and Tianjin; as did Zuo Zongtang in Fuzhou and Lanzhou, and Zhang Zhidong in Wuhan.
In contrast, Japan’s Meiji Restoration and modernization were the result of state actions. Even Ito Hirobumi, then Japan’s Prime Minister, was aware of this and said that Qing’s rehabilitation of its armed forces was merely empty talk.10 The Northern Fleet’s staggering defeat in the First Sino-Japanese War (1894–1895) demonstrated that SSM was finally a failure.
Reformism in Its Initial Stages
Reformists, thinkers, and intellectuals participating in SSM started to rethink China after the end of the Second Opium War. Among them, Wang Tao 王韬, Zheng Guanying 郑观应 and Ma Jianzhong 马建忠 debated the fate of China and looked for the best way out of its crisis. Wang Tao repeatedly failed the Imperial Civil Service Examination (hereinafter referred to as the Examination). He finally abandoned the attempt and became an editor at a Shanghai-based publisher managed by a British resident. While working there, Wang read some Western books, and these gradually led him to change his ideas.
Wang later went to Britain, where he was employed as an assistant translating Chinese classics. For three years (1867–1870) Wang did an on-the-spot investigation of Western society. By doing so, he became epistemico-intellectually enriched, successfully transforming from a member of the feudal literati into an advocate of bourgeois reformism. In 1873, Wang founded a newspaper called the Universal Circulating Herald (循环日报) in Hong Kong. This newspaper advocated Wang’s ideas, such as the free registration of private companies, and recommended that China create a new political system in which the sovereign and the people would share power.11
Zheng was from the countryside of Xiangshan, Guangdong. He was also unsuccessful in his attempt to pass the Examination at the lowest level. Many compradors were natives of Xiangshan. As Zheng’s uncle and elder brother worked for foreign firms, at the age of 17 Zheng was granted an apprenticeship at a Shanghai-based Hong (a company run by foreigners). Later he became the leading comprador in the Swire Group and made a fortune. In his work, Zheng witnessed not only the hardships that traders had to endure but also the effects of the foreign capitalist invasion of China. While he dreamed of running his own company, Zheng well knew that the fulfillment of his dream depended on a pro-business and wealthy state. Based on his studies, Zheng asserted that having an advanced weapons system was not enough; a well-organized and efficient parliamentary system was equally important to lay a solid foundation for a stable and prosperous state.12 Ma, who originally dedicated himself to completing the Examination, decided to abandon the old Chinese learning system and instead opted for a Western education, reflecting that Qing had been so easily defeated by a small Western force. Ma spent much time learning foreign languages, hoping that, by doing so, he would find the key to the West’s success.13
The above-mentioned educated Chinese who partook in SSM were all aware that China was undergoing a drastic change. Inspired by the new knowledge imported from the West, they unanimously decided that Chinese society needed to change. Feng Guifen 冯 桂 芬, for example, argued that the creation of treaty ports had created a huge change in China.14 Wang Tao said that China had a historic opportunity;15 and Xue Fucheng 薛福成 believed that both China and the world would witness dramatic changes.16 Educated Chinese such as Zheng and Wang attempted to propose programs that would allow China to cope with changes and grasp new opportunities. They suggested that Qing learn from the West and try its utmost to turn disadvantages into advantages. This kind of self-strengthening endeavor, they argued, would help China adapt to the modernizing world. Feng argued that China should adopt the West’s strong points,17 while Ma pointed out that strength depends on wealth and a strong state so that people can live a prosperous life.18 They further argued that the growth of wealth depended on commerce and industry, and that China’s development of commerce and industry should be modeled on that of the capitalist countries. Where education was concerned, they argued that modern education was indispensable to the self-strengthening mission and for abolishing the Examination and reforming the traditional Confucian education system to help build a more modern education system.
The aforementioned reformist proposals posed a great challenge to the traditional Chinese way of thinking and to the established method of governance in particular. By the 1880s, the SSM intellectuals who included Zheng Guanying, Chen Chi 陈炽, He Qi 何启, and others, discussed more intensely China’s road to rehabilitation. Zheng, an old SSM hand and a businessman turned thinker, in his well-known Admonishments to People Living in a Prosperous Age (盛世危言), developed some original ideas about reform. Chen was an imperial officer who had worked for several departments of the central government. He was open-minded and pro-reform and visited in person the coastal areas of Hong Kong and Macao. He Qi was a Hong Kong-based lawyer and doctor. These reformists shared a common intellectual outlook, that China must militarily and economically resist the colonial powers’ invasion after failing twice in the Opium Wars. They all argued that only when China was economically prosperous would the colonial powers be deterred from bullying China. Zhen even created the slogan of Shangzhan (economic war), which he argued would be superior to military war. He suggested the central government do its best to protect private industries and commerce, since Chinese industry, competing in the global market, would finally lead China out of decline and crisis. A series of proposals promoting Chinese industry and commerce were put forward by these reformists. First, they suggested joining government and private business. Second, the industrial and commercial taxes as well as the lijin (a special tax exclusively collected for putting down the Taiping Rebellion) must be abolished or at least substantially reduced. Ma Jianzhong said that it did not make sense that foreign firms were exempt from lijin while the Chinese had to pay.19 Third, the government must formulate laws and institutions to effectively protect Chinese industrialists and businessmen.20 Fourth, the government should encourage people to engage in creative work, just as Western governments had done.
Wang Tao strongly criticized the government’s excessive participation in business and said that many SSM programs merely scratched the surface of modernity.21 Ma had written a memorandum to Li Hongzhang, the SSM leader, pointing out that the foundation of the West’s strength and wealth lay not in weapons and armies but in education and politics (such as the parliamentary system).22 In particular, the Sino-French War (1883–1885), which China lost, reminded the Chinese people that after two decades of SSM leadership, they had yet to carry out successful reforms in the country. Corruption was also a problem among officials, and this resulted in ordinary people rarely benefiting from SSM. In view of all this, the reformists called on Qing to politically reform and establish a Western constitutional monarchy, thus signalling significant intellectual progress among the community of educated Chinese. They realized that China should not only study Western weapons and technology but also do its best to develop industry and commerce as well as formulate laws and regulations that would protect the national economy, create parliamentary politics, and reform both education and culture. These ideas advocated for the growth of Chinese logical thinking as well as for the evolution of Chinese society. To sum up, the early Chinese reformists generally believed that national sovereignty and unity must be safeguarded, that China should take the capitalist route, and that political reforms, such as the founding
