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Published online by Cambridge University Press: 28 November 2008
The capitulation of China to the Western powers' military, commercial, and diplomatic offensive by 1860 removed the immediate formal façade of resistance to improved Sino-western relations which the West had sought. Not so easily removed were the endemic institutional and cultural obstacles to China's understanding and effective handling of foreign affairs which accompanied these expanded relations. Increased involvement with the West, both at the capital and in the provinces, generated more complex problems and renewed suspicion which made a practical knowledge of the Western powers and their behavior all the more urgent. Yet in a society which had consistently underestimated and depreciated the importance of the West, the requisite knowledge of the Western world did not lie readily at hand, and specialists in foreign affairs were few. This article examines the career of one foreign affairs expert in this critical period. Its purpose is twofold: First, to illuminate the origins and quality of ‘foreign affairs’ expertise in China, broadly defined here as the understanding and dealing with the West (including the knowledge of foreign activities and policies in China, of characteristics of, and distinctions among, foreigners and foreign nations, and policies with respect to foreigners); and second (and closely related to the first), to examine the role and significance of the specialist in Chinese society.
1 A variety of terms were used for foreigners and foreign affairs involving the West in this period: i-shih 
, i-ch'ing 
i-wu 
and yang-wu 
were variously interchangeable terms for foreign affairs in the broad definition employed in this paper; i-jen 
, yang-fen 
, hsi-jen 
, and wai-kuo-jen 
, were all terms for Westerners. I 
, ‘barbarian’, has pejorative overtones, but I can detect no systematic distinction in its use by Chao Lieh-wen.
2 Meng, S. M., The Tsungli Yamen: Its Organization and Functions (Cambridge: East Asian Research Center, Harvard University, 1972), 39–40.Google Scholar
3 Ibid., 3.
4 Ibid., 50ff., 75–6; Wright, Mary C., The Last Stand of Chinese Conservatism: The T'ung-chih Restoration, 1862–1874 (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1957), 228.Google Scholar
5 For a further discussion of these developments see Porter, Jonathan, Tseng Kuofan's Private Bureaucracy (Berkeley: University of California, Center for Chinese Studies, 1972).Google Scholar
6 Kuo-fan, Tseng, Tseng-wen-cheng-kung shou-hsieh jih-chi [The Manuscript Diary of Tseng Kuo-fan] (6 vols; Taipei reprint, 1965), 1142.Google Scholar
7 Lieh-wen, Chao, Neng-ching-chü jih chi [Neng-ching (Chao Lieh-wen)'s Diary] (6 vols; Taipei reprint, 1964), 583, 624.Google Scholar
8 Ibid., 619.
9 Tseng, Diary, 1143–69; Chao, Neng-ching-chü jih chi, 624–5.
10 Chao, Neng-ching-chü jih chi, 632.
11 Tseng, Diary, 1151–2; Chao, Neng-ching-chü jih chi, 634, 638.
12 Chao, Neng-ching-chü jih chi, 665.
13 Tseng, Diary, 1260.
14 Chao, Neng-ching-chu jih chi, 833.
15 Ibid., 882.
16 See Porter, Tseng Kuo-fan's Private Bureaucracy, 82–7, for a discussion of the use of the mu-fu as a training agency.
17 Chao, Neng-ching-chü jih chi, 837, 841, 850, 853, 859, 861, 879, 927, 943, 950, 954.
18 Ibid., 837.
19 Ibid., 850, 861, 943.
20 Ibid., 841, 850, 853, 954.
21 Ibid., 879, 950.
22 Ibid., 855, 859, 943, 1115.
23 Ibid., 1019.
24 Ibid., 1025, 1029.
25 Ibid., 1029–31.
26 Ibid., 1029, 1035, 1041.
27 Ibid., 1044. See also Chen, Gideon, Tseng Kuo-fan: Pioneer Promoter of the Steamship in China (New York; Paragon Book Gallery, 1968), 23–5.Google Scholar
28 Chao, Neng-ching-chü jih/chi, 1097–8.
29 Ibid., 1889–1890.
30 Ibid., 1154, 1201, 1231, 1407. See Porter, Tseng Huo-fan's Private Bureaucracy, 63–6.
31 For examples of his work see Chao, Neng-ching-chü jih chi, 1160–2, 1185–7, 1193, 1238–42, 1337, 1350, 1382, 1392.
32 Ibid., 1345, 1545, 1582, 1822.
33 Ibid., 1822.
34 Erh-ch'ang, Min (ed.), Pei-chuan-chi pu [Supplement to Collected Biographical Epitaphs] (60 chüan; Taipei reprint, n.d.), 26:2a.Google Scholar
35 National Palace Museum Archives, Taiwan, Ch'un-chi-tang
, Kuanghsu 1/1/27, 193.
36 Pei-chuan-chi pu, 26:1a; Hummel, Arthur W. (ed.), Eminent Chinese of the Ch'ing Period (1644–1912) (Taipei reprint, 1964), 80.Google Scholar
37 Hummel, Eminent Chinese, 71–2, 75–6, 80; Ch'ing shih pien-tsuan wei-yuan-hui [Editorial Committee for the History of the Ch'ing], Ch'ing-shih [History of the Ch'ing] 8 vols. (Taipei, 1961), 5351.Google Scholar
38 Pei-chuan-chi pu, 26:1a.
39 Ibid., 26:1a–1b.
40 Ibid., 26:1a; Ch'ing-shih, 5351.
41 For example, see Chao, Neng-ching-chü jih chi 116–84, passim.
42 Ibid., 8–25.
43 Ibid., 38–43.
44 Ibid., 92–8.
45 Ibid., 100–3, 444–57.
46 Ibid., 329–31, 395–8.
47 For examples, see ibid., 56–7, 290, 412, 419–21, 431, 460–3, 505, 677.
48 On the ching-shih ideal, see Hao, Chang, ‘On the Ching-shih Ideal in Neo-Confucianism,’ Ch'ing-shih wen-t'i, III, 1 (11 1974), 36–61.Google Scholar
49 See Barnett, Suzanne Wilson, ‘Wei Yuan and Westerners: Notes on the Sources of the Hai-kuo t'u-chih', Ch'ing-shih wen-t'i, II, 4 (November 1970), 1–20.Google Scholar Chao's Western sources, as he listed them, include Ai-ju-lueh 
, [Giulio Aleni], Wan-kuo ch'üan-t'u shuo 
and Chih-fang wai-chi 
Nan-huai-jen 
[Ferdinand Verbiest], K'un-yü t'u-lueh 
T'ang Jo-wang 
[Adam Schall], K'un-yü ch'üan-t'u shuo 
and Tung-Hsi-yang k'ao 
. Ibid., 25, 92, 162.
50 See Hummel, Eminent Chinese, 282.
51 I an indebted to James Polachek for his helpful suggestions about Chao's possible intellectual affiliations.
52 Wei Yuan, for instance, spent his official career in Kiangsu. Hummel, Eminent Chinese, 850–2. Feng Kuei-fen was a native of Su-chou, and Ku-Yen-wu, considered one of the most important precursors of the school, was a native of K'un-shan. Ibid., 241–3, 421–5. And Ho Ch'ang-ling, chief compiler of the Huang-ch'ao ching-shih wenpien, worked on his collection while serving as an official in Kiangsu. Ibid., 282.
53 Chang, ‘On the Ching-shih Ideal in Neo-Confucianism,’ 36–7. Suzanne Wilson Barnett, remarks at the panel ‘Statecraft Scholarship in Ch'ing China’, annual meeting of the Association for Asian Studies, Boston, April 3, 1974.
54 Philip Kuhn, remarks at the panel ‘Statecraft Scholarship in Ch'ing China.’
55 For instance, see Chao, Neng-ching-chü jih chi, 73–4, 78.
56 Ibid., 882; Pei-chuan-chi pu, 26:1a; T'ing-i, Kuo, Kuo Sung-tao hsien-sheng nien-p'u (2 vols; Taipei: Academia Sinica, Institute of Modern History, 1971), 218–20.Google Scholar
57 Ch'ing-shih, 5351; Pei-chuan-chi pu, 26:1a.
58 Ch'ing-shih lieh-chuan (10 vols; Taipei reprint, 1962), 73:43a.Google Scholar
59 Polachek, James, ‘Gentry Hegemony: Soochow in the T'ung-chih Restoration,’ in Wakeman, Frederic and Grant, Carolyn (eds), Conflict and Control in Late Imperial China (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1975), 240Google Scholar; Chao, Neng-ching-chü jih chi, 583, 1085.
60 Chao, Neng-ching-chü jih chi, 583–4.
61 Ibid., 221ff.
62 Ibid., 333, 376, 388.
63 Ibid., 665, 833.
64 Ibid., 859 (March 31, 1862); Kuo, Kuo Sung-tao hsien-sheng nien-p'u, 202–6.
65 Chao, Neng-ching-chü jih chi, 1115 (April 23, 1863), 1119–25.
66 See Hummel, Eminent Chinese, 241–3; Ssu-yü, Teng and Fairbank, John K., China's Response to the West: A Documentary Survey, 1839–1923 (New York: Atheneum, 1963), 50–1.Google Scholar The latter includes translations of selected passages from the Chiao-pin-lu k'ang-i (51–55). On Feng's activities in Kiangsu, see Polachek, ‘Gentry Hegemony’, esp. 228ff.
67 Pei-chuan-chi pu, 26:1b.
68 See Teng and Fairbank, China's Response to the West, 91–6.
69 Chao, Neng-ching-chü jih chi, 833.
70 Kuo-fan, Tseng, Tseng-wen-cheng-kung ch'üan-chi [Collected Works of Tseng Kuo-fan] (5 vols; Taipei reprint, 1965), 451.Google Scholar
71 Chao, Neng-ching-chü jih chi, 855.
72 Kuei-fen, Feng, Chiao-pin-lu k'ang-i (Taipei reprint of 1897 edition, 1967), 72a, 75a.Google Scholar
73 For Kuo Sung-tao's views, see Kuo, Kuo Sung-tao hsien-sheng nien-p'u, 163, 186–7.
74 Chao, Neng-ching-chü jih chi, 1041.
75 Hung-chang, Li, Li-wen-chung-kung ch'üan-chi [Collected Works of Li Hungchang] (7 vols; Taipei reprint, 1968), 110Google Scholar; Hummel, Eminent Chinese, 242; Teng and Fairbank, China's Response to the West, 50.
76 Feng Kuei-fen, Chiao-pin-lu k'ang-i, 68a, 69b.
77 Chao, Neng-ching-chü jih chi, 1119–25. Chao refers to the manuscript as Chiao-pin-lu ch'u-kao. The titles of the forty sections are identical with those of the early published eidition, but five additional sections were added to later editions.
78 Ibid., 1125.
79 Kuo, Kuo Sung-tao hsien-sheng nien-p'u, 134, 211–12.
80 A discussion of the Wade–Hart proposals can be found in Wright, 263–8.
81 Chao, Neng-ching-chü jih chi, 1729.
82 Ibid., 1751.
83 Ibid., 1758.
84 Ibid., 833.
85 Ibid., 855, 1125, 1041.
86 Wright, Last Stand of Chinese Conservatism, 92.
87 See Ibid., quoting S. Wells Williams, 230.
88 Chia-lo, Yang et al. (eds), Yang-wu yun-tung wen-hsien hui-pien [Collectanea of the Yang-wu Movement] (8 vols; Taipei, 1963), II, 32–3.Google Scholar
89 Ibid., II, 34.
90 Ibid., II, 48.
91 Cf. Wright, who tends to emphasize the role of the Tsungli Yamen alone, 228, 231.
92 See Chi, Madeleine, ‘Bureaucratic Capitalists in Operations: Ts'ao Ju-lin and His New Communications Clique, 1916–1919.’ Journal of Asian Studies, XXXIV, 3 (05 1975), 677.Google Scholar