A Brief Modern Chinese History. Haipeng Zhang

of the fleet were usually trained overseas and were renowned for strict discipline, tough training, and high standards. Around the same time, modern naval troops were created in Guangdong, Fujian, and Shanghai. At this stage, the Chinese navy had, in total, more than 130 battleships. Even the Japanese navy paled in comparison.

      At this time, SSM was desperately seeking young and talented people. Thus, in the early 1860s, new, Western-style schools were founded as part of the Self-Strengthening mission in Beijing, Shanghai, and Guangzhou. Students in these schools were taught foreign languages, sciences, engineering, and international law; the schools encouraged practical education. The shipbuilding institute attached to the Fuzhou Arsenal is an example. According to their employment contract, the foreign experts working there were required to organize training sessions for the Chinese workers and students apart from building ships. A similar program was put in place in SSM’s mining and telegraph companies. Additionally, military schools devoted to weapons, medicine, and drill were set up after the creation of the new fleets. In 1885, Li Hongzhang founded a military academy in Tianjin (天津武备学堂) and this became China’s first army school. Wanting to rapidly master modern Western science and technology, SSM leaders sent many young students to study abroad. According to statistics, 120 went to the United States and 85 went to European countries such as Britain and Germany. These young people later played a great role in the modernization of China. Zhan Tianyou, for example, built the well-known modern Beijing-Zhangjiakou railway. A number of students specialized in telecommunications and helped free China from its dependence on foreign experts. The majority of the commanding officers in the navy studied in the West. Some of these, like Liu Buchan, Lin Yongsheng, and Lin Tai, for example, died bravely for their country, while others became leading officers in the Chinese navy. Yan Fu 严复, a brilliant officer who had studied in England’s Royal Naval College, became a translator and translated many well-known English books in the social sciences, which played a significant role in promoting the Enlightenment in early modernizing China. In addition, quite a few foreign-educated students later became active Chinese diplomats.

      It could be said that China’s move into the modern world was the result of invasion by the colonial powers. Because of Western colonialism, history did not leave China with many opportunities to peacefully undergo the changes that would lead to modernity. It was at gunpoint that the top echelons of the Qing dynasty had to abandon the old order and move toward modern life. However, divisions persisted regarding whether China should modernize or not. Some officials were reform-minded while others remained ultraconservative and loyal to the old regime. The leading SSM motivators, which included Yixin, Wenxiang, Zeng Guofan, Li Hongzhang, Zuo Zongtang, among others, were intellectually open-minded and enlightened. Their crusade for modernity aimed to rebuild a lethargic Chinese nation, as well as lay the foundation for future endeavors. In this sense, they should be recognized as the pioneers of Chinese modernization and for playing a significant role in Chinese history in breaking through the almost indestructible, thousand-year-old conventional ways of thinking.

      Class conflicts began to ease after the failure of the Taiping Rebellion and as the colonial powers slowed down their activities in China. As a result, the Qing empire enjoyed two decades of peace and stability. At this time, some of the ruling elites started to rethink the development gap between China and the West and began to create new opportunities for socio-economic growth. It was in this same period that Japan also saw great changes and rapid economic and military development. In Qing's empire, some of the SSM motivators, took much more moderate measures to modernize this 200-year-old dynasty. While promoting their programs, they did not try to bring about fundamental changes to the existing social order and ideological system. Despite this, the (ultra-)conservatives were hostile to these reform-minded officials. A prominent imperial adviser, for example, firmly believed that traditional Confucian virtues such as loyalty, propriety, and righteousness were essential to fighting the invaders. The SSM motivators’ endeavors to modernize the dynasty were in the conservatives’ eyes entirely unorthodox, meaningless, and useless. The conservatives particularly objected to having conventional Chinese education, based on Confucianism, be replaced by a modern education that was centered around Western knowledge. The SSM proponents continued to defend their beliefs.

      Cixi, who was by nature conservative, allowed the SSM motivators to implement their programs while allowing the ultraconservative critics of SSM to go unchecked. It is clear that the Empress Dowager instructed these two rivals to work against each other. In this way, not only would the two political factions not challenge Cixi, but she would place them both under her control. However, SSM could not be promoted throughout China, only in the provinces supervised by the SSM motivators. Zeng Guofan and Li Hongzhang did an excellent job in Nanjing, Shanghai, and Tianjin; as did Zuo Zongtang in Fuzhou and Lanzhou, and Zhang Zhidong in Wuhan.

In contrast, Japan’s Meiji Restoration and modernization were the result of state actions. Even Ito Hirobumi, then Japan’s Prime Minister, was aware of this and said that Qing’s rehabilitation of its armed forces was merely empty talk.10 The Northern Fleet’s staggering defeat in the First Sino-Japanese War (1894–1895) demonstrated that SSM was finally a failure.

Reformism in Its Initial Stages

      Reformists, thinkers, and intellectuals participating in SSM started to rethink China after the end of the Second Opium War. Among them, Wang Tao 王韬, Zheng Guanying 郑观应 and Ma Jianzhong 马建忠 debated the fate of China and looked for the best way out of its crisis. Wang Tao repeatedly failed the Imperial Civil Service Examination (hereinafter referred to as the Examination). He finally abandoned the attempt and became an editor at a Shanghai-based publisher managed by a British resident. While working there, Wang read some Western books, and these gradually led him to change his ideas.

Wang later went to Britain, where he was employed as an assistant translating Chinese classics. For three years (1867–1870) Wang did an on-the-spot investigation of Western society. By doing so, he became epistemico-intellectually enriched, successfully transforming from a member of the feudal literati into an advocate of bourgeois reformism. In 1873, Wang founded a newspaper called the Universal Circulating Herald (循环日报) in Hong Kong. This newspaper advocated Wang’s ideas, such as the free registration of private companies, and recommended that China create a new political system in which the sovereign and the people would share power.11

Zheng was from the countryside of Xiangshan, Guangdong. He was also unsuccessful in his attempt to pass the Examination at the lowest level. Many compradors were natives of Xiangshan. As Zheng’s uncle and elder brother worked for foreign firms, at the age of 17 Zheng was granted an apprenticeship at a Shanghai-based Hong (a company run by foreigners). Later he became the leading comprador in the Swire Group and made a fortune. In his work, Zheng witnessed not only the hardships that traders had to endure but also the effects of the foreign capitalist invasion of China. While he dreamed of running his own company, Zheng well knew that the fulfillment of his dream depended on a pro-business and wealthy state. Based on his studies, Zheng asserted that having an advanced weapons system was not enough; a well-organized and efficient parliamentary system was equally important to lay a solid foundation for a stable and prosperous state.12 Ma, who originally dedicated himself to completing the Examination, decided to abandon the old Chinese learning system and instead opted for a Western education, reflecting that Qing had been so easily defeated by a small Western force. Ma spent much time learning foreign languages, hoping that, by doing so, he would find the key to the West’s success.13

The above-mentioned educated Chinese who partook in SSM were all aware that China was undergoing a drastic change. Inspired by the new knowledge imported from the West, they unanimously decided that Chinese society needed to change. Feng Guifen 冯 桂 芬, for example, argued that the creation of treaty ports had created a huge change in China.14 Wang Tao said that China had a historic