more about who should determine the intent of overseas study— the au-
thorities, both Chinese and Japa nese, or the students themselves.
In the spring of 1903 it was an international crisis that put the Chinese
students in Tokyo at odds with their government in Beijing: Rus sia’s refusal
to finalize the withdrawal of its 100,000 troops from Manchuria, as agreed
to with Britain, Japan, and China the previous year. As avid readers of Japa-
nese newspapers, Chinese students in Tokyo were well informed, fully
aware of Rus sia’s new demands for concessions from China as well as fa-
miliar with arguments from some prominent Japa nese that going to war was
the only way to curb Rus sian ambitions. In their view, the silence from Bei-
jing made China look weak and indecisive, inviting yet another round of
humiliation at the hands of the foreign powers. What ever their par tic u lar
politics, virtually all the students saw themselves as Chinese patriots, re-
sponsible for a forceful response. Five hundred turned out in Tokyo at a “re-
sist Rus sia” rally, and dozens wrote articles lambasting Qing officials for
their incompetence. They also or ga nized sympathy protests in Shanghai
and Beijing, and even offered to volunteer for military ser vice against the
. 167 .
china and japan
Rus sians. It was all for naught in terms of pressuring Beijing, however.
Japan broke off its yearlong negotiations with Rus sia on February 6, 1904,
and two days later launched a surprise attack on the Rus sian Navy at Port
Arthur. China claimed neutrality in the war that followed.
By far the largest student protest occurred in the fall of 1905 when, in
the excitement of Japan’s victory over Rus sia, the number of Chinese
students in Japan shot up to nearly 10,000. As in the Seijo Gakko inci-
dent regarding admissions to Japan’s premier military acad emy, student
anger was triggered by a change in the rules— the announcement by Japa-
nese authorities, with Chinese agreement, of new guidelines both for stu-
dents and the schools catering to them. But the students caught po liti cal
undertones in this new attempt to define what the overseas study experi-
ence was meant to be. Their objections were less about stricter controls
per se and more about the motives of the authorities issuing them. Was
the Japa nese government treating Chinese students fairly and on a par
with its own students? Was the Chinese government standing up for its
students or col uding with Japan to curtail their personal freedoms? Were
China’s leaders patriotic enough, or even competent enough, to push back
against foreign intervention? These were the basic issues— the be hav ior of
Japan as the new imperialist, the capabilities and loyalties of Han Chinese
versus Manchus— driving what started small, then grew into larger circles of
protest. In 1905, an estimated 4,000 students were involved in clashes with
the authorities; 2,000 left Japan in protest, though most quickly returned.
Still, by 1909 student numbers had dropped to 5,000. In the ultimate irony,
nearly all Chinese students left Japan in 1911 as the forces for change engulfed
China’s 2,000- year- old imperial system. Meant to infuse the system with
new talent and moderate reform thinking, China’s Japan- trained youth ulti-
mately contributed to its demise.
Japan- Trained Students and the End of Imperial China
What Sun Yat- sen wanted from Japan was not lessons in Meiji- style state
building but financial backing for his proj ect to overthrow the Qing regime.
His friends were primarily in the Japa nese and overseas Chinese business
communities, not in Japa nese mainstream official circles, though he did try
to make inroads there as well and he shared their vision of a pan- Asian
. 168 .
Japa nese Lessons for a Modernizing China, 1895–1937
future. He was on the margins of politics in the years around 1900, seeking
an interview with Konoe, support from Shimoda Utako, and to exploit
Inukai- Miyazaki- Konoe connections. Official China was not overly wor-
ried. Zhang Zhidong had expressed it best when he responded to Konoe’s
perceptive question about whether Sun was a threat to the regime by dis-
missing him as a “small- time thug.”
With some notable exceptions, such as Ji Yihui, an 1899 gradu ate of the
Kobun Institute, Chinese students regarded Sun Yat- sen as something of
a curiosity in his efforts to market revolution, a person worth meeting but
unconnected to their lives. Sun was completely out of touch with students
between 1903 and 1905, as he was off on a Europe- U.S. fund rais ing tour.
However, luck was in his favor. His return to Japan in July 1905 could not
have been better timed. Japan’s defeat of Rus sia, a huge Eu ro pean power,
excited Asian nationalists and sparked a surge in the number of Chinese
students making their way to Japan, either to attend school or to or ga nize
antiregime activities. Even so, it was not a sure thing that Sun could seize
the moment and get this restive group, with its multiple viewpoints on re-
form and revolution, to join the new revolutionary organ ization he had es-
tablished in Tokyo. His backer, Miyazaki Torazo, had to make the initial
contacts. There was not great enthusiasm. The several hundred students
who did appear at the inaugural meeting of the Revolutionary Alliance
(Tongmenghui) represented but a small percentage of the thousands of stu-
dents Sun had hoped to attract.
Even among the most vocal anti- Qing students in Tokyo, Sun’s initial bid
to capture a leadership role was a hard sell, despite the appeal of his clearly
articulated vision for national revival. Huang Xing and many others were
not willing to immediately disband their own radical groups from diff er ent
regions of China to join the Sun- led organ ization. There were also clashes
within the student group between Sun’s people and the constitutional re-
formers who backed Liang Qichao. The Tokyo government was not happy
either, particularly about harboring an organ ization calling for regime change
in China, when that regime was recognized as legitimate by the rest of the
international community. In 1907 Japan acceded to a request from Beijing to
expel Sun Yat- sen, a move that propelled him over the next several years into
a new round of re sis tance activities in South China and fund rais ing efforts
targeting overseas Chinese in Southeast Asia, Eu rope, and Amer ica.
. 169 .
china and japan
After 1905, students trained in Japan were the dominant ele ment in the
Revolutionary Alliance. Slipping into Shanghai and beyond from Tokyo,
they were prominent in the mounting number of terrorist attacks and small
uprisings that spelled danger to the Qing state. In their everyday lives, many
held teaching posts in China’s new schools or were officers in the new army.
Others were employed as clerks in businesses along China’s coast. All were
well placed to sign up new revolutionary recruits and to pass on anti- Qing
lit er a ture that originated among the Chinese students still in Japan. Fer-
reting out those involved in revolutionary plots was an impossible task.
But what left the Qing regime most vulnerable was an even more in-
sidious phenomenon. Although most members of the revolutionary groups
were students returned from Japan, the majority of the returned students
were not revolutionaries but law- abiding ordinary folk with liberal leanings,
whether they were educators, businessmen, bureaucrats, or in the military.
Many found jobs in the new technical and financial agencies that the Chi-
nese government had established after 1901. Of the 1,388 foreign- trained stu-
dents hired by the government between 1906 and 1911, 90 percent were
gradu ates of Japa nese schools. Another highly influential segment of the
Japan- educated group served in the provincial assemblies that were elected
in 1909 as part of the late- in- the- game government- sanctioned move toward
constitutional rule. Provincial membership lists suggest that the numbers
here were substantial, accounting for as many as 20 percent of the total in
some cases. What ever their brand of politics, the returned students brought
a new, pragmatic, and professional perspective to a country producing few
gradu ates from China’s homegrown, nominally modern public schools
(which had roughly 80,000 gradu ates at all levels over the entire 1902–1909
period). They were open- minded, patriotic, and confident that China could
bootstrap itself into a global position of power in the future. They also felt
alienated from Qing rule and impatient with the slow pace of reform. With
its support eroded, the Qing dynasty simply crumbled in 1911 under the
weight of its incapacity to govern. Yet destabilizing and decentralizing forces
remained strong, jeopardizing the new republic from the start.
After 1911, Chinese youths seeking the benefits of a modern education
had options other than going to Japan. For one thing, they could stay at
home and enroll in one of the new schools staffed by teachers trained in
Japan. Opportunities were also opening up for Chinese students to study
. 170 .
Japa nese Lessons for a Modernizing China, 1895–1937
in Western countries, particularly the United States and France. Some took
advantage of the 1908 decision in the United States to apply its Boxer in-
demnity funds (awarded to the United States in the Boxer Protocol) to a
scholarship program for Chinese students. By 1911, 650 Chinese students
were studying in the United States under such auspices, and by 1918 the
number reached 1,124. After World War I, the Chinese government estab-
lished a work- study program in France that drew some 6,000 students,
though the formal study part of the program was of questionable value.
Still, for reasons of politics, proximity, and the pocket book, Chinese stu-
dents continued to enroll in Japa nese schools up to the outbreak of the
Second Sino- Japanese War in 1937. Although nearly all students returned
to China in the heady days after the 1911 Revolution that ended the Qing
dynasty, there was soon a reverse flow as Yuan Shikai’s clampdown on op-
position politicians signaled a turn toward autocratic rule and an uncertain
future for China’s youth. In 1914 about 4,000 Chinese citizens were offi-
cially listed as students in Japan. The figure remained steady at 3,000 to
4,000 over the next several years, dropping only when po liti cally active ele-
ments within the group left Japan to protest Japan’s deal making for con-
cessions in China, notably after the Twenty- One Demands in 1915 and the
award of Shandong province to Japan in the Versailles Treaty of 1919. Still,
in 1936–1937, on the eve of the Second Sino- Japanese War, there would be
between 5,000 and 6,000 Chinese students in Japan, the highest number
since 1914. In part this reflected the Japa nese government’s continued efforts
to attract Chinese students and, in practical terms, the impact of a favor-
able exchange rate. Altogether, the draw of Japan for Chinese youth would
remain the same as it had been from the beginning: it offered the possibility
of a low- cost, modern education and greater freedom of action.
Lessons Learned, Partnership Deferred
Study in Japan changed Chinese minds. As Ji Yihui said in his valedictory
speech at the Kobun Institute in 1899, “If we compare our thinking with three
years ago, we are real y diff er ent people.”12 Arriving in Japan as young men
from Sichuan, Hunan, or Guangdong, Chinese students began to see them-
selves as the Japa nese public saw them: Chinese, pure and simple, foreigners
from a neighboring country once great but that had fal en behind in the eyes
. 171 .
china and japan
of the rest of the world. If proof were needed of China’s diminished stature
and Japan’s rise, daily life in Tokyo confirmed it. Tokyo was visibly modern,
well run, and more open than China po liti cal y, with multiple outlets for the
expression of public opinion. Students were drawn to this new openness and
admired the Japa nese power on display in the war against Rus sia, even as they
resented Japa nese restrictions on their own freedom of action and feared
Japan’s alignment with Western imperialism. The Qing government was in-
creasingly in the students’ crosshairs, too, attacked for its incompetence, cor-
ruption, and inability to confront Japan and the other powers. Study in Japan
turned Chinese students into nationalists and taught them the powers of
protest, the press, and public opinion in effecting change. Zhang Zhidong’s
idea of controlled reform in a controlled society was swamped by the thou-
sands of students he had sent to Japan on his own initiative, now arguing in
print or in person for an immediate end to Qing imperial rule.
Chinese officials on study tours to Japan were more mea sured in ap-
proach, but they too were impatient with the pace of change at home.
What they witnessed firsthand in Japan was an experiment that seemed to
be succeeding, a pos si ble model to follow in getting China’s modernization
pro cess moving forward, fast. Their Japa nese hosts, well schooled in China
studies, were properly respectful of China’s past culture, but when it came
to the mechanics of modern development, they felt they were the ones with
lessons to offer. Chinese visitors agreed, took careful notes, and published
and distributed trip reports. Total y pragmatic in their outlook, eager to work
within and not against the bureaucracy, their reports on what they learned
in Japan provided an added spark to get new schools started in China and
new agencies upgraded in the interest of more efficient government.
In the same way, mirroring Japan’s own experience in learning best prac-
tices from the rest of the world, China’s policy of hiring Japa nese advisers
to work in China seemed a potential win- win situation, with Japan in-
creasing its influence and China its institutional know- how. China’s Japa-
nese hires, many of them Western- trained, made significant contributions
in a range of key sectors, from law to education to railways. Prominent Japa-
nese legal scholars spent years in China coaching their Chin
ese counter-
parts in constitutional law and helping to write modern civil and criminal
codes. Experienced administrators worked with China’s reform- minded bu-
reaucrats on public security, putting in place a police acad emy and a cen-
. 172 .
Japa nese Lessons for a Modernizing China, 1895–1937
tralized structure of police agencies. Japa nese military officers trained staff
in Zhang Zhidong’s and Yuan Shikai’s provincial administrations, coordi-
nating these efforts with instruction provided to Chinese students enrolled
in military schools in Japan. Top executives with Japan’s Imperial Railway
advised their Chinese employers on modern railway development. And, as
the capstone of advisory ser vices, Japa nese educators introduced ele ments
of a Japanese- style national school system, from teacher- training institutions
at the top to kindergarten education below. Most Japa nese hires went to
China with high hopes, believing that their unique knowledge of China
made them a better fit than other foreign contractors to work with their
Chinese counter parts. Most came away disappointed that they could not
achieve more. Bureaucratic obstacles and unpredictable politics on the China
side, plus Japan’s opportunistic policies and World War I, intervened to limit
the extent of official bilateral cooperation.
The late- Qing pivot to Japan had its greatest long- term impact in deter-
mining the career paths of thousands of Chinese youths who represented
the next generation of Chinese leaders. Some of the most impor tant figures
in twentieth- century China got their start in Japa nese schools. Lu Xun and
Guo Moruo, literary giants of international reputation, attended secondary
school in Japan, Lu Xun before 1911 and Guo Moruo just after. Both were
headed toward careers in medicine but detoured to lit er a ture and the mission
of diagnosing China’s national condition through the written word, in all
genres and in a new vernacular style. For Lu Xun’s brother, noted essayist
Zhou Zuoren, study in Japan cemented a lifelong devotion to foreign lit-
er a ture, translation, and the Japa nese aesthetic. As public intellectuals, all
three had to navigate the sometimes- perilous shoals of Chinese politics.
This was equally true of the many Chinese gradu ates of Japa nese univer-
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