[ { "id": 210983, "series_id": 26, "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine", "series_title": "RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊", "series_use_hku_proxy": false, "document_key": "RAS-1987", "page_number": 45, "title": "RAS-1987", "content_text": "20\n\nbandit will bear the name of France, the other the name of England . . . I hope that some day, France once freed and cleansed will send back to China the booty she has plundered.'\n\n16\n\nIncidentally, the Summer Palace of Peking, sacked and burned by French and British vandals, had been restored in the time of Emperor Qianlong (eighteenth century) by Jesuit architects and painters such as the famous Castiglione. The very contribution of European culture to China was smashed down by European militarism in China.\n\nThat French intellectuals concerned with China not only were very few, but also showed little interest in the political China, is supported by the non-committed attitude of that strange Jesuit, palaeontologist and philosopher, Pierre Teilhard de Chardin. His Chinese years in the 1920s and 1930s were most productive intellectually. He elaborated his partly mystical, partly anthropological views on man's fate and future. Yet, he was utterly indifferent to the complex developments of the Chinese revolution at that time, epoch-making as they were. He was living in a China almost without Chinese --- except fossils.\n\nTeilhard de Chardin was an intellectual explorer, almost an adventurer, and so was the energetic Pelliot, one of the founding fathers of modern French sinology. He had established his reputation with his expedition to the Dunhuang Buddhist caves in the Gobi Desert, had not hesitated to bribe and to steal, brought back to France a unique Chinese library and became a Professor at the College de France at the early age of 27.\n\nFrench sinology then was still entirely oriented towards classical China. Just as British sinology was a by-product of missionary studies on China, French sinology was a distant replica of Latin and Greek studies in the Jesuit tradition. The teaching aids which the Jesuits had prepared for classical Chinese often used Latin. Classical Chinese studies did not have to pay attention to the China of that time, any more than Latin and Greek studies did to the Italy and Greece of modern times. And classical sinology remained quite marginal in French academic life, just as much as China-inspired novels and poetry in French literature. Yet, the\n\nPage 45\n\nPage 46", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1987.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/rx919b522", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 212398, "series_id": 26, "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine", "series_title": "RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊", "series_use_hku_proxy": false, "document_key": "RAS-1990", "page_number": 340, "title": "RAS-1990", "content_text": "317\n\nNowadays piracy is very much in the news again, in the Malacca Straits, the Sulu sea, and even in the waters outside Hong Kong. There is scope for a new pirate book. However, it would call for more political background and a deeper understanding of human nature than Lilius shows in this briskly moving but somewhat superficial narrative.\n\nANTHONY LAWRENCE\n\nBeatrice S. Bartlett, Monarchs and Ministers: The Grand Council in Mid-Ching China, 1723-1820 Berkeley, Los Angeles and Oxford: University of California Press, 1991. xxi + 417 pp. Bibliography. Glossary. Index.\n\nThe Emperors of China were both person and institution. The Chinese bureaucracy was the most highly developed organization of its kind in the pre-modern world, with a complex array of rules and regulations which confined and defined government. The Yongzheng Emperor (r. 1723-35) is traditionally portrayed as the epitome of a ruthless despot, a cunning autocrat who developed a whole new secret police system to solidify his power. The Qianlong Emperor (r. 1736-95) based his rule of more than sixty years on political adeptness, not ceremonial presence. The traditional image of a Confucian official is of a man who served principle, not a ruler, and who dared to criticize those Emperors who strayed from the Middle Way (read \"bureaucratically defined acceptable behavior\").\n\nHow do we reconcile these contradictory views? Did the Emperor terrorize the literati-officials into submission, or was he merely the tool of an ageless bureaucracy? Is Chinese history during the Qing the record of strong or weak monarchs, or did institutions evolve which tempered the influence of the Son of Heaven?\n\nBeatrice Bartlett has provided us in Monarchs and Ministers with a ground-breaking work. Bartlett, delving deeper into Qing court documents than any previous foreign scholar, has provided us with crucial information on the evolution of the political structure of China's last dynasty. Where other scholars have given us glimpses of Emperors, have laid out initial hypotheses or focused on narrower political issues, Bartlett has unlocked the actual records and drawn together different strands of research on 18th century China.", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1990.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/d79206299", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 212399, "series_id": 26, "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine", "series_title": "RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊", "series_use_hku_proxy": false, "document_key": "RAS-1990", "page_number": 341, "title": "RAS-1990", "content_text": "318\n\nThe origins of the Grand Council, which served as the highest executive body under the Emperor in the Qing government from the first quarter of the eighteenth century, are clarified for the first time. It was not created one day through act of parliament. Nor was it the accidental survivor of a military planning group as its Chinese name might suggest. Bartlett shows the transformation from direct imperial personal rule (Yongzheng's ad hoc arrangements of the Military Finance Section, the High Officials in Charge of Military Strategy, and the palace memorial system) to joint monarchical conciliar administration (Qianlong's regularization of the Grand Council). The development of an inner court to offset the rigidity and limitations of the outer court is traced, and we are shown how the Qianlong Emperor adapted to the increasingly complex demands of ruling China. The Kangxi Emperor (r. 1662-1722) was brilliant, but could rely on raw Manchu force to rule; Yongzheng and Qianlong had to use more \"Confucian\" means, at the same time surviving the factionalism of the imperial family.\n\nBartlett has not simply used the Qing archives to sketch political events, or to mark the stages of development of the Grand Council. She has used provenance to enlighten us on process, and has gained an understanding of the whole range of communication that passed between Emperor, grand councillors and provincial officials. This system has been researched before, but no one has gone into such detail on the forms of communication and the act of decision making. The grand councillors knew that control of information flow led to control of decisions. As the palace memorial system expanded from a secret, personal channel between the Emperor and a few officials to a broader, prioritized but more impersonal avenue, the councillors and their clerks injected themselves into the process. Before long they perused memorials, drafted summaries and proposed imperial replies (see, for example, pp 98-101).\n\nThe tension between Emperor and officials, and among officials, was conceptualized by Joseph Levenson in his trilogy Confucian China and its Modern Fate. Bartlett brings Levenson's provocative concept down to earth, and shows the conflict and cooperation between emperor and councillor, and inner and outer court officials. On the dichotomy of an all-powerful Emperor and officials with independent legitimacy, we are told that the outer court ran according to an administrative code. Although the monarch could probably", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1990.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/d79206299", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 212400, "series_id": 26, "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine", "series_title": "RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊", "series_use_hku_proxy": false, "document_key": "RAS-1990", "page_number": 342, "title": "RAS-1990", "content_text": "319\n\nchange these arrangements at will (and indeed in a few instances did so), for most matters imperial respect for established statutes prevailed and advice on the wisdom of proposed changes was sought and followed.' (p.6). This was not the case with the inner court in the eighteenth century. It was the creation of the Emperor. But Bartlett argues that by the end of the century the Grand Council straddled the roles of pawn and directorate. The result was a greatly expanded inner-court dominance, but one where both ministers and monarchs could be strong. While the framework for autocracy continued in place, the expansion of inner-court work and the ministerial skill and labor essential to accomplishing it weakened the monarchs' ability fully to oversee and direct the government.\" (p 7).\n\nHere I might take issue with the statement that the Grand Council weakened the monarch's ability to direct government; rather, it permitted him to do more than he could alone. It is at this point within the system that the individual comes into play, and the balance between monarchical power and conciliar power was less a question of institution, and rather varied on the basis of the personal qualities of the incumbent emperor, as well as the qualities of certain officials such as Heshen.\n\nThere is the risk in working with thousands of documents of losing sight of the wood for the trees. The reader is forewarned by the author that Part One covering the Yongzheng reign is very detailed. This reflects the evolution of the Grand Council as the Yongzheng and Qianlong Emperors experimented with the Inner Court before it was enshrined in statute. In Part Two Bartlett soars above the foliage to give us an overview of the mechanism of government.\n\nMonarchs and Ministers is a seminal work, and opens up many avenues of research. We must study the officials who held concurrent titles in both the Inner and Outer Court, and determine if their authority derived from their positions as Grand Councillors or from their incumbency as presidents of various boards (much as we ponder the power of government officials that derive from their party membership in modern China). This book also looks outward from the Inner Court, and we would do well to look inward from the Outer Court. We should not underestimate the value of Bartlett's analysis of the types of documents existing in the archives. There was no guide to the materials; who drafted them, who read them.", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1990.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/d79206299", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 212417, "series_id": 26, "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine", "series_title": "RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊", "series_use_hku_proxy": false, "document_key": "RAS-1990", "page_number": 359, "title": "RAS-1990", "content_text": "336\n\nJonathan D. Spence, The Search for Modern China, W.W Norton and Company: $29.95; cloth; 876 pages.\n\nJonathan D. Spence in \"The Search for Modern China” endeavours to facilitate an understanding of China. He says, quite rightly, that \"in trying to understand China today we need to know about China in the past\" (pp. xix-xx). That is why Spence begins his narrative in the late 16th century, when China was ruled by its last native dynasty on the eve of the Manchu conquest.\n\nInterestingly, the Yale historian explains that his book is not about modern China. Rather, it is about a centuries-long effort to create such a country, one which is both integrated and receptive, fairly sure of its own identity yet able to join others on equal terms in the quest for new markets, new technologies, new ideas\" (p.xx).\n\nBy this definition, Spence says, China is not today and never has been a modern country.\n\nCertainly, China in the Qing dynasty was far from being **fairly sure of its own identity yet able to join others on equal terms**. As Spence points out, China did not even have a national flag in its 4,000 years of existence, until one was created in the nineteenth century, when it consciously began to acquire what it thought were the attributes of a modern nation.\n\nAs is to be expected, Spence finds numerous parallels in Chinese history. Thus, he likens General Claire Chennault's World War II \"Flying Tigers\" to the foreign mercenary Ever-Victorious Army formed to fight the Taiping rebels; he sees similarities between Great Leap Forward rhetoric and the vision of Hong Xiuquan, the Taiping Heavenly King, and he compares the Shanghai Communique of 1972 with the Treaty of Nerchinsk of 1689.\n\nThis does not mean, of course, that China is unchanging. During the Qing dynasty, for example, China spurned British requests for developing trade. Spence quotes the Qianlong emperor's message to George III of England:\n\n\"We have never valued ingenious articles, nor do we have the slightest need of your country's manufactures. Therefore, O king,", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1990.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/d79206299", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 212508, "series_id": 26, "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine", "series_title": "RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊", "series_use_hku_proxy": false, "document_key": "RAS-1991", "page_number": 62, "title": "RAS-1991", "content_text": "42\n\ncorrespondence with Ruan Yuan, if such items are extant.\n\nThis paper is not a prosopographic study of a generation of mid-Qing scholars, but I need to involve all of them in order to come to certain conclusions about one of them.\n\nPatronage of scholarship and learning during the mid-Qing\n\nProviding scholars who did not have government offices or private income with a means of livelihood while pursuing their research and writing was not a practice unique to China, nor was it a new phenomenon of the mid-Qing era. Often, the individuals offering this support had been motivated by political considerations. Lynn Struve of Indiana University and Kent Guy of the University of Washington have recorded in English the result of their studies on early Qing patronage of scholarship and learning. Struve has found that the Kangxi Emperor commissioned major literary projects from roughly the 1680s through the 1710s, including the Ming Shi (Ming History), to legitimize the Qing rule by making use of scholars who were not officials. This tradition was followed by the Qianlong Emperor in such monumental compilation tasks as the Si ku chuan shu (Complete Library in Four Branches of Literature).\n\n5\n\nLiterary works were produced under the patronage of individual scholar-officials as well. The Xu Brothers of the Kangxi era, who had several as chief editors of several imperially commissioned compilations, maintained a retinue of scholars. The most celebrated mid-Qing officials who were patrons of scholars were the Zhu Brothers. They gave scholars jobs on their personal staff, or in academic institutions, or an allowance while working on literary projects they sponsored. Zhu Yun (1729-1781), who was remembered for having suggested to the Qianlong Emperor the idea of the Si Ku Chuan Shu, and his younger brother, Zhu Gui (1731-1807), personal tutor to the Jiaqing Emperor, for instance, had on their staff at one time or another such scholars as Zhang Xuecheng (1738-1801), Shao Jinhan (1743-1809), Hong Liangji (1746-1809) and Ruan Yuan. Guy observed that\n\nAlthough Chu's was the first group of this type of scholarly patronage to coalesce, such circles became a fairly common feature of the era's intellectual life. Among the most important successors of Chu's circle in this regard were the", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1991.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/k356gt84j", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 214956, "series_id": 26, "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine", "series_title": "RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊", "series_use_hku_proxy": false, "document_key": "RAS-2000", "page_number": 52, "title": "RAS-2000", "content_text": "7\n\nwas still the way of the strong. Since ancient times successive empires have risen and fallen. China, too, had an imperialist past, when the Han Empire (206BC-221AD) extended its rule from Burma in the south to Korea in the north. Britain was the last to enter the stage, after the Portuguese, the Spanish, and the Dutch, forging perhaps the largest empire since the Roman Empire 2,000 years before. In the spirit of the new age, Britain professed an obligation to assist the indigenous colonial peoples in economic development and prepare them afterwards for self-government within the framework of the British Empire. This was the foundation of the 'Imperialism' which dominated her colonial policy in the 19th and early 20th centuries. This mission was sometimes regarded as at best illusory and at worst hypocritical. However, there is little doubt that the spirit of commercial enterprise was the leading motive of the British colonial policy, and it was the British pursuit of trade in the East, which brought China and Britain into confrontation. Predictably, this encounter of two nations, both proud and arrogant, proved disastrous.\n\nBritish attempt to establish contact with China began early. A Captain Weddell approached Canton in 1637, was refused entry but forced a passage through the Humen Forts (Bogue Forts). After a skirmish with the Chinese war junks, in which it was claimed Weddell had the upper hand, he was finally forced to withdraw. It was an ominous start to what Britain hoped would be a peaceful penetration. No further attempts were made for some 150 years, though in the meantime the English East India Company had managed to secure, in 1664, a trading base in Macao, and, by the turn of the century, in Guangzhou. Slowly, and in spite of many difficulties, foreign trade with China had assumed a regular character by the early 18th century. The main difficulty has already been mentioned: while British traders were eager to trade and in particular secure a steady supply of much needed tea from China, the latter desired no trading intercourse with the West. Emperor Qianlong's oft-quoted announcement stated: \"The Celestial Empire possesses all things in prolific abundance and lacks no product within its borders, there is therefore no need to import manufactures of outside barbarians in exchange for our products.' The Emperor spoke for himself and his government but hardly for the common man, to whom trading and material profits mattered. While requiring little from the West, Chinese were eager to sell tea - a ‘wholesome beverage' prepared almost exclusively for the British people. The question has been often", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-2000.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/nk328168n", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 214957, "series_id": 26, "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine", "series_title": "RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊", "series_use_hku_proxy": false, "document_key": "RAS-2000", "page_number": 53, "title": "RAS-2000", "content_text": "8 \n\nposed as to whether the Chinese as a whole were \"anti-commercial\" or whether it was only the government. Greenberg believes that \"trade in the long run mattered little to the Chinese economy.\"2 A further factor contributing to distrust of foreigners and the consequent restriction in contacts and trade was fear of European expansionist policy apparent to the Chinese in Tibet, the East Indies, the Philippines, Burma, and Nepal. \n\nBy the 1830s British demand for tea had become enormous; tea worth twenty million pounds sterling was imported into Britain annually. It was paid for from huge profits made on the sale of smuggled opium. Many foreign firms in Guangzhou, other than British, had engaged in the lucrative trade, with two notable exceptions,13 Britain accounting for more than 80% of the trade. Dissatisfied with the capricious nature of its trade in Guangzhou, Britain made three high-level attempts to form full diplomatic relations with Beijing, sending embassies under Macartney in 1793, Amherst in 1816, and Napier in 1834; all failed. The last two reached no further than Guangzhou before being unceremoniously sent back. But it may be of interest to deal in some length with Macartney's Mission because it seemed to succeed; that it failed was the most significant disaster in relations between the two nations, eventually leading to war. \n\nAfter a long journey, Macartney's Embassy embarked on Chinese boats to proceed up Baihe (Peiho) River on the 9th of August 1793. The following day they reached Tianjin (Tientsin) where they met the Emperor's envoy at a formal ceremony, which, however, lasted a mere 20 minutes. After staying in Beijing for some two weeks, they set out for Chengde (Jehol) where, on the 30th of September, they met Emperor Qianlong (1736-1795). Lord Macartney was graciously permitted to dispense with kowtow; it was agreed that the salutation was to be made on the right knee. According to Macartney, the Emperor was polite, and the conversation, conducted through interpreters, was lively and interesting. Moreover, the various scientific instruments, which were brought as gifts, were examined with obvious interest. The Embassy was told that they should depart on the 7th of October. Three days' grace was promised but immediately withdrawn, ostensibly because the Emperor was concerned that an early onset of cold weather would inconvenience the Ambassador. To reach their ships at Zhoushan (Chusan) Island, the Embassy had to travel across China, partly overland and partly by rivers - a journey that took nearly two months. It has", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-2000.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/nk328168n", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 214959, "series_id": 26, "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine", "series_title": "RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊", "series_use_hku_proxy": false, "document_key": "RAS-2000", "page_number": 55, "title": "RAS-2000", "content_text": "10\n\nLin Zexu and the Conflict\n\nLin Zexu is not the subject of this paper. However, since he is the central figure of the Symposium, it seems appropriate to devote some little space to this extraordinary man, who no doubt cast a giant shadow on Anglo-Chinese relations.\n\nEmperor Qianlong, great emperor though he was, apart from issuing prohibitive edicts seems to have done little to stop the opium trade. Jiaqing (1796-1820) who followed was equally ineffectual. His successor Daoguang (1821-1850), however, was a man of a different mettle. In 1836, Imperial edicts having failed to check the opium trade, the problem was hotly debated in Beijing. There was one faction that favoured legalizing opium importation and so turning it to public profit. To this Emperor Daoguang replied: 'It is true, I cannot prevent the introduction of the flowing poison; gain-seeking and corrupt men will, for profit and sensuality, defeat my wishes; but nothing will induce me to derive a revenue from the vice and misery of my people,\" noble words by a great monarch. In 1839, deciding to take forceful action, the Emperor appointed Lin Zexu as his Commissioner charged with total eradication of the infamous trade. Commissioner Lin journeyed to Guangzhou and immediately ordered all commerce in opium to be stopped. He further demanded that merchants should surrender all stocks and sign a bond to cease importing, in effect laying the factories to siege. This much is well documented as well as the ensuing course of events which led to the 1st Opium War.\n\nLin Zexu presents an interesting character study of contrasting portraits. For many years the British sources had portrayed him as 'fierce, unscrupulous, and fanatical.'\" Most of the known paintings of him show a fierce, pugnacious countenance. It is, therefore, gratifying to include in this paper a reproduction of a rare painting depicting him as a handsome man with a dignified yet kind expression on his face.** Gradually the picture has changed and Lin is being recognized as an intelligent and learned man, a capable and resolute official, a competent administrator, and a fair and just dispenser of the law; most importantly, he was incorruptible. A modern, progressive man, he observed, however, all the Chinese ceremonies, made sacrifices at temples, and made offerings to the spirits of his ancestors. He liked poetry, which he practised for his own leisure. A man who, at the height of the opium", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-2000.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/nk328168n", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 215638, "series_id": 26, "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine", "series_title": "RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊", "series_use_hku_proxy": false, "document_key": "RAS-2001", "page_number": 415, "title": "RAS-2001", "content_text": "367\n\nTEA AND OPIUM:\n\nSOME FURTHER NOTES ON MACARTNEY'S\n\nROLE1\n\nDAVID AKERS-JONES\n\nMacartney's audience with the Emperor Qianlong recorded in the journal which the former wrote actually took place on 14th September 1793 (not on the 30th) at Jehol (Chengde) which is now about five hours journey by 'bus from Beijing. It took the Embassy six days. Macartney himself travelled in a post chaise which he had taken to China especially to ride about in, 'drawn by four little Tartar ponies.' His cavalcade amounted to seventy people of which forty composed the guard. He says that about two hundred porters were required to carry their baggage.\n\nThe great circular yurt where the audience subsequently took place is described in the journal as follows:\n\nThe Emperor's tented pavilion which is circular I should calculate to be about twenty or twenty-five yards in diameter and is supported by a number of pillars, either gilded or damasked according to their disposition....\n\nMacartney then gives a colourful account of the audience.\n\nHe was seated in an open palanquin carried by sixteen bearers attended by numbers of officers bearing flags, standards and umbrellas, and as he passed we paid him our compliments by kneeling on one knee, whilst all the Chinese made their usual prostrations. As soon as he had ascended his throne I came to the entrance of the tent, and, holding in both my hands a large box enriched with diamonds in which was enclosed the King's letter, I walked deliberately up, and ascending the side-steps of the throne, delivered it into the Emperor's own hands, who, having received it, passed it on to the Minister, by whom it was placed on the cushion. He then gave me as the first present from him to his Majesty the ju-eu-jou or giou-giou (a white jade sceptre) as the symbol of peace and prosperity, and expressed his hopes that my Sovereign", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-2001.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/zg651950g", "rank": 0 } ]