介绍西方学术界的新政改革研究状况
Essential Character of Western Scholarship on New Policy Reforms

〔美〕Stephen MacKinnon（麦金农）

Western scholars began to take an interest in the late Qing period and the 1911 revolution as a field of research in the 1960s and 1970s. At that time scholars only had access to published documentary collections and Chinese historians of the period who resided in Taiwan. Fortunately there was some very good scholarship coming out of Taipei at the time. The influence of pioneering work on the period produced at Nankang（Zhongyang yanjiu yuan, jindai so）by Zhang Pengyuan, Wang Shu-huai, Zhang Yufa, Liu Fenghan, Wang Erhmin, Wu Xiangxiang etc…. and others was considerable. These gentlemen were very close personally to my U. S. mentor, Prof. Liu Guangjing刘光京．I personally studied with Wu Xian-gxiang at Taiwan University（Taida）in 1964 as I began to research a PhD thesis on the Xinzheng reforms in north China led by Zhili zongdu and Beiyang Dazhen, Yuan Shikai.

The first publications on the Xinzheng reforms by Western scholars were works dealing with broad themes of the reforms included those by Merebeth Cameron（1963）, the pioneering unpublished 1959 Harvard PhD dissertation by Esther Morrison, an influential edited volume（1963）by Mary Wright（China in Revolu-tion）, Joseph Esherick's well known book on Hunan reforms, Mary Rankin on Zhejiang reformers, and John Fincher's book on political reform. There were two important works on education by Borthwick and Bailey. Because of the availability of collected writings and correspondence of single officials, there was a distinct fo-cus on individual reformers as in Daniel Bays book on Zhang Zhidong's reforms, Samuel Zhu on Zhang Qian, Albert Feuerwerker on Sheng Xuanhuai's economic reforms, Benjamin Schwartz on Yan Fu, Philip Huang on Liang Qichao, Roger Des Forges on Xi Liang in the Northeast, my own work on Yuan Shikai in Beijing and Tianjin.

After the Deng Xiaoping reform era began in 1979, Western scholars had ac-cess for first time to archives and scholarly colleagues in the Peoples Republic of China. My first contact with the CASS, Jindaiso近代所was in 1979. I was privi-leged to work with and later welcome to the U. S., fellow Yuan Shikai scholar, the late Li Zongyi and Qu Tongzu瞿同祖．But by the late 1980s general interest in the West in Xinzheng reforms and the 1911 revolution declined as graduate students and established scholars focused more on regional social and cultural his-tory. William T. Rowe's books on Hankou are an example. Shanghai studies became especially popular through the work of Wakeman and Ye Wenxin.

So the Xinzheng reforms fell out of fashion. Two exceptions are the work of Douglas Reynolds, 1993, on Japanese models for the Xinzheng reforms and an ar-ticle（1988）and book on self-government by Roger Thompson.

The Xin Zheng Reforms were only marginally discussed during“civil society”debate that concerned so many historians in the West during the 1990s（see bibli-ography and debates in Modern China. On one side William T. Rowe and Bryna Goodman in their work on merchant organizations pointed to the emergence of civil society institutions by the end of the nineteenth century. On the other, Fred Wake-man, Philip Huang, and others disagreed, doubting the relevance and applica-tion of Habermas' ideas about civil society from European history to modern Chi-nese history.

But over the last fifteen years, the situation has changed. There has been re-vival of interest in the Xinzheng Reforms. The motivation behind this is intellectual and only to some degree driven by better access to new archival sources（especially at the local level）. In other words, new questions about directions（or logic）of modern Chinese history has motivated young scholars to take another look at the Xinzheng reforms. How did the successes and failures of the Xinzheng reforms fit into the institutional history of modern China? They were terribly important to lay-ing a basis for the modernization of the Chinese state argues Julia Strauss in an in-fluential 2003 essay. So today Xinzheng reforms are being studied as a key element in China's pursuit of modernity over a wide range of fields.

The term“institutional history”should be interpreted（translated）in broad terms. For example, the reforms have been studied in relation to the changing po-sition and status of women in modern China. The feminist thinker, He Yinzhen, is the focus of a major new work（2013）. Educational reform is once again a major concern of historians. Timothy Weston's book（2004）on the history of Beijing Uni-versity ties/connects Beida's early history closely to the Xinzheng reforms.

In 2003 a special issue of the influential British journal, Modern Asian Stud-ies, vol.37, no.4（September）, was devoted to new work on the Xinzheng re-forms with essays by younger scholars, including Lucia Gabbaiani on political in-stitutions and the ideas of 1898 reformers, Julia Strauss on bureaucratic reform and the abolition of the exam system, Jerome Bourgon on the important legal re-forms introduced after 1901, and Richard Horowitz on the 1905-06 Government reform commission. Later in Modern China（2009）, vol.35, no.2, Ya-pei Kuo questioned the Japanese model for the Xinzheng Reforms（as argued by Reynolds）and emphasized the importance of Confucian thinking behind the reforms.

The Xinzheng Reforms are no longer studied in relation to the 1911 revolution as they were in the 1960s and 1970s. There is no doubt in my mind that the study of the Xinzheng period and eclipse in the study of the 1911 revolution is tied to de-velopments in China, meaning the reforms inaugurated by Deng Xiaoping in 1979. Interest in the sweeping reforms of contemporary institutions caused Western scholars to look for the roots of these reforms in the Xinzheng period. Book length works like Julia Strauss, Strong Institutions in Weak Politics: State Building（1998）were influential in focusing attention on the Xinzheng reforms. Also by the late 1990s a resurgent, more muscular Chinese nationalism created a renewed in-terest in nationalism generally. Again roots could be traced back to the earlier peri-od: for instance in works like that of Rebecca Karl, Staging the World: Chinese Nationalism at the turn of the Century（2002）.

The abolition of the examination system in 1905 attracted the attention of a major scholar at Princeton, Ben Elman. In 2000 he published a cultural history of the examination system, with a focus on late Qing reform efforts. More recently he published a sweeping study of the Exam system and Meritocracy in late Imperial China（Harvard, 2013）. In 2000 Edward Rhoads published a prize winning study of Han-Manchu relations at the end of the Qing dynasty, with considerable attention paid to Manchu reform officials like Duan Fang. More recently, Duan Fang is the subject of a recent dissertation at the University of California, San Die-go. Finally, about the time that the PRC press began to change dramatically dur-ing the 1980s, Western scholars, especially in Germany, under took a thorough study of the history of late Qing and early Republican press. See for example, Joan Judge's book（1997）on the importance of print journalism as part of the culture behind the Xin Zheng Reforms and its relationship to the introduction of constitu-tional reforms. In Germany at Heidelberg a center for study of late Qing and early Republican press is led by Babara Mitter and Rudolf Wagner-（for details see Bar-bara Mitter, et al. in bibliography）.

Building on these works in 2003 a special issue of the influential British jour-nal, Modern Asian Studies, vol.37, no.4（September）, was devoted to new work by younger scholars on the Xinzheng reforms including essays by Lucia Gab-biani on political institutions and the ideas of 1898 reformers; a summary essay by Julia Strauss on the importance of the xinzheng reforms, bureaucratic moderniza-tion and the abolition of the exam system; Jerome Bourgon on the important legal reforms introduced after 1901; and Richard Horowitz on the 1905-06 Government reform commission. Later in Modern China（2009）, vol.35, no.2, Ya-pei Kuo questioned the Japanese model for the Xinzheng Reforms（as argued earlier by Reynolds）, emphasizing the importance of Confucian thinking behind the reforms.

More recent work includes unpublished dissertations in the field of urban his-tory, where for example city planning is tied to innovations of the Xinzheng period that laid a base for creation of the infrastructure and shape of modern Chinese cit-ies. The provincial assembly and gentry activism over railways in Sichuan after 1908 is the subject of another University of California, San Diego disserta-tion. Janet Chen（now at Princeton）recently turned a Yale Ph. D. thesis into a book on poverty alleviation, seeing its roots in the poor houses and orphanages that were developed during the Xin Zheng Reforms. In economic history a major work on the light industrial reforms initiated in rural areas after 1901 has been published by Linda Grove. Prof. Grove focuses on Gaoyang xian in southern Hebei. And final-ly there is the very important sweeping works published in French by Marianne Bastid on education and society（see bibliography）.

I hope that this brief incomplete summary（see also the select bibliography at the end of the paper）illustrates the considerable interest Western scholars have to-day in the Xin Zheng新政改革reforms. It is a research interest that began in the 1960s, waned in the 1980s and 1990s, but has found new life and a different fo-cus during the last fifteen years. To some degree the interests and foci of Western scholars coincides with that of colleagues on Taiwan and the PRC. Sources for the study of the Xinzheng reforms are abundant-from archival records, to newspaper accounts, to correspondence and writings of individual reformers.

As is often the case, Western scholars rely heavily on the published work of Chinese scholars. The difference in the publications of Western scholars, besides the use of more Western language archival sources, is in the character and greater concern with analysis. Western historians often discuss the reforms in broader terms than Chinese scholars. They do not hesitate to tie the Xin Zheng reforms to big themes like the history over the entire twentieth century of constitutionalism, legal reform, political structures like federalism, journalism, educational reform, mil-itary reforms, and self-government movements. Western scholars, not surprisingly, are like Chinese scholars in being influenced in choice of topic by contemporary concerns about governance issues in their own countries and in China.

Overall, Western scholarship today on the Xin Zheng reforms is no longer concerned with connecting the reforms to the fall of the Qing dynasty in 1911. In fact there has been little recent scholarship on the 1911 revolution itself and its place in modern Chinese history（see Mitter, “Unanchored Revolution”essay）. The interest is in examining the roots of the modern Chinese state, alternative forms of governance, and institutional reforms in education, health care, treat-ment of women, religious practices, poverty alleviation, joint government private economic enterprises, and so on.

However, one important field is being neglected, by which I mean the mili-tary reforms introduced by Yuan Shikai, Zhang Zhidong and others that were so important at the time and had an such immediate impact geo-politically on the course of modern Chinese history. This includes reforms in military training（espe-cially of officers）, weaponry, education, and the strategic thinking of military intellectuals in general. The earlier work by Ralph Powell（1955）, myself on the Beiyang Army（1970s）, and Edmund Fung（1981）is still about all that exists in English.

Constitutional initiatives of the late Qing has again attracted a lot of atten-tion. Similarly the legal reforms of the period are seen as essential in understanding the evolution of China's legal system over the first half of the twentieth century; see for example the 2008 book by Xu Xiaoqun. The Chinese press and its contribution to shaping public opinion has seen much research as noted earlier. Then there is the focus on feminism and issues of gender equality. This includes a recent popular work by Jung Chang in defense of the Empress Dowager Cixi, giving her sole cred-it as the architect of the reforms and their unrecognized leader.

For me personally, my earlier work on Yuan Shikai and the reforms along with more recent work on the Anti-Japanese War has brought me back to questions about military history and the Xinzheng reforms. I am particularly drawn to the thought and career of Liang Qichao's close associate, the military intellectual Jiang Baili（or Jiang Fangzhen）, as well as to the history of the Baoding Military Acad-emy（Baoding lujun junguan xuexiao）.

Thank you.

Selected Bibliography of Western Language Works on Xinzheng新政改革

Modern Asian Studies, vol.37, no.4（2003）, special issue on Xin Zheng reforms with essays by Gabbiani, Strauss, Bourgon, and Horowitz.

Douglas Reynolds, China, 1898-1912: Xinzheng Revolution and Japan（1993）.

Xu Xiaoqun, Judical Reform in 20thc. China（1901-37（2008, Stanford）.

Merebeth Cameron, Reform Movement in China（New York, 1963）.

Mary C. Wright, ed., China in Revolution: The First Phase, 1900-1913（New Haven: Yale University Press, 1968）.

Joseph Esherick, Reform and Revolution in China: The 1911 Revolution in Hunan and Hubei（Berkeley: University of California Press, 1976）.

Esther Morrison, The Modernization of the Ch'ing Bureaucracy（Radcliffe/Harvard University, unpublished Ph. D. dissertation, 1959）；

Paul Hickey, “Fee Taking, Salary Reform, and the Struc ture of State Pow-er in Late Qing China, 1909-11”, Modern China 17: 3, pp.389-417.

Benjamin Elman, A Cultural History of Civil Examinations in Late Imperial China（Berkeley: University of California Press, 2000）.

Bays, Daniel, China Enters the Twentieth Century: Chang Chih-tung and Is-sues of A New Age, 1895-1909. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 1978.

Samuel C. Chu, Reformer in Modern China: Chang Chien, 1853-1926（1965）

Albert Feuerwerker, China's Early Industrialization: Sheng Hsuan-huai and Mandarin Enterprise（1958）

John Fincher, Chinese Democracy: The Self-Government Movement in Local, Provincial and National Politics, 1905-1914.（1981）

Rankin, Mary Backus, Early Chinese Revolutionaries; Radical Intellectuals in Shanghai and Chekiang, 1902-1911.（1971）

Weston, Timothy B., The Power of Position: Beijing University, Intellectu-als, and Chinese Political Culture, 1898-1929.（2004）

Chang, Hao, Chinese Intellectuals in Crisis: Search for Order and Meaning（1890-1911）.（1987）

Roger R. Thompson, China's Local Councils in the Age of Reform, 1898-1911（1995）

Wolfgang Franke, The Reform and Abolition of the Traditional Chinese Exam-ination System（1960）

Linda Grove, A Chinese Economic Revolution: Rural Entrepreneurship In Twentieth Century Gaoyang（2006）

Janet Chen, Guilty of Indigence: The Urban Poor in China, 1900-1953（2012）

Ralph Powell, Rise of the Chinese Military Power, 1895-1912（1955）

Stephen MacKinnon, Power and Politics in Late Imperial China: Yuan Shikai in Beijing and Tianjin, 1901-1909（1980）

……“The Peiyang Army, Yuan Shih-k'ai, and the Origins of Modern Chinese Warlordism, ”Journal of Asian Studies, Vol. XXXII, no.3（May 1973）, pp.405-23.

……“Liang Shih-i and Communications Clique, ”Journal of Asian Studies（1970）, no.29: pp.581-602.

Edmund S. K. Fung, Military Dimensions of the Chinese Revolution（1981）

Rebecca Karl, Staging the World: Chinese Nationalism at the turn of the Century（2002）.

Jung Chang, Empress Dowager Cixi: The Concubine Who Launched Modern China（2013）

Roger Des Forges, Hsi-liang and the Chinese National Revolution（1973）

Rana Mitter, “1911: The Unanchored Chinese Revolution”, The China Quarterly, no.208: pp.1009-1020（Dec.2011）.

Edward J. M. Rhoads. Ethnic Relations and Political Power in Late Qing and Early Republican China,（2000）

Marianne Bastid-Bruguiere, Educational Reform in Early Twentieth Century China（1988）

……L' Evolution de la Societe Chinoise a la Fin de la Dynastie des Qing， 1873-1911.

Timothy Brook and Bob Wakabayashi, ed., Opium Regimes: China, Brit-ain, Japan（2000）

Lydia H. Liu, Rebecca E. Karl, and Dorthy Ko, ed., The Birth of Chinese Feminism（He-Yin Zhen）（2013）

Sally Borthwick, Education and Social Change in China: The Beginnings of the Modern Era（1983）

Paul Bailey, Reform the People: Changing Attitudes towards Popular Educa-tion in Early Twentieth Century China（1990）.

Lillian Li, Fighting Famine in North China, 1690-1990s.

Roger V. Des Forges edited, States, Societies, and Civil Societies in Chinese History

Timothy Brook & B. Michael Frolic edit, Civil Society in China. An East Gate Book press, 1997.

Shuyun Ma, “he Chinese Discourse on Civil Society. ”China Quarterly 137, 1994（March）: pp.180-185.

Barbara Mittler, A Newspaper for China: Power, Identity and Change in Shanghai's News Media, 1872-1912（2004）

Catherine Yeh, Shanghai Love: Courtesans, Intellectuals, and Entertain-ment Culture, 1850-1910（2006）

Rudolf G. Wagner, ed., Joining the Global Public: Word, Image and City in Early Chinese Newspapers, 1870-1910（2008）.

Joan Judge, Print and Politics: “Shibao”and the Culture of Reform in Late Qing China（1997）.