英文摘要

The cultural and intellectual exchange topics in the field of modern Sino-Japan relationship are prolific and have been well-discussed. In particular, the studies on how enlightened thinkers in both countries from mid-nineteenth century on mulled over the assimilation of modern Western civilization have produced fruitful results. If classified by fields, those literatures may be divided into three categories – people-to-people exchange, literary exchange, and intellectual exchange. Quite a few of those prior studies received high remarks and offer reference values. But it should also be pointed out that in this type of studies, many topics that warranted in-depth discussion often lacked breakthrough due to the constraint of inaccessibility to relevant original data.

This book explores the cultural and intellectual exchange between China and Japan against the backdrop of warring chaos during late Ming and early Ch’ing Dynasty up to the time of Western encroachment on China’s territory. The duration spans from the time the noted Confucian scholar Zhu Shun-shui (1600 – 1682) on political exile in Japan, through the 1840 First Opium War, the Tai-Ping Rebellion in the 1850s, and to late Ch’ing during which the intellectuals learned new knowledge from the West and attempted to transplant the new waves of Western thinking and ideologies into constitutional reform and modernization, up to late nineteenth century when the revolutionary ideas of Sun Yat-sen sprouted. The events in Japan across the same time span include the period of national isolation under the early modernshogunate system, resistance against foreign intrusion in the twilight of Tokugawa era, the downfall of shogunate, the chaotic period in the early Meiji government, and the early stage of Meiji Reformation.

Over this time period, both China and Japan developed a sense of crisis in the face of encroachment by Western powers. Both countries were also awakened to the need to draw on the strength of Western civilization, while insisting on keeping the traditional, Confucian mode of thinking intact. In the midst of such conflicting mindsets, the views of Chinese and Japanese thinkers on the directions of their country’s development and sense of value underwent marked changes. The complexity of the issues and constant struggles were reflected in the arenas of politics, foreign affairs, military affairs, education, culture, and ideology of both countries. At the time the East Asian societies were under substantial threat from the Western civilization, a significant number of enlightened thinkers in China (late Ch’ing) and Japan (late Tokugawa period and early Meiji period) began to ponder over how to lift their country out of agony of inferiority and put the country on the path of sustained development and equal footing with the Western world.

In the process of modernization, thinkers of China and Japan not only were concerned about the absorption of Western civilization and knowledge, they saw more pressing issues in abolishing the unequal treaties concluded with foreign powers and moving the country on way to prosperity and military might. This awareness was the contact point in the exchange between Chinese and Japanese intellects at that time.

According to the account dated July 1, 1840 in the “Dutch Reports to the Shogunate” compiled by the Tokugawa shogunate at Nagasaki, the news of Great Britain amassing armies from homeland and troops deployed in America and India and ready to invade China sent shock waves through the shogunate regime, evoking in them a sense of crisis to fight off Western powers. For three years since then, the Tokugawa shogunate required all Dutch ships and Chinese ships that sailed into theNagasaki Port to submit a foreign report. The shogunate used information provided in those reports to grasp the state of expansion along East Asian seas by Western forces.

Following the defeat in the First Opium War in August 1984, the Ch’ing court was forced by the British to accept the unequal and humiliating Treaty of Nanking. By this treaty, the island of Hong Kong was ceded to Britain and five ports, Guangdong, Xiamen, Fuzhou, Ningpo and Shanghai were opened. The Ch’ing government also paid huge sum of indemnity. When the news reached Japan, thinkers and leaders of the shogunate who faithfully looked up to the teachings of Confucianism for guidance had a hard time swallowing the fact that China with her Confucianism and sages was dealt with humiliating defeat in the hands of a little-known Western state. Thus in the next few decades with the aggression of Western powers in East Asia and Japan’s own involvement in the world capitalistic markets, Japan watched the entire process of turmoil inflicting across China with rabid attention.

Part One of this book focuses on the influence of shi xue (Practical Learning) promoted by some philosophers and scholars in late Ch’ing on the intellectual community of Japan. This part sets out to examine the viewpoints of late Ming Confucian scholar Zhu Shun Shui on national identity (Zhu was once appointed by lieutenant general Tokugawa Mizu Kuni (1628-1700) as government advisor), the application of shi xue to governance advocated by him, and the role his shi xue theory played in the development of Midogaku (Mito School) in the early stage of Tokugawa shogunate, and his interpretation of the intellectual exchange with the Confucian scholars in Japan at that time. This part also analyzes how the extraordinary books (Military Campaigns of Great Emperors and Illustrated Gazetteer of the Maritime Countries) of Wei Yuan (1794 – 1857), a Chinese scholar of late Ch’ing Dynasty who, like Zhu Shun Shui, also advocated the application of practical learning to governance, and how his proposition of “mastering the superior techniques of foreigners to defeat them” affected the thinkers in the late Tokugawa shogunate, including SakumaShouzan (1811-1864), Yokoi ShouNan (1890-1869), Yoshita ShouIn (1830-1859), and TaKaShugi ShinSaku (1839-1867). Three chapters in this book are devoted to discussing the vicissitude of ideas and philosophy of Chinese and Japanese intellects and their mutual influence on each other.

The events in China, including forced port opening and payment of indemnity aroused a sense of crisis in Japan. The central ideas behind Wei Yuan’s “mastering the superior techniques of foreigners to defeat them” became one of the guidances Japan followed to fend off foreign forces. From the period of national isolation, resisting foreign aggression, downfall of shogunate, to the open-door policy, how did the intellectuals in late Ch’ing perceive the modification and evolvement of Japan’s national policies? That was also the time when both Chinese and Japanese thinkers went through long and hard thinking as to whether it was possible to accept Western civilization while preserving the traditional Confucian teachings. How the intellects in China and Japan perceived and influenced each other through intellectual exchange? The chronicle of changes to their mentality and attitude have been a topic the academic communities in China, Japan and the Western world paid considerable attention to.

The second chapter of Part One of this book describes the writings of Wei Yuan (mainly Military Campaigns of Great Emperors and Illustrated Gazetteer of the Maritime Countries which elaborated his beliefs in military, fiscal and defense policies and his propositions) when China’s reforms in politics, economy, military and defense were descending into quagmire in the aftermath of the Treaty of Nanking. The focuses are on how Japanese thinkers who were influenced by Wei Yuan’s propositions juggled over the restructuring of maritime defense, adoption of open-door policy, assimilation of the superior Western technology, and implementation as they contemplated ideas in governance that could secure the country’s survival. The second chapter also explores their perceptions of China in late Ch’ing and the transformation of their thoughts as well as the similarities and differences in the perceptions of Western civilization between the intellectuals of China and Japan during the course of intellectual exchange.

Prior to the First Opium War, Sakuma Shouzan had been a Confucianist and a devout believer in the Zhu Zi orthodoxy. But after the British encroachment into China which demonstrated the military power of the West simply beyond the imagination of both China and Japan, he began a relentless pursuit of Western knowledge, learning the Dutch language day and night and reading prodigiously Western books with the desire to absorb the Western science and technology and maritime knowledge. In three months following the conclusion of the Treaty of Nanking, he proposed to the shogunate a defense theory entitled Eight Tactics of Maritime Defense. He suggested banning the cooper export so Japan could build canons. He also suggested purchasing twenty warships from the Netherlands and recruiting Dutch military experts, artillery experts and naval architects as pressing issues that should be put to action by the shogunate immediately.

Sakuma Shouzan criticized the Ch’ing court of corruption, obstinately holding onto undesirable customs, condescending to the Western states and branding them the barbarians, ignorant in acquiring new knowledge, remedying fraudulent practices, and recognizing the superiority of British technology. He surmised that those faults brought Ch’ing Dynasty the encroachment of Western powers and grievously humiliating defeats, and such degradation exposed China, a great country known for ancient sages and men of virtues, to ridicules. The sharp criticisms of Shouzan demonstrated his keen observation of the corrupt state of late Ch’ing court.

Watching the slump of late Ch’ing court after the cession of Hong Kong and paying Great Britain huge-sum indemnity, Sakuma Shouzan worried that such chain reaction of calamities would ripple to Japan. So he mulled over putting the maritime defense advocated by Wei Yuan to practice. In 1853, the warships of the US East India Squadron, commanded by Commodore Matthew C. Perry (1794 – 1858) entered the Japanese port. In 1854, Japan signed the Treaty of Peace and Amity (Treaty of Kanagawa) and opened the ports of Shimota and Hakotate (today’s Hokkado). Similar treaties were concluded with Great Britain and Russia the same year. It signaled the end of the isolationist foreign policy and shogunate system that had been in place for over two hundred years. In the face of rapid advance of foreign powers into Japan, Sakuma Shouzan championed shoring up maritime defense and combat readiness. He also made it his personal mission to “learn the knowledge of the East and West, and master in civil and military techniques.” He maintained that over emphasis on learning the authentic Han teachings might border on being hollow and impractical, but exclusive learning of Western science and technology might be biased against the essence of Confucianism which stresses high morality and ethics. In his views, both morality and technology were indispensable in the building of national wealth and military might. Thus he proposed the theorem of “Eastern morality and Western art (science and technology)” which invited extensive discussions in Japan’s intellectual community. Sakuma Shouzan lauded Wei Yuan’s three-part thinking to “fend off foreign aggression” and affirmed Wei’s foresight in his writing of “Overseas Comrade.” The theorems conjured by these two thinkers at different places displayed surprising resonance.

Takasugi Shinsaku (1839－1867), a thinker in the late Tokugawa shogunate, was one of the representatives in Japan’s modernization process. He was nurtured in traditional Chinese Confucianism and culture at the School of Merinkan in Nagasu Machi and the School of Shouka Sonjyuku under the tutelage of Yoshita ShouIn, the noted enlightened thinker and educator in late Tokugawa shogunate. Takasugi Shinsaku used to be a trumpeter and supporter of traditional Chinese culture and education. But during his tour of Shanghai in the midst of Tai Ping rebellion, he witnessed first hand the decadence of late Ch’ing court and documented what he saw in the “Travelling Log of the Ch’ing Country.” In his journal, words of criticism and disillusion over the rampant corruption in the Chinese Empire, a country he had always revered, abounded. His views on China changed, and his opinions evoked a sense of national crisis in Japan. Shinsaku was not merely a harbinger in the overthrow of Tokugawa shogunate, he was, among his many contemporary thinkers, a personage who experienced first hand the process of Japan’s transformation from a feudal system to opening the country and admitting the outside world. He was also a witness in Shanghai to the confrontation between the Eastern and Western forces. More importantly, he could see through the conservatism of shogunate hiding behind the isolationist policy, and with international vision, called for the repositioning of traditional Chinese thinking. Shinsaku’s propositions of “reverence for the Emperor and the expulsion of foreigners” and the changing of his China outlook had an epochal sense of historical significance. The third chapter of this book examines the correlation between the thinking of Shinsaku during his years of schooling receiving the training of traditional Han School, and his later thinking advocating “reverence for the Emperor and the expulsion of foreigners.” This chapter also analyzes the experience of his tour in Shanghai, and discusses his changing perceptions of China and his influence over the intellectual community of Japan during the late Tokugawa shogunate.

In the process of Japan’s modernization, Shinsaku had steadfastly stuck to the belief in “reverence for the Emperor and the expulsion of foreigners”, and based on it, called for the overthrow of shogunate and took exception to open-door policy. His stubborn, ruthless, yet somewhat avant-garde behaviors and thinking rattled his contemporaries. Shinsaku had a keen sense of the development of world situation and foresight. Many of his actions seemed tactless and quite a few resulted in failure. But from the overthrow of shogunate to Meiji Reformation, his thoughts and actions in the process embodied rich substance.

The many criticisms of Shinsaku over the late Ch’ing court in his journal, the “Travelling Log of the Ch’ing Country”, were meant to remind the Japanese to modify their perceptions of the Confucian thoughts and traditional customs in the Chinese civilization. He reasoned that Japan should actively absorb new knowledge and put what was learned into action because the Western artillery technology, astronomy and mathematics were superior to those of China and Japan. He lamented that the Ch’ing court invited in dangerous foes for the sake of squashing internal insurgence and destroyed the state system and national prestige in the process. Witnessing that the reverent Confucius temple was allowed to be turned into camp for the British army, Shinsaku doubted for a while about the value system of five Confucian relationships he had been taught about and his reverence for China was also shaken. In other words, in Japan’s evolvement from the downfall of shogunate to Meiji Reformation and in the process of Japan’s reconstructing its position in the East Asian communities, Shinsaku played the role of changing the Japanese perceptions of China.

Since its establishment in 1868, the Meiji government embarked on modernization in full force and overhauled its foreign policy with the aim to build solid national power. In one short decade, Japan adjusted its relations with Korea and signed the Sino-Japan Cordial Relationship Agreement with the Ch’ing court to normalize its diplomatic relations with China. Japan also attempted to restore trades with China to address the increasingly deteriorating fiscal problem of the Meiji government. During this period, Japan not only solved the thorny issue of Okinawa, it also dispatched troops to Taiwan. From the perspectives of international opinions and the immediate outcome of its actions, the Meiji government seemed to have lost badly. But the “Taiwan incident” planted the seed for Japan’s lust for Taiwan twenty years later. From the successive foreign policies the Meiji government pushed forward, it is not hard to discern that it intended to break the imperial tribute system constructed by China under the scheme of “Chinese order” since ancient times.

In the fourth year of Meiji regime (1871), Japan dispatched a huge delegation of diplomatic envoys headed by Iwakura Tomomi (1825－1883) to Europe to learn more about Western civilization. This grand tour resulted in the modification of unequal treaty signed by Japan and put into effect the policy of Meiji government to draw on the strength of Western civilization.

The Ch’ing government also appointed Guo Chong-Xi (1818-1891) as ambassador to Great Britain in 1876, assigned He Ru-Zhang as China’s ambassador to Japan in 1877, and subsequently developed diplomatic relations with America, Russia, Germany and France. With the setup of an embassy in Japan, China and Japan established a direct channel of communication for political and diplomatic issues. The visits between the two countries became more frequent. Differing from the time of national isolation in the late shogunate period, the cultural and intellectual exchange between the two countries expanded substantially both in depth and breadth, which also altered the perceptions of late Ch’ing intellectuals towards the Japanese society.

Part Two of this book focuses on the people-to-people and intellectual exchange between China and Japan following the establishment of diplomatic relations in 1874. Chapter one of Part Two examined the historical significance of association and contact between the people of two countries after the conclusion of Sino-Japan Cordial Relationship Agreement. Based on the first-hand information the author discovered at the Nagasaki County Library on diplomatic correspondences between Japan and Ch’ing court, we will analyze the contacts between local officials of the Ch’ing court, including Chen Fu-xun, Feng Jun-guang, and Shen Bing-chen, with Japanese diplomats of early Meiji government, including diplomat Yanagi Sakimitsu (1850 – 1894), Japan’s consul general to Shanghai Ita Yuzuru, and commerce counselor Shinagawa Tadamichi, and Japan’s intelligence gathering on the Westernization Movement in China during late Ch’ing.

The second chapter of Part Two discusses the response policy of the Ch'ing State Council and local officials to the Taiwan Incident, and the reactions of then international society and media, and discussed the vicissitude of relationship between the two countries afterwards.

Chapter three of Part Two explores the findings and accomplishments (and misses) of Ch’ing diplomats, in particular He Ru-Zhang, Le Shi-Chang (1837－1898) and Yang Shou-Jing (1839－1915) during their residence in Japan after the Ch’ing court established its embassy there. Those three diplomats shared some common grounds, namely they were all late Ch’ing bureaucrats who had received the traditional Confucian education and they were the vanguards and official representatives of the Ch’ing court in Japan. They were among the first batch of Chinese who entered Japan in the early Meiji regime and had the chance to investigate or witness different facets of Japan in its political and social modernization efforts. They also comprised the Japan study group that had direct contact with the Japanese intellectuals. Through literary and historical documents – Shi Dong Shu Lue and Ri Ben Fang Shu Zhi, we will discuss the similarities and differences in ideas and philosophy between the Chinese and Japanese. Through a rare reference book – Qing Ke Bi Tan, we will examine the historical significance of Yang’s bringing back to China the missing ancient books and rare editions.

Chapter four analyzes the content and accomplishments of Chinese diplomat Huang Zun-Xiang (1848 – 1905) during his intellectual exchange with Japanese literary men based on his perceptions of the Meiji Reformation, and the historical meaning of evaluations he received from the Chinese and Japanese governments and the public after he finished the book – History of Japan. The chapter also examines the stands of Huang on China’s negotiation with Japan over issues of Okinawa and extension of Japan’s extraterritorial rights to Hangzhou and Suzhou derived from the Treaty of Shimonoseki.

Chapters five and six centered around Liu Xue-Xung (1855 – 1935), a wealthy merchant from Guangdong and fringe figure in the political scene who shuttled between China and Japan around the time of Reform Movement of 1898 with the ambition to build the new Sino-Japan relationship. We will analyze his interactions with politicians and businessmen in Meiji Japan in the context of disparate Japan policies proposed by conservatives and reformists of the Ch’ing court. We will also examine the role played by Liu in the process of negotiation conducted by Lee Hung-Zhang and Sun Yat-sen with their Japanese counterparts in the historical event of “independence of Guangdong and Guangxi.”