Hostname: page-component-586b7cd67f-t7czq Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-25T22:54:39.977Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Enacting the “Incomprehensible China”: Modern European Jurisprudence and the Japanese Reconstruction of Qing Political Law

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  27 December 2018

Cheng‐Yi Huang
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

The great ambition of Japanese colonialism, from the time of its debut at the end of the nineteenth century, was the reformulation of Chinese law and politics. One of the most extraordinary examples of this ambition is The Administrative Law of the Qing Empire [Shinkoku Gyōseihō], a monumental enterprise undertaken by the Japanese colonial government in Taiwan intended not only to facilitate Japanese colonial administration of Taiwan but also to reorder the entire politico‐juridical order of China along the lines of modern rational law. This article examines the legal analysis embraced in The Administrative Law of the Qing Empire and recounts its attempt to reconstruct the Qing's “political law” (seihō) by a strange, ambiguous, and hybrid resort to “authenticity.” The strangeness of this Japanese colonial production comes from Japan's dual position as both colonizer of Taiwan and simultaneously itself colonized by “modern European jurisprudence”(kinsei hōri). In uncovering the effects of modern European jurisprudence on the Japanese enterprise, we will discover Japan's pursuit of its own cultural subjectivity embedded in The Administrative Law of the Qing Empire, epitomizing the campaign of national identities observable in the process of East Asian legal modernization.

Type
Articles
Information
Law & Social Inquiry , Volume 33 , Issue 4 , Fall 2008 , pp. 955 - 1001
Copyright
Copyright © American Bar Foundation, 2008 

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Alford, William A. 2000. Law, Law, What Law? Why Western Scholars of China Have Not Had More to Say about Its Law. In The Limits of the Rule of Law in China, ed. Turner, Karen G., Feinerman, James V., and Guy, R. Kent, 45–64. Seattle: University of Washington Press.Google Scholar
Allee, Mark. 1994. Law and Local Society in Late Imperial China: Northern Taiwan in the Nineteenth Century. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press.Google Scholar
Anderson, Benedict. 1991. Imagined Communities. London: Verso.Google Scholar
Anderson, Benedict. 1998. The Spectre of Comparisons: Nationalism, Southeast Asia and the World. New York: Verso.Google Scholar
Balibar, Etienne. 1996. The Nation Form: History and Ideology. In Becoming National: A Reader, ed. Eley, Geoff and Suny, Ronald Grigor, 132–49. New York: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Benjamin, Walter. 1978. Reflections: Essays, Aphorisms, Autobiographical Writings. Trans. Edmund Jephcott. New York: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, Inc.Google Scholar
Benton, Lauren. 2002. Law and Colonial Cultures: Legal Regimes in World History, 1400–1900. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Bodde, Derk, and Morris, Clarence. 1973. Law in Imperial China: Exemplified by 190 Ch'ing Dynasty Cases with Historical, Social and Juridical Commentaries. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press.Google Scholar
Bourgon, Jérôme. 2002. Uncivil Dialogue: Law and Custom Did Not Merge into Civil Law under the Qing. Late Imperial China 23:50–90.Google Scholar
Burns, Susan L. 2003. Before the Nation: Kokugaku and the Imagining of Community in Early Modern Japan. Durham, NC: Duke University Press.Google Scholar
Chatterjee, Partha. 1986. Nationalist Thought and the Colonial World: A Derivative Discourse? Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press.Google Scholar
Chatterjee, Partha. 1993. The Nation and Its Fragments: Colonial and Postcolonial Histories. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.Google Scholar
Ch'en, Ch'iu‐K'un. 1987. Landlord and Tenant: Varieties of Land Tenure in Frontier Taiwan. PhD diss., Department of History, Stanford University, Stanford, CA.Google Scholar
Ch'en, Paul Heng‐chao. 1981. The Formation of the Early Meiji Legal Order: The Japanese Code of 1871 and Its Chinese Foundation. Oxford: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Cohen, Jerome Alan. 1968. Introduction. New Developments in Western Studies of Chinese Law: A Symposium. Journal of Asian Studies 27 (3): 475–83.Google Scholar
Cohn, Bernard. 1996. Colonialism and Its Forms of Knowledge: The British in India. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.Google Scholar
Comaroff, John L., and Comaroff, Jean. 1992. Ethnography and the Historical Imagination. Boulder, CO: Westview Press.Google Scholar
Comaroff, John L., and Comaroff, Jean. 1997. Of Revelation and Revolution: The Dialectics of Modernity on a South African Frontier, Volume 2. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.Google Scholar
Conklin, Alice L. 1997. A Mission to Civilize: The Republican Idea of Empire in France and West Africa, 1895–1930. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press.Google Scholar
Cooper, Frederick. 2005. Colonialism in Question: Theory, Knowledge, History. Berkeley: University of California Press.Google Scholar
Duara, Prasenjit. 1988. Culture, Power, and the State: Rural North China 1900–1942. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press.Google Scholar
Duara, Prasenjit. 1995. Rescuing History from the Nation: Questioning Narratives of Modern China. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.Google Scholar
Fairbank, John K. 1953. Trade and Diplomacy on the China Coast. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press.Google Scholar
Foucault, Michel. 1979. On Governmentality. Ideology & Consciousness 6:5–21.Google Scholar
Fukushima, Maso. 1958. Okamatsu Santarō hakushi no Taiwan kyūkan chōsa to Kahoku nōson kankō chōsa ni okeru Suehiro Izutarō hakushi [Dr. Okamatsu Santarō's Survey of Old Customary Law in Formosa and the Role of Dr. Suehiro Izutarō's in the Research Activities of the Customary Law in the Villages of North China]. Tōyō Bunka [Oriental Culture] 25:22–48.Google Scholar
Gotō, Shimpei. 1901. Taiwan Keieijou Kyūkan Seidō no Chōsa wo Hitsuyō to Suru Iken [Opinion regarding the Necessity for Investigating Old Customary Institution for the Purpose of Governing Taiwan]. Taiwan Kanshū Kiji [Journal of Taiwanese Old Customs] 1 (5): 24–38 and 1 (6): 25–35.Google Scholar
Gotō, Shimpei. 1921. Nihon Shokumin Seisaku Ippan [A General Introduction to Japanese Colonial Policy]. Tokyo: Kabushiki Kaisha Takushoku Shinbousha.Google Scholar
Haley, John Owen. 1991. Authority without Power: Law and the Japanese Paradox. New York: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Hart, H. L. A. 1997. The Concept of Law. Oxford: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Haruyama, Akisato. 1988a. Taiwan Kyūkan Chōsa to Rippō Kōsō‐Okamatsu Santarō ni Yoru Chōsa to Ritsu'an wo Chūshin ni [Taiwan Old Custom Investigation and Legislative Idea—Focusing on the Investigation and Legislation by Okamatsu Santarō]. Taiwan Kin-gendaishi Kenkyū [Modern Taiwanese History Studies] 6:81–114.Google Scholar
Haruyama, Akisato. 1988b. Hōgaku Hakushi Okamatsu Santarō to Taiwan—“Taiwan no Seido ni Kansuru Ikensho” Kaidai [Okamatsu Santarō, Doctor of Law, and Taiwan—Introduction to His “Opinions on Taiwan's Institution”]. Taiwan Kin-gendaishi Kenkyū [Modern Taiwanese History Studies] 6:197–216.Google Scholar
Hevia, James L. 1995. Cherishing Men from Afar: Qing Guest Ritual and the Macartney Embassy of 1793. Durham, NC: Duke University Press.Google Scholar
Hevia, James L. 2003. English Lessons: The Pedagogy of Imperialism in Nineteenth‐Century China. Durham, NC: Duke University Press.Google Scholar
Howland, Douglas R. 2002. Translating the West: Language and Political Reason in Nineteenth‐Century Japan. Honolulu: University of Hawai'i Press.Google Scholar
Huang, Chao‐tang. 2002. Taiwan Zungdufu [Governor‐General of Taiwan]. Trans. Huang Ying‐zhe. Taipei: Avant‐guard Publishing.Google Scholar
Imanaka, Kanshi. 1966. Sorai Gaku no Kisōdeki Kenkyū [The Fundamental Studies in Sorai's Thoughts]. Tokyo: Yoshikawahirofumikan.Google Scholar
Inoue, Nobumasa. 1888. Uiki Tsusan [General Compilation of Chinese Land]. Tokyo, Japan: Ookurashō[Ministry of Finance].Google Scholar
Jones, William C. 1974. Studying the Ch'ing Code—The Ta Ch'ing Lü Li. American Journal of Comparative Law 22 (2): 330–64.Google Scholar
Kim, Marie Seong‐Hak. 2007. Law and Custom under the Choson Dynasty and Colonial Korea: A Comparative Perspective. Journal of Asian Studies 66 (4): 1067–97.Google Scholar
Kobayashi, Michihiko. 1982. 1897 Nen ni okeru Takano Taiwan kōtōhōinchō hishoku jiken nitsuite—Meiji kokka to shokuminchi ryōyū[The 1897 Discharge of Takano Takenori, the Chief Judge of the Taiwan High Court—Meiji State and the Acquisition of Colony, Complimentary Comments and Foresights]. Chūōdaigaku Daigakuin Ronkyū [Journal of the Chuo University Graduate School] 14 (March): 103–18.Google Scholar
Kobayashi, Michihiko. 1985. Gotō Shimpei to Shokuminchi Keiei [Gotō Shimpei and the Japanese Colonial Management]. Shirin [Journal of History] 68 (5): 1–32.Google Scholar
Kolsky, Elizabeth. 2005. Codification and the Rule of Colonial Difference: Criminal Procedure in British India. Law and History Review 23 (3): 631–83.Google Scholar
Levinas, Emmanuel. 1991. Alterity and Transcendence. New York: Columbia University Press.Google Scholar
Lex. 1873. Administration of Chinese Law. China Review 2:223–31.Google Scholar
Li, Guilian. 2002. Jindai Zhongguo Fazhi yu Faxue [Modern Chinese Legal Institution and Jurisprudence]. Beijing: Peiking University Press.Google Scholar
Liu, Lydia H. 1995. Translingual Practice: Literature, National Culture, and Translated Modernity‐China, 1900–1937. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press.Google Scholar
Liu, Lydia H., ed. 1999a. Legislating the Universal: The Circulation of International Law in the Nineteenth Century. In Tokens of Exchange: The Problem of Translation in Global Circulation, 127–64. Durham, NC: Duke University Press.Google Scholar
Liu, Lydia H. 1999b. The Desire for the Sovereign and the Logic of Reciprocity in the Family of Nations. Diacritics 29 (4): 150–77.Google Scholar
Maruyama, Masao. 1974. Studies in the Intellectual History of Tokugawa Japan. Tokyo: University of Tokyo Press.Google Scholar
Myers, Ramon H. 1970. The Chinese Peasant Economy: Agricultural Development in Hopei and Shantung, 1890–1949. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.Google Scholar
Myers, Ramon H. 1971. The Research of the “Commission for the Investigation of Traditional Customs in Taiwan.” Ch'ing-shih wen-t'i 12:24–54.Google Scholar
Miyachi, Yonezo. 1989. Hōgaku Hakase Oda Yorozu no Koto—Nihon Kōhōgakushi no Ichi Danmen. [Things about Dr. Oda Yorozu—One perspective of Japanese public law history]. Kurume Hōgaku Bekkan [Special Volume of Kurume Law Review] 2:11–43.Google Scholar
Mitchell, Timothy. 2002. Rule of Experts: Egypt, Techno‐politics, Modernity. Berkeley: University of California Press.Google Scholar
Nozumi, Nobushige. 1912. Taiwan kyūkan chōsakai hōkokusho Taiwan Shihō[The investigational report on Taiwan old customs, Taiwanese Private Law]. Hōgaku kyūkai zasshi [Journal of the Association for Legal Studies] 30 (3): 180–81.Google Scholar
Ōba, Osamu. 1970. Edo Jidai ni okeru Chūgoku Bunka Juyō no Kenkyū [Studies in Japanese Reception of Chinese Culture in Edo Period]. Kyoto, Japan: Tohoshiya.Google Scholar
Oda, Yorozu. 1914. Meiji sanjūroku nen.….[The thirty‐sixth year of Meiji.….(Preface)] Shinkoku Gyōseihō Daiichikan [The Administrative Law of the Qing Empire]. Rev. ed., vol. 1. Tokyo: RTKC.Google Scholar
Oda, Yorozu. 1934. Oranda no Inshō to Kokusai Hōtei no kyūkanen [Dutch Impression and My Nine Years in the International Court]. Kyoto, Japan: Ritsumeikan University Press.Google Scholar
Oda, Yorozu. 1940a 1938. Hukakai no Shina Minzoku [The Incomprehensible Chinese Nation]. In Minzoku no Ben [Distinguishing the Meaning of Nation], 198–213. Tokyo: Bungei Shunjū.Google Scholar
Oda, Yorozu. 1940b. Shihōsho Hōgaakō to Aaperu Ou [The School of Law Affiliated to Ministry of Justice and Esq. Apel]. In Minzoku no Ben [Distinguishing the Meaning of Nation], 50–71. Tokyo: Bungei Shunjū.Google Scholar
Oda, Yorozu. 1940c 1938. Wang Chung‐hui to Watashi [Wang Chung‐hui and I]. In Minzoku no Ben [Distinguishing the Meaning of Nation], 226–30. Tokyo: Bungei Shunjū.Google Scholar
Oda, Yorozu. 1943a 1942. Shinkoku Gyōseihō Kenkyū Nitsuite no Kushin [Hard Work on Research of the Administrative Law of the Qing Empire]. In Hō to Nin [Law and the Folk], 315–28. Tokyo: Shunjyūsha.Google Scholar
Oda, Yorozu. 1943b. Honpō Kōhōgaku no Kaiko [Retrospect of the Development of Japanese Public Law]. In Hō to Nin [Law and the Folk], 80–105. Tokyo: Shunjyūsha.Google Scholar
Oda, Yorozu. 1979 1909. Qingguo Xingzhengfa Fanlun [General Treatise on the Administrative Law of the Qing Empire]. Taipei: Huashi Publishing.Google Scholar
Oda, Yorozu, and Katō, Shigeru. 1972 1940. Shinkoku Gyōseihō Henjyutsu ni Kansuru Kōwa [Interview about the Compilation of The Administrative Law of the Qing Empire]. In Shinkoku Gyōseihō Dainanakan [The Administrative Law of the Qing Empire], ed. Yukio, Yamane, vol. 7, 27–35. Tokyo: Kyūko Shoyin.Google Scholar
Oda, Yorozu Kenkyukai [Research Committee on Oda Yorozu]. 1999. Oda Yorozu Nenpu Chosaku Mokuroku [Chronicle of Oda Yorozu's Life and His Publication]. Ritsumeikan Hōgaku [Ritsumeikan Law Review] 262:1195–1245.Google Scholar
Okamatsu, Santaro. 1902. Provisional Report on Investigations of Laws and Customs in the Island of Formosa Compiled by Order of the Governor‐General of Formosa. Kobe, Japan: The Kobe Herald Office.Google Scholar
Okamatsu, Santaro. 1905. Nihon Minpō no Kedden wo Ronjite Taiwan Rippō ni Taosuru Kibō ni Oyobu [On the Flaws of Japanese Civil Law in Hopes of Special Legislation in Taiwan]. Taiwan Kanshū Kiji [Journal of Taiwanese Old Customs] 5 (3): 195–208.Google Scholar
Okamatsu, Santaro. 1988. Taiwan no Seido ni Kansuru Ikensho [Opinions on Taiwan's Institution]. Taiwan Kin-gendaishi Kenkyū [Modern Taiwanese History Studies] 6:217–32.Google Scholar
Reynolds, Douglas R. 1993. China, 1898–1912: The Xinzheng Revolution and Japan. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.Google Scholar
Ross, John. 1891. The Manchus or the Reigning Dynasty of China: Their Rise and Progress. London: Unknown Publisher. Google Scholar
RTKC (Rinji Taiwan Kyūkan Chōsakai). 1905. Daiichibu Hōkoku–Shinkoku Gyōseihō Daiichikan [The Administrative Law of the Qing Empire, vol. 1]. Taipei: Rinji Taiwan Kyūkan Chōsakai.Google Scholar
RTKC (Rinji Taiwan Kyūkan Chōsakai). 1910a. Daiichibu Hōkoku–Shinkoku Gyōseihō Dainikan [The Administrative Law of the Qing Empire, vol. 2]. Taipei: Rinji Taiwan Kyūkan Chōsakai.Google Scholar
RTKC (Rinji Taiwan Kyūkan Chōsakai). 1910b. Daiichibu Hōkoku–Shinkoku Gyōseihō Daisankan [The Administrative Law of the Qing Empire, vol. 3]. Taipei: Rinji Taiwan Kyūkan Chōsakai.Google Scholar
RTKC (Rinji Taiwan Kyūkan Chōsakai). 1911a. Daiichibu Hōkoku–Shinkoku Gyōseihō Daiyonkan [The Administrative Law of the Qing Empire, vol. 4]. Taipei: Rinji Taiwan Kyūkan Chōsakai.Google Scholar
RTKC (Rinji Taiwan Kyūkan Chōsakai). 1911b. Daiichibu Hōkoku–Shinkoku Gyōseihō Daigokan [The Administrative Law of the Qing Empire, vol. 5]. Taipei: Rinji Taiwan Kyūkan Chōsakai.Google Scholar
RTKC (Rinji Taiwan Kyūkan Chōsakai). 1913. Daiichibu Hōkoku–Shinkoku Gyōseihō Dairokukan [The Administrative Law of the Qing Empire, vol. 6]. Taipei: Rinji Taiwan Kyūkan Chōsakai.Google Scholar
RTTC (Rinji Taiwan Tochi Chōsakyoku). 1902. Rinji Taiwan Tochi Chōsakyoku daiikkai jigyō hōkoku [The First Business Report of Provisional Bureau of Taiwan Land Survey]. Taipei: RTTC.Google Scholar
Ruskola, Teemu. 2002. Legal Orientalism. Michigan Law Review 101:179–234.Google Scholar
Ruskola, Teemu. 2003. Law Without Law, Or Is “Chinese Law” an Oxymoron? William & Mary Bill of Rights Journal 11:655–69.Google Scholar
Said, Edward W. 1979. Orientalism. New York: Vintage Books.Google Scholar
Sakai, Naoki. 1997. Translation and Subjectivity: On “Japan” and Cultural Nationalism. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press.Google Scholar
Sakano, Masataka. 1962. Nihhonjin no Chūgokukan: Oda Yorozu Hakase no “Shinkoku Gyōseihō wo Megutte”[The Japanese Conception of China: Dr. Oda Yorozu's “The Administrative Law of the Qing Empire”]. Shisō [Thoughts] 452:69–78 and 456:64–84.Google Scholar
Searle, John R. 1997. The Construction of Social Reality. New York: Free Press.Google Scholar
Shimada, Shōrō. 1980. Shinmatsu ni okeru Kindaideki Hōten no Hensan [The Compilation of Modern Codes in late Qing]. Tokyo: Soubunshiya.Google Scholar
Simmel, Georg. 1950. The Sociology of Georg Simmel. Trans. and ed. Kurt, H. Wolff. Glencoe, IL: The Free Press.Google Scholar
Stokes, Eric. 1989 1959. The English Utilitarians and India. New York: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Takekoshi, Yosaburō. 1905. Taiwan Tōchi Shi [The Record of Taiwan Administration]. Tokyo: Hirobumikan.Google Scholar
Tanaka, Stefan. 1993. Japan's Orient: Rendering Pasts into History. Berkeley: University of California Press.Google Scholar
Tsu, Timothy Y. 1999. Japanese Colonialism and the Investigation of Taiwanese “Old Customs.” In Anthropology and Colonialism in Asia and Oceania, ed. Bremen, Jan van and Shimizu, Akitoshi, 197–218. Surrey, UK: Curzon.Google Scholar
Tsurumi, Yūsuke. 1965. Gotō Shimpei. Tokyo: Keisō shobō.Google Scholar
Wang, Chung‐hui. 1907. The German Civil Code. Trans. and annotated, with an historical introduction and appendices by Chunghui Wang. London: Stevens and Sons Ltd.Google Scholar
Wang, Chung‐hui. 1981. Wang Chung‐hui Xiansheng Wenji [Anthology of Mr. Wang Chung‐hui]. Taipei: China Culture Service Co., Ltd.Google Scholar
Wang, Tay‐sheng. 2000. Legal Reform in Taiwan under Japanese Colonial Rule, 1895–1945. Seattle: University of Washington Press.Google Scholar
Williams, S. Wells. 1883. The Middle Kingdom, a Survey of the Geography, Government, Literature, Social Life, Arts and History of the Chinese Empire and Its Inhabitants. London: Unknown publisher.Google Scholar
Wills, John E. 1984. Embassies and Illusions: Dutch and Portuguese Envoys to Kang‐his, 1666–1687. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.Google Scholar
Wu, Hao‐ren. 1999. Taiwan Hōshi no Kanōsei: Hōshakaishiteki Hōshisōshiteki Shiron [The Possibility of Taiwanese Legal History: From the Perspective of Legal Sociology and History of Legal Thoughts]. PhD diss. Faculty of Law, Kyoto University, Kyoto, Japan.Google Scholar
Wu, Mi‐cha. 1994. Fukuzawa Yūkichi de Taiwan ron [Fukuzawa Yūkichi's Proposal for Governing Taiwan]. In Taiwan Jindaishi Yanjiu [Studies on Taiwanese Modern History], 69–107. Taipei: Daoxiang Publishing.Google Scholar
Wu, Rwei‐ren. 2003. The Formosan Ideology: Oriental Colonialism and the Rise of Taiwanese Nationalism, 1895–1945. PhD diss., Department of Political Science, University of Chicago, Chicago, IL.Google Scholar
Yamane, Yukio. 1967. Shinkoku Gyōseihō Kaiseitsu [Introduction to The Administrative Law of the Qing Empire]. In Shinkoku Gyōseihō Sakuin [The Index of The Administrative Law of the Qing Empire], ed. Yukio, Yamane, 1–21. Tokyo: Daian Kabushiki Kaisha.Google Scholar
Yamane, Yukio. 1976. Kindai Chūkoku to Nippon [Modern China and Japan]. Tokyo: Sansen Publishing.Google Scholar
Yang, C. K. 1967. Religion in Chinese Society. Berkeley: University of California Press.Google Scholar
Young, Louise. 1998. Japan's Total Empire: Manchuria and the Culture of Wartime Imperialism. Berkeley: University of California Press.Google Scholar
Yu, Wei‐xiung. 1987. Wang Chung‐hui yu Jindai Zhungguo [Wang Chung‐hui and Modern China]. Taipei: Wenshizhe Publishing.Google Scholar