2. Learning Objective
✤ To describe the key features of the late Qing reforms from 1901-1911
and compare/contrast these with earlier attempts at reform
3. Late Qing Reforms: Summary
✤ Education Reforms
✤ Military Reforms
✤ Constitutional Reforms
✤ Administrative Reforms
✤ Financial Reforms
✤ Legal Reforms
✤ Cultural Reforms
4. Education Reforms
✤ 8 Legged Essay abandoned
✤ Academies or Shu-juan converted into Western style schools
✤ Study abroad was also encouraged especially Japan
✤ In 1904 regulations for school administration modelled on the
Japanese
✤ December 1905 a Ministry of Education (Hsueh Pu) established
5. Effects of the Education Reforms
✤ Abolition of 8 Legged Essay leads to anger amongst the test takers
✤ In 1904 the total number of schools was 4,222 and the number of
students 92,169; in 1909, the number of schools was 52,348 and of
students 1,560,270
✤ BUT! Curriculum largely unchanged and traditional Confucian
attitudes remained
✤ Girls initially not educated
6. More Effects of the Education
Reforms-The Importance of
Japan
✤ By 1905 and 1906 number of students in Japan had reached around
ten thousand
✤ Japan becomes a hotbed of anti Qing sentiment
✤ In February 1906, decision to send only good Confucian scholars
✤ The Chinese minister to Japan was appointed controller of the
Inspectorate of Chinese Students in Japan, making possible closer
supervision.
✤ The tighter the controls became, the stronger was the anti-Manchu
feeling among the students.
7. Ichiko on the Education Reforms
✤ "One wonders how far the government was really serious about the
new education" since its aim was "only to create a people who would
love the Ch'ing dynasty and stay loyal to the Ch'ing emperor"
8. Military Reforms
✤ Aimed at placing the country's armed forces completely under
Manchu control eg: In 1903, the government set up in Peking the
Commission for Army Reorganization (Lien-ping ch'u), as a central
agency to recruit and train the New Army
✤ Creation of the New Army, by 1910 all six divisions of the Beiyang
Army were taken under the direct command of the Army Ministry
✤ In 1909, it was decreed that the emperor was the supreme
commander of the army and navy
9. Effects of the Military Reforms
✤ Respect for military does go up
✤ Officers sent to Japan to train become both Nationalist and
revolutionary
✤ New Army becomes one of the prime movers of the revolution in
1911
✤ The recruitment of gentry as officers, together with the fact that
soldiers were recruited from among the native population, led the
provincial units of the armed forces to resist the centralization of the
army just as the provincial governors did
10. Constitutional Reforms-Ichiko
✤ Aim was to strengthen the position of Manchu officials.
✤ For example, even at the end the establishment of a supposedly
responsible cabinet in May 1911, in which out of 13 ministers, eight
Manchus and only four Han Chinese were appointed.
✤ The promise to adopt constitutional government, the calling of the
Provincial and National Assemblies in 1909 and 1910 were basically
all aimed as well at preserving the rule of the Manchu dynasty.
11. Administrative Reforms-Ichiko
✤ "an attempt on the part of the conservative Ch'ing government and of
similarly conservative local gentry to preserve their political power"
✤ Ministries of Trade and Police set up
✤ Offices no longer sold and overlapping responsibilities merged
✤ Move towards constitutional monarchy
13. Legal Reforms
✤ 1905 physical penalties as slow slicing, public exhibition of heads, and
beheading of the corpse, and the penalty of tattooing were abolished.
Physical punishments like flogging with the bamboo were replaced
by fines. Collective responsibility and torture were also abolished.
✤ 1908 draft of the new criminal code was completed-modelled on the
Japanese criminal code
14. Cultural Reforms
✤ 1902 government came out against footbinding
✤ 1902 ban on marriage between a Manchu male and Chinese female
was lifted
✤ 1906 throne issues an edict to ban opium
✤ 1906 presidency of the new central government ministries open to
either a Manchu or a Chinese
✤ 1911 British promise to stop opium exportation from India to China
by 1917
15. Interpreting the Late Qing
Reforms Ichiko
✤ “In summary, the reform programme during the last five
or six years, if not the entire last decade of the Ch'ing
dynasty, may be viewed as attempts of the Manchu rulers,
Chinese provincial governors and Chinese gentry
members to preserve their power, or even to expand it.
These elements often worked at cross-purposes. In the
event, the reforms led to the fall of the dynasty.”-Ichiko
Editor's Notes
Study abroad was cheaper than importing teachers and Japan seen as less expensive
