History of China Since 1800 – S03: State and Society

China Central Televsion: Everlasting Classics

Song of the Vagrant Son

游子吟

孟郊 (751-814)

慈母手中线，游子身上衣。临行密密缝，意恐迟迟归。谁言寸草心，报得三春晖。

Song of the Vagrant Son

In the mother’s hand, a thread she weaves,
On the wanderer’s body, the clothes she leaves.
As she sews, she stitches with care,
Fearing his return might be rare.
Who says a blade of grass can repay
The warmth of spring’s sun in any way?

Reviving the Family in Contemporary China

“Father and mother are not as dear as Chairman Mao. (爹亲娘亲不如毛主席亲)”

Questions

What explains the stability and longevity of dynastic rule in China? What were its sources of instability?
How to describe the state-society relationship in Qing China?
Was there a China model?

Recap: Qing expansion in Eurasia

Territorial expansion of Qing Empire

Qing expansion: A Chronology

Date	Event
1684	Taiwan made part of Fujian province
1689	Treaty of Nerchinsk
1697	Kangxi defeated Mongol khan Erdeniin Galdan
1720	Qing army enters Lhasa
1724-1735	Yongzheng reign
1736-1796	Qianlong reign
1755-1760	Qing defeat of Dzungaria, renamed Xinjiang (new territory)

Pair Work: US-China Working Group on Tibet

Xi Jinping in Lhasa, Xinhua News Agency, 2021

“Tibet has always been part of China since ancient times…”

“Tibet has maintained throughout its history a distinctive and sovereign national, cultural, and religious identity separate from that of China…”

Pre-modern legacies

Unresolved questions:

Political status: Who represents Tibet?
Territorial boundary: Where does it begin/end? Inner vs. outer area (Eastern Tibet)

Interpretive challenges:

Not just ethnic identity: Han Chinese vs. Tibetans
No clear definitions of “Tibetan territory” or “Chinese territory”

Two Monarchs on Horseback

Louis XIV on horseback crowned with Victory before the siege of Namur, Château de Versailles

Legitimacy of rulership

Divine right of kings

Kingly authority from god; not accountable to earthly authority
“L’état, c’est moi” – proprietor of the state and owner of kingdom

Son of heaven

A sage king with cosmic power
Bearer of political expectations
Potential loss of “mandate of heaven”

Voltaire: Sinophile Philosopher

“the wisest and best governed country in the world”
“the most extended and best governed kingdom of the world”
Confucius as sage who “deemed too highly of his character as a legislator for mankind”

Qing administration of China proper

Portrait of the Kangxi Emperor in His Library, Anonymous, Qing dynasty, The Palace Museum, Beijing.

Integrated bureaucracy, from imperial center to province, prefecture, and county
Examination system for civil service
A state ruled by “elite commoners”, not aristocrats

Imperial Examination system

Open to all males of registered households
By Ming and Qing dynasties, primary vehicle for selecting officials
Test of refined literacy in Confucian classics: Eight-legged essays
Morality based governance

Levels of examinations

Level	Frequency	Title conferred
Local	Every year and a half	Shengyuan (Novice scholar)
Provincial	Every 3 years	Juren (Selected men)
Metropolitan	Every 3 years	Jinshi (Presented scholars)

Discussion: Three Lives

What were the three previous lives, and what happened in each of his life?
How did the magistrate of the purgatory decide merits for the dead?
What is the moral of the story?

Meritocracy and Its Myths

Narrow ladder of success:

2% adult male population with “gentry” status
Most of them from top 10% socio-economic class

Qiu Ying, Viewing the Pass List, National Palace Museum, Taipei

Education and elites: Fragile Alliance

Elite voluntarism

National elite class
Exemplars moral conduct, public service, and political loyalty
Leader of local communities; diffusion of literacy and Confucian values

Controlling the elites

Law of avoidance: No service in native place
Provincial quota in exam
Secrecy: Palace memorials via the Grand Council

Small government

A small bureaucracy…

Six Boards
8 viceroys, 18 governors, 200+ prefects, 1500+ magistrates
No direct village administration

… running a big empire.

Doubling of population from 150m to 300m from 1650 to 1800
Three tiers: Province (18), Prefecture (200+), County (1350+)

County Magistrate

Alexander, William, Maps 8 TAB.c.8.53., British Library

Main responsibilities:

Tax collection and labor
Law and judicial functions
Education and moral leadership
Drought, famine, disaster relief

Government by sub-bureaucracy

Non-official clerical personnel
Personal secretarial staff
Local elite
Appointed village headmen

Outsourcing Governance: Role of lineages

Tong Family Ancestral Hall

Defining lineages

‘Portrait of Lady Li (Lu Xifu’s Wife)’ and ‘Portrait of Lu Xifu’. Ink and colour on paper, Royal Ontario Museum

Lineages as scial, economic, political, and moral organizations:

Single-surname village or multi-surname community bound by marriage alliances
Genealogy of descent from common ancestor
A single corporate body, made up of male kinsmen
Collective rituals of ancestor worship
Corporate group with common land, property, and income
Source of mutual aid and social support

Ambivalent status of lineages

Are they:

building blocks of stable society?
local organization-building, and bulwark against state penetration?

Baojia: Communal self-defense system

Each ten households as a security group (bao), with each household with more than two male adults to provide one security guard
Collective responsibility: relatives convicted along with convicted criminals
Responsible for household registration, village defense, local militia and garrison
Relieved the local government of administrative duties and expenses

Discuss: Story of Wang Xiang

Lying Down On The Ice To Get Carp For His Stepmother: Wang Xiang, from The Twenty-Four Paragons of Filial Piety

Who is Wang Xiang?
What did he do for his stepmother?
Why is he celebrated for his deeds?

You be the judge: A Legal Case

The facts:

On December 17, 1815, Wang Dacai was caught engaging in illicit sexual relations, leading the adulteress’s family to tie him to a tree in preparation to report him to the authorities.
In an attempt to escape punishment, Dacai ordered his son to injure him slightly, hoping to threaten his captors with a countersuit.
Two passers-by witnessed the scene and reported it to local authorities.

The law:

Dacai’s adultery was a significant violation of Qing law and morality.
The offense committed by the son against his father was viewed as a breach of fundamental human ethics.
Magistrates acted as agents to enforce parental will, and the law served as a key instrument in recognizing and implementing this will.

The End

Wang Hebao was sentenced to beheading, though the penalty was reduced to one degree due to clemency from the emperor, considering his filial motivations and underage status.
On December 25, 1815, Wang Dacai, a barber from Guangshun prefecture in Guizhou province, committed suicide by stabbing an iron rod into his throat.

Cult of Filial Piety: Why?

The Qing state used various methods to support parental authority over both adult and minor children.

Children could be punished for accusing parents, even if the accusations were true.
Parents could request public beatings or canguing (a form of punishment) for their children.
Parricides faced execution by slicing, regardless of mitigating circumstances.
The state accepted parents’ testimonies against children while ignoring contradictory evidence.

“Ruling the empire by the principle of filial piety”

Late imperial Chinese law and the imperial state had a specific logic that reinforced parental authority.

The law served primarily as a language of politics rather than as a tool for Confucian morality or parental will.
Principle of filial piety as a governing mechanism: The focus on dynastic legitimacy and imperial governance was central to the legally sanctioned cult of filiality.
In China, where the state is referred to as guojia (state-family), the cult of filiality illuminates the relationship between state and family.

Montseqieu on China

From the very nature of things, a bad administration is here immediately punished. The want of subsistence, in so populous a country, produces sudden disorders. The reason why the redress of abuses, in other countries, is attended with such difficulty, is, because their effects are not immediately felt; the prince is not informed in so sudden and sensible a manner as in China.

China is therefore a despotic state, whose principle is fear.

China model, according to the Economist

Debating the China Model

Montesquieu:

Stagnation
Rule by man, not by law
Excessive despotism

State-society relations in tension:

Governance on the cheap, growing population but shrinking bureaucracy and tax base
Principal agent problem
Grassroots activism vs. Vigilance against local power