Daniel McMahon - Rethinking the Decline of China’s Qing Dynasty: Imperial Activism and Borderland Management at the Turn of the Nineteenth Century

Rethinking the Decline of Chinas Qing Dynasty

The many instances of regional insurgency and unrest that erupted on Chinas borderlands at the turn of the nineteenth century are often regarded by scholars as evidence of government disability and the incipient decline of the imperial Qing dynasty. This book, based on extensive original research, argues that, on the contrary, the response of the imperial government went well beyond pacification and reconstruction. It demonstrates that the imperial political culture was dynamic, innovative, and capable of confronting contemporary challenges. The author highlights in particular the Jiaqing Reforms of 1799, which enabled a national reformist ideology, activist-oriented administrative education, the development of specialized frontier officials, comprehensive borderland rehabilitation, and the sharing of borderland administration best practices between different regions. Overall, the book shows that the Qing regime had sustained vigor, albeit in difficult and changing circumstances.

Daniel McMahon is a professor in the Department of History at Fu Jen Catholic University, Taiwan.

Asian States and Empires

Edited by Peter Lorge
Vanderbilt University

The importance of Asia will continue to grow in the twenty-first century, but remarkably little is available in English on the history of the polities that constitute this critical area. Most current work on Asia is hindered by the extremely limited state of knowledge of the Asian past in general, and the history of Asian states and empires in particular. Asian States and Empires is a book series that will provide detailed accounts of the history of states and empires across Asia from earliest times until the present. It aims to explain and describe the formation, maintenance and collapse of Asian states and empires, and the means by which this was accomplished, making available the history of more than half the worlds population at a level of detail comparable to the history of Western polities. In so doing, it will demonstrate that Asian peoples and civilizations had their own histories apart from the West, and provide the basis for understanding contemporary Asia in terms of its actual histories, rather than broad generalizations informed by Western categories of knowledge.

1 The Third Chinese Revolutionary Civil War, 194549
An analysis of Communist strategy and leadership
Christopher R. Lew

2 Chinas Southern Tang Dynasty, 937976
Johannes L. Kurz

3 War, Culture and Society in Early Modern South Asia, 17401849
Kaushik Roy

4 The Military Collapse of Chinas Ming Dynasty, 161844
Kenneth M. Swope

5 Chinas Second Capital Nanjing under the Ming, 13681644
Jun Fang

6 Rethinking the Decline of Chinas Qing Dynasty
Imperial activism and borderland management at the turn of the nineteenth century
Daniel McMahon

Rethinking the Decline of Chinas Qing Dynasty

Imperial activism and borderland management at the turn of the nineteenth century

Daniel McMahon

First published 2015
by Routledge
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2015 Daniel McMahon

The right of Daniel McMahon to be identified as author of this work
has been asserted by him in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patent Act 1988.

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or reproduced or utilised in any form or by any electronic, mechanical, or other means, now known or hereafter invented, including photocopying and recording, or in any information storage or retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publishers.

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British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

McMahon, Daniel.

Rethinking the decline of Chinas Qing dynasty : imperial activism

ISBN: 978-1-138-79104-6 (hbk)
ISBN: 978-1-315-76315-6 (ebk)

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Contents

Figures

Table

This volume is a collection of research essays written between 2001 and 2010. These articles profited from the help and advice of a number of people. Foremost among them is Susan Mann, who first introduced me to the Qing scholar Yan Ruyi and has since been incredibly supportive. Also owed an enormous debt of gratitude is Tang Chong-jiu, who helped me read Yan Ruyis collected writings and gifted me insights into Qing dynasty history I never would have gotten on my own. Others deserving recognition are Donald Sutton, a source of advice and inspiration, as well as Fu An-liang, who guided me through the reading of documents on southern Shaanxi reconstruction.

I am, in addition, pleased to acknowledge the generous financial support of the Republic of China. This began with two scholarships from the ROC Ministry of Education which supported the reading of classical Chinese sources at Taiwan Normal Universitys Mandarin Training Center, 19957. It also includes three grants from the ROC National Science Council: two for the study of Yan Ruyi and changing early nineteenth-century regional administration and one for the preparation of this volume of chapters (NSC 93-2411-H-231-001, NSC 94-2411-H-231-001, and NSC 99-2410-H-231-008).

The chapters of this collection are based on previously published articles, here revised and integrated for this study of Qing activism. This is done with the consent of the original publishers:

Copyright. 2005 by the Society for Qing Studies and The Johns Hopkins University Press. This article, The Yuelu Academy and Hunans Nineteenth-Century Turn toward Statecraft, first appeared in Late Imperial China 26.1 (2005): 72109. Reprinted with permission by The Johns Hopkins University Press.

Copyright. 2008 by The National Tsing Hua University Press. This article, Dynastic Decline, Heshen, and the Ideology of the Xianyu Reforms, first appeared in the Tsing Hua Journal of Chinese Studies , new series, 38.2 (2008): 23155. Reprinted with permission by The Tsing Hua University Press.

Copyright. 2002 by the Society for Qing Studies and The Johns Hopkins University Press. This article, Identity and Conflict on a Chinese Borderland: Yan Ruyi and the Recruitment of the Gelao during the 179597 Miao Revolt, first appeared in Late Imperial China 23.2 (2002): 5386. Reprinted with permission by The Johns Hopkins University Press.

Copyright. 2008 Daniel McMahon and The Johns Hopkins University Press. This article, New Order on Chinas Hunan Miao Frontier, 17961812, first appeared in the Journal of Colonialism and Colonial History 9.1 (2008): 126. Reprinted with permission by The Johns Hopkins University Press.

Copyright. 2009 by the Society for Qing Studies and The Johns Hopkins University Press. This article, Qing Reconstruction in the Southern Shaanxi Highlands: State Perceptions and Plans, 17991820, first appeared in Late Imperial China 30.1 (2009): 85118. Reprinted with permission by The Johns Hopkins University Press.

Copyright. 2009 by Koninklijke Brill NV. This article, Southern Shaanxi Officials in Early Nineteenth Century China, first appeared in Toung Pao 95.13 (2009): 12066. Reprinted with permission by Koninklijke Brill NV.