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The opium wars in China during the 1840s were followed by a surge of Christianization in the late Qing dynasty. What a kind of role played by missionaries in the modernization of the Qing China has been a long-lasting issue since the early 20th century. Due to political reasons, the contribution of the Christian mission was either underestimated in view of Cultural Invasion paradigm or overemphasized in view of Modernization paradigm. The thesis employs a less-distorted model, Liberal Theology, to analyze the influences of liberal missionaries, exemplified by Timothy Richard, on the social reform in the modernization movement of the late Qing. It describes the relevance of missionary activities to the development of Chinese history in view of the biographical records of Christian missions. The entry point of this presence is traced in the text through Richard’s activities to contribute to famine relief, literary work, reform advocacy, higher education, cross-cultural exchange, a product of the development of his ideas and strategies gained from the promotion of European models of modernization. Particularly, the thesis brings to light Richard’s symbiotic conception between religion and secularism (i.e., science, technology, education, and political reform). The main contribution of the study hinges on a couple of aspects: (1) Building a thorough portrait of Richard and of his life-long vocation by means of a number of primary and secondary sources in both English and Chinese; and (2) Interpreting the liminal role Richard played in his missionary work to answer the question: are missionaries a proxy of imperialism, or a paragon of modernization, or something in between? After pointing out the limitations of the two old paradigms, the thesis exposes that, armed with the hybrid Liberal Theology model, we can better understand the nature of the mission work done by liberal missionaries, such as Richard. Thus, though their activities happened in an era marked with colonial imperialism, the Christian mission should not be regarded as simply an imperialistic invasion in the cultural field; what is more, though missionaries introduced western civilization to Chinese people in various proselytizing approaches, they could not be considered as one of the prime movers for China’s modernization in the late Qing Dynasty, because the contributions they made subordinately promoted China’s modernization through a series of religious and cultural contacts with Chinese elites via, e.g., meetings, media, literary work, higher education.

This dissertation examines the discourses of race, nation and ethnicity in late Qing and early republican China, focusing primarily on representations of the Han. It argues that the competing and changing representations of the Han in this period formed an integral part of the process of modern Chinese nation building. The empirical basis of the dissertation consists of three layers: intellectuals discourses, school textbooks and dictionaries. These layers constituted interconnected layers of discourses that were involved in the broader process of Chinese nation-building. The dissertation demonstrates that intellectuals discourses played a central role in constructing new notions of Chinese identity and the role of the Han, and thereby also in producing different templates or for Chinese nation-building during the late Qing and early republican period. After the establishment of the Chinese Republic in 1911, these modern perceptions of Chinese national identity were endorsed by the ruling elites and were gradually disseminated and popularised further by means of school textbooks and dictionaries. Taken together, the examination of discourses on the Han in these three types of sources therefore offers an account of how early Chinese nationalist ideas were produced among the elites and then disseminated among the broader population.

This thesis explores the issues of language and power in the Qing Empire’s (1644-1911) northeastern borderlands within the larger context of political reforms in late Qing China between 1890 and 1911. To the present, much research on the history of language in late Qing China continues to fall within the framework of national language. Drawing on Manchu and Chinese sources, this thesis argues that the Qing emperors devised a multilingual regime to recreate the imperial polyglot reality and to rule a purposefully diverse but unifying empire. From the seventeenth century, the Qing emperors maintained the special Manchu-Mongol relations by adopting Manchu and Mongolian as the two official languages, restricting the influence of Chinese, and promoting Tibetan in a religious context in the Jirim League. From the 1890s, the Jirim League witnessed a language contest between Manchu, Mongol, Chinese, Japanese and Russian powers which strove to legitimize and maintain their control over the Jirim Mongols. Under the influence of European and Japanese language ideologies, the Qing Empire fostered the learning of Chinese in order to recreate the Jirim Mongols as modern nationals in an integrated China under a constitutional monarchy. Meanwhile, the Qing Empire preserved Manchu and Mongolian, which demonstrated the Manchu characteristic of the constitutional monarchy in a wave of Chinese nationalism. However, the revised language regime undermined the Jirim Mongols’ power and challenged their special position in the traditional Manchu-Mongol relations, which caused disunity and disorder in the borderlands. This thesis challenges the notion of language reform as a linear progress towards Chinese national monolingualism. It demonstrates the political and ritual role of Manchu and Mongolian beyond their communicative and documentary functions, and unfolds the power of language pluralism in Chinese nationalist discourse from a non-Chinese and peripheral perspective. By investigating how ethnic, national, and imperialist powers interacted with one another, this thesis allows us to understand the integration of Manchuria into modern China, East Asia, and the world from a different perspective.

The instabilities in the late Qing Dynasty stimulated the reformation movement proposed by the intellectuals and caused a chain reaction in Chinese literature, in which the vision, theme, narrative mode, and aesthetics gradually deviated from the earlier traditions. In general, regardless of complicated contents and diversity of literary genres, the ideas also increased in diversity, and the language of writing moved from Classical Chinese to vernacular Chinese. From the aspect of literary development, this is the evolution from the old to the new. Even though it was only transitional, its function and value as a connection cannot be ignored. This essay compiles the evolutionary pattern of the prose since Gong Zizhen. Chapter One is the Introduction. Chapter Two, covering the social changes and development from the late Ming Dynasty to the early Qing Dynasty, discusses the elements of modernization during the late Ming Dynasty, the development and restrictions in the early writings of the Qing Dynasty, to determine the inner clues related to the literary evolution of the late Qing Dynasty. Chapter Three, focusing on the Opium War in 1840 and the writings of Gong Zizhen, Wei Yuan, and the students of Tongcheng Yao School, discusses the tendency behind the evolution of prose in the late Qing Dynasty before and after the Opium Wars (between 1820 and 1850). Chapter Four, covering the period from the Taiping Rebellion to the Sino-Japanese War (1850-1894), discusses how Hong Rengan, Wang Tao, and Zeng Guofan, as the forerunners of the cultural exchange between the East and the West, gradually brought Western knowledge into Chinese prose, thus leading to the development of modern prose. Chapter Five, covering the post Sino-Japanese War period to the end of the Qing Dynasty (1894-1911), with Lin Shu, Yen Fu, and Liang Qichao as examples, discusses the new literary evolution of traditional prose since the early Nineteenth Century, regarding demands for political reformation and social changes. The new course on contents and style had begun, either consciously or unconsciously, thus establishing a new model for literary creation. After the Opium Wars, many literary reformers and other people contributed greatly to the evolution of prose. Yet, this essay can only list a few because of the length, and thus to show the clues to understanding the changes. Generally, the modernization of Chinese prose began the social turbulences and demands for political and cultural reformation. This evolution remained unconscious since Gongwei, up to Lin Shu and Yen Fu. It was not until the Literary Revolution proposed by Liang Qichao, that it became a conscious movement. The new literary style became popular with the press and generated the May 4th Movement.

In the tenets of Western political science, “limited government” is usually seen as the touchstone of modern constitutionalism. Yet significant issues can arise when one applies this framework to East Asia. By studying the origin of constitutionalism in China and Japan, my dissertation reexamines the idea that “limited government” is the core of modern constitutionalism. I argue that constitutionalism, as it was introduced in Meiji Japan and late Qing China, focused on strengthening the government rather than limiting it. Many might feel this affirms the popular belief in an inherent affinity for authoritarianism in the Chinese mind, but this dissertation disagrees, finding such a conclusion to be unfairly reductive, and dangerous to achieving a true cross-cultural understanding. It argues instead that Chinese constitutionalism’s desire to strengthen the state was not the manifestation of a cultural predisposition toward authoritarianism, but was instead consciously adopted and constructed in response to the chaotic realities of late 19th and early 20th century China. By studying the constitutional thought of Aristotle, Cicero, Machiavelli, Hobbes, the early English constitutionalists, Locke, Montesquieu, the American founding fathers, and others, I shine light on a dilemma that was as critical to late Qing China constitutionalism as it was to Aristotle’s ancient Greece, Machiavelli’s Renaissance Florence, and Lincoln’s splitting 19th century America: to achieve the delicate balance between a strong state and the limiting principles of a Republic. My argument calls for a reevaluation not only of Chinese constitutional thought, but also of current liberal constitutional theory, which tends to define the goal of constitutionalism simply as the limiting of governmental power. My research shows that the essential goal of constitutionalism, whether it takes place in the East or the West, in the present or the past, is not to move closer to one pole of authoritarianism or the other of limited government, but to strike an ideal balance between the two, depending on the specific context of a state’s time and place in history. / East Asian Languages and Civilizations

This research examines the intellectuals’ reform activities in local society at the turn of twentieth century. Focusing on Wuxi, a city in south China, this study seeks to shed light on two major issues. First, it studies the reform activities in the areas of education and print media in such a transformative era. I come to argue that differences existed between reforms at a national level and the circumstances in local society. These reformers in Wuxi provided the common people more choices besides Chinese learning, rather than following the ti-yong formula. They connected their reform proposals with the common people. Second, this study scrutinizes the complexity of their local endeavors. The most profound challenge these reformers encountered, I argue, was whether they could compete in the urban space, which had become a site of conflict and contestation.

As a novel on contemporary issues (shishi xiaoshuo 时事小说), the unfinished novel The Stone of Goddess Nüwa (Nüwa shi 女娲石; 1904-1905) recounts a story about new women’s attempts to save the nation, which is a reflection of late-Qing China. From a historical perspective, I aim to provide a study of the Nüwa stone and characterization of new women in the novel with the help of multiple intertexts. My thesis explores how the stone and the characterization elaborate the theme and design of the novel: new women saving the nation, which includes radical ideas for women and national salvation in the late Qing. Against the socio-cultural context of The Stone of Goddess Nüwa, I argue that through the characterization and narrative designs of the stone, the novel presents its explorations to solve social and political problems for national salvation, in which female power plays a central and crucial role. This thesis endeavors to both enrich the understanding and value of The Stone of Goddess Nüwa from a historical perspective and call critical attention to its meaning in the decades’ exploration of improving both China and Chinese women in literary works from the late Qing.

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This thesis considers how Mori Ōgai’s “Maihime” (1890) and Su Manshu’s “Suizanji” (1916) conform and differ from Edgar Allen Poe’s theory of the short story. It then considers Ōgai’s and Su’s reading of the short stories and East Asian short fiction as well as Ōgai’s definition of the short story to consider why these works of short fiction differ from Poe’s definition, concluding that they are hybrid works, which seek to combine the short story and East Asian short fiction.