RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1971 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/z029vt43g DEBATE ON NATIONAL SALVATION: HO KAI VERSUS TSENG CHI-TSE CHIU LING-YEONG* (A lecture delivered to the Branch on 22nd June, 1970) In July 1886, Tseng Chi-tse the retiring Chinese Minister to Russia and Great Britain wrote a most controversial article which appeared in the January 1887 issue of the Asiatic Quarterly Review in London under the title 'China, the Sleep and the Awakening'. This was before he left London for China.1 It is believed that this article was written under the guidance of Sir Halliday Macartney, Tseng's interpreter and political adviser. 2 In his article, Tseng tried to explain that the weakness of China at that time was due to her sleepiness and had nothing to do with her old age or physical deficiency. Tseng began by quoting contemporary China Hands' opinion concerning the Ch'ing Empire: There are times in the life of nations when they would appear to have exhausted their forces by the magnitude of efforts they had made to maintain their position in the endless struggle for existence; and from this, some have endeavoured to deduce the law that nations, like men, have each of them its infancy, its manhood, decline, and death. Melancholy and discouraging would be this doctrine could it be shown to be founded on any natural or inevitable law. Fortunately, however, there is no reason to believe it is. Nations have fallen from their high estate, some of them to disappear suddenly and altogether from the list of political entities, others to vanish after a more or less prolonged existence of impaired and ever-lessening vitality. Among the latter, until lately, it has been customary with Europeans to include China. Pointing to her magnificent system of canals silted up, the splendid fragments of now forgotten arts, the disparity between * Dr. Chiu is Lecturer in the Department of Chinese, University of Hong Kong. ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1971 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/z029vt43g THE DEBATE ON NATIONAL SALVATION 49 That there be sufficiency of food, sufficiency of military equipment, and the confidence of the people in their ruler from of old, death has been the lot of all men; but if the people have no faith in their rulers, there is no standing for the state. I (4) was skilful at archery, and Ao (R) could move a boat along upon the land, but neither of them died a natural death. Yu (§) and Chi () personally wrought at the toils of husbandry, and they became possessors of the kingdom. NOTES 1 For Tseng Chi-tse, see Arthur W. Hummel, Eminent Chinese of Ching Period Vol. II, pp. 746-747; Lee En-han, Tseng Chi-tse ti wai-chiao, Taipei, 1966. 曾紀澤的外交 2 Cf. Boulger D. C., The Life of Sir Halliday Macartney. London 1908. 3 Boulger D. C., op. cit., pp. 433-435. Papers which published Tseng's work include the China Mail in Hong Kong, the North China Herald in Shanghai and the China Times in Tientsin. In Hong Kong, Tseng's article appeared in the China Mail only. However, many historians have mistaken the Daily Press of Hong Kong for the China Mail. This confusion first appeared in Ko Kung-chen's Chung-kuo pao-hsüen shih, Shanghai, 1927, Ch. III, p. 20. Recent Japanese scholars in the field of modern Chinese Studies have followed Ko Kung-chen's mistake. Cf. Onogawa Hidemi - "Kai Kei Ko Reien no 'Shinsei Rongi'" Oriental Studies in honour of Juntaro Ishihama on the occasion of his seventieth birthday, Kansai University, Osaka, 1958 pp. 121-133; Watanabe Tetsuhiro, "Kai Kei Ko Reien no 'Shinsei Rongi'" Ritsumeikan bungaku, Journal of the Ritsumeikan University, Kyoto (1961) pp. 59-75. 4 Tseng's work was translated into Chinese by Yen Yung-ching and Yüan Chu-i. Both were graduates of the Peking Tung-Wen Kuan. The title of the Chinese version is Tseng-hou Chung-kuo hsien-shui how-hsing lun; cf. Hsin-Cheng chen-chüan ch'u-pien; Tseng-lun shu-hou fulu; Huang-chao hawi wen-pien, chuan i, pp. 32-37; North China Herald, Vol. 38, No. 1021, Feb. 16, 1887, p. 181; Dispatches From U.S. Ministers to China, Microcopy No. 92, The National Archives of the United States, Roll 80, No. 340, Denby to the Secretary of State, March 21, 1887. 5 North China Herald, Vol. 38, No. 1023, March 2, 1887 p. 229. 6 Ibid. Vol. 38, May 27, 1887, p. 569, 7 Foreign Relations of the United States, 1887, No. 158, Denby to Bayard, March 8, 1887, pp. 196-197. Dispatches from U.S. Ministers to China, Microcopy No. 92, Roll 80, No. 328, Denby to Bayard, March 8, 1887. Denby further pointed out that Tseng purposely ignored the importance of the evangelical missions in China in his article. Denby believed that Christian activities were directly supported by foreign powers in China. The priests were always acted as the mediators between the Western Powers ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1975 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/j0995146d 130 RICHARD J. SMITH Army,83 Others, such as Captain Coney, Baron de Meritens, and William Winstanley, headed foreign-training programs established in treaty port areas. Still others, including John Pennell, Halliday Macartney, and William Mesny, served in Chinese armies as individual instructors or officers.85 Forced by circumstance to employ these foreigners, the Chinese became quite adept at handling them—despite China's disadvantageous position vis-à-vis the West. As in the past, Ch'ing officials paid their foreign employees well, at the same time subjecting them to close surveillance, and fostering personal relationships with them as a means of control. In addition, however, they also took special pains to define regular channels of communication and command, and specified roles and responsibilities through the use of detailed regulations and written agreements.86 Furthermore, in rewarding loyal foreign service, the Chinese authorities went beyond simply arranging for edicts of praise and encouragement, the dispensing of ranks and titles, and the bestowal of traditional marks of imperial favor such as peacock feathers, silk, animal skins, and silver. They also began notifying foreign governments of the accomplishments of their respective nationals, and distributing foreign-style (as opposed to Chinese-style) medals—a rather significant departure from traditional practice. The throne even went so far as to acknowledge in 1864 that since Westerners especially esteemed foreign-style medals, these awards were the most generally appropriate expression of imperial gratitude.87 To be sure, Peking continued to reward evidence of cultural submission, casting it in traditional terms of imperial condescension. The cases of Pennell and Mesny provide striking examples of this tendency.88 Moreover, throughout the nineteenth century, even as the Chinese world order crumbled about them, Ch'ing policymakers continued to use expressions such as "turning toward Chinese civilization," "cherishing and soothing men from afar,” and “using [the doctrines of] China to transform the barbarian." Policymakers also persisted in referring to both ancient and more modern precedent in order to justify (or argue against) the employment of barbarians in Chinese military affairs. Allusions to the use of foreign "allies" as the Hsiung-nu and Uighurs, as well as references to such diverse individuals as Yu Yü, Chin Mi-ti, Ch'i-pi Ho-li, and Gordon, continue to crop up in Ch'ing documents of the 1890's ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1992 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/qf85tx75x 41 His leaders in his Miscellanies and his letters to the local papers are little different from present day British local paper indignation. A typical Mesny throw-away remark was the comment that ‘As China licks the hand that slaps her most, even a mailed one, so she has decided to give Prince Henry of Prussia’ a befitting reception at Nanking, of all places. He frequently made the point that his knowledge of Chinese customs outweighed that of virtually all other foreigners, and that he, understanding Chinese ways, was in the position to inform foreigners how they should react to Chinese behaviour with due decorum. He explained manners and Chinese courtesy at great lengths, including the various bows and genuflections to be afforded to whom and when. It must have irritated many a foreigner to be reminded so often that he, Mesny, ‘knows better’ what is ‘the done thing.’ One of the hundreds of short essays in the Miscellany in which he informs his readership of such Chinese mores and customs is simply entitled ‘Etiquette’. He begins by explaining that the Chinese people beat the world for official etiquette, social politeness, ceremonies, manners and customs. He added that ‘I have never yet found or met a foreigner who has been so careful as myself to observe all the Chinese manners and customs of society, whether official or private and without sacrificing any important privilege of my British birthright. Without performing the degrading ceremony of kotowing to anybody, I have nevertheless observed all the other rites and ceremonies. Some foreigners, like Sir Halliday Macartney, have performed the kotow to their superiors, Li Hung-chang, for instance, but I have rigidly declined to do so, although many Chinese officials of the highest rank have kotowed to me; on such occasions I have bent my knees and picked them up.’ Mesny continued in this vein for several more paragraphs instructing his readers on polite behaviour. He then described the matter of ‘equipage’ which he suggested was ‘a serious one, especially at Peking.’ ‘I was advised by a friend,’ he continued, ‘not to travel in a cart or carriage drawn by a horse or pony. A mule is the proper animal. A cart with four openings on each side, three at the back, and one at the front is called a Shih Erh Kai, or twelve openings, and is only used by dudes, saunterers or other persons noted for their irregularities in the matter of genteel propriety. I was quite surprised to find the veteran Doctor Dudgeon riding in a cart drawn by a pony. I called his attention to this ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-2001 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/zg651950g Elizabeth Teather - Deathspace in Hong Kong, Guangzhou and Seoul: A Review of Recent Research, 1995-2001 .... Chiu Hang Shi - Unicon Dancing in Pat Heung 329 341 Keith Stevens - A Contentious Christian Missionary in Central China, 1887 353 Kirsty Norman - Friends of the HKBRAS Trip to Cornwall....... 357 David Akers-Jones - Tea and Opium: Some Further Notes on Macartney's Role 367 Jennifer Welch - Coincidence? ... 373 Dan Waters - Another Donation to the Hong Kong Branch of the Royal Asiatic Society 375 Richard Garrett - Taipa Fort and a Nineteenth Century Cannon 379 Peter Halliday - More Thoughts on Han Suyin's A Many Splendoured Thing: A Tribute to Ian Morrison...... 391 Rosemary Lee and A.C. Bromfield - The Life and Times of Captain Samuel Cornel Plant 407 Anon. - More on the Two Obelisks at Tai Tam 417 BOOK REVIEWS Dan Waters - Long Night's Journey into Day: Prisoners of War in Hong Kong and Japan, 1941-1945 419 James Hayes - Heaven is High, the Emperor Far Away:Merchants and Mandarins in Old Canton 423 Patrick Hase - Hong Kong Metamorphosis 427 Peter Halliday - Searching for Frederick and Adventures Along the Way. 430 X ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-2001 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/zg651950g 1 March 2002 ROYAL ASIATIC SOCIETY HONG KONG BRANCH LIBRARY ADDITIONS LIST 2001/2002 Adams, Edward Ben, 1934- Palaces of Seoul: Yi dynasty palaces in Korea's capital city; foreword by Hwang Su-Young. Seoul, Korea: Taewon Pub. Co., c1972. Belden, Jack, 1910- China shakes the world. New York: Harper & brothers, c1949. Bodde, Derk, 1909- Law in imperial China: exemplified by 190 Ch'ing dynasty cases (translated from the Hsing-an hui-lan) with historical, social, and juridical commentaries. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, c1967. Boulger, Demetrius Charles de Kavanagh, 1853-1928 The life of Sir Halliday Macartney, K.C.M.G., commander of Li Hung Chang's trained force in the Taeping rebellion, founder of the first Chinese arsenals, for thirty years councillor and secretary to the Chinese legation in London. London, New York: J. Lane company, 1908. Carney, Dora Sanders, 1903- Foreign devils had light eyes: a memoir of Shanghai 1933-1939. Toronto: Dorset Pub., 1980. Copper, John Franklin Words across the Taiwan Strait: a critique of Beijing's "White paper" on China's reunification. Lanham: University Press of America, c1995. Croft, Michael Red carpet to China. London: Longmans, c1958. Cronin, Vincent, 1924- The wise man from the West. London: R. Hart-Davis, c1955. xlv ================================================================================