Robert Hart and the Chinese Maritime Customs:
Is "Our Hart" Chinese or British?
Wittenberg Journal of Asian Studies,
Wittenberg University Press, Spring 2006, Volume XXXI
With the settlement of the first Opium War (1840-1842), the era of the Treaty Ports
in China, from 1842 to 1929, is portrayed as a period of Western interference in
Chinese sovereignty through gunboat diplomacy. Certainly, the Opium Wars had signaled
an unprecedented power shift for China from within and without. However, it is precisely
this power shift that holds the attention of modern observers, who tend to overlook
or misunderstand the underlying institutional changes. While there is ample evidence
to support the view of the period as one of rampant Western imperialism, many observers
have failed to detect that during the period there were collaborative Chinese and
Western efforts aimed at reforming and modernizing China. This paper purports to
illustrate one of these collaborative efforts as an example of the hybridization
occurring in the Treaty Ports.
The Confucian Vitality in an Anti-Confucian Movement: Revisiting the Taiping Rebellion
Wittenberg Journal of Asian Studies,
Wittenberg University Press, Spring 2005, Volume XXX
The Taiping Rebellion was the first serious threat to the traditional Confucian
system and its institutions in China. The monotheistic demands of Christianity conflicted
with Confucian ideology. The Taiping sought to remove these traditions, replace
them with Christian ideology, and transform society along Christian mores. Despite
this inherent opposition to Confucianism and its political institutions, the Taiping
leadership was unable to abandon completely their familiar Confucian traditions.
In their notions of political and social institutions, they were often more Confucian
than Christian.
While the Taiping Rebellion has been extensively studied, its failure and inability
to bring about permanent changes largely relegates it to marginalia. However, there
has been little study of how Taiping leadership rectified Confucian ideology with
new foreign ideas of Christianity. This is not to suggest that the Taiping were
a Confucian movement, but the degree to which they maintained old beliefs alongside
the new is noteworthy. Writings and edicts of the Taiping leadership, coupled with
ideas from Confucius and Mencius, reveal deeply seated Confucian beliefs in the
Taiping.
This paper purports to go beyond factual and textual analysis of Confucianism in
the Taiping Rebellion. It also attempts to bring about a theoretical outlook of
certain dynamics in the making of intellectual history. Whenever integrating new
ideas, especially alien ones, it is essential to recognize how patterns in our modes
of thinking, based on our cultural experience, inherently color our analysis and
hinder the complete appropriation of them. There is a tendency to examine the alien
and attempt to see in it the familiar as a means of finding some initial footing
from which to make explorations. The result is generally that an attempt to adopt
these new ideals and beliefs is incomplete, while remnants of old ideals persist
despite the intentions of the individual or movement.
The Ideological Roots of Japanese Militarism
One of the lasting questions remaining from the World War II experience in Asia
revolves around the reality of brutality meted out by Japanese soldiers on civilian
populations and prisoners of war. How could good men, who were sons, husbands, fathers,
and brothers, become such monstrous machines of human destruction outside their
homeland? How could their officers, imbued with studies of the Confucian classics
and Bushido, oversee and allow such heinous acts of aggression in the first place?
While it is probable that no completely satisfactory answer will ever be forth coming,
it is essential to continue to grapple with these fundamental questions in order
to prevent such tragedies from recurring. This paper does not attempt to provide
a definitive answer to these questions, but to explore some of the fundamental ideological
roots of Japanese culture and history which contributed to the attitudes and activities
of the Japanese soldier abroad. It is found, among other things, the Japanese interpretation
and use of Confucianism and the unique Japanese national polity might be identified
as ideological roots of Japanese militarism.