On "The 1898 Reforms Revisited": A Rejoinder

Vol. 8, No. 1 Late Imperial ChinaJune 1987 ON THE 1898 REFORMS REVISITED": A REJOINDER Luke S. K. Kwong* It is indeed a privilege to have a noted scholar like Mr. Tang Zhijun review my book on the Hundred Days Reform, a topic on which he has published voluminously over the past thirty years. Like many students of modern Chinese history, I have benefited from these and his other writings . Even when I disagree with the views they contain, I am grateful for the basis of discussion they provide. The review essay in question is the result of a collaboration. As such, the arguments put forward sometimes lack the cogency of an expert's coherent hand. Still, take away the essentially polemical, or the occasional remark that comes curiously close to refuting Tang's own position (such as that endorsing Huang Zhangjian's research), and also leaving aside some rather supercilious broadsides against psychohistory, vintage Tang comes through. In fact, parts of the essay may be read as a response to queries in my book of some of Tang's long-held views. ' Before turning to matters of greater substance, several points can be quickly settled for the record. Nowhere in my book have I declared that the "Guangxu emperor's edicts are of little value in reconstructing the events leading to the 1898 reforms," or described the "Guangxu emperor's edicts as unimportant." Nor have I categorically pronounced Liang Qichao's Wuxu zhengbian ji (The Reforms of 1898) as of "no use in reconstructing the events surrounding the reforms. " These are misrepresentations in the review. While * A word on the background to this exchange is in order. This rejoinder is a revision of my manuscript submitted over a year ago in response to the original review, which I then said "betrays a casual or prejudicial reading of my book." The reviewers were shown my reply and later substantially revised their essay in light of my responses. Their review in its present form has eliminated some of the blatant overstatements in the original. Consequently, my rejoinder , too, has had to be modified, mainly to remove statements that have been taken into account by the reviewers in rewriting their essay and have therefore become irrelevant. For an instant, it befuddles the mind to know who is reviewing what by whom. I wish to thank Professor Jack Gerson for commenting on the two drafts of this rejoinder. 1 See, for instance, A Mosaic ofthe Hundred Days: Personalities, Politics, and Ideas of 1898. Cambridge, Mass: Council on East Asian Studies, Harvard University, 1984, pp. 10, 276277nl 16 and nl28, 291n38, 299nl08. 214 On "The 1898 Reforms Revisited": A Rejoinder215 it may be necessary for them to identify the target under attack, labeling my study as psychohistory is wide of the mark. Readers are advised to turn to the works by Erikson, Lifton and others, which, incidentally, I do admire, for a more reliable notion of what true psychohistory is. Tang and Elman state that I represent Weng Tonghe's dismissal as "one of the keys to unraveling many of the mysteries that have enshrouded the events preceding the September coup d'etat by the Empress Dowager." I did discuss the political implications of Weng's downfall, but exactly what the quotation refers to eludes me. My account of the incident is also challenged . Weng's fate in 1898 is one of those problems about which one does well to keep an open mind because existing data being what they are, it is basically a "no win" situation. My appraisal was made in full cognizance of this difficulty.2 Yet, ignoring the question of the incident's timing, which I tried to address, the reviewers resort to the old conspiracy theory which holds the "empress' faction" responsible for Weng's undoing. They observe that the Guangxu emperor continued to rely on Weng in making decisions and drafting edicts up to the very day of the latter's dismissal. This, they say, proved that Cixi and not Guangxu struck at Weng. But these were precisely the duties Weng had had to perform as long as he remained in his place as the most active, senior...