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Naval Warfare and the Refraction of China's Self-Strengthening Reforms into Scientific and Technological Failure, 1865-1895

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  21 April 2004

Benjamin A. Elman
Affiliation:
Princeton University

Extract

In the 1950s and 1960s, Chinese, Western, and Japanese scholarship debated the success or failure of the government schools and regional arsenals established between 1865 and 1895 to reform Qing China (1644-1911). For example, Quan Hansheng contended in 1954 that the Qing failure to industrialize after the Taiping Rebellion (1850-64) was the major reason why China lacked modern weapons during the Sino-Japanese War. This position has been built on in recent reassessments of the ‘Foreign Affairs Movement’ (Yangwu yundong) and Sino-Japanese War of 1894-95 (Jiawu zhanzheng) by Chinese scholars. They argue, with some dissent, that the inadequacies of the late Qing Chinese navy and army were due to poor armaments, insufficient training, lack of leadership, vested interests, lack of funding, and low morale. In aggregate, these factors are thought to demonstrate the inadequacies of the ‘Self-Strengthening era’ and its industrial programs.

Type
Research Article
Copyright
© 2004 Cambridge University Press

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Footnotes

An earlier version was presented at the conference ‘The Disunity of Chinese Science,’ organized by Roger Hart (University of Texas, Austin), sponsored by the History of Science Program at the University of Chicago, May 10-12, 2002. My thanks to an anonymous reader who suggested parts to expand and who also directed me to important recent work on the topic.