Research Article

The man-land relationship in Qing China: an overview

JIANGTao

ABSTRACT

The Qing era witnessed a continuation of the man-land problem that had haunted Chinese history. Since the Spring and Autumn Period and the Warring States Period, China has developed a unique mode of small-scale peasant production, which required enormous manpower on the one hand and could support a huge population on the other. Taking the Taiping Rebellion arising in 1850 as the watershed, this paper examines the changes in the man-land relationship during two periods of the Qing era and criticizes both the Malthusian Theory of Population from the West and the “overpopulation” argument indigenous in China. This paper concludes that the Malthusian Theory cannot fully explain the complexities of man-land relationship in China and that “overpopulation” was not the root cause for the collapse of dynasties in the Chinese history.

KEYWORDS: Qing dynast man-land relationship overpopulation the Malthusian Theory

A quantitative analysis of the localized administrative importance rating system and the selection of officials in Qing China

HU Heng

ABSTRACT

Administrative districts during the Qing dynasty were rated according to the “Chong Fan Pi Nan” system, imposed on each province, prefecture, sub-prefecture, department and county. The classification distinguished between the need for appointment to “most important” posts (zuiyaoque), “important” posts (yaoque), “medium” posts (zhongque), and “simple” posts (jianque). In accordance with the importance rating system, the Qing court subsequently determined the sequence of officials necessary in each administrative unit as the appointments by the Emperor (qingzhique), the appointments by the Governor-General (tidiaoque), and the appointments by the Board of the Personnel (buxuanque), with the Emperor, Governors-General, and the Board of Personnel having the authority to select officials. In tracing and quantifying the “Chong Fan Pi Nan” system as well as the division into “most important” posts, “important” posts, “medium” posts, and “simple” posts, we can see how the Qing government used geographical information to target the deployment of limited bureaucratic resources based on locally-specific difficulties in governance. In addition, according to the statistics, it appears that “Chong Fan Pi Nan” as a proxy indicator reflects the spatial differences in terms of the disposition of local transportation, administrative affairs, tax collection, and local security. We can also observe that the Qing state intentionally promoted the weighting of frontier provinces to attract officials with better administrative abilities. This article examines how the administrative importance rating system influenced the origin, selection, and promotion of Qing officials by tracking the data of millions of officials in the newly established quantitative database of the Jingshenlu (Records of the Gentry). This study will provide a longue-term perspective for understanding the contemporary Chinese government’s official selection system.

KEYWORDS: Qing administrative importance rating bureaucratic resources quantitative analysis

Science, commerce, and politics: China’s giant pandas going global (1869-1948)

JIANG Hong

ABSTRACT

The rise of modern natural history has changed the way Westerners see nature, and the generation and popularity of biological knowledge of species have caused transnational chain effects of commercial, ecological, and political nature. Giant pandas, a new species “reconstructed” after the rise of natural history, have attracted the attention of the Western public, and natural history institutions’ demand for exhibition has led to the commercialization of giant pandas. When large-scale hunting of giant pandas impacted the species, the Nationalist government shifted its focus from regulating foreigners to protecting a species: it became illegal for foreigners to hunt giant pandas in China. When the buying and selling of giant pandas was prohibited, European and US-American zoos requested that the Chinese government send giant pandas as gifts; hence the Nationalist government recognized the special role of giant pandas, and “panda diplomacy” began to emerge. Controlled species exchange also helped protect this species. Since natural history became a popular subject in the world, China’s wild animals became globally known as important “messengers” in China’s communication exchanges with the rest of the world.

KEYWORDS: Giant pandas  natural history  panda diplomacy  wild animals

Evolution of the Maotai brand in modern China

GUOZijian

ABSTRACT

The evolution of the “Maotai” liquor brand was closely related to market changes and evolving state-business networks at different junctures in modern China. In the early Republican era, Maotai liquor was especially popular within the top military and political circles of Guizhou Province and became a hallmark of Guizhou after it won a list of specialty exposition prizes. After the Sino-Japanese War, the exodus of government officials and teachers into the southwest China and the trade embargo imposed by the Japanese changed the structure of premium liquor consumption. Maotai liquor became a famous independent brand after it became widely known in the area under Wartime Guomindang (GMD) control. After 1945, a commercial network was established introducing Maotai liquor to the major Chinese cities. The market share of Maotai liquor thus grew exponentially, making it a household brand throughout China. The history of Maotai liquor sheds light on how the Wartime experience, the market and the state-business network shaped the evolution of a commercial brand. Furthermore, it helps explain the evolutionary logic of a niche commodity in China’s modern economy.

KEYWORDS: Maotai liquor  Guizhou Province  history of liquor  wartime consumption

The establishment of recent knowledge of acupoint anatomy and its impact

ZHANGShujian

ABSTRACT

The content of acupuncture points has been a long concerned issue in China. The ancients’ descriptions of acupuncture points in medical literature were all based on their observation of the body’s surface, and they didn’t have the modern concept of “acupuncture points” independent of body tissue. In modern times, with the foundation of anatomy in China, physicians of traditional Chinese medicine (TCM) gradually developed the thinking paradigm of knowing the body through anatomy. Meanwhile, the acupuncture circle in Japan combined anatomy with their understanding of acupuncture points and added anatomical content to the entries on acupuncture points. After the translation and introduction of Japanese acupuncture literature, their understanding of anatomical acupuncture added to the Chinese physicians’ acupuncture knowledge in the Republican time. During this process, elite physicians and educators in the acupuncture community played a vital role. According to the Actor-Network Theory, the construction of anatomical knowledge of acupuncture points in the Republic of China resulted from multi-factor interaction. In the meantime, the conception of acupuncture point anatomy changed people’s original cognition of acupuncture points and resulted in the paradigm shift in TCM physicians’ body cognition.

KEYWORDS: Acupuncture point anatomy  Republic of China  Body knowledge history  Actor-Network Theory

The return of the “Ashi Point” from its journey East and its modern theoretical reconstruction

JIANGShan

ABSTRACT

In the current knowledge system of acupuncture and moxibustion, the Ashi Point belongs to one of the three categories of acupoints. However, the source of this knowledge is from an inconspicuous rural therapy record in the “Qian Jin Fang.” The historical process of how the Ashi Point rose from a corner of classical literature to the core position of modern acupuncture theory has rarely been discussed. There is no proof of its popularity in the old literature; its sudden rise in China originated in the Republican period. The modernization and transformation of acupuncture theory in Republican China was to a certain extent influenced by Japan. With Japan’s preference for practical knowledge and its promotion of modern science, the Ashi Point has been placed at the core of the acupuncture knowledge system. Alongside with the translation, introduction, and promotion of Japanese acupuncture literature in Republican China, the Ashi Point gradually entered the theoretical system of Chinese acupuncture and moxibustion. The conceptual history of Ashi Point may weave a story full of encounters of different knowledge systems, cultures, and ideas.

KEYWORDS: Ashi Point  history of acu-moxa  the scientification of acu-moxa  Japan  Republican China

To be canonic or scientific: a study of knowledge innovation of acupuncture and moxibustion in the Republican period of China

CHENSiyan

ABSTRACT

Reconstructing the body of acupuncture and moxibustion knowledge was seen as an important measure to prove the effectiveness of traditional Chinese medicine in the Republican period of China. Many physicians, such as Cheng Dan’an and Huang Zhuzhai in particular, made efforts to promote innovation in the field of acupuncture and moxibustion. Cheng Dan’an wrote textbooks, in which he made a reasonable choice between the traditional knowledge of acupuncture and moxibustion and modern biomedicine in accordance with the clinical efficacy, and the textbooks were widely circulated. Huang Zhuzhai in his monographs, however, persisted in the orthodoxy of the fundamental doctrines stemmed from the Inner Cannon of the Yellow Emperor (known in Chinese as Huangdi neijing), and adopted the method of textual criticism to collate and annotate various theories of acupuncture and moxibustion. Huang’s work was approved by the Institute of National Medicine as an accredited textbook nationwide, but the response was not as good as originally expected. Considering the academic perspectives per se, the two representative patterns of the knowledge transformation of acupuncture and moxibustion in the Republican period of China had distinct endings. It identified that refining the traditional knowledge of acupuncture and moxibustion based on empirical rationality was critical in the knowledge modernization of this treatment.

KEYWORDS: Huang Zhuzhai  Cheng Dan’an  traditional Chinese medicine  acupuncture and moxibustion

Book Review

Hu Shih and New Chinese Culture: Historical Events and Interpretations (2 volumes)

ZHANGJing

The logic of usury: the market mechanisms in private lending in the Qing and Republican eras

ZHAIRunzhuo

Xiangyi and Politics in Modern China

WANGKang