the Qing failed? Wu was most emphatic in stating that it was not because the leaders had been immoral, chasing after concubines and letting eunuchs bring the nation to ruin, as had happened, so Wu believed, many times in China's history. On the contrary, Dezong was not lazy or immoral, and the Empress Dowager had been an effective ruler as regent. The high level officials were not especially corrupt, and there had been a pretty good record in terms of finding talented personnel.
Rather, failure was due to a state of mind, a conservatism that despised changes and was contemptuous of anything foreign. This attitude prevented the Qing leadership from seeing that modern technology had transformed the world and made China's traditional defenses against foreign aggression outmoded. Men such as Li Bingheng, Xu Tong (1819–1900) and Gangyi (d. 1900) were not corrupt or greedy or lacking in patriotic feelings; they were simply so reactionary and blindly anti-foreign that genuine reform became impossible. (Xu was said to have been so anti-foreign he would not permit messages from the Zongli Yamen to the foreign legations to pass in front of his residence.) We called this primitive or “savage" anti-foreignism to distinguish it from "civilized" anti-foreignism or modern nationalism which sought to establish China's equal place in the family of nations. It is noteworthy that Wu did not single out the Manchus as responsible for China's troubles. Of the three mentioned above, only Gangyi was a Manchu. Wu understood the problem as a problem of Chinese culture and one that Chinese of all ethnic origins were going to have to confront.
Because of the conservative and anti-foreign attitudes of the leadership, its promoting of reforms was only half-hearted and ineffectual. Dezong tried in 1898 in a laudable effort to do what was necessary, but unfortunately his effort was undermined by reactionary officials who slandered the reform effort to the Empress Dowager and caused her to stop it. The later efforts to promote constitutionalism were a sham, and the attempt to nationalize the
69. The following is based on Wu, Minguo tuzhi chuyi, chap. 1.
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railways in the last months of the dynasty was disgraceful, showing that the rulers were not genuinely acting in the interests of the nation (as they should have been) but actually standing in opposition to the economic interests of the modern bourgeoisie, which Wu viewed as the backbone of the modern nation.
Because those above were unable to reform, China could not resist the foreign nations militarily and was saddled with enormous indemnities that sorely pressed the common people and angered the merchantry. As much as anything else, the indemnities were the cause of China's present troubles, making it impossible to generate enough capital in the public or private sector to modernize China's economy without resort to foreign loans. Overseas Chinese who could see the disparity between the wealth of the western nations and the poverty of China became alienated, especially when upon returning to China they could see how inept Qing officialdom was. Thus the Qing had alienated the common people and the merchants; in short it had lost all legitimacy.
What was needed was a clean sweep to get rid of the old outlook of blind conservatism and xenophobia that had led China into its present wretched state. Yes, the Manchus had to go and the monarchy had to go too, but these were not ends in themselves but the necessary precondition for the new beginning Wu felt China needed.
7
Wu Tingfang and the 1911 Revolution
As is well known, the soldiers' uprising at Wuchang that started on 10 October 1911 set in motion a chain of events that led three months later to the abdication of the Qing Emperor and the establishment of a Republic with Yuan Shikai installed in a position of paramount political influence.
Wu Tingfang played an important role in this process. He served as foreign affairs representative for the Shanghai Military Government that was formed following the revolutionary coup in that city on 3 November, then handled foreign affairs on a national level for the revolutionary forces as they groped towards the establishment of a provisional governmental structure in November and December 1911. These accomplishments were followed by his selection as the chief Republican delegate to the North-South peace talks that started in December 1911 and continued in permuted form until the Manchu abdication on 12 February 1912. In January 1912 he was chosen to serve as Minister of Justice in the first cabinet of the Republic formed by Sun Yixian and the Nanjing Provisional Government. In many respects these activities constitute the most politically significant acts of Wu's entire life.
In earlier chapters we traced the development of several themes related to Wu's earlier life. One theme is Wu's emergence as a foreign affairs specialist of bourgeois background and orientation in the late Qing period functioning in a political environment with which he was not entirely compatible. Earlier we explored the ways Wu's marginality led to great ambivalence towards the Qing and eventual estrangement from it. A second theme has been Wu's relationship to the modern urban elite that emerged in Shanghai in the early twentieth century and the ways that his political role in the late Qing reflected the political aspirations of this newly emergent group with its strongly bourgeois composition and flavor.
In many ways the events of 1911 serve as the culmination of these themes. While a member of Li Hongzhang's mufu in the 1880s and 1890s, Wu was often a man out of step with his times whose problems reflected in a broader sense the inability of modern capitalists to fully utilize the mufu structure to fulfill their aspirations, both economic and political.
In the period after the Boxer Uprising, Wu as a foreign affairs specialist. rose to a position of greater power and influence than had ever been possible previously. This too was a reflection of the growing importance of the skills—
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in the broadest sense of the term- -that the modern bourgeoisie could bring to the state. Yet here too, genuine power proved elusive as Wu and other foreign affairs specialists were dependent upon, and subordinate to, figures such as Prince Qing, Yuan Shikai or Zhang Zhidong and could not function independently. I have recounted above how Wu's efforts to implement serious reforms and a more nationalistic foreign policy met with opposition that weakened his political position and led to his growing estrangement from the Qing. This process mirrored the aspirations and frustrations of the modern urban public in the last decade of Qing rule, and in particular the frustrations of the modern bourgeoisie and helps to elucidate the process by which the Qing gradually lost its legitimacy with propertied groups and thereby hastened its downfall.
The revolution of 1911 was a highly complex phenomenon involving a large number of political actors. Due to the painstaking work of many historians of the event, our understanding of it is far more comprehensive than was possible even a decade ago.1 Throughout most regions of China, local and provincial elites seized power in tandem with existing military forces. Given the uneven character of Chinese socio-economic development, the nature of these elites and their alliances with the military varied considerably, giving the revolutionary process an extraordinarily complex and diverse dimension.
As a retired official in 1911, Wu Tingfang became a part of the powerful and largely bourgeois elite of Shanghai, with whose members he had formed close ties since returning to China from the United States since 1902. In his political role during the revolution, he acted together with other leading members of this group. In particular, he was politically associated with the Jiangsu constitutionalists, led by Zhang Jian. As a group, Wu and his associates played an important role in the revolutionary transformation in Shanghai and surrounding Jiangsu Province and then emerged as a national political force as well.
Just as the Qing rulers had needed the skills of foreign affairs specialists such as Wu, so too the revolutionaries found them essential in their quest to avoid foreign intervention and in seeking diplomatic recognition. This situation helped to facilitate the political emergence of Wu and the constitutionalists with whom he was associated. But as in the case of his relationship with the Qing rulers, Wu found that his own hopes and those of his associates were not to be fully realized in the revolution and that, moreover, the new conditions created by the revolution made fulfillment of his political ideals seem nearly as elusive as before.
1. Useful surveys are: Winston Hsieh, Chinese Historiography on the Revolution of 1911 (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1975); “A Symposium on the 1911 Revolution,” Modern China 2, no. 2(Apr. 1976): 139–226; Rhoads, “Two Cheers for 1911,” pp. 127–36; Edmund S. K. Fung, “Post-1949 Chinese Historiography on the 1911 Revolution,” ibid. 4, no. 2 (Apr. 1978): 181–214; Zhang Kaiyuan, “Xinhai Geming shi yanjiu zhong de yige wenti,” Lishi yanjiu, 1981, no. 4: 53–58; Mary C. Wright, China in Revolution: The First Phase 1900–1913 (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1968).
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The Shanghai Restoration
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The revolution in Shanghai was the product of an alliance formed between the Central China Bureau of the Revolutionary Alliance (Tongmeng Hui) and members of the city's propertied elite in the anxious days following the uprising in Wuchang." The formation of this alliance had been the goal of the revolutionaries in Shanghai since early 1911. As Wu Qiandui has noted, the strategy of the Shanghai group differed from that of revolutionaries in Hubei, where the infiltration of the New Army was the successful strategy that culminated in the Wuchang Uprising. In Shanghai, Song Jiaoren (1882– 1913), Chen Qimei and other revolutionaries hoped to tap the various resources of the Chinese elite. These resources included access to funds, administrative competence, and control of military units such as the Shanghai Merchants' Volunteer Corps Association.3
Although the sources are not explicit on this point, the strategy suggests that the revolutionaries recognized that Shanghai was something of a special case because of the large foreign presence in the city. The problem for revolutionaries in Shanghai was not only the seizure of power, but the need to avoid any pretext for foreign intervention, and the best way to accomplish this was to establish a viable governmental structure that could maintain order and protect foreign interests, in short to establish legitimacy in terms the foreigners could accept. This could not be accomplished without the cooperation of the upper stratum of the Shanghai bourgeoisie.
The key figure in arranging the cooperation of the Shanghai elite was Shen Manyun. Shen was the founder and manager of the Xincheng Bank, influential in banking circles, one of the founders of the Shanghai Merchants' Volunteer Corps Association, a director of the Shanghai Board of Public Works and one of the directors of the Shanghai General Chamber of Commerce. Having joined the Revolutionary Alliance early in 1911, he was excellently placed to aid the revolutionaries in forming connections with other members of the Shanghai bourgeois elite.*
Along with Wu Tingfang, many influential Chinese in Shanghai had been ambivalent about the Qing regime even before the Wuchang Uprising occurred. The financial crisis of 1910 caused by overspeculation in rubber stocks had been mishandled by Qing authorities, in the opinion of many contemporary observers. (In November W. W. Yen caustically stigmatized the
2. Useful secondary accounts of the Shanghai Restoration are: Rankin, Early Chinese Revolutionaries, pp. 203–14; Shen Weibin and Yang Liqiang, “Shanghai shangtuan,” pp. 67–88; Wu Qiandui, "Shanghai guangfu he Hujun dudufu,” ibid., 1981, no. 5: 34–47; Zhang Kaiyuan and Lin Zengping, Xinhai Geming shi (Beijing: Renmin, 1980-81), 3:120–23.
3. Wu Qiandui, “Shanghai guangfu,” pp. 34–35.
4. On Shen Manyun's role see ibid., p. 35; Shanghai shehui kexueyuan, Lishi yanjiusuo, ed., Xinhai Geming zai Shanghai shiliao xuanji (Shanghai: Renmin, 1981), pp. 981–85 (hereafter cited as Shanghai shiliao).
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Shanghai revolutionary government personnel as “bankrupt rubber boomers."5) And, as we noted in Chapter 6, many influential Chinese in Shanghai and other large cities were strongly opposed to the railway nationalization policy the court developed in 1911.
In the aftermath of the Wuchang Uprising, a financial crisis developed in Shanghai that was only temporarily ameliorated by 20 October. Members of the financial elite had a natural desire to maintain order and many probably entertained doubts about the effectiveness of the dynasty in protecting their interests. Moreover, many were active in the constitutionalist movement, which was especially powerful in Jiangsu Province, and were attracted to the ideal of provincial self-determination. For these reasons, as members of the elite observed the inability of the Qing to suppress the revolt and the growing numbers of provinces declaring their independence of the Dynasty, they were inclined to be receptive to overtures from the revolutionaries in their own city.
On 24 October planning for the Shanghai uprising actively began at a meeting between Chen Qimei and Shen Manyun. At this meeting it was decided that Shen should contact Li Pingshu (1853-1922), a leading figure within the Shanghai elite. Li had earlier served as a district magistrate under the Qing but had lived in Shanghai for many years. He was a director of the Board of Public Works, a proctor of the Kiangnan Arsenal and one of the leaders of the Merchants' Volunteer Corps, as well as being actively involved in a variety of self-government enterprises.?
When Li indicated to Shen that he favored a revolutionary action in Shanghai, Shen arranged for Li to meet with Chen Qimei. Chen and Li met on 29 October and made concrete plans to deploy the Merchants' Volunteer Corps in the coup, and other prominent figures were mobilized to support the movement financially and in other ways. These included Mu Xiangyao and Wang Yiting, who along with Li Pingshu were to play a prominent role in the civil government established after the coup, and the famous comprador Yu Xiaqing, who contributed funds to help with the coup.8
The fall of Hanyang to Qing forces on 2 November spurred the Shanghai group to decisive action. Shanghai was recognized as the key to the lower Yangzi valley region. A strong victory there could offset the precarious situation in Hubei. Along with the military plans being made, plans to form the civil government were also completed in the last hours before the coup began, and the revolutionaries, through Li Pingshu, contacted Wu Tingfang and
5. Morrison, Correspondence 1:672.
6. National Review 10 (2 and 28 Oct., 11 and 18 Nov. 1911): 322, 344, 383, 403; Shen Weibin and Yang Liqiang, "Shanghai shangtuan," p. 73.
7. Wu Qiandui, “Shanghai guangfu,” p. 37; Shen Yunlong, “Li Pingshu yu Xinhai Shanghai guangfu," in his Jindai zhengzhi renwu shuping 2:110–18; Shanghai shiliao, pp. 971–80.
8. On Yu Xiaqing's role see Fang Teng, "Yu Xiaqing lun,” Zazhi yuekan 12, no. 4 (Jan. 1944): 59– 60; Ding Richu and Du Xuncheng, “Yu Xiaqing jianlun,” Lishi yanjiu, 1981, no. 3: 145–66.
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persuaded him to handle foreign relations for the revolutionaries. Although the sources differ, this probably occurred on 3 November.9
Why did Li Pingshu and the revolutionaries decide to ask Wu? They may have suspected that he would be sympathetic to their cause, given his decision in 1910 to retire from service under the Qing and his subsequent leadership of the queue-cutting movement. But also, as Zhang Cunwu has argued, there was no one else who had Wu's experience or reputation in Shanghai. Other possible persons were Zhang Jian, prominent constitutionalist and leader of the Jiangsu gentry, Tang Wenzhi, who had served under Wu in the Ministry of Commerce and was a leading figure in Jiangsu educational circles, and Wen Zongyao, educated in the U.S. and with some experience in diplomacy. But none of these combined Wu's experience in foreign affairs with his international reputation.10
At first Wu declined in view of his advanced age, but Li Pingshu returned to Wu's residence with Wen Zongyao who joined Li in persuading Wu to undertake the responsibility. Wen had been Wu's assistant in 1903 in the negotiations to revise the commercial treaties with the U.S. and Japan and had subsequently served as the Qing Resident in Tibet. He was a leader of the large and influential Cantonese mercantile community in Shanghai, with which Wu had close ties, and he agreed to serve together with Wu in managing foreign relations for the Shanghai revolutionary government. Years later, Li Pingshu recalled the event with pleasure: “When I recall that day, one may say that his [Wu's] spirits were elated, his sense of justice (y) competing with the moon for brightness."ll
With Wu agreeing to handle foreign relations, a task seen as crucial to the success of the movement, the coup could go forward. Zhang Chengyou, a Hubei student in command of the “dare-to-die" forces that were used in the coup, recalled that on 3 November he was told that Wu had agreed to undertake foreign relations, and when this was confirmed by Yu Youren, one of the leading revolutionary figures in Shanghai, they decided to act immediately. Having neutralized the two Qing garrisons by receiving assurances from their commanders that they would not move unless directly attacked, later that same day Chen Qimei led the "dare-to-die" troops to attack the Kiangnan Arsenal. Unexpectedly, Chen was captured and not released until the following morning, 4 November, when Restoration Society leader Li Xiehe led additional forces and succeeded in taking over the arsenal.12
9. On the differing sources for the date for Li's approach to Wu see Zhang Cunwu, "Wu Tingfang yu Xinhai Geming," in Zhongguo xiandaishi zhuanti yanjiu baogao, ed. Zhonghua Minguo shiliao yanjiu zhongxin, 6:96–97.
10. Ibid., p. 99.
11. Shanghai shiliao, p. 972.
12. Feng Ziyou, Geming yishi 5:283–84.
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By mid-morning on 4 November white flags were flying throughout Shanghai and the city was firmly in the hands of the revolutionaries. Having sustained only light casualties, the revolutionaries moved next to the task of forming a government and extending the revolution to other parts of China. Thus Wu's decision to join the revolutionary movement was an important turning point in determining its success, and it similarly was a major turning point in his own life.
Wu Tingfang and the Shanghai Military Government
As the revolutionaries had correctly predicted, their victory in Shanghai was a decisive turning point in the revolution. On the next day, 5 November, the Qing Governor of Jiangsu Province, Cheng Dequan, declared Jiangsu's independence (the way having been paved by Yu Xiaqing's offer to raise one million dollars to pay for troop expenses).13 Zhejiang Province followed thereafter, and the revolutionaries gained control of the strategically important and wealthy lower Yangzi basin. This in turn made possible their capture of Nanjing on 2 December, offsetting losses in Hubei and assuring the success of the revolutionary movement.
In spite of the detailed work that had gone into planning for the coup, the formation of a military government in Shanghai was marked by conflict. According to some accounts, Chen Qimei was determined that the Revolutionary Alliance rather than its rival, the Restoration Society, take control of the new Shanghai government. Chen's analysis placed the Restoration Society in the leading role in the Hubei Military Government under Li Yuanhong, and he feared that the Revolutionary Alliance would lose out in the national struggle for power if Shanghai were not firmly in its hands.14
Shortly after their victory at the Arsenal, the revolutionaries held a meeting to discuss the formation of the military government. There are three conflicting accounts of this meeting. Although they differ in details, they all indicate conflicts between Chen Qimei and Li Xiehe, the leading Restoration Society figure in Shanghai. In particular, it showed Chen Qimei's use of the Shanghai underworld groups, the Qing Bang and Hong Bang, to intimidate his opponents. These conflicts and Chen's tactics left Wu and other elite supporters of the revolution uneasy.
According to the memoirs of Zhang Tianjue, Li Pingshu was the strongest proponent of Li Xiehe as dudu, or military governor, of Shanghai, arguing that Li had been dispatched to Shanghai as "chief commander” (zongsiling) by the Hubei Military Government and would therefore command the greatest
13. Fang Teng, “Yu Xiaqing lun,” p. 60.
14. Zhang Tianjue, “Huiyi Xinhai,” in Xinhai Geming shi congkan (Beijing: Zhonghua, 1980), 2:155– 56.
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support, domestically and abroad. Moreover, as a Hunanese he would be an effective leader of the many Hunanese troops stationed nearby at Wusong. According to Zhang's account, Chen's supporter Wang Zhongsheng countered these arguments and upheld Chen's role in the planning and implementation of the coup. After Wang's speech, Chen Qimei's followers Jiang Jieshi (Chiang Kai-shek), Liu Fubiao and Wang Jigao shouted that they all should support Chen, with Liu and Wang displaying their guns in a threatening manner. Liu Fubiao, it should be noted, was a key figure in the Qing Bang. According to this account, those present were intimidated and dared not continue to oppose Chen. Wu Tingfang tried to resign from handling foreign relations, claiming his advanced age and illness, but he was pressed to continue.15
A second account by Shang Binghe, based on several eyewitness accounts, has Wu Tingfang opposing the establishment of a separate military government in Shanghai, only to be interrupted by Wang Zhongsheng, who banged his firearm on the table and shouted, “We battled in Shanghai and won it. I will shoot anyone who opposes the establishing of a [Shanghai] military government." This effectively squelched all opposition.16
The third account is based on a roundtable discussion of participants in the Shanghai revolutionary movement held in 1961. This account has Liu Fubiao as the probable wielder of arms who intimidated Chen's opponents, and does not mention who these latter were.
17
In spite of the differences in these accounts, they suggest that Li Pingshu and Wu Tingfang were not entirely happy with Chen's leadership but accepted it when faced with the strong-arm tactics of Chen's supporters. From the beginning, then, there were strains in the relations between Chen Qimei and his supporters among Shanghai's upper crust, and these strains were to become more serious as time went on.
These tensions notwithstanding, the military government was formally inaugurated in an afternoon meeting on 6 November and seems to have enjoyed great popularity, at least initially. This popularity was facilitated by a series of decrees made by the new government between 4 and 6 November declaring a moratorium on many taxes, especially the lucrative but hated transit taxes on goods.
18
While these measures brought the new government much goodwill from the Shanghai populace, they created enormous financial problems that ultimately proved insurmountable and led to increased strains with the bourgeois supporters of the military government. Initially, however, the
15. Ibid., p. 158.
16. Shang Binghe, Xinren chunqiu (Beijing, 1924; reprint, Taibei: Wenxing, 1962), 12:3.
17. "Xinhai Shanghai guangfu qianhou,” in Xinhai Geming huiyilu 4:7-8. Also reprinted in Huiyi Xinhai Geming, ed. Zhongguo renmin zhengzhi xieshang huiyi quanguo weiyuanhui, Wenshi ziliao yanjiu weiyuanhui (Beijing: Wenshi ziliao, 1981), pp. 327–28.
18. Wu Qiandui, “Shanghai guangfu,” pp. 42-45; Shanghai shiliao, pp. 287–88. The full list of personnel for the military government is given in Shanghai shiliao, p. 1243.
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government was able to mobilize large sectors of the population to contribute towards the campaign to conquer Nanjing. Wu Tingfang and other members of the elite joined these efforts with enthusiasm, speaking at large rallies and personally contributing large sums of money. Wu himself contributed 100,000 dollars towards the success of the Nanjing campaign.
19
These measures were followed by efforts to establish a new bank and float bonds, efforts which encountered numerous difficulties, and by resort to borrowing the sum of Tls 1,500,000 from the China Merchants' Steam Navigation Company. As Wu was also a member of the Board of Directors of the CMSNC, he was also presumably instrumental in helping to arrange this transaction as well.20
Wu's greatest contribution to the Shanghai Military Government, of course, lay in his handling of foreign relations. Before the assault on the Arsenal had even been completed, the revolutionary forces notified the British Consul- General in Shanghai that they had taken over the city and asked the help of the foreign diplomatic corps in maintaining order in the International Settlement.21
As soon as the military government was formally established on 6 November it issued a circular to the foreign diplomatic corps announcing that it would protect the Settlement, and this was followed up with notices warning Chinese to respect foreign lives and property. The military government several times issued decrees prohibiting armed men from entering the International Settlement without prior notification of the foreign authorities, but this appears to have been ignored by both sides after some time. (There is one account that Wu negotiated with the Settlement authorities to permit soldiers to traverse the Settlement along Nanjing Road, but this is not supported by any documentary materials.) 22
Negotiations began immediately over two matters of great concern to the revolutionary government. One was its effort to secure the funds and securities of the Shanghai Daotai, Liu Yanyi, who had taken them along with all the documents of his office and fled into the International Settlement on 3 November. Although somewhat concerned about the possibility of reprisals from the revolutionaries, the foreign consuls were opposed to any act that could be seen as interference with their administration of the International Settlement. 23
19. On fund-raising meetings see Shanghai shiliao, pp. 1256, 1258. On Wu's personal contribution see Chen Dingshan, Chun Shen jiuwen (Taibei: Shijie wenwu, 1967), p. 116.
20. Shanghai shiliao, pp. 531–35, 614–75, 1259.
21. Jordan to Grey, 7 Nov. 1911, FO 371/1094.
22. Shen Weibin and Yang Liqiang, “Shanghai shangtuan,” p. 86; Jordan to Grey, 4 Nov. 1911, FO 371/1094. Yu Zhijiang asserted that Wu negotiated the N-S passage through the International Settlement. See "Xinhai Shanghai guangfu qianhou,” in Xinhai Geming huiyilu 4:17, where participants in this roundtable discussion recalled that armed men did pass unhindered through the Settlement.
23. Jordan to Grey, 7 Nov. 1911, FO 371/1094.
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Wu Tingfang and Wen Zongyao were not only eager to have the military government gain access to the Daotai's funds and securities, but also anxious to prevent any act on the part of the foreign diplomats that could be construed as support for the Qing regime, as the British Consul-General had earlier announced his government's neutrality in the conflict between the Qing and its opponents. Wu and Wen were careful to let the foreign diplomats understand that in laying claim to the funds they were not challenging the status of the International Settlement and were even willing to allow the Qing- appointed magistrates on the Mixed Court continue to function. Moreover, Li Pingshu added that the revolutionaries would leave undisturbed the 100,000 taels of the Daotai's funds marked for the upkeep of the Mixed Court.2
24
When Wu and Wen's conciliatory approach bore no results, Chen Qimei took matters into his own hands. On 10 November he sent Liu Yanyi a letter demanding all the securities. Liu showed it to the British Consul-General, Sir Everard Fraser, who bridled at its "insolent" tone. Chen followed this with a dispatch to the Consul-General bidding him to order his police to hand over arms confiscated from persons found bearing them within the Settlement. Although this second letter had nothing to do with the securities issue, its tone was offensive to Fraser.25
The diplomats were angered by these notes and after considerable discussion, they decided to privately inform Wu Tingfang that they would henceforth ignore Chen, the “discordant element.” Wu was able to persuade Chen to back down, fearing the possibility of a clash or at least the deterioration of relations at a time the revolutionaries were eager to gain the goodwill of the western nations. On 13 November, Wu gave Fraser verbal assurances that for now the revolutionaries would be content with a communication listing the securities and reserving the right to discuss their claim to them in the future.26
This incident obviously illustrates the difference in approach between Wu and Chen. Yu Zhijiang, a young revolutionary who served as intermediary between Chen Qimei and Wu Tingfang later recalled that Wu concluded from this incident that Chen was very ignorant about foreign affairs and could not be trusted. Relations between Wu and Chen were even more distant from then on. 27
The second issue requiring immediate negotiation concerned the occupation of the Shanghai-Nanjing Railway station in Shanghai by an international force and the declaration that the railway itself was neutral in the civil war, which made it impossible for the revolutionaries to use the railway for the transport of troops or matériel for the siege of Nanjing. On 7 November Wu was able to obtain Fraser's agreement to the occupation of
24. Fraser to Jordan, 11 Nov. 1911, encl. in Jordan to Grey, 17 Dec. 1911, FO 371/3010. 25. Fraser to Jordan, 13 Nov. 1911, encl. no. 1 in Jordan to Grey, 23 Nov. 1911, FO 371/1097. 26. Fraser to Jordan, 3 Dec. 1911, encl. in Jordan to Grey, 17 Dec. 1911, FO 371/3010. 27. "Xinhai Shanghai guangfu qianhou,” pp. 16–17.
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the railway station by revolutionary troops. Partly, the British recognized that it would require a larger force than was immediately available to reoccupy it and might be viewed as a breech in Britain's policy of neutrality. Also the British occupation of the station had aroused the criticism of other foreign nationals who felt that British interests had been "unduly favored to the danger of the International Settlement. "28
The railway line itself, however, was still out of bounds for the revolutionary troops. On 12 November, in response to Wu's "urgent pleading," Fraser proposed to his government that the embargo on revolutionary troops and munitions be lifted except for an area ten miles in radius of the station. In that revolutionary forces controlled the entire area along the railway except Nanjing itself, this would appear to have been long overdue. Fraser's proposal was finally accepted as British policy after another formal note from Wu urged ending the embargo. Wu wrote that such an act would be "in the interest of foreigners as well as Chinese . . and in the cause of humanity," since the conduct of Qing officials in Nanjing had left that city in a “state of perfect anarchy."29
Wu's assertion that the revolutionaries were better prepared to maintain order than were the Qing administrators was one that he repeated throughout his diplomatic efforts following the Shanghai restoration and which will be discussed below. In general, it is fair to say that Wu's diplomacy successfully neutralized foreign hostility to the revolutionaries in Shanghai. A French observer noted that "foreigners in Shanghai were very much impressed by the way the revolutionaries behaved towards them. They were evidently obeying strict orders to show them every consideration and courtesy.
"30
Although British and other foreign military authorities in Shanghai worried about the possible effects of the situation upon foreign interests, within a few days of the coup most of these fears had been allayed, and certainly the prominent roles played by Wu Tingfang, Wen Zongyao and Li Pingshu helped in this regard.31
Wu's first public statements to the foreign press in Shanghai were also designed to be reassuring. In his first interview with the North China Herald, which appeared in print on 11 November, Wu stated that the revolutionaries' policies towards foreign nations would be on "liberal-minded conservative lines." "There will be no further obstruction to foreigners in trade, but the whole of China will be thrown open," he declared. Wu also held out the promise of employment of many foreign advisers in a government "thoroughly
28. The British rationale for this act was that the railway's bondholders included English nationals. See Jordan to Grey, 7 and 13 Nov. 1911, FO 371/1094, 1095.
29. Wu to Fraser, 14 Nov. 1911, encl. in Jordan to Grey, 29 Nov. 1911, FO 371/1097. See also Jordan to Grey, 13 Nov., nos. 55 and 70, FO 371/1095; 15 Nov. 1911, FO 371/1096.
30. Fernand Farjenal, Through the Chinese Revolution: My Experiences in the South and North. . . . trans. Margaret Vivian (London: Duckworth, 1915), pp. 69–70.
31. E.g., Jordan to Grey, 6 Nov. 1911, FO 371/1094; The Times (London), 6 Nov. 1911, encl. in Addis to Lindley, 30 Dec. 1911, FO 371/1098.
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up-to-date and modern,” and which would no longer be "playing off one nation against the other."32
These themes were reiterated at greater length in Wu and Wen's famous "Letter to our Foreign Friends," dated 14 November and published in the North China Herald on the 18th. This letter was written in response to a letter written by Gilbert Reid, with whom Wu had been associated in the International Institute, and C. Spurgeon Medhurst, entitled "To Our Chinese Friends," which had been written on 12 November and published in the Herald. In this letter, Reid and Medhurst had deplored the violence and bloodshed accompanying the revolution in areas outside of Shanghai and expressed concern over the plight of Manchus living throughout China. They urged reasonable Chinese to lay down their arms and to negotiate a peaceful settlement under the framework of constitutional monarchy.33
In their reply, Wu and Wen scored the Manchus for their ineptitude and inability to govern China "in a manner compatible with the forward movement signalizing the modern history and development of the civilized world.” “By its benighted conceptions and barbaric learnings," they said, the Qing Dynasty had brought China to a “position of degradation." By contrast, the revolutionaries were portrayed as progressive and having an identity of interests with the foreign powers who sought reform in China. Both the enlightened Chinese and the foreign powers had failed to force the Manchu regime to get into step with the rest of the civilized world; now the Manchus were no longer deserving of the Chinese people's confidence. The revolutionaries had, by contrast, controlled the "forces of evil” to such a degree as to "characterize this revolution as the least sanguinary in the history of the world, when the sins of the country and the nature of the masses are taken into consideration." As further evidence of the revolutionaries' intentions, Wu and Wen declared that they had
taken every possible step to protect vested interests, safeguard international obligations, secure continuance of commerce, and shield educational and religious institutions; and, what is even more important, striven continually to maintain law and order, sustain peace, and promote a constructive policy upon sound and enduring grounds.
34
Wu's efforts to influence western public opinion also carried across the Pacific to the United States, where Wu sought to mobilize his contacts to press the U.S. State Department for early recognition for a Republic. On 8 November Wu received a cable from Andrew Carnegie expressing congratulations and wishes for the success of the movement. Wu replied immediately asking Carnegie to help seeking U.S. recognition. Carnegie was
32. NCH, 11 Nov. 1911, p. 354.
33. Ibid., 18 Nov. 1911, pp. 444-45.
34. Ibid., p. 445; also printed in National Review 10 (8 Nov. 1911): 391–92.
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happy to do so: he directed Wu's cable to the State Department with the note that he and Wu were old friends, both being students of Confucius. 35
Wu followed this with a cable to William Randolph Hearst asking him to print a plea for recognition in his newspapers. Hearst agreed and the plea, containing many of the same arguments as Wu and Wen's "Letter to Our Foreign Friends," was carried in the Hearst chain newspapers in mid- November.36
These efforts did not, of course, result in an early recognition of the Republic by the United States. Diplomatically, these efforts did not even succeed in obtaining recognition as a belligerent, which would have been useful later as the revolutionaries sought foreign funds.37 But it is worth noting that these efforts helped to establish the legitimacy of the revolution in the eyes of many Westerners and helped the revolutionaries in their quest to avoid direct military intervention by the powers.
In part because of Wu's soothing declarations, and in part because of their desire to avoid a clash with the more avid revolutionaries under Chen Qimei, Britain decided against landing an occupying force in the International Settlement. Concerned that the "more hot-headed followers" of the revolution would take umbrage, Britain instead opted for sending a large man-of-war to Shanghai in the hopes that it would have a "considerable overawing effect."38 But that was the limit of Britain's direct military intervention in the conflict, and Wu and the revolutionaries succeeded in preventing the imperialist nations from overt acts in support of the Qing.
The foreign powers had good reason to feel pleased with the restraint shown by Wu and Wen on behalf of the revolutionaries in Shanghai. As British Minister John N. Jordan summed up the situation on 23 November:
Our position [is] even stronger than it has ever been in the past. So long as the revolutionaries protect foreign life and property and pay due respect to the established usages and practices on which the government of the international settlement rests, there would appear to be no need of foreign military intervention with all its attendant complications.39
35. Carnegie to Hilles, 13 Nov. 1911, U.S. National Archives, 893.00/673.
36. Li Tien-yi, Woodrow Wilson's China Policy (New York, 1952), p.58, cited in Zhang Cunwu, "Wu Tingfang yu Xinhai Geming,” pp. 104–5.
37. On 4 December Wu sent a note to all the foreign consuls declaring the revolutionary government's right to board vessels suspected of carrying contraband. Normally the search of neutral ships is a right granted to belligerent parties under international law, but the powers refused to grant the revolutionaries status as a belligerent even though they later permitted the search of foreign ships. See materials in Dept. of the Navy to the Secretary of State, 11 Dec. 1911, U.S. National Archives, 893.00/767; 3 Jan. 1912, ibid., 893.00/889; 3 Jan. 1912, ibid., 893.00/926; 21 Feb. 1912, ibid., 893.00/1100; Grey to Jordan, 18 Dec. 1911, nos. 379, 380, FO 371/1097; Jordan to Grey, 8 Jan. 1912, no. 475, FO 371/1311.
38. Jordan to Grey, 10 Nov. 1911, no. 144, FO 371/1094.
39. Jordan to Grey, 23 Nov. 1911, FO 371/1097.
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Obviously, Wu's diplomacy was national in scope in that Wu spoke not only on behalf of the Shanghai Military Government, but on behalf of the republican movement in China as a whole. Not only was Wu handling the Shanghai regime's foreign relations, he was also acting as de facto foreign minister for the entire revolutionary movement. As such, he stepped into the national political arena and helped to thrust the Shanghai group into national prominence as well.
National Politics
Wu Tingfang's first act of national political importance took place on 11 November, when he, Zhang Jian, Tang Wenzhi and Wen Zongyao sent a telegram to the Prince Regent urging him to abdicate in the interests of peace and progress. Wen Zongyao was, of course, Wu's assistant in the managing of foreign affairs for the Shanghai Military Government, and Zhang Jian and Tang Wenzhi were influential leaders of the constitutionalist movement in Jiangsu. In particular, Zhang's reputation and influence were national in scope, and it is also important to note that Zhang Jian was Yuan Shikai's confidant.
The telegram boldly declared that constitutional monarchy under the Manchus was not possible and implied that Yuan Shikai was the indispensable man of the times:
The mind of the people of the Nation is at one and the opinions of intelligent foreigners agree. It is that a Constitutional form of government inaugurated by the Sovereign is not suitable for the China of these latter days.... You ought to act as did [Emperors] Yao and Shun in order to obtain the man for the Empire.1
40
The telegram held out the promise of “peace, riches, honour, and glory” to the Imperial family if it acted properly, “otherwise war will be prolonged and troubles will accumulate." Their plea concluded:
The Northern Army is cruel and inhuman. How can the Throne stand alone? We, Wu Ting-fang the others, cannot bear to sit quiet as spectators. We dare to utter our last loyal warning. The clamor continues, but tears have been dried.11
Wu and his colleagues submitted this telegram to the U.S. Chargé d'Affaires in Beijing, William J. Calhoun, with the request that it delivered personally to the Prince Regent. They also requested that Calhoun speak with the Regent
40. Encl. in Calhoun to Secretary of State, 22 Nov. 1911, 893.00/827.
41. Ibid.
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on their behalf and assure him that “if H.M. will abdicate we will do our best to afford safety to the Court and protection of their property."42 The use of the U.S. official as go-between was necessary because Wu and the others were concerned that the Regent would never see their telegram if it went through normal channels, and of course there was the additional dimension of using a foreign power to constitute a kind of pressure on the Regent.
43
This telegram marked the emergence of the Jiangsu constitutionalists on the national scene as a political force in their own right, with Wu firmly allied politically with them. Within a short period of time this alliance was to give rise to the formation of several new political parties and associations that stood independent of the Revolutionary Alliance. These, and Wu Tingfang's role in them, will be discussed below.
It is worth noting that this telegram does not espouse a republican form of government per se but instead urges the Prince Regent to hand over power to Yuan Shikai. There is other evidence suggesting that at this stage, at least, Wu was not strongly committed to the concept of a republic. Shortly after the Shanghai Restoration took place, Wu gave his first interview to the North China Herald. The date of this interview is not clear (perhaps 8 November), but it was not published until 11 November. In this interview Wu stated:
Whether ... the present movement succeeds or the Government is able to hold its place upon the throne and restore peace, it will have been for the good of the country. If the present movement succeeds, it will have to be decided whether there is to be a constitutional monarchy, or whether the country will become a republic. Those in this part of China are in favour of a republic, but there are many who desire a constitutional monarchy. If it is to be a republic, it will be modelled upon the lines partly of the United States and partly on those of the German Federation, taking the best parts from each.44
Understandably, the revolutionaries were not too pleased with this statement, and one of the leading revolutionaries, Ma Junwu, strongly criticized it in their newspaper as lacking in clarity about the revolution's aims.4
45
For Wu, Zhang Jian and other constitutionalists such as Cheng Dequan, now Military Governor of Jiangsu Province, their support of the revolution was more an expression of disfavor with the Dynasty than support for any of the republican ideals of the revolutionary movement, and in particular their act may be viewed as an expression of support for Yuan Shikai, whose main opponent at Court was the Prince Regent. The Regent had been forced to appoint Yuan Prime Minister on 7 November following the collapse of Yuan's
42. Ibid.
43. Zhang Cunwu, "Wu Tingfang yu Xinhai Geming,” p. 101.
44. NCH, 11 Nov. 1911, p. 354.
45. Cited in Zhang Cunwu, “Wu Tingfang yu Xinhai Geming,” p. 118 n. 24.
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opposition within the Beiyang Army. That Wu, Zhang and others were not alone in seeing Yuan Shikai as the indispensable person may be demonstrated by the fact that on 9 November, Huang Xing had cabled Yuan inviting him to assume the presidency of a new republic.46
In spite of his differences with the revolutionaries on the issue of republicanism, Wu was indispensable to the revolutionary cause because of his ability to credibly handle foreign relations. In the long run, moreover, the differences over the form of the government were not significant, and in any case Wu was not a firm upholder of the principle of constitutional monarchy. When it was clear to him, Zhang Jian and many other constitutionalists that practical politics necessitated a republican form of government, they did not oppose it. The question of the man (Yuan Shikai) was more important than governmental form (republic or monarchy).
Soon after the Shanghai Restoration occurred, efforts were undertaken to establish a provisional republican government, with considerable wrangling between the Hubei group and the Jiangsu-Zhejiang-Shanghai group over its location and leaders. On 9 November the Hubei Military Governor, Li Yuanhong, cabled all the provinces that had declared their independence of the dynasty inviting them to send delegates to Wuchang to organize a central government. Due to disrupted communications, this telegram did not reach. Shanghai for three weeks, and in the interim the Shanghai group had already begun its initiative.47
On 12 November the four representatives of the Military Governors of Jiangsu and Zhejiang cabled all the provinces requesting that they recognize Wu Tingfang and Wen Zongyao as temporarily in charge of foreign relations, and inviting them all to send delegates to Shanghai to discuss the establishment of a provisional government. This was followed on the next day, 13 November, with a cable from Chen Qimei to fourteen Military Governors inviting them to send representatives to Shanghai to discuss forming a central government with Shanghai as its seat. Chen's initiative was supported by Lin Shuqing, a revolutionary and Military Governor of Zhenjiang. 48
The Jiangsu-Zhejiang-Shanghai initiatives reflected the fact that Li Yuanhong's invitation had not yet been received by them and also reflected their uncertainty about the military situation in Hubei, where Qing forces were about to begin an offensive that would lead to the loss of Hanyang to the revolutionaries on 27 November. Moreover, by mid-November the
46. Reprinted in Huang Xing, Huang Xing ji, ed. Hunan sheng shehui kexueyuan (Beijing: Zhonghua, 1981), pp. 81–82.
47. These events are recounted in K. S. Liew, Struggle for Democracy: Sung Chiao-jen and the 1911 Chinese Revolution (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1971), p. 129; Hsueh Chun-tu, Huang Hsing and the Chinese Revolution (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1961), pp. 119–21; “Zhongguo dashi ji,” Dongfang zazhi 8, no. 7 (Apr. 1912).
48. Liu Xingnan, “Xinhai gesheng daibiao huiyi rizhi,” in Xinhai Geming huiyilu, p. 241; documents in “Zhonghua Minguo kaiguo shiqi shiliao,” in Geming wenxian, ed. Lo Jialun, 1st ser. (Taibei, 1953),
pp. 1-3.
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revolutionaries in Hubei had largely lost out to Li Yuanhong in their struggle to control the army and governmental structures. In Joseph Esherick's words, the revolutionaries had "written off" Hubei. They were largely powerless to prevent Li Yuanhong from meeting with Liu Cheng'en and Cai Tinggan, two emissaries from Yuan Shikai, and coming to an understanding with Yuan even if this meant jettisoning the principle of republicanism.49
While Chen Qimei and the Revolutionary Alliance were not firmly in control in Jiangsu, they were nonetheless in a stronger position than the Hubei revolutionaries. On 13 November, the same day he issued the invitation for the delegates to convene in Shanghai, Chen had received a lengthy letter from Tang Wenzhi and a number of other prominent gentry constitutionalists urging him to place Shanghai under the authority of Cheng Dequan, the Jiangsu Dudu. Li Xiehe responded to a similar request by complying and ending the separate Wusong Military Government. Chen had no intention of doing so. Forming a provisional government based in Shanghai could help Chen maintain his position and help to prevent the revolutionaries from completely losing control over the political situation.50
For one week the two sides were deadlocked. The Hubei group readily agreed to Wu Tingfang's handling foreign relations on its behalf but insisted that Wuhan was the seat of the provisional government. On 14 November the various provincial representatives in Shanghai cabled Li Yuanhong agreeing that the Hubei Military Government was the site for the formation of the provisional government, but reiterating their support for Wu and Wen as foreign affairs representatives. Chen Qimei, meanwhile, continued to oppose Hubei's desires, and together with Song Jiaoren, who returned from Wuchang on 17 November, persuaded the provincial delegates in Shanghai to hold out for Shanghai as the site for the new government.
51
On 20 November a compromise was reached. The delegates recognized Hubei as the central government and proposed that they go to Wuchang, leaving behind in Shanghai one representative from each, and also with the proviso that Wu Tingfang and Wen Zongyao would remain in Shanghai and continue to manage foreign relations. Their departure was facilitated by the Hubei group's dispatching the revolutionary Ju Zheng to escort the delegates to Hubei. The group left Shanghai for Hubei on 28 November, the day after Hanyang fell to Qing forces.52
Song Jiaoren, Chen Qimei and the other revolutionaries were not satisfied with this compromise. The delegates were forced to meet in Hankou's British
49. Esherick, Reform and Revolution in China, p. 220; on the mediation mission of Cai Tinggan and Liu Cheng'en see Zhang Kaiyuan and Lin Zengping, Xinhai Geming shi 3:255-58.
50. On Li Xiehe see Wu Qiandui, “Shanghai guangfu,” p. 44; on the exchange between the Jiangsu constitutionalists and Chen see Shanghai shiliao, pp. 313–16.
51. Documents in Geming wenxian, 1st ser., pp. 3–5; Liu Xingnan, “Xinhai gesheng daibiao rizhi,” p. 241.
52. Liew, Struggle for Democracy, p. 130; Liu Xingnan, “Xinhai gesheng daibiao rizhi,” pp. 241–43.
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concession for their first meeting on 30 November, while Wuchang itself was subject to bombardment from across the river and Li Yuanhong himself had fled to the city's outskirts. The delegates produced a draft outline for the provisional government, hastily drawn up, that was not entirely satisfactory to the Shanghai-based group. In the meantime, on 2 December, the revolutionary forces succeeded in capturing Nanjing, and in their meeting of 4 December the delegates decided that Nanjing should be the site of the government. This was ultimately agreed upon by all, and the deadlock with its resulting political damage to the revolutionary side was ended.53
Following the fall of Hanyang Li Yuanhong proposed a fifteen-day armistice to Yuan Shikai, with the possibility of a fifteen-day extension if necessary. During this period the provincial delegates could meet and select a representative to meet with Yuan. This proposal was sent to Yuan through British diplomats, and it was shortly accepted. On 3 December a three-day cease-fire began, which through various extensions (and violations) continued until the Emperor's abdication on 12 February. Thus the military phase of the revolution was largely over, and politics now rose to the fore.54
The conflict between Li Yuanhong and the Shanghai-Nanjing based revolutionaries continued, however. The most dramatic expression occurred on 2 December and again on 4 December when the provincial representatives in Nanjing voted that Huang Xing should be appointed Commander-in- Chief of the Republican forces, with Li Yuanhong as his second in command. On 8 December Li formally protested this decision; meanwhile a number of military figures who had played a prominent role in the Nanjing campaign objected to Huang Xing, a defeated general, as their commander-in-chief, so on 14 December the Nanjing delegates reversed the order and chose Li as their commander-in-chief and Huang as his subordinate!55
On 5 December those delegates still in Hubei decided on a four-point outline for peace talks. They decided that the talks should take place in Hankou and chose Wu Tingfang as their representative. Why was Wu selected to handle this task? First, the Hubei revolutionaries were ever concerned with the role of the foreign powers, especially Great Britain, in the situation. Wu's appointment suggests that at the very least the peace talks had a public relations dimension. Moreover, Wu was a diplomat skilled in negotiation and these skills were precisely those needed in the talks. He was also well acquainted with Yuan Shikai and, while not in Yuan's inner circle, he was on good terms with him. In addition, it is worth noting that the Hubei delegates were hoping to have the talks held in Hankou, which was certain to be opposed by the Nanjing-Shanghai group, but if Wu were to be the chief delegate they may have reasoned that Song Jiaoren and the others in Shanghai and Nanjing would be more likely to agree to Hankou.
53. Liew, Struggle for Democracy, pp. 131–33; Liu Xingnan, “Xinhai gesheng daibiao rizhi,” p. 248. 54. Zhang Kaiyuan and Lin Zengping, Xinhai Geming shi 3:260–61.
55. Liew, Struggle for Democracy, pp. 133–34.
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Even before he received official word that he had been selected, Wu vigorously opposed Hubei as the site of the talks. As early as 2 December he and the Shanghai Military Government proposed their city as appropriate, and on 6 December when he was formally notified via the British Consul in Hankou of his selection to head the negotiating team, Wu replied that it would be impossible for him to come to Hubei. He also used a foreign intermediary, E. S. Little, to cable Yuan Shikai urging him to send his representative to Shanghai for talks.56
On 7 December, one day following the Prince Regent's abdication, Yuan was formally appointed plenipotentiary to negotiate with the revolutionary forces. Yuan immediately appointed his old friend and subordinate, Tang Shaoyi, to represent him, and on 9 December the truce was extended for an additional fifteen-day period while the talks were to be held.57
On Yuan's side, he informed the British that he preferred Hankou as the site but was prepared to send Tang to Shanghai if necessary. Meanwhile he had Tang cable the leading constitutionalists in Jiangsu and Zhejiang, Zhang Jian, Tang Shouqian and Zhao Fengchang, urging them to accept Hankou as the site for the talks. Wu Tingfang along with Zhang, Tang and Zhao continued to insist on Shanghai even after Tang had arrived in Hankou on 10 December, and in spite of Li Yuanhong's offer to dispatch the prominent Jiangsu constitutionalist Lei Fen to escort Wu from Shanghai to Hankou.58
On 11 December Wu cabled Li Yuanhong that he was personally willing to come to Hubei but that the delegates, including Lei Fen, opposed it. Wu followed this with a telegram to Yuan Shikai through British officials asking Yuan to send Tang Shaoyi to Shanghai, and another cable to Li Yuanhong saying that the foreign consuls preferred Shanghai as the site for the talks. At the same time Wu let British officials in Shanghai know that the revolutionaries in Shanghai did not accept Wuchang's leadership. In the face of this determination, Yuan agreed to have Tang go to Shanghai, and on 13 December Li Yuanhong too bowed to the inevitable but took the precaution of adding his two key foreign affairs persons, Wang Zhengting (1882–1961) and Hu Ying, to the Republican delegation. On the next day, 14 December, Tang and his retinue, along with Wang and Hu, departed for Shanghai, arriving on 17 December. Now the real negotiations could begin.59
56. Guandulu [Wu Tingfang] comp., Gonghe guanjian lu (Shanghai: Zhuyitang, 1912) (hereafter cited as Guanjian lu), 1:2.
57. Ibid., “Shiyisheng gongtui Wu daibiao dian,” p. 1; Jordan to Grey, 28 Nov. 1911, no. 138, FO 371/1096.
58. Ibid., 1:2–3; Shanghai shiliao, pp. 1070–71; Morrison, Correspondence 1:677; Jordan to Grey, 8 Dec. 1911, no. 613, FO 371/1096.
59. Guanjian lu 1:1–3; Jordan to Grey, 12 Dec., no. 187, 17 Dec. 1911, no. 278, FO 371/1097, 1310; Shanghai shiliao, p. 1260. on Wang Zhengting see Boorman, Biographical Dictionary 3:362–64.
Wu Tingfang and the 1911 Revolution
The North-South Peace Talks
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The five North-South peace talks that took place between 18 and 31 December 1911 were, in Louis T. Sigel's words, "primarily a public relations gimmick directed both towards domestic opinion, and more importantly towards foreign observers."60 They were also marked by intense behind-the-scene political negotiations involving a large number of people.
These included Wang Jingwei (1883–1944), a revolutionary who had been imprisoned after an abortive assassination attempt in Beijing, where Yuan Shikai made overtures to him and arranged for his release from prison after the revolution broke out. Wang served as a major intermediary between Yuan's delegation and the revolutionaries.61
Other important figures were Zhao Fengchang, whose home became a center of political discussion involving Song Jiaoren and other revolutionaries on the one hand, and leading constitutionalists such as Zhang Jian who were supporting the revolutionary side. Much revolutionary strategy was worked out at Zhao's home at long late-night sessions, so much so that Tang Shaoyi is reported to have said: “Zhi-lao [Venerable Wu] has the title of head of the Southern delegation, but in reality he has no decision making power; he can only represent the views of the Southern side, while the true decision maker is the old man Zhao [Fengchang].”62
Moreover, it is important to note that lateral negotiations were taking place among military figures in Nanjing at the same time that the formal negotiations were taking place in Shanghai. These negotiations resulted in a five-point draft treaty signed on 20 December by representatives of Yuan's Beiyang Army and representatives of the united Jiangsu–Zhejiang-Shanghai forces under Huang Xing. The treaty provided for the establishment of a republic, favorable terms for the ruling family, and the presidency to go to whomever overthrew the dynasty. This was a secret agreement and it is unlikely that Wu and the other Southern negotiators knew its terms.63
From the start, there was no question about Yuan Shikai's assumption of power. Wu and a number of other figures on the revolutionary side made no secret of their support for Yuan and their desire for a peaceful settlement.64
60. Sigel, "Revolution by Diplomacy: A Re-examination of the Shanghai Peace Conference of 1911,” in Papers on Far Eastern History: China's 1911 Revolution, ed. John Fincher, vol. 19 (Mar. 1979), pp. 131-32.
61. Wu's Guanjian lu (see n. 56 above) remains the major primary source for the conferences. Eyewitness accounts include “Xinhai Shanghai guangfu qianhou,” pp. 14-16; Gan Yi, “Xinhai heyi zhi mishi,” in Xinhai Geming 8:116–19; Feng Gengguang, “Miaochang dushi nanxia yu Nanbei yihe,” in Xinhai Geming huiyilu 6:348–68. On Wang Jingwei see Boorman, Biographical Dictionary 3:369–76. On his role during the peace talks see Ju Zheng, Xinhai zhaji: Meichuan riji (reprint, Taibei: Zhongyang wenwu gongying she, 1956), p. 80.
62. Feng Gengguang, “Miaochang dushi,” p. 362, cited in Zhang Kaiyuan and Lin Zengping, Xinhai Geming shi 3: 283.
63. Qian Jibo, “Xinhai Nanbei yihe bieji,” in Xinhai Geming 8:103–9.
64. National Review 10 (9 Dec. 1911): 446; Wilkinson to Jordan, 11 Dec., encl. in Jordan to Grey, 4 Jan. 1912, no. 308, FO 371/1311.
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The real issues involved the terms under which Yuan was to assume power. Was he to be prime minister under a constitutional monarchy, or even emperor himself, or was he to be president of a republic; and where were the revolutionaries to fit into the scheme of things? These were the basic questions to be resolved backstage.
The two key foreign powers, Britain and Japan, were strong supporters of a constitutional monarchy with Yuan as the prime minister. Japan in particular tried to force Britain to exert more pressure in favor of a monarchy. This led to substantial strains in the relations between these two allies. Although British policy-makers were personally supportive of constitutional monarchy, they were reluctant to intervene in the blatant ways the Japanese proposed during the talks. This will be discussed further below.65
Rather than overt intervention, all the powers' consular representatives in Shanghai decided to present an identic note to the delegates at their second meeting on 20 December. This note urged both sides to resolve their dispute rapidly and without resort to further warfare. This had the effect of pressuring the revolutionaries and the Qing Court while strengthening Yuan Shikai's hand. Both Tang and Wu, meanwhile, publicly agreed to leave the note unanswered."
Throughout these proceedings, Yuan was playing a very complex and subtle political game designed to maximize his own power. On the one hand, his appointment of Tang Shaoyi as his representative could not but please Wu and the other Shanghai-based revolutionaries. Tang made no secret of his support of republicanism and ostentatiously cut his queue before departing from Beijing.67
But Yuan was no pushover. According to Zhang Jian, Yuan did not give Tang a free hand, but staffed his delegation with others who were staunch monarchists and who reported independently to Yuan.68 Moreover, having appointed Tang, Yuan now took a tough line against the revolutionaries and against republicanism in his communications with the Court and with other monarchists. Even earlier, Yuan had ridiculed Wu and the Jiangsu revolutionaries when talking with Liang Qichao's supporter Luo Yinggong:
Wu was originally my disciple some time ago. He is now old and his brain is no longer active. At first he advocated constitutional monarchy
65. See nn. 78, 80. For a discussion of Japanese policy during the revolution see Banno Junji, “The Japanese Army's China Policy from 1911: Split or Division of Labor,” in Papers on Far Eastern History, ed. J. Fincher, 19:168-73.
66. On the identic note of 20 December, see John Gilbert Reid, The Manchu Abdication and the Powers, 1908-1912: An Episode in Pre-War Diplomacy: A Study of the Role of Foreign Diplomacy During the Reign of Hsuan-t'ung (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1935), p. 268.
67. On Tang's republicanism see Jerome Chen, Yuan Shih-k’ai (1859–1916): Brutus Assumes the Purple (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1961), p. 120; on the queue cutting see Morrison, Correspondence 1:678.
68. Liu Housheng, Zhang Jian zhuanji (Hong Kong: Longmen, 1965), pp. 192–93.
Wu Tingfang and the 1911 Revolution
but recently changed his fundamental principles. Although Zhiyong [Wu Tingfang] is serving as [Republican] spokesman, he doesn't have the support of the entire group. Just look at the southern provinces, where every prefecture and district has its own military governor! How could they be unified."
69
213
Yuan's supporters similarly made disparaging comments about Wu and the Shanghai group to G. E. Morrison, the Australian correspondent of The Times who was to become Yuan Shikai's adviser, and then told British Minister Jordan that Wu and Wen were men “who had no administrative experience and little knowledge of the country," and hence could not represent the views of the Chinese people.'
70
Although Wu and his colleagues were prepared to support Yuan, they nonetheless were not going to give in so easily. After Tang arrived in Shanghai, Wu gave Tang a courteous reception but refused to call upon him first, as British Consul-General Everard Fraser wished, because as Fraser wrote to G. E. Morrison, Wu said that "Tang has come here to sue for peace, then [Wu] changed his words into arrange terms with us, so he ought to make the first call I [Wu] think."71
At the first meeting of the two delegations on 18 December they mutually agreed upon an extensive cease-fire on all fronts. This was clearly in response to the pressure exerted by the foreign powers, who were in the process of preparing their identic note for presentation to the peace conference. Many on the revolutionary side opposed this cease-fire and were dubious about the entire notion of the peace conference. In fact as the authors of the recent authoritative account of the revolution, Xinhai Geming shi, have observed, the cease-fires had the effect of constricting the revolutionaries and preventing them from extending and consolidating the gains of the revolution, while allowing Yuan Shikai to consolidate his power in Shaanxi, Shanxi, Anhui and Shandong and to suppress revolutionaries in Northeast China and other areas under the rule of the Beiyang Army. Thus many revolutionaries perceived that the cease-fire contributed to the further loss of revolutionary momentum and the continued strengthening of Yuan's position.
72
At the second meeting on 20 December, Tang and Wu got down to business about the form of government—the real business having already been worked out after hours. The day before the meeting, Fraser called upon Wu at Tang's private request to urge him not to be "truculent" on the issue of a republic. Wu replied that "he would exhort his party, but among the rank
69. Lo Yinggong to Liang Qichao in Ding Wenjiang, Liang Rengong xiansheng nianpu, pp. 349–50. 70. Jordan to Grey, 28 Dec. 1911 (confidential), FO 371/3010 (received 15 Jan. 1912). For other disparaging comments see Morrison, Correspondence 1:672.
71. Morrison, Correspondence 1:681.
72. Zhang Kaiyuan and Lin Zengping, Xinhai Geming shi 3:284-87. The formal record of the conference is in Guanjian lu 1:5–9.
214
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and file feeling for insistence on a republic was very strong. Fraser commented to his superior in Beijing, Minister Jordan, that the bulk of the revolutionaries "seem to regard foreign intervention as a not unlikely contingency and to face the possibility without fear, if not without recklessness."74 This of course was not true but it indicates the importance that Fraser and Jordan ascribed to their own role in shaping the political outcome of the conflict, and it shows why Tang and Wu put on this show for Fraser.
At their meeting on the 20th Wu and Tang held a lengthy public discussion on the question of the form of government appropriate for China, in general expressing broad agreement with each other. Having set the framework, they proceeded—for the record—to devise a plan whereby a national convention would be convened to decide upon the form of government suitable for China.75
It is difficult to discern from the sources the origin of this idea of a national convention. It may have originated with Yuan Shikai himself, for on 15 November he sent out feelers to British Minister Jordan about the idea of having a national convention to determine the form of government. Jordan apparently was non-committal in response to this inquiry. The idea may also have been Tang Shaoyi's. On 19 November he similarly raised the issue in a meeting with Jordan in an effort to discern the British response. My own guess is that this idea originated with Tang Shaoyi and that Yuan had approved it as a contingency plan if the Southern side proved “truculent" about the form of government.76
At their subsequent meetings, Tang and Wu worked out the details for the convention. At their third meeting on 29 December they decided that each province was entitled to send three representatives and would have a total of three votes. When three-quarters of the delegates had assembled the discussions could begin. At the fourth and fifth meetings on 30 and 31 December, Wu and Tang debated at great length but failed to come to an agreement about where the convention should be held, how the delegates should be chosen, and when it should be convened. Wu held out for the convention to be held in Shanghai on 8 January, but the whole plan was shelved before ever getting to that stage.
77
As soon as Tang cabled him with the national convention plan, Yuan Shikai made a great public display of opposition to it. It is difficult to determine
73. Jordan to Grey, 20 Dec. 1911 (private), FO 371/1098.
74. Fraser to Jordan, 20 Dec. 1911, encl. in Jordan to Grey, 28 Dec. 1911, no. 517, FO 371/1310. It should also be noted that Britain and the U.S. were displeased with Wu's desire to have reporters present at the presentation of the identic note and commented adversely on his “fondness for publicity."
75. Guanjian lu 1:9–16.
76. Jordan to Grey, 15 Nov. 1911, FO 371/1095; on Tang's overture to Jordan see Sigel, “Revolution by Diplomacy," pp. 133–34.
77. Guanjian lu 1:16–37.
Wu Tingfang and the 1911 Revolution
215
whether his opposition was genuine or merely designed to convince the Court of his loyalty. As noted above, he spoke disparagingly to Jordan about Wu and Wen Zongyao and then began angling to see if he could use British and Japanese opposition to republicanism for his purposes. On 22 December he asked Japanese Minister Ijuin Hikokichi if he could look to foreign intervention to support monarchism. Even though he received a negative response and this episode was understood by Jordan as Yuan's effort to have Britain and Japan urge him to assume the presidency of a republic, Yuan nonetheless cabled Tang telling him that the powers would not recognize a republic.78
After ascertaining that foreign intervention was not likely, the Court reluctantly gave its approval to the idea of a national convention on 28 December.79 Meanwhile, Yuan's inquiries had stimulated Japan to press for direct intervention on behalf of a constitutional monarchy. Minister Ijuin tried to rally the foreign diplomatic corps to exert “moral pressure,” but the British Foreign Office decisively vetoed any such act. Meanwhile Tang Shaoyi let Wu know that Japan was contemplating some act. Wu responded that mere publication of Japan's opposition would unite all Chinese “in a fight to the death." He then sent a cable to Japan warning against intervention, British opposition and the strength of the Republican reaction prevented any further action on Japan's part, and Japanese officials privately told the British that they suspected Yuan had misrepresented them to Wu.80
Having maneuvered the Court into issuing the decree approving the idea of a national convention, Yuan began to publicly reject Tang's diplomacy. On 24 December Yuan had dispatched an official to visit U.S. diplomats in Beijing to tell them that he was disappointed in Tang Shaoyi and would not consent to a Republic. On 31 December Yuan told a U.S. official that he had not and would not agree to “such a farcical convention as proposed by Wu,” criticizing it as not representative enough. Yuan's disapproval grew stronger and finally led to Yuan's repudiation of Tang's acts on 1 January 1912 and Tang's resignation as Yuan's representative to the peace talks on the same day 81
What also (and more fundamentally) lay behind Yuan's repudiation of Tang was a change in the situation among the revolutionaries. Many
78. Jordan to Grey, 22, 23, 24 and 28 Dec. 1911, nos. 98–100, 115, 259, FO 371/1098, nos. 525–27, FO 371/1310.
79. Jordan to Grey, 24 Dec. 1911, no. 124, FO 371/1098; Decree, 28 Dec. 1911 (XT 3/11/9), Shilu 67:1202.
80. Jordan to Grey, 25 and 28 Dec. 1911, nos. 127, 391, FO 371/1098; MacDonald to Grey, 29 Dec. 1911, no. 404, FO 371/1098. On British-Japanese differences see Morrison, Correspondence 1: 682–84. For an unfortunately unreliable account based on the life of W. H. Donald, an Australian journalist who was advising Wu and the Republican delegation at the time, see Earl Albert Selles, Donald of China (New York: Harper, 1948), pp. 114–17.
81. Calhoun to Secretary of State, 24, 28 and 31 Dec. 1911, U.S. National Archives, 893.00/806, 832, 875; Guanjian lu 1:39.
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revolutionaries had opposed the peace talks from the beginning, but they were unable to convince Song Jiaoren, Huang Xing and others who were close to Zhang Jian and the other constitutionalists.82 But with the return of Sun Yixian from Europe the situation underwent a radical change. While still in Hong Kong Sun told U.S. officials that he repudiated Wu Tingfang and the other leaders in Shanghai, "the feeling of his party being," wrote the U.S. Consul, “that Wu Ting Fang and various other leaders cast their lot with the revolution only after its success became reasonably certain.”83
Sun arrived in Shanghai on 25 December with a large number of revolutionaries who had seized power in Guangdong. He received a tumultuous reception. On the next day at a secret meeting, Song Jiaoren, Huang Xing and Chen Qimei resolved to support Sun for the provisional presidency. Certainly their decision reflected their dissatisfaction with the solution derived by Tang, Wu, Yuan and the constitutionalists. Chen Qimei, for example, when hearing about the proposed scheme for a national convention, was said to have been so incensed that he vowed to assassinate Yuan upon his inauguration as president.84
On 29 December, as Wu was trying to rally support for the national convention, Sun Yixian was elected provisional president and 1 January 1912 was set as the first day of the new republic. The establishment of the Provisional Republican Government altered the situation: the ground rules had changed. Yuan confided to Jordan that he had lost control of the situation, and a new phase in the political settlement began.85
The Political Settlement, January-March 1912
Wu Tingfang was selected to serve as Minister of Justice in the first cabinet of the Provisional Republican Government. He was one of four former high Qing officials with close ties to the constitutionalist movement to be included in the list of nine appointees, the other three being Tang Shouqian, Minister of Communications; Cheng Dequan, Minister of the Interior; and Zhang Jian, Ministry of Industry. All of these appointments attest to the important role the Jiangsu and Zhejiang constitutionalists had played on the political scene since the Wuchang Uprising in October and their emergence as a quasi-independent power bloc within the Republican camp. Wu Tingfang was involved in the formation of several political associations in the revolutionary period, including the Gonghe Tongyi Hui (Republican Unification Association), which he co-sponsored along with Zhang Jian and Tang Wenzhi,
82. Zhang Kaiyuan and Lin Zengping, Xinhai Geming shi 3:278-79.
83. Anderson to Secretary of State, 22 Dec. 1911, U.S. National Archives, 893.00/1016.
84. On Sun's election see Liew, Struggle for Democracy, p. 136; on Chen Qimei's threat, see Gan Yi, “Xinhai heyi zhi mishi,” pp. 118–19.
85. Jordan to Grey, 1 Jan. 1912, no. 121, FO 371/1310.
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the leading figures in the Jiangsu constitutionalist movement. These political associations underscore the fact that the constitutionalists had emerged as an organized political force by the beginning of 1912.
Understandably, the issue of cabinet appointees was subject to political infighting among the revolutionaries. Having rejected Song Jiaoren's concept of a cabinet formed along party lines by the prime minister, Sun Yixian as Provisional President made up a slate of cabinet appointees for the provisional parliament's approval. According to Ju Zheng's account, the list Sun Yixian at first presented to the delegates assembled in Nanjing included three appointees who were heatedly opposed. These included Song Jiaoren as Minister of the Interior, Zhang Binglin as Minister of Education, and Wang Chonghui (1881-1958) as Foreign Minister. Also, there was strong sentiment in Nanjing and Shanghai in favor of Wu Tingfang continuing to serve as Foreign Minister.86
Sun's nominee as Foreign Minister, Wang Chonghui, was just thirty years old at the time of the revolution and had only returned from Europe a few weeks before the Wuchang Uprising. A Cantonese from a Christian family, Wang had received his early education in Hong Kong, then at the Beiyang University in Tianjin before going abroad. Early on he had made law his specialty, studying first in Japan and then in the United States, where he received a doctorate in law from Yale University in 1904. After his studies in the U.S., he continued studying law in Germany and England, and he served for a time at the International Court of Justice at The Hague. He was called to the Bar at Inner Temple shortly before returning to China. Wang had also been a disciple of Sun Yixian's. Although he may not have formally been a member of the Revolutionary Alliance, according to one account by Feng Ziyou, part of his legal education had been financed by the revolutionary movement under Sun's auspices. Although inexperienced in diplomacy per se, Wang was certainly knowledgeable about Europe and the United States and possessed many of the qualifications necessary to conduct diplomacy. Nonetheless, it is not difficult to see why many of the delegates opposed Wang, young, inexperienced and relatively unknown, and preferred Wu in the post.
87
In an effort to break the deadlock, Huang Xing proposed to Sun that Cheng Dequan be appointed Minister of the Interior instead of Song Jiaoren, that Cai Yuanpei (1868–1940) serve instead of Zhang Binglin as Minister of Education, and that Wang Chonghui and Wu Tingfang change places. In any case, Huang reasoned that substantive power in these and other ministries would devolve upon the assistant ministers, all of whom were staunch revolutionaries. Sun reportedly told Huang that while he would compromise
86. Ju Zheng, Xinhai zhaji, pp. 104–5; Shen Yunlong, “Huang Keqiang yu Chen Yingshi,” in his Jindai zhengzhi renwu shuping 1:88–90.
87. Feng Ziyou, Geming yishi 1:100–101. On Wang Chonghui see also Boorman, Biographical Dictionary 3:376–78.
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in the case of Cheng Dequan and Cai Yuanpei, he would not in the case of the Foreign Ministry:
Concerning the question of Foreign Affairs, I will want to deal directly with the Minister and Zhi[yong, i.e., Wu] is very old and it won't be convenient to see him frequently; Liangchou [Wang Chonghui] can receive instructions at my convenience and so I am firm in wanting to use him.88
Sun Yixian's insistence on this point was very upsetting to Wu and his supporters. When the cabinet appointees were made public on 3 January, the powerful Cantonese Guild in Shanghai cabled Sun protesting his treatment of Wu and threatened to withdraw its proposed loan of 400,000 dollars to the Nanjing Government. Both Wu and Wen Zongyao, it should be noted, were directors of the Guild and had probably been instrumental in arranging the loan.8
89
Under the circumstances, Wang Chonghui demurred, claiming that he lacked the qualifications to handle the post. According to Hu Hanmin, who was chief secretary to Sun at that time, Sun scoffed at this:
We have to completely get rid of these so-called bureaucratic qualifications; as to foreign affairs problems, we ourselves will solve. them; [so] don't be afraid.
To journalists inquiring about the appointment of Wu Tingfang as Minister of Justice instead of remaining on as Foreign Minister, Sun extolled Wu's accomplishments in law reform under the Qing. Rather than reflecting a low opinion of Wu, Sun asserted that his appointment as Minister of Justice reflected the esteem in which he and the other Republican figures held issues of law and justice.o1 Sun responded in a similar way to the Cantonese Guild in an effort to reassure its members that he held Wu in high regard, and that Wu and Wen were still in charge of the North-South peace negotiations. The loan came through.92
These were nice replies, and there was certainly a measure of truth to them. But there is no disguising the fact that Sun preferred someone whom he could completely trust to follow his guidance in conducting foreign
88. Cited in Shen Yunlong, “Huang Keqiang yu Chen Yingshi,” pp. 90–91.
89. Sun to Shanghai Guangchao Gongso and Chaozhou Huiguan, 5 Jan. 1912, in Sun Yixian [Sun Yat-sen], Guofu quanji, ed. Committee for the Centennial of Sun Yixian's Birth (Taibei, 1965), 9:109.
90. Hu Hanmin, Zizhuan (Taibei: Zhuanji wenxue, 1969), p. 65.
91. Shen Yunlong, “Minguo diyi ren neige renxuan de kaozheng,” in his Jindai zhengzhi renuu shuping 1:180–81.
92. Sun to Wu Tingfang et al., 26 Jan. 1912, Sun Yixian, Guofu quanji 9:122.
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relations, and that he did not have such confidence in or ability to control Wu and the Jiangsu-Zhejiang constitutionalists with whom Wu was close. It should be remembered that at this same time Wu was dispatching and receiving telegrams from provincial figures about the proposed national convention, a plan Sun and his followers heatedly opposed. Sun's repeated telegrams to Wu urging that the latter report fully and promptly on the progress of the negotiations, and even to come to Nanjing, suggests that Sun was concerned that the Shanghai group would continue to act independently of the newly constituted government in Nanjing,93
Although the list of cabinet appointees was made public on 3 January, the issue of the Foreign Ministry was not fully settled for about ten days. In the interim, Wu in fact acted as Foreign Minister. On 5 January Sun Yixian issued a "Manifesto from the Republic of China to All Friendly Nations," which was countersigned by Wu Tingfang as Minister of Foreign Affairs. Wu transmitted this manifesto to U.S. officials with a note of his own.94 Not until 11 January did Wu and Wen formally turn over the duties of the Foreign Ministry to Wang Chonghui. One of Wang's first acts was to issue another communication to the various foreign governments, which they declined to answer, fearing it would imply recognition.95
94
Thus the transition was accomplished, and Wu finally accepted his post as Minister of Justice. He did not, however, assume that post actively until after the Manchu abdication in mid-February. Until that time his full energies were taken
up with the negotiations leading up to that event. His activities as Minister of Justice will be considered separately below, but let us now turn to a consideration of Wu's role in the last phases of the negotiations between Yuan Shikai and the Republican forces.
The latter phase of these negotiations starting on 1 January 1912 were of a very different character from those earlier. Having forced Tang Shaoyi's resignation on 1 January, Yuan proceeded to negotiate directly with the Southern forces headed by Wu. Correctly perceiving that the establishment of the Nanjing Provisional Government and the election of Sun Yixian had undercut his position, Yuan took a tough line, politically and militarily, against the revolutionary forces. Although he had earlier been assured that he would receive the presidency of the Republic upon the abdication of the Qing ruling house, Yuan was not entirely convinced.
The national convention scheme was completely dead by 7 January. On 2 January Sun cabled Yuan Shikai directly declaring his opposition to the plan
93. For Sun's cables to Wu, see ibid., 9:107-8. For cables to and from Wu on the national convention see Guanjian lu 1:44–49.
94. The manifesto was published on 6 January but dated 5 January. Enclosure in Gracey to Calhoun, 8 Jan. 1912, U.S. National Archives, 893.00/1047; also Wilder to Secretary of State, 8 Jan. 1912, ibid., 893.00/1065.
95. Clip from Shanghai Mercury 13 Jan. 1912, encl in Wilder to Secretary of State, 18 Jan. 1912, ibid., 893.00/1091; Wang Chonghui to Secretary of State, undated telegram arrived 11 Jan. 1912, ibid., 893.00/913; Wang to Sir Edward Grey, 11 Jan. 1912, no. 467, FO 371/1310.
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for a national convention but proclaiming his desire to come to a peaceful settlement with Yuan. Following Sun Yixian's public opposition to the convention, Wu continued to press for it and to try to hold Yuan to the agreements that Tang had already made, but Yuan refused to be held to them.
96
As was true of the earlier phase of the negotiations, informal and secret communications were conducted between Yuan's emissaries and the revolutionaries. Although Tang Shaoyi had been dismissed and repudiated by Yuan, he stayed on in Shanghai and continued to play an important role in the peace settlement. Moreover, Yuan sent Liang Shiyi, another trusted confidant, to Shanghai to join in the discussions. Liang was a colleague of Tang's who had come to play a major role in Yuan's bureaucracy managing rails and other communications agencies. Liang played an important role in the private negotiations leading to the abdication. Along with Tang, Wu, Sun and a number of others in the Republican camp, Liang was a Cantonese whose presence added to the "Cantonese” nature of the talks.97
With the plan for the national convention now dropped, Yuan developed an alternate strategy whereby the Court would abdicate and turn power over to Yuan, who would establish a separate provisional government based in Tianjin. Yuan would then arrange a separate political settlement with the Nanjing revolutionaries. Starting on 11 January, Yuan confidentially sought out sympathetic foreign diplomatic figures to ascertain their views on this plan.98
When Yuan felt confident that Britain and Japan would not oppose
such a plan, he apparently had Liang and Tang discuss this scheme with Wu and the Nanjing revolutionaries. Although the facts are not entirely clear, it seems as though Wu had obtained Sun's agreement to this plan, or thought he did. With this understanding in mind, Yuan on 16 January sent a memorial to the Court proposing early abdication. On this same day an assassination attempt on Yuan failed, and Yuan stayed out of the limelight while the Court considered his memorial.9 99
On 19 January, however, Sun Yixian objected strenuously to Yuan's plan, and Huang Xing joined Sun in his denunciation. Sun insisted that the Qing ruler's abdication edict state that it was doing so at the behest of the already existing Provisional Republican Government in Nanjing. Following the abdication, Sun promised that he would formally resign the provisional presidency and request that the National Assembly elect Yuan Shikai as president. 100
96. See Sun to Yuan, 2 Jan. 1912, Sun Yixian, Guofu quanji 9:108; Guanjian lu 1:49–54, 56–58, 60– 61.
97. On Liang Shiyi, see Boorman, Biographical Dictionary 2:354–57. On the Cantonese dimension see Yu Zhijiang's account in “Xinhai Shanghai guangfu qianhou,” pp. 14–15.
98. Jordan to Grey, 12, 13 and 14 Jan. 1912, nos. 492, 506, 514, FO 371/3010, 1310.
99. Sun Yixian, Guofu quanji 9:112.
100. Guanjian lu 1:72–79; Sun Yixian, Guofu quanji 9:118–19.
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Yuan was opposed to this plan and sought to mobilize British and Japanese opposition to it. Japan favored direct foreign intervention, maintaining that Sun's plan would leave the North without an effective government, but Britain, along with the U.S. and Germany, took a strong initiative against military intervention.101
Meanwhile, Britain refused to promise Yuan that a provisional government in Tianjin would be recognized, and the influential journalist G. E. Morrison strongly urged him to remain in Beijing. Finally, the Manchu princes expressed their strong opposition to Yuan's plan. In the end, Yuan was forced to abandon it. On the revolutionary side, Wu and Tang exerted the full force of their influence by refusing to transmit further demands from Sun to Yuan.102
Matters might have dragged on for some time had it not been for the financial difficulties both sides were experiencing. Early on, Wu had been able to obtain assurances that foreign governments would not lend the Qing Government funds while hostilities lasted; the Republican side was also, of course, prohibited from obtaining foreign loans. However, Yuan was in a better position to draw upon the resources of the Qing state to pay his troops than were the Southern revolutionaries, but he too could not continue indefinitely without foreign assistance to pay his military bills.
By mid-January the Nanjing Government was facing an acute financial crisis. Efforts to levy domestic loans, such as that the Canton Guild gave
the Provisional Government, bore increasingly meager results and also increased the strains between the bourgeoisie and the revolutionary governments. These strains were manifested in Zhang Jian's decision to resign from his cabinet post as Minister of Industry because of Sun's attempt to use the Hanyeping Iron Works as collateral for a Japanese loan. The strains were also to be seen in the great indignation aroused among shareholders of the CMSNC upon receiving an ultimatum from the Republican military commanders on 24 January giving the Company two days to levy a loan of Tls 10 million from a Japanese steamship company, using its ships as collateral. This will be discussed more fully in the next section.
These strains were reflected in Wu's not-too-secret disapproval of the Nanjing regime. In late January Wu confided in a foreign friend that “the Nanking program was not to his liking; [Wu] spoke of the young and inexperienced men whose counsels dominate, and evinced some annoyance at the humiliations he had endured. Dr. Wu, while commending the patriotic purpose of Sun Yat Sen, spoke of Yuan Shih Kai as the greatest administrator in sight at present. . . . His attitude is 'If they don't want me to run the government, let them run it themselves."" Wu was said to have "lost his jaunty air” and appear “worried. "103
101. Reid, Manchu Abdication, pp. 274–88.
102. Jerome Chen, Yuan Shih-k’ai, pp. 127–28; Morrison, Correspondence 1: 704–5.
103. Wilder to Calhoun, 25 Jan. 1912, encl. in Calhoun to Secretary of State, 21 Feb. 1912, U.S. National Archives, 893.00/1212.
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These financial strains led to a fruitless drive to obtain diplomatic recognition conducted by Sun and Wang Chonghui, and forced Sun and the rest of the revolutionaries to come to a settlement with Yuan in spite of their obvious distrust of him. Much as Sun would rail against Yuan's duplicity, there was little he could do to alter the trend towards Yuan's assumption of power and the weakening of the Nanjing revolutionaries' power, 104
By 30 January the Empress Longyu had decided to proclaim a republic by imperial decree. The Court's acquiescence was preceded by two important events. The first of these occurred on 18 January when all the major commanders of the Beiyang Army headed by Duan Qirui petitioned the Court requesting that it abdicate in the interests of peace. The second event was the assassination of Liangbi, the able Manchu military figure who had become the leader of the anti-abdication forces, on 26 January.'
105
On 3 February Yuan cabled Wu with the Court's conditions for abdication. Further negotiations resulted in a settlement on the main points by 6 February. The settlement allowed the Emperor to retain his title, temporarily reside in the Forbidden City and then permanently at the Summer Palace, and retain his full retinue of attendants. The Republican Government agreed to pay an annual sum of four million dollars for the Emperor's living expenses, to maintain the Imperial family's family shrines and mausolea, and to pay for the completion of the two mausolea under construction. Imperial kinsmen and "bannermen" (Qiren) retained the right to keep their titles but would enjoy equal rights as other Chinese citizens, and were furthermore assured that their private property would not be tampered with.106
It had already been arranged that Sun would resign upon the publication of the edict, the Assembly would elect Yuan president, and Yuan would come to Nanjing to take up his post. The understandings having been reached, the abdication edict was issued on 12 February. The edict itself, drafted by Zhang Jian and Liang Shiyi, had received prior approval from the Republican side but contained a last minute nasty surprise: an insertion by Yuan Shikai in which he was granted full powers to organize a provisional republican government. This of course meant that the existing Provisional Government was not granted the legitimacy it needed to obtain diplomatic recognition and further weakened the revolutionaries in their struggle with Yuan.107
While complying with the terms of the agreement with Yuan, Sun and the revolutionaries nevertheless strongly objected to the wording of the edict. Wu and Tang themselves told David Fraser that they felt sick at heart and
104. On the financial difficulties as they affected the negotiations see Jordan to Grey, 29 Jan. 1912, no. 49, FO 371/1313. On the drive for recognition see Wang Chonghui to Grey, 19 Jan. 1912, no. 120, FO 371/1311 and telegram of same date to U.S. Secretary of State, U.S. National Archives, 893.00/938.
105. Zhonghua Minguo kaiguo wushinian wenxian bianzuan weiyuanhui, ed., Zhonghua Minguo kaiguo wushinian wenxian, ser. 2, vol. 2, Kaiguo guimo (Taibei, 1962), 2; 590.
106. Guanjian lu 1:94–98.
107. Jerome Chen, Yuan Shih-k'ai, pp. 129–30.
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dissatisfied with the tone of the edict and the extravagance of the terms to the Manchus. Nonetheless, Wu cabled his congratulations to Yuan upon the latter's formal selection as President.108
Throughout these proceedings, Wu Tingfang served as intermediary between Sun Yixian and Yuan Shikai, a trying and difficult position. He was not fully trusted by the revolutionaries and was in fact not acting in their interests but rather in accord with the views of Zhang Jian and the constitutionalist bloc that bolstered Yuan's position at the expense of that of the revolutionaries.
It is problematic as to whether the political settlement could have varied greatly from the one that would have resulted if Wu had not undermined the revolutionary cause. In the long run the hostility of the imperialist nations to the republican cause led to the downfall of the revolution. Without diplomatic recognition the revolutionaries could not obtain foreign loans with which to continue militarily against the Dynasty. Moreover, all within the revolutionary camp feared the specter of foreign intervention and further loss of sovereignty. Already, Mongolia and Tibet were exhibiting political instability and there was great danger of Chinese interests suffering in those outlying areas. Financial difficulties and fears of further loss of sovereignty were decisive factors in the political defeat of the revolution.
Suffice it to say that Wu's relations with the Nanjing Provisional Government and the revolutionary forces showed considerable strain during the negotiations described above. With the conclusion of the negotiations Wu took up his post as Minister of Justice (amidst rumors that he would be appointed Foreign Minister in Yuan Shikai's cabinet), and engaged in sharp debates with Chen Qimei that reflected strongly differing views on China's future path.109
Liberalism and the 1911 Revolution
Recently Edward Rhoads made a plea for the 1911 revolution to be "seriously and rigorously evaluated by the standards of bourgeois liberalism rather than ... dismissed as ‘mere liberalism.”” In this concluding section, I would like to show how the revolutionaries themselves undermined “liberalism,” and how from the perspective of a person imbued with liberal values such as Wu Tingfang, Yuan Shikai could have seemed like a better bet for the fulfillment of liberalism than Sun Yixian and his comrades in the Revolutionary Alliance- at least in 1911–12."
110
Liberalism, in Wu Tingfang's case, is a convenient term to describe his attachment to a variety of political institutions associated with England, the
108. Morrison, Correspondence 1:735.
109. For an example of these rumors see ibid., pp. 741-42.
110. Rhoads, "Two Cheers for 1911,” p. 134.
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United States and western European nations. These institutions included some form of representative political structure, whether republican or monarchical, and a system that protects the specific interests of its members in the form of constitutional rights against arbitrary conduct. Above all, it meant a rule of law to provide structure and stability for society and politics. To this end, throughout his adult life Wu upheld concepts such as the right of trial by jury and the independence of the judiciary, and advocated the necessity of an independent (but responsible) press.
Wu's liberalism was not in conflict with the nationalist requirement of a strong, fairly centralized government. For him, there seemed to be no contradiction. It is instructive to remember that in his first public statement to the North China Herald on 8 November, Wu stated that a republic would be partly patterned after the United States and partly after the German Federation. While the first model conjures up images more familiarly “liberal," the second model is more commonly associated with the construction of a centralized and somewhat autocratic state under the powerful figure of Chancellor Otto von Bismarck—he, clearly, was to be Yuan Shikai's model.1
Wu's Minguo tuzhi chuyi, written in 1914, indicates clearly the tasks that a national government should perform in China. These of course included the all important protection of sovereignty against encroachments on the periphery, but went beyond that to see the state promote land reclamation, scientific irrigation and a variety of other methods to stimulate agricultural production, promote commerce and industry, encourage modern education and widespread literacy, and improve the lives of its citizenry by creating a stable and civilized environment.112 It may well be argued that for Wu, liberal institutions were seen as part of this larger national goal rather than goals in and of themselves.
With this in mind, the conflicts between Wu and the revolutionaries that emerged throughout the revolutionary period are illuminating. Throughout this chapter we have noted points of stress in the relations between Wu and the revolutionaries, starting with the threats of force employed by Chen Qimei's followers at the meeting on 6 November that formally established the Shanghai Military Government.
The conflict between Chen on the one hand and Li Xiehe and the Restoration Society on the other continued through the revolutionary period. In November Li had narrowly escaped an assassination attempt believed to have been made by Chen's followers, and then on 14 January 1912 a leading Restoration Society figure, Tao Chengzhang, was assassinated in a Shanghai hospital as he was about to be appointed Governor of Zhejiang Province. Tao's murder was then (and still is) widely believed to have been arranged by Chen Qimei's follower Jiang Jieshi, although this remains unproven. This was a shocking event that also upset Sun Yixian and Huang Xing. Later events
111. See n. 44.
112. Especially chaps. 3–16.
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were of course to prove that Chen Qimei did not have a monopoly on assassination attempts, but in 1912 Yuan Shikai had not yet fully shown the
range of his autocratism and contempt for liberalism.113
full
Also disturbing to propertied people in Shanghai were the forced levies made upon individuals and firms by the Shanghai Military Government, or soldiers acting in its name, and later by the Nanjing Provisional Government as well. By January, financial distress had led Chen's government to reimpose the transit and other taxes it had so confidently waived in November; still the money problems remained acute. On 20 January the military government issued a proclamation prohibiting soldiers from using threats to obtain contributions and offering to reimburse those who had been coerced into giving funds. But the practice continued and included threats and kidnapping.
114
These forced levies were actually a notorious feature of Chen Qimei's government, much commented upon by Chinese and foreigners alike. Even an orthodox Nationalist Party biography of Chen written in 1977 acknowledged that several millions in property were thus taken but attributes it to "bad elements" (buliang fenzi) among his followers.115 If the latter was true it indicates that Chen's troops were poorly disciplined and that he was not in complete control over their activities; if it is not true, it suggests that the financial problems of the new regime were so overwhelming that Chen was forced to write off the support of propertied groups. In any case, the lack of respect for private property led to a serious loss of support for the revolutionary government.
Financial distress was also the most acute problem faced by the Nanjing Provisional Government. Many commanders were disgusted with the political settlement with Yuan Shikai that Wu and Tang were arranging and wanted to complete the "northern expedition," but they were frustrated by the utter lack of funds available to them. On 20 January the managers of the CMSNC received a telegram signed by eighteen military commanders, most of them based in the lower Yangzi provinces, demanding that the Company allow the Provisional Government borrow 10 million dollars using the Company's properties as collateral. The officers also demanded that Sheng Xuanhuai's shares in the Company be expropriated. Although the telegram began politely, it progressed to demands and threats. The Company was given a 48-hour period to respond, and if it did not comply it would be considered a public
113. On the assassination see Rankin, Early Chinese Revolutionaries, pp. 149, 211; Sun Yixian, Guofu quanji 9:112; Huang Xing, Huang Xing ji, p. 103.
114. Shanghai shiliao, pp. 425–26.
115. Shao Yuanzhong, Chen Yingshi xiansheng geming xiaoshi (Taibei: Zhongguo Guomindang zhongyang weiyuanhui, Dangshi weiyuanhui, 1977), p. 20. See also Jean Rodes, Scenes de la vie revolutionnaire en Chine (1911–1914), 2d ed. (Paris: Plon, 1917), pp. 69–72; Straight to J. P. Morgan and Co., 4 Feb. 1912, encl. in J. P. Morgan to Secretary of State, 16 Mar. 1912, U.S. National Archives, 893.00/1191; NCH, 23 and 30 Mar. 1912, pp. 768, 884; 13 and 20 Apr. 1912, pp. 95, 109, 110-12, 145-47.
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enemy and its key personnel would face execution. It was an extraordinary document.116
Wu Tingfang had been elected chairman of the stockholders in October 1911 following Sheng Xuanhuai's flight to Japan. Soon after his election to this position, he became occupied with handling foreign affairs and then the peace negotiations and apparently was unable to be actively involved in the CMSNC's affairs. When this ultimatum was received, Wu was cabled by the managing directors and asked to handle the situation, but he declined to be involved, stating that he had sent Wen Zongyao in his place to earlier board meetings with his request to resign, which had not been accepted. He repeated his desire to resign and stated that if the stockholders publicly decided to comply with the demand he would not oppose it. Actually, Wu's resignation was never accepted and he remained chairman of the board until Yuan Shikai forced a major reorganization of the Company in November 1912.117
The directors decided to hold a public meeting in Zhang's Gardens on 1 February to vote on the loan. The meeting was to be widely publicized throughout China. Huang Xing and Sun Yixian reluctantly granted the Company the extra time needed to accomplish this, but by now the shareholders were in an uproar. One group of shareholders from Hong Kong and Macau not only boycotted the meeting but wrote to Sun and Huang denouncing the government's action in scathing terms. They pronounced the plan as even worse than the Qing Government's railway nationalization plan and viewed it as especially reprehensible because the Republican government claimed to be "civilized." Other shareholders in Shanghai boycotted the public meeting to prevent a quorum from being reached and thereby invalidate the vote.118
Although the shareholders who attended the meeting, representing 10% of the stockholders, did vote to comply with the demand, the opposition by the vast majority of shareholders prevented the loan from being implemented. In March, the Provisional Government finally dropped the issue.119 From the point of view of the majority of shareholders the Provisional Government could hardly be counted upon to protect their interests; from the perspective of the revolutionaries it appeared to show that the propertied classes were only fair-weather friends. Following this incident, Chen Qimei several times
116. Encl. in Liang Qingliu and Tang Guotai to Wu Tingfang, 20 Jan. 1912, in Zhongguo di’er lishi dang'an,
ed., "Nanjing linshi zhengfu shiyi Zhaoshangju changshi jie Rizhai shiliao,” Lishi dang'an, 1983, no. 3: 43–44.
117. Wu to Managers, 21 Jan. 1912, in ibid., p. 45; Pan to Managers, 9 Feb. 1912, ibid., p. 53; NCH, 13 Apr. 1912, p. 118. On the reorganization in November 1912 see “Zhongguo dashi ji,” Dongfang zazhi 9, no. 10 (Jan. 1913).
118. Managers to Sun Yixian and Huang Xing, 3 Feb. 1912, in Zhongguo di'er lishi dang'an, "Nanjing linshi zhengfu shiyi Zhaoshangju,” p. 49.
119. “Zhaoshangju dongshihui guanyu Nanjing linshi zhengfu jiekuan shixiang huiyi jilu,” 10 Feb. 1912, in Zhongguo di'er lishi dang'an, ed., Zhonghua Minguo shi dang'an ziliao huibian, 2d ser. (Yangzhou: Jiangsu renmin, 1981), pp. 305–8. See also NCH, 2 Mar. 1912, p. 564.
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tried to resign from his position as Military Governor, claiming that he could not overcome obstructionist tactics in coping with financial difficulties.120
The events described above may be seen as setting the stage for the celebrated exchange of letters between Wu Tingfang and Chen Qimei of spring 1912 when Wu as Minister of Justice in the Nanjing Provisional Government clashed with Chen over jurisdiction and procedures in two cases. The first case involved the trial of Yao Rongze for murder of two young revolutionaries in northern Jiangsu, Zhou Shi and Ruan Shi, during the revolutionary transition. Yao was the commander of the Qing garrison in the Huaibei region of the province and Zhou and Ruan were students who returned to their native Huaibei with armed student supporters. When Yao (whose superiors were close to Yuan Shikai) refused to go along with the "restoration" proclaimed by the students and others in the Huaibei region, Zhou and Ruan denounced him. Shortly thereafter they were both murdered, and Yao fled to Suzhou.121
The relatives of the two murdered youths petitioned Chen Qimei and Sun Yixian requesting that Yao be brought to justice. Sun granted Chen permission to conduct the trial in Shanghai, but Wu as Minister of Justice wanted to set up a special tribunal and use it as a showcase of modern judicial procedure, with his handpicked judges. After much wrangling Chen Qimei agreed to permit Wu to select the chief magistrate, Chen Yifan (Ivan Chen), with Chen Qimei's legal expert Cai Yin assisting Wu's choice Ding Rong (Alexander Ting) as assistant magistrate.122
An even greater dispute arose over the use of western law and western lawyers. Yao asked to be represented by a foreign lawyer. Chen vehemently opposed it while Wu thought it should be permitted. Wu argued that this would help to establish the principle of judicial reciprocity. Of course, this reveals that Wu believed that British legal practices would be employed under the Republic and that the new crop of lawyers emerging would use them as the basis for China's own reforms. As noted above in Chapter 6, Wu did indeed wish to see China apply British judicial procedures virtually without alteration. 123
Chen Qimei scathingly denounced Wu's defense of "cosmopolitanism.” He denounced the defeatist spirit of those who, in Chen's estimation, were slavishly devoted to the West. Wu responded at great length to this issue, asserting that in the area of law China did indeed have a great deal to learn
120. See Shen Yunlong, "Huang Keqiang yu Chen Yingshi," pp. 98–99.
121. In addition to the documents cited below, see also those in Yangzhou shifan xueyuan, comp., Xinhai Geming Jiangsu diqu shiliao (Nanjing: Jiangsu renmin, 1963), pp. 341-63; Wong Young-tsu, "Popular Unrest and the 1911 Revolution in Jiangsu,” Modern China 3, no. 3 (July 1977): 333.
122. Chen to Wu, 4 Feb., Wu to Sun, 18 Feb. 1912, in Wu Tingfang, Wu Zhiyong xiansheng gongdu, ed. Zhou Chengxu (Shanghai: Wenruilou, 1926) (hereafter cited as Wu Tingfang, Gongdu), 1:20b– 24.
123. Wu to Chen, 7 Mar. 1912, ibid., pp. 24b–25.
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from the West. He felt that the legal profession in China was still relatively weak and immature, and that Chinese lawyers could learn much from studying their foreign counterparts. Willingness to debate with foreign lawyers should be viewed as a mark of confidence rather than evidence of defeatism.124
The issue of "cosmopolitanism" that emerged in this exchange indicates a significant difference between the British-educated, Hong Kong-raised Wu, and the younger revolutionaries educated in China or Japan. We have at various points in earlier chapters noted that Wu's nationalism was tempered by his background and training and revealed in the degree to which he assumed that British liberal institutions were superior to Chinese, even as he held that Chinese social organization was superior to that of Britain and America. This was seen by some revolutionaries as defeatist: Yu Zhijiang, Chen Qimei's assistant who served as intermediary between Wu and Chen in November and December, recollected many years later, "In truth, Wu Tingfang revered the West to an incredible degree!" (chong yang chong de lihai)125
Yao Rongze's trial itself was a success for Wu. It was China's first modern jury trial, the jury being selected from a panel prepared by Wu with some additions by Chen Qimei. The jury declared Yao guilty of one of the murders, not both. The judge declared Yao guilty of murder with a capital sentence, but Yao was given a three-week period to petition Yuan Shikai for mercy. A number of the jurors and others as well cabled President Yuan asking that Yao be pardoned in view of the fact that the crime occurred during a turbulent period of civil disorder. Wu arranged for a large number of Shanghai gentry and merchants to submit similar petitions and then forwarded them to Yuan, who issued a presidential decree on 13 April pardoning Yao. Notwithstanding the fact that the case revealed overtones of the political struggle between Yuan and the revolutionaries, it also was viewed by Wu as a “civilized” procedure symbolizing the new spirit of the Chinese Republic.126
Wu's success in the Yao Case was overshadowed by the shocking kidnapping and arrest on 24 March of Song Hanzhang (Song Lu), manager of the Shanghai branch of the Bank of China (formerly DaQing Bank). Song was dining with friends in the International Settlement when he was spirited away by launch to a police station outside the Settlement and held incommunicado while charged with corruption and embezzlement.
Actually, Song had earlier materially aided the revolution by withholding large sums, amounting to nearly Tls 2,500,000, from the Qing authorities in the early phases of the revolution. According to Yu Zhijiang, the real reason for Chen's action was that Song kept evading his demands for the bank to lend the military government money and he wanted to pressure him.127
124. Ibid., 2:1–7.
125. "Xinhai Shanghai guangfu qianhou,” p. 16.
126. Wen Zongyao to Yuan Shikai, 11 Apr. 1912, in Wu Tingfang, Gongdu 2:7b8a; NCH, 30 Mar. 1912, pp. 837–38, 844; 6, 13 and 20 Apr. 1912, pp. 118–20, 147–48.
127. Ray O. Hall, Chapters and Documents on Chinese National Banking (Shanghai: Commercial Press, 1920), pp. 104-5; “Xinhai Shanghai guangfu qianhou,” pp. 13–14.
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This incident caused a great uproar in Shanghai's business community. The acting director of the bank and members of its management board petitioned Wu asking that Chen release Song while the Ministry of Finance, under whose jurisdiction the matter properly belonged, investigate the matter. Wu promptly responded, forwarding the letters from the bank personnel to Chen and asking for clarification.128
Chen blandly replied that Song was held during the military government's investigation, that he had arrested him because Song had not responded to earlier communications, and that the case properly fell in his own jurisdiction because the embezzlement had occurred before the Provisional Government had been established and therefore martial law applied. Chen also (and insultingly) implied that the bank could not be impartial in an internal investigation and neither could ex-Qing officials serving the Republican government!129
Wu correctly saw this as a personal attack and responded in kind. Chen had blurred the distinction between executive and judicial functions of the government, something even little children understood. The separation of powers had even been upheld in the reactionary Qing constitution; certainly the progressive Republican government should follow this principle. Wu asserted that the military government had no investigative powers and that Chen had infringed upon the authority of other branches of government. Wu's heated response also defended the loyalty of former Qing officials such as himself. 130
According to Yu Zhijiang's account, Wu was able to obtain Song's release by personally assuming responsibility for him. However, the war of letters between Chen and Wu continued through Song's trial in May 1912 in which the charges against him remained unproven. Throughout his letters Wu maintained a strong defense of the independence of the judiciary and of the importance of a rule by law as a fundamental principle of the Republic. By the time Song's trial was concluded, the Shanghai Military Government had been forced to disband under pressure from Yuan, Chen Qimei had alienated most of the propertied people of Shanghai and was never able to regain a strong position in the city again. 131
The exchange of letters with Chen over the Yao Rongze Case and the kidnapping of Song Hanzhang was edited by Wu and printed at his expense under the title Wu Zhiyong xiansheng gongdu (Public papers of Mr. Wu Zhiyong [Tingfang]). He did so because he felt that his position was clearly right and that the exchange provided a good opportunity to publicize it. The exchange won Wu a good deal of fame as an advocate of constitutional government and liberal principles. The portion of these letters dealing with
128. Wu Tingfang, Gongdu 2: 8–9a.
129. Ibid., pp. 9-11a.
130. Ibid., pp. 11-12.
131. “Xinhai Shanghai guangfu qianhou,” pp. 13–14.
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the Song kidnapping was also reprinted in the important collection, Minguo jingshi wenbian (Collected essays on Republican statecraft), which is one of the most important sources for the constitutionalist movement of the early republican period. 132
Many historians who view the revolution of 1911 as a failure see it as “not much of a revolution," or not revolutionary enough.133 From the perspective of the revolutionaries themselves the failure was marked by their inability to seize political power. But from Wu Tingfang's perspective in 1912, the revolution had succeeded in overthrowing the Qing Dynasty, the necessary precondition for China's fulfillment of its national goals. For Wu, the implementation of institutional reforms patterned after the Anglo-American political system was an integral part of the attainment of these national goals. His experiences with Chen Qimei's military government and to some degree with the Nanjing Provisional Government led him to doubt that the revolutionaries could fulfill his view of China's national goals. The jettisoning of parliamentary democracy in the struggle for power, the lack of concern for the inviolability of private property, and the inability to control its soldiery were all indications that the revolutionaries did not deserve the support of the propertied classes whom Wu viewed as the backbone of the nation. For Wu, the real test of the revolution was yet to occur.
132. Reprint, Taibei, 1962, 2:480–82.
133. Esherick, "1911: A Review,” in “A Symposium on the 1911 Revolution,” Modern China 2, no. 2(Apr. 1976): 141–84.
8
Elder Statesman 1912-1922
The first decade of the Chinese Republic, and the last of Wu Tingfang's long life, was one of increasing disappointment after the high hopes of revolution. To counter the centrifugal tendencies towards national disintegration Yuan Shikai employed increasingly autocratic means. This trend culminated in Yuan's disastrous campaign to establish a new monarchy and his subsequent true loss of the "mandate."
Wu Tingfang, having committed himself to the concept of republicanism, and particularly to the notion of constitutionalism, was distressed to see the latter diluted and finally abandoned by Yuan. Still, Wu was willing to overlook much in the interest of maintaining a viable state and in view of his personal relationship with Yuan. But when Yuan tried to make himself emperor, that was too much for Wu and he joined in the anti-Yuan movement.
With Yuan Shikai's death Wu emerged from retirement. In November 1916 he agreed to assume the post of Foreign Minister in the newly constituted government under President Li Yuanhong. He did so in the hopes of breaking the deadlock between Duan Qirui and his coalition of northern militarists on the one hand, and the broad coalition of political figures who opposed them on the other. Within short order, however, this conflict paralyzed Li's government and led to its collapse in June 1917, under circumstances to be described later in this chapter.
Wu Tingfang had hoped to be a mediator and a peacemaker but eventually was forced to take a stand of public opposition to Duan and the northern militarist faction. His finest hour occurred when he resisted the threats to his life in refusing to countersign President Li's order to dismiss the Parliament.
From 1917 until his death in 1922 Wu was a key figure in the southern governments based in Guangdong (the so-called Guangzhou Governments) formed under the rubric of protecting the principle of constitutionalism. These southern governments united a broad coalition of opponents of northern militarism, including old revolutionaries under Sun Yixian's leadership, political figures loosely associated with the Guomindang, and various military figures.
There were two such governments formed in the years 1917–22, and Wu Tingfang served in both as Foreign Minister, sometimes Finance Minister, Acting President and, briefly, Governor of Guangdong. As was the case earlier