RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1973 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/8910rj06r NOTES AND QUERIES 145 ning among other matters the subjugation of the non-Chinese tribes of the interior.* At the age of 71 he was appointed Vice-President of the Board of Civil Affairs in Nanking and later Vice-President of the Censorate. He died in great poverty in 1587 aged 74, his friends defraying the cost of his burial. In November 1965 the editor of the Shanghai Wen Wei Pao, Yao Wen-yuan, who was also a left-inclined literary and theatre critic, published an article in which he criticised an historical drama "The dismissal of Hai Jui" written by the then Deputy Mayor of Peking, Wu Han. Yao's article was the opening volley in the Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution which created such turmoil in China and purged so many of the senior communist cadres including Wu Han himself. Yao rose quickly and by 1969 was sixth in the leadership of the Chinese People's Republic only to slip to a lower position at the 10th Party Congress in August 1973. Yao, still a member of the Politbureau, is reported to be the son-in-law of Chairman Mao and a close associate of the radical Madame Mao. Wu Han's historical play which cost him so dearly was criticised by Yao as an analogy of Mao's treatment of his "loyal minister” Peng Te-huai, the Minister of National Defence purged by Mao in 1959. P'eng had been very outspoken in his opposition to two of the things closest to Mao's heart, the Great Leap Forward and the establishment of the People's Communes. Hai Jui is well known to many Chinese as the minister who steadfastly opposed corruption. A legend told to me in Singapore by an elderly Buddhist nun recounted how Hai Jui as a very young junior official had been posted to the Swatow region (Ch'aochow) where a group of tyrannical landowners together with the local magistrate's police runners were terrorizing the people. The legend then told of Hai Jui's fight, first against his local superiors in support of the poor, later against the Prime Minister and finally against the Emperor himself. Hai Jui was forced to commit suicide, she said, to compel the Emperor to take notice of the problems of the masses and for this he was deified by the subsequent Emperor and is now one of the patrons of the Ch'aochow people. See, in part, Herbert A. Giles, A Chinese Biographical Dictionary (London and Shanghai, Bernard Quaritch and Kelly and Walsh, 1898) pp. 242-243. Also W. F. Mayers, The Chinese Reader's Manual (Shanghai, American Presbyterian Mission Press, and London, Trübner and Co., 1874) pp. 45-46. Ed. ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1982 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/mk61z420p THE NEW CONSTITUTION AND CHINA'S EMERGING LEGAL SYSTEM IN PERSPECTIVE W. ALLYN RICKETT* On December 4, 1982, China's National People's Congress (NPC) adopted the fourth and perhaps most favourable constitution since 1949 in terms of paper guarantees for the protection of individual citizens against the arbitrary abuse of Party and state power. When coupled with such laws as the Criminal Code and Criminal Code of Procedure, promulgated in July 1979 and implemented in January 1980, there is some room for optimism that China has embarked on a path toward a stable legal system and the provision of basic guarantees for the rights of its citizens. However, given China's traditional disregard of individual rights and the almost constant state of political turmoil prevailing throughout this century, not to mention the Chinese Communists' generally negative attitude toward jural or formal law in the past, such optimism may well prove to have been undeserved. It might be worthwhile to look briefly at previous efforts on the part of the Chinese Communists to establish some semblance of a stable legal system before trying to reach any conclusions about the future. The early judicial experience of the Chinese Communists, which began with the special tribunals set up in Hunan in 1926-27 to try "bad elements," can at best be described by Mao Zedong's own words "zao de hen" [extremely crude]. It was not until November 1931 with the founding of the Chinese Soviet Republic in Jiangxi that any real attempt was made by the Communists to establish a formal body of law and judicial procedure. During this and the following Yenan period, laws were promulgated and legal institutions established, but this took place within the context of violent revolutionary struggle and the war of resistance against Japan. Moreover, judicial personnel * Professor Rickett is Professor of Chinese Studies at the University of Pennsylvania. ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1982 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/mk61z420p 102 W. ALLYN RICKETT Judicial Conference was held for the primary purpose of regulating local courts and local court-affiliated organizations such as neighbourhood mediation and factory-based comrade adjudication committees. By the end of 1953, the Chinese Communists announced that the period of reconstruction was coming to an end, the "New Democratic" phase of the revolution was complete, and it was time to start the building of socialism. In September 1954, a new constitution was promulgated which established a new government under a National People's Congress (NPC) and provided the basis for a judicial system, which in administering justice, was supposed to be independent, subject only to law. There was a standard list of rights for citizens including freedom of speech, freedom of assembly, and freedom of the press. Although this did not prevent a repressive campaign against intellectuals and the arrest of the writer Hu Feng in 1955, in general the 1954 Constitution set the stage for what was to be the most constructive period for legal development in China during the first 30 years of the People's Republic. Provision was made for a Ministry of Justice responsible for the general administration of justice and the training of judicial cadres, and for a procuratorate which was to review recommendations from public security offices concerning the arrest of suspected criminals, and which would also prosecute cases before the court. The procuratorate was also charged with ensuring that the activities of government complied with the law, and investigating and prosecuting serious crimes committed by state officials. Malfeasance involving officials was also investigated by a Ministry of Supervision, an organ which was later eliminated. However, the investigation of Party members was the prerogative of Party control commissions. "The Organic Law of the People's Courts," adopted by the NPC at the same time as the Constitution, spelled out in more detail some of the basic provisions of the Constitution, providing, for example, that in "adjudicating cases the people's courts shall apply the law equally to all citizens irrespective of their nationality, race, sex, occupation, social origin, religious belief, educational standard, property status, and length of residence." It also stated that cases "shall be heard in public unless otherwise provided for ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1982 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/mk61z420p 114 W. ALLYN RICKETT new laws, can it be said that that there is any more hope now than existed in 1956 that the paper guarantees of the new legal system will prevail? I think there is. This optimism rests primarily on some major changes taking place in the society and in the thinking of the top leadership in the Communist Party. Unlike the earlier reforms, which in respect of the 1954 Constitution were more formal than real and pushed primarily by a small group of profession-oriented intellectuals, the new reforms come from the top and are based on the disastrous experience of the Cultural Revolution. Most of China's present leadership personally suffered from the arbitrary abuse of power at that time and have come to realize the need for a stable legal system. Furthermore, post-Gang of Four China is no longer the China of the past. The prestige of the Party has diminished greatly, the general population is no longer as malleable as it was in the past, and, perhaps most important of all, the rapid modernization and internationalization of the economy require a stable legal system. Indicative of some of the change taking place in China is the new Constitution adopted on December 4, 1982. In the 1975 and 1978 Constitutions, the Party is clearly recognized as having a special position of power. The 1978 Constitution begins by stating: The People's Republic of China is a socialist state of the dictatorship of the proletariat led by the working class and based on the alliance of workers and peasants. (Article 1) The Communist Party of China is the core of leadership of the whole Chinese people. The working class exercises leadership over the state through its vanguard the Communist Party of China. The guiding ideology of the People's Republic of China is Marxism-Leninism-Mao Tsetung Thought. (Article 2) Although Article 3 goes on to say that all power belongs to the people and is to be exercised through the National People's Congress and local people's congresses, in point of fact the first two articles clearly give that power to the Communist Party and ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1986 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/jq08c7063 135 system". Originally introduced as a reform in the method of labour management, its evolution has led to fundamental innovations in the operation of production teams which have, in many cases, resulted in the virtual disappearance of all but the skeletal features of the collective economy (O'Leary and Watson, 1982). This has been accompanied by dramatic changes in the physical appearance of the cropping landscape of Hainan as the collective fields have been subdivided into parcels of various sizes for farming on a contract basis by work groups or individual households. Under this system, some households are earning more than US$5,000 per year. It is important to note, however, that while households or individuals have the right to use the land, the ownership of the land remains with the State (China Daily, Nov. 4, 1981). In general, peasant farmers have responded to the "responsibility" policy with an enthusiasm that has doubled rural living standards and produced bumper harvests. For some, however, the dramatic change from the egalitarian policy of "eating from the one big pot" to quasi-capitalism is difficult to accept. In 1983, for example, it was reported that thousands of retired servicemen at military farms in Ya Xian, Hainan's most southern county, staged sit-down strikes, attacked party commissars in charge of the farms, smashed property, forced their way onto naval ships at Yulin Harbour, and virtually put the county government under siege (South China Morning Post, Mar. 11, 1983). The reason for the riot centred on the new party policy to make the military farms self-supporting by adopting the responsibility system. The disturbance so shocked the Beijing regime that Premier Zhao detoured to Hainan immediately upon his return from his month-long visit to Africa before returning to Beijing. While the responsibility system has been most effective in increasing output of grain and household livestock (pigs and poultry), new policies have been formulated to expand ruminant production on the nation's 300 million hectares of grasslands. This new direction in agricultural policy was summed up by Premier Zhao Ziyang at the Fifth National People's Congress in 1981: "In the past, our vision in agricultural production was ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1990 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/d79206299 346 DIALOGUE IN FIVE STAGES. Cambridge (Mass) Harvard University Press, 1988. 160 pp. Notes. Bibliography. Index. This series of five Edwin O. Reishauer lectures delivered by the doyen of 20th century China scholars covers the five stages of the development of the great East Asian civilization: the classical legacy, the Buddhist age, the Neo-Confucian stage, East Asia's modern transformation, and the post-Confucian era, with a chapter on East Asia and the West. The book should be in the library of every individual seriously interested in China past and present. O'Brien, Kevin J, REFORM WITHOUT LIBERALIZATION: CHINA'S NATIONAL PEOPLE'S CONGRESS AND THE POLITICS OF INSTITUTIONAL CHANGE, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1990. 263 pp. Notes. Bibliography. Index. This is a pioneer work in which the author traces the development of the National People's Congress in the context of political and institutional changes in contemporary China. Endicott-West, Elizabeth, MONGOLIAN RULE IN CHINA: LOCAL ADMINISTRATION IN THE YUAN DYNASTY, Cambridge (Mass): Harvard University Press, 1989. 217 pp. Appendices. Notes. Bibliography. Glossary. Index. This enlightening work examines the local government in China before the rule of the Mongols, and what changes and developments there were during the Yuan dynasty. The discourse on the issue of centralization should provide informative reading, especially in conjunction with Dardess' work noted above, and with Tung-tsu Ch'u's Local Government in China Under the Ch'ing. Kao, Charles K, A CHOICE FULFILLED: THE BUSINESS OF HIGH TECHNOLOGY, Hong Kong: The Chinese University Press, 1991. 203 pp. Glossary. Written with the interested general reading public in mind, this book traces the development of intricate technologies for the age of information in comprehensible language. Professor Kao, a highly respected electrical engineer who has made valuable contributions in transferring scientific and technological knowledge to everyday use, is renowned as the 'Father of Fiber Optics'. He concludes with great optimism that science and technology will provide the world's population with great opportunities for exploiting the world's resources to their fullest extent. Each essay in the book is introduced with a witty drawing. ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1991 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/k356gt84j 36 Kong, Capital Communications Lid Ho, Ping-ti 1966a. Zhongguo huiguan shilun (On the history of Landsmannschaften in China). Taibei, Shihuo Chubanshe. 1966b. The Geographical Distribution of Hui-kuan (Landsmannschaften) in Central Upper Yangtze Provinces. In Tsing Hua Journal of Chinese Studies 5/2 120-52 Honig, Emily. 1992. Creating Chinese Ethnicity Subet People in Shanghai 1850-1980. New Haven and London, Yale University Press. Hunter, William C 1882 'Fan Kwae' at Canton Before Treaty Days, 1825-1844, London Kegan Paul, Trench & Co King, Frank H. H. 1983. edited. Eastern Banking Essays in the History of the Hongkong and Shanghai Banking Corporation London, Athlone Press Keswick, Maggie 1982. The Thistle and the Jade: A Celebration of 150 Years of Jardine, Matherson & Company London, Octopus. Lai, Chi-kong. 1992 The Qing State and Merchant Enterprise: the China Merchants' Company, 1872-1902. In Jane K. Leonard (edited) 139-56. Lee, Pui Tak. 1990 Kindai Chugoku ni okeru kōsho Kigyō no rekishi teki tenkai Kanyahyōkōshi wo jirei toshite (The historical Origins of Commercial and Industrial Enterprises in China, the Case of Han-yeh-p'ing Coal & Iron Company Limited, 1896-1991) M Litt. Thesis. University of Tokyo. Leonard, Jane K 1992. edited; To Achieve Wealth and Security, the Qing Imperial State and the Economy, 1644-1911. Ithaca, East Asia Program, Cornell University Leung, Yuensang 1982 Regional Rivalry in Mid-nineteenth Century Shanghai. Cantonese vs Ningpo Men. In Ch'ing-shih wen-t'i: 4/8; 29-50. 1986. The Shanghai-Tientsin Connection. Li Hung-chang's Political Control over Shanghai during the Late Ch'ing Period In Chinese Studies 4/1 315-31 1990 The Shanghai Taotai: Linkage Man in a Changing Society, 1843-90 Singapore. National Singapore University Press Liu, Kwang-ching 1979 Credit Facilities in China's Early Industrialization The Background and Implications of Hsu Jun's Bankruptcy in 1883. In Modern Chinese Economic History 499-509, Edited by Chiming Hou Taibei, Institute of Economics, Academia Sinica 1982 A Chinese Entrepreneur In Maggie Keswick (edited) 103-30. — 1990. Jinshi Shixuang yu Xincheng Qiye (The new thoughts and modern enterprises) Taibei, Lianjing Chuban Shiye Gongsi Mann, Susan Jones 1972. Finance in Ningpo the 'Ch'ien Chuang', 1750-1880 In W E. Willmott (edited) 47-78 1974 The Ningpo Pang and Financial Power at Shanghai In Mark Elvin & G. William Skinner (edited) 73-96 — 1976. Merchant Investment, Commercialization, and Social Change in the Ningpo Area In Reform in Nineteenth-Century China 41-8. Edited by Paul A, Cohen Cambridge and Massachusetts, Harvard University Press. McElderry, Andrea Lee 1992 Guarantors and Guarantees in Qing Government-Bussiness Relations In Jane K. Leonard (edited) 119-38 1993 Guarantors in China's Treaty Ports the Evolution of Employee Bonding Unpublished paper presented at the 34th International Congress on Asian and North African Studies, Hong Kong Mei, June 1979 Socioeconomic Origins of Emigration Guangdong to California, 1850-1882 In Explorations in Economic History 7/4 451-73 Qing Xu Yuzhi xiansheng ruḥ zixu nianpu (Chronological autobiography of Xu Run) Reprinted in 1981 Quan, Hansheng 1972 Zhongguo Jingjishi luncong (Collected essays on Chinese economic ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1991 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/k356gt84j 40 PRIVATE PATRONAGE OF SCHOLARSHIP AND LEARNING DURING THE MID-QING: RUAN YUAN AND THE SCHOLARS AROUND HIM* WEI PEH T'I This paper is an initial essay towards a biographical study of Ruan Yuan (1764-1849), a major scholar-official and patron of scholars of the Qianlong, Jiaqing and Daoguang reigns. I hope that by examining the life and work of a competent and respected scholar-official of this era, 'the prime exemplars of any age'.1 I may be able to bring into focus the critical problems and atmosphere of early 19th century China, the two score or so years immediately preceding the Opium War after which traditional Chinese institutions and values began to change. I have been fortunate in being able to make use of the extant Qing archival documents and Ruan Yuan's own publications for this research. Ruan Yuan left considerable literary remains. I have located 75 titles, including a number of monumental publications that carry his name as author, compiler or editor. There are also prefaces he wrote for his own and other scholars' works, indicating that at least he had known the content of them before publication. Impressive indeed as these achievements were, questions about Ruan Yuan's actual efforts arise. * I would like to thank the following libraries for allowing me access to their valuable collections in preparing this paper: Library of the National Palace Museum, the National Taiwan University libraries; the National Central Library; the Fu Ssu-nien Library of the Academia Sinica; The Library of the Chinese University of Hong Kong, the University of Hong Kong Libraries; the Rare Book Collection of the Beijing Library; the Oriental Manuscripts Collection and the Main Collection of the British Library, the Harvard-Yenching Library of Harvard University; the Gest Library of Princeton University; the Library of Congress; the New York Public Library; and Qing letters from the collection of the late Dr Wang Shih-chieh. I am also grateful to the following individuals for their help and comments on an earlier draft of this paper: Chang Ling-sheng, Ch'ang Pe-te, Chuang Chi-fa, Wang Ching-hung, Wang P'u and Wu Che-fu of the National Palace Museum (Taipei), Wang Junyi and Huang Aiping of the People's University; Ji Longwei of Yangzhou Teachers' College; Feng Erkang of Nankai University; Beatrice S. Bartlett, Iona Crook and Stephen Shott of Yale University; F.W. Mote of Princeton University; Elizabeth Sinn, Maureen Sabine and Shih Hsio-yen of the University of Hong Kong; and Deng Linyu and Xu Xiaohui of the Chinese International School of Hong Kong. Of course, they are not responsible for the errors contained in this paper. My gratitude also goes to the Department of History and Centre of Asian Studies of the University of Hong Kong. I have opted to use pinyin to accommodate a particular Chinese software program, but have left the Wade-Giles transliteration in quotations. Page 60 Page 61 ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1993 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/66833t302 In the economic sphere, the concept of face also prevails. A Japanese who worked in China for quite some time thought that a strong sense of nationalistic pride among Chinese was at work. Chinese thought that being a great nation with a great history, they could achieve whatever the foreigners had accomplished. While it had been clearly stated that the country could not lose in the competition with other developing nations such as India, Taiwan, etc., China chose to spend much more time modernising her own model than learning from the developed industrial nations whose colonial spirit she refuted (Funadashi, 1985: 224-228). Regardless of the excuse of colonial spirit, Chinese people could not learn from foreigners because they thought they belonged to a superior race. To follow foreigners' steps would mean depreciation of face (Hsu, 1981: 469; Bo, 1987: 199). Even when a Chinese praises Western culture and civilization, he is bound to be called by his fellow countrymen a worshipper of the West (Bo, 1987: 69). Some Recent Observations It is the question of face at work, the importance of it, which pervades the whole country, her culture and her people. Now, in the 1980s, face still seems to be at work. Sun Longji (1983: 60) has cited Yu Luoji's (44) and Li Shuang's (*) cases. Had they not been publicised, they would not have encountered such great reaction from the authorities. It was the revelation of these cases which put the Communist leadership into an embarrassing situation. It could not help putting heavy sentences on these two persons who openly acted against what it preached, otherwise its reputation and power as the outright governing body of China would be hampered. In the political sphere, in the 13th National Congress of the Chinese Communist Party (the most recent session of the All-China Representatives Meeting), a new Central Committee was elected and a once powerful man, Deng Liqun, believed to have lost power in the recent shuffle, was given membership in the Central Advisory Commission. Hu Yaobang, the General Secretary having resigned in disgrace, remained in the Politburo. Hua Guofeng, the former chairman, deposed in the third comeback of Deng Xiaoping, continued his party member status. Aside from the recognition of these men's contributions as a reason for their retention of some participation in the party, it might just be evidence of Pye's postulation - avoidance of putting someone in a totally defeated ================================================================================