Self-Strengthening: An Analysis Based on Some Recent Writings

-3SELF -STRENGTHENING: ANANALYSIS based on SOME RECENT WRITINGS* Thomas L. Kennedy Washington State University Self-strengthening (tzu-ch'iang), most scholars of the subject would agree, originated in the changed circumstances (pienchii ) which prevailed in China following the Taiping invasion of the Yangtze delta and the signinf of the Peking Conventions in late 1860. Certain Chinese leaders urged the adoption of selected elements of foreign civilizations (yang-wu), sometimes termed new policies (hsin-cheng), by the government as a means to increase the wealth and power (fu-ch'iang) of the empire. Although this movement stressed military, industrial and diplomatic modernization, it was not limited to this. Furthermore, it involved a degree of intellectual awakening which led to the advocacy of change in the institutions (pien-fa), such as governmental structure and education, that lay at the basis of the empire. The period in which self-strengthening provided the foremost motivation for reform in China is usually understood to have come to a close with the Sino -Japanese War (18941895 ). Beyond these agreed points, however, there are important questions which must be understood if we are to fathom the significance of self-strengthening in relation to the sweep of modern Chinese history; several of these will be explored here. -4First , against whom was China strengthening itself? Or, stated as it appears in the literature, was this primarily a class movement in which feudal elements - bureaucrats, landlords and compradors - in league with foreign imperialists strengthened themselves in order to subdue the righteous uprisings of the Chinese masses as scholars of the People's Republic such as Fan Wen-Ian, Mou An-shih, Sun Yü-t'ang, members of the Hupeh University Political and Economic Research Institute, and the Editorial Committee 2 of the China Modern History Series contend? Or, was selfstrengthening directed primarily against the growth of foreign influence as it is seen by such Western scholars as Kwang-Ching Liu and historians from the Institute of Modern History in the Republic 3 of China such as Wang Erh-min? The position held by Fan, Mou, Sun, the Institute and the Committee seems to be based on a specious type of reasoning which assumes that because self-strengthening failed against foreign foes its authors never intended that it should succeed. Proceeding from the fact of failure to impute the motives of collusion with the imperialists, these historians brush away a plethora of personal testimony of self-strengthening leaders as to their anti-imperialist motives to arrive at what appears to be 4 a preconceived conclusion. Although the anti-imperialist testimony of self-strengthening leaders is cited frequently in the works of Wang Erh-min and others, documented statements of patriotic -5intentions such as these have a certain self-serving ring whether they are attributed to the pen of Prince Kung or a customs intend5 ant from Shanghai. A more convincing case can be made for the anti-imperialist nature of the movement from substantive data which is readily available. For example, the stepped-up emphasis on naval development and the shift to production of coastal defense and naval weapons after 1875, and the priority given to strategic rather than commercial railroad development after 1890, are clear indications that the sustaining motivation of self-strengthening moved away from the provision of toolsfor rebellion suppression which admittedly played an important part in the origins of the movement in the I860' s. Secondly, was self-strengthening primarily national or regional in its orientation? unifying or diverse to the empire? The definitive argument for regionalism has been advanced by Professor Franz Michael in his introduction to Stanley Spector's Li Hung chang and the Huai Army: A Study of Nineteenth Century Regionalism . Both Michael and Spector contend that, with the weakening of the imperial government in the mid nineteenth century, gentry leaders with a strong local orientation began to assume the functions and exercise some of the authority of the central government. The driving force of self-strengthening was actually the urge of competing regional leaders to strengthen themselves, not the em- -6pire , a position which is also apparent in the writing of Fan WenQ Ian. Furthermore, this argument infers that the regional regimes which...