presumably it is this very notion that is the princi ple behind Amer i ca’s
Monroe Doctrine. And, as a matter of fact, the task of developing a Monroe
Doctrine for Asia is the responsibility of your country and mine.”2 Kang
would have none of an Asian Monroe Doctrine discussion. Instead, he
turned the conversation to China’s domestic politics and tried to persuade
his host that Japan stood to gain po liti cally if it helped engineer the em-
peror’s return to power. Konoe countered that such an action could be taken
only in concert with the international community. Not only that, he sug-
gested that China appeared to be moving too fast with structural reforms
that had taken years in the Meiji case. Konoe then raised a more provoca-
tive question: if the dowager were to be ousted from power, would local
leaders necessarily place their support behind the emperor? In other words,
as Konoe explained in his write-up of the meeting, would a republic be a
pos si ble alternative? If Kang understood the intended meaning of Konoe’s
question, he chose to ignore it.
Two weeks later, Konoe was willing to listen to a plea on Kang Youwei’s
behalf from Liang Qichao. But the decision had already been made. Kang
had to go. Over the next several months, Konoe worked with the Foreign
Ministry to arrange po liti cal asylum for Kang in Canada. Liang was warned
to tone down his anti- Qing rhe toric but he was allowed to remain in Japan.
In February, Konoe arranged for Kang and Liang to sit in on a session of
the House of Peers. By mid- March Kang’s departure date had been set, the
Japa nese legation in Vancouver had been alerted to his arrival, and funds
from the Foreign Ministry to cover the cost of the trip were passed on to
him by Konoe. On March 21, Kang paid a courtesy call on Konoe to thank
him for efforts on his behalf. The next day, as Kang boarded a ship bound
. 142 .
Japa nese Lessons for a Modernizing China, 1895–1937
for Canada, Konoe got word that Zhang Zhidong had enrolled his grand son
at Konoe’s Peers School for the spring semester.
Laying the Groundwork for a China- Japan Partnership
Konoe had good personal reasons for wanting to settle the Kang Youwei
matter to Zhang’s satisfaction. He was anticipating face- to- face meetings
with Zhang and other Chinese provincial leaders on their own turf, to dis-
cuss the specifics of building closer China- Japan ties. Planned for the fall
of 1899, Konoe’s China visit was to be part of an eight- month trip around
the world, his first trip abroad since his student days, a kind of mini–
Iwakura Mission that would give him a chance to update his knowledge
and burnish his foreign- policy credentials. He went first to the United
States, then on to England, Germany, Rus sia, and countries in between,
with China as his final destination.
When Konoe’s ship sailed into Hong Kong harbor on October 13, 1899,
still seaworthy after a stormy passage from Colombo, he was met by an as-
sorted group of representatives from Japan who had interests in South
China, from diplomats to bankers to the head of the Guangdong office of
the East Asia Common Culture Association to Miyazaki Torazo, Sun Yat-
sen’s faithful backer and companion in planning for revolution. One ques-
tion that had to be resolved immediately was how Konoe should respond
to requests from representatives of Sun Yat- sen and Kang Youwei for a
meeting with them during his five- week China stay. Both groups had orga-
nizers posted in the two safe havens in territorial China, British- controlled
Hong Kong and the Shanghai International Settlement. Konoe turned
down both requests for a meeting. He did not trust the Kang people, and
although he liked what he had heard about Sun, he felt he could not, as head
of the nonpartisan East Asia Common Culture Association, meet with one
and not the other.
But these were minor concerns. Of major po liti cal significance were
Konoe’s scheduled meetings with Liu Kunyi and Zhang Zhidong. (Plans to
travel north, presumably to see Yuan Shikai, had to be scrapped because of
travel delays.) These were the men with power in China, and they were key
to constructing a new path forward in China- Japan relations. Liu Kunyi was
. 143 .
china and japan
governor- general of China’s lower Yangtze provinces and concurrently com-
missioner for the southern ports, positions that gave him par tic u lar clout
in determining China’s commercial relations with foreign businesses. Zhang,
governor- general of Hubei and Hunan provinces, was based in Wuhan,
which had an estimated two million inhabitants. In his job for eight years
at this point, Zhang was working to transform Wuhan into the industrial
center of the middle Yangtze region, with iron works, coal mines, cotton
mills, and water and rail links to the rest of the country. He was eager for
advanced technology, both machines and systems that trained people to
produce them. To Zhang, an old self- strengthener pushing for broad- scale
modernization, Japan, as a source of technology and gradual reform,
looked increasingly attractive in the late 1890s, just as it would in the late
1970s to Deng Xiaoping (see Biographies of Key Figures) as he searched
for a way out of economic stagnation.
Visually and symbolically, the encounters between Konoe and these ti-
tans of power presented a study in contrasts: Konoe, age thirty- six, in
Western attire, his cropped hair and moustache making him a Theodore
Roo se velt look- alike, versus the old Mandarins Liu and Zhang, both in their
sixties, dressed in the same silk jackets, long gowns, and domed hats that
their grand fathers would have worn. Konoe was cosmopolitan, at home in
London and Bonn. Liu and Zhang were of the same look- to- the- West gen-
eration of the Meiji found ers, but they had never traveled to Eu rope or
Amer i ca. Nor, from Konoe’s account, did they appear interested in what
Konoe had to say about his just- completed, multination fact- finding tour.
However, when it came to the substance of the talks, the prospects for a
China- Japan partnership, the results were encouraging. Liu happily agreed
that bilateral cooperation made sense. He made a point of mentioning that
his Japan tilt was no passing phenomenon. In the great debate of the 1870s
over whether to confront Rus sia in Xinjiang or Japan in the Ryukyus, he
said he had argued against “offending our near neighbor, Japan, over insig-
nificant islands like the Ryukyus.”3 When Konoe proposed establishing a
Common Culture Association language and area studies institute in Nan-
jing, Liu offered his immediate support.
Konoe’s talk with Zhang was one part success, one part disappointment.
Zhang expressed delighted approval when Konoe proposed expanding Japa-
nese assistance in education through study tours for Chinese educators,
. 144 .
Japa nese Lessons for a Modernizing China, 1895–1937
hiring Japa nese teachers to teach in China, and scaling up the existing study-
in- Japan program for Chinese youth. But when the conve
rsation stumbled
into politics, the mood turned sour. You ought to expel Liang Qichao from
Japan, Zhang complained, citing the corrupting influence of Liang’s maga-
zine, Public Opinion, on Chinese students in Tokyo. To his later regret,
fearing he had offended his host, Konoe came back with a sharp response:
“If you think that by getting rid of Liang you will get rid of Public Opinion,
you are greatly mistaken. There are more than one or two people in Liang’s
group in Japan; even if he goes, I want you to know that things will not change
one iota.”4 Trying to distract Zhang, Konoe asked about Sun Yat- sen. “A
small- time thug, not worth bother ing about,” was Zhang’s dismissive reply.
Still, Konoe was in high spirits when he returned to Japan in No-
vember 1899 after his tour of the world from Victorian England to Qing
China. Most concretely, the China- Japan proj ect that was dear to his heart
seemed to be getting off the ground. Although he subsequently failed to get
the 100 percent increase in Common Culture Association funding that he
requested from the Foreign Ministry, this was balanced by a personal note
from Liu Kunyi in January 1900, approving final plans for their agreed school
project in Nanjing, praising the association’s efforts to promote closer ties
among China, Japan, and Korea, and enclosing a photo from Konoe’s recent
visit. Konoe gave an enthusiastic report on China’s activities to the press, in-
cluding an update on the pro gress of Zhang’s grand son in math.
From Antiforeign Extremism to New Policies Favoring Japan
There seemed to be reason for optimism. But as spring turned to summer,
ominous reports began coming out of North China. The Boxers, as West-
erners called them, impoverished peasants, at first only anti- Christian,
then indiscriminately antiforeign, were filtering in from the countryside to
the Tianjin- Beijing area, spreading vio lence along the way. Faced with new
disorder just as it was recovering from the Hundred Days’ Reform, the court
in Beijing was once again thrown into po liti cal chaos over how to respond.
Foreign residents wondered whether China’s central government would de-
ploy its troops to protect them or if they would have to call in their own
troops to stop the vio lence. By June, it appeared that the foreigners in China
could expect no help; the dominant view among court officials favored using
. 145 .
china and japan
populist antiforeignism as a weapon to push back against increasing for-
eign infringements on China’s sovereignty. On June 21 the court issued a
blanket declaration of war against the foreign powers. Attacks were launched
on the diplomatic compounds in Beijing, where 500 foreign civilians (in-
cluding Japa nese) were trapped, virtual hostages of the Chinese government.
As unclear as the fate of the foreign community was the long- term thinking
of China’s southeastern provincial authorities, Liu Kunyi, Zhang Zhidong,
and Li Hongzhang. All opposed the court’s decision to declare war.
Watching as conditions deteriorated, Konoe cautioned his government
against overreaction, even after Chinese troops brutally murdered Japan’s
chief diplomat in Beijing, Sugiyama Akira. Konoe feared that severing dip-
lomatic relations would disrupt Japa nese trade and the entire network of
official and private relationships that the Common Culture Association had
been working to construct in South China. Order was restored in Beijing
in mid- August by a co ali tion force (American, Austro- Hungarian, British,
French, German, Italian, Japa nese, Rus sian) of about 20,000, more than a
third of them Japa nese. Yet again thinking long term, Konoe was out in
front, urging his government to be the first to withdraw its troops. He saw
withdrawal as a gesture of goodwill toward influential officials, such as
Zhang Zhidong, Liu Kunyi, and Li Hongzhang, and a challenge to the
other powers, Rus sia in par tic u lar, to follow suit.
For Konoe and the Japa nese public, the big worry was Rus sia’s growing
presence in China’s Northeast. Even with Beijing secure, Rus sian troops in
the thousands continued to move south along the Trans- Siberian Railway
to take up positions in Manchuria, the ancestral home of China’s ruling
Qing dynasty. However, some in the Chinese leadership were equally wor-
ried about the intentions of Japan and the other powers. Li Hongzhang, re-
portedly in the pro- Russian camp, had his doubts that, despite all the talk
about Shina hozen, Japan could be relied upon in a crisis.
But Zhang Zhidong and Liu Kunyi were convinced of the benefits of a
partnership with Japan. Thus began a months- long, two- track pro cess, en-
dorsed by the imperial court waiting fearfully in its place of exile in Xi’an.
Li Hongzhang assumed the role of lead negotiator with the foreign powers
over damages incurred during the Boxer siege. Zhang and Liu took on the
task of drafting a package of reforms focused on revamping the content and
purpose of education in China. On rec ord for their opposition to the war
. 146 .
Japa nese Lessons for a Modernizing China, 1895–1937
with the foreign powers, these three mainstays of the Qing regime were
the most credible figures to set things right in its aftermath. Li’s Boxer
Protocol, signed in September 1901, was highly punitive in terms of in-
demnity payments to be made by China, but aside from the execution of a
few princes, it left the regime intact. Zhang and Liu’s reform agenda— the
New Policies ( Xinzheng)— was likewise designed to retrofit the old Han-
Manchu dyarchy with modernizing ele ments but not to replace it. The
way to do that, as Zhang and Liu saw it, was to build a national system of
schools on the Japa nese model, while rapidly phasing out the civil- service
exam system.
It is difficult to overstate the significance of these developments, both
the admission that Japan, not China, was becoming a competitor on the in-
ternational stage, and the realization that the centuries- old system for se-
lecting civil servants, embedded in the very fabric of life of China’s elite,
had to be scrapped. The New Policies got to the specifics of the phase- out
pro cess. New exam questions were quickly introduced. For example, “When
Japan renovated her style of government, what things were of prime impor-
tance and what things have proved to be of good effect?”5 was a question
included on a 1902 exam. Three years later, the exam system was abolished
entirely and responsibility for educating the public for jobs in the bureau-
cracy shifted to a system of modern schools that was barely off the
ground.
When reform- minded pragmatists such as Zhang and Liu chose to pro-
mote study in Japan, cost was a primary consideration. It was cheaper to
send study missions and students to Japan to observe and to be trained in
its modern schools than to ship them off to Eu rope or Amer i ca. Likewise,
Japa nese teachers and advisers in China, while highly paid relative to those
at home, would be expected to command lower salaries than their Western
counter parts. Cultural factors likely played a role in Zhang’s thinking as
well. The similarity of written Chinese and written Japa nese, the latter
having been adapted from the former, would mean that Chinese students
could learn more in less time than if they had to master the totally unfa-
miliar Eu ro pean languages. Japa nese advisers working in China, all with
basic schooling in written Chinese, presumably could pick up spoken Chi-
nese rather easily, again an efficiency consideration. No doubt this was in
contrast to the Germans Zhang had hired for his staff in Wuhan.
. 147 .
china and japan
Choosing Japan as an outside source of expertise was also po liti cally
smart. It made educational restructuring more palatable to the lingering
anti- Western ele ments in the Chinese leadership, those officials who had
encouraged the Boxers and now feared Eu ro pean and American retribu-
tion and dominance of the reform pro cess. Japan got good press in the Boxer
aftermath. Western journalists praised the Japa nese for their discipline and
restraint in occupied Beijing, contrasting it with the looting and destruc-
tion carried out by the other co ali tion troops. This was not lost on Chinese
officials, who for a time also liked what the Japa nese had to say about China
and Japan’s joint interests and actions in defiance of the Western powers.
Even the United States, still a ju nior power, had just taken over Hawaii and
the Philippines, while making its position on Chinese immigration unmis-
takably clear in its series of Chinese Exclusion Acts. Aside from saving
money and mollifying hardliners, there was a fundamental ideological
reason for turning to Japan in the vital matter of education reform. Japan’s
educational philosophy fit the Chinese mindset, particularly its emphasis
on moral education and on creating national standards to unite the citizenry
behind the state. Fi nally, in the larger po liti cal context in which Zhang
Zhidong and Liu Kunyi operated with skill, it made sense to give official
sanction to experiments in popu lar education already being carried out in
local communities in China.
Study Tours for Chinese Officials
China sponsored no single mission to study foreign developments that can
compare with Japan’s Iwakura Mission of 1871–1873. In the Iwakura case,
China and Japan Page 23
