0:00

This is the BBC. I

0:30

can't believe this. I

1:00

can't believe this. Find

1:30

a reading list to go with it. I hope

1:32

you enjoyed the programme. rule

2:00

in her own interests more than China's. Yet

2:02

she's also gained credit for starting

2:04

some reforms, even if you didn't see

2:06

them through. We'll discuss

2:08

the Empress Dowager Sushi, our Yang

2:11

Wenzang, Professor of Chinese History at

2:13

the University of Manchester, Ronald Pergh,

2:15

Associate Professor in the Department of

2:17

International History at London School of

2:19

Economics and Visiting Professor at Leiden

2:21

University, and Rana Mitra,

2:23

the S.D. Lee Professor of

2:25

US-Asia Relations at the Harvard Kennedy

2:28

School. Rana, what's

2:30

the state of China in 1830s when

2:32

Sushi was born? The

2:35

1830s is an absolutely pivotal time in

2:37

China's history because it marks the decade

2:39

in which essentially China moved

2:41

from being in control of its

2:43

own destiny as a country to

2:45

being a country that essentially was

2:47

at the whim of others. Prior

2:50

to the 1830s, for about

2:54

a century or so, China had

2:56

been growing and becoming increasingly prosperous and

2:58

increasingly confident. Through the 18th century,

3:00

it doubled its population size from 150 million

3:03

to about 300

3:05

million people. That was because there were

3:07

new crops, new measures that meant that

3:09

health improved amongst the population, and overall

3:12

it was considered in some way something

3:14

of a golden era. But

3:16

that changed quite rapidly by the

3:18

early to mid 19th century, and

3:21

in particular there was one product,

3:23

opium, that really shifted the dial

3:25

because the British Empire, having

3:27

conquered East India, produced

3:29

large amounts of opium from the poppies that

3:31

were grown in Bengal in Eastern India, and

3:34

China was the place that they targeted

3:36

as a market for that opium. And

3:39

when the Chinese government at the

3:41

time, the Qing Dynasty, refused to

3:43

allow the entrance of opium

3:46

into the country as a whole, that

3:48

really meant that China found itself in

3:51

a much more difficult position. The opium was

3:53

being sold anyway, smuggled you might say, into

3:55

China, and the state of the

3:58

population became much more dependent on many. cases

4:00

on opium. A lot of people

4:02

became addicted to it and that

4:04

did a great deal not only

4:06

to reverse the balance of trade

4:08

between Britain and China, it was

4:10

now in Britain's favour rather than

4:12

China's, but also the government, the

4:14

Qing Dynasty, became increasingly concerned that

4:16

the population was essentially being poisoned

4:18

by drugs and that somehow the

4:20

dynasty was beginning to become vulnerable

4:22

to the outside world. So the

4:24

1830s really marks that period when

4:26

China becomes first of all subject

4:28

to the impact of the Western

4:31

empires, British, French and others, and increasingly

4:33

uncertain whether it can actually cope with

4:35

that outside pressure. Is

4:37

there a trade imperative because we

4:40

were in debt to China, opium was one of the

4:42

few things we could sell that they wanted, but

4:45

there's also isn't an imperial imperative that people

4:47

want to conquer China as a way

4:49

to have a bit of this great empire. Trade

4:52

was the battering ram that opened

4:55

up China in that sense and it was

4:57

a lot of companies, many of them based

4:59

in London, Scotland and elsewhere, that was behind

5:01

the trade of getting

5:03

opium in, but behind them

5:05

came missionaries, came people bringing

5:07

Christianity, also wider ideas

5:10

that came from the West including

5:12

ideas of empire, free trade,

5:14

you know even kind of liberal and

5:16

conservative thought from the Western world and

5:19

that new influx of thinking that came

5:21

in the wake of the opium

5:23

ships also was a sort of

5:25

intellectual shock, an intellectual set

5:27

of horizons that were opened up that

5:30

hadn't been there previously. So trade was the

5:32

starting point but empire and a

5:34

real change in China's worldview

5:36

followed quite quickly. The

5:38

Qing dynasty had ruled China for almost two

5:40

centuries by then. Had it been stable

5:43

until then, did the Opium War destabilise

5:45

it in a profound way? The

5:47

Opium War did destabilise it in a profound

5:50

way but it had not been completely stable

5:52

up to that point. Between the late

5:54

17th century, 1644,

5:57

when the Manchu dynasty rode in, there

5:59

were no is

30:00

with our little brothers, I mean how would it happen? Rana,

30:03

one of the things that I think

30:06

is important to remember at this period

30:08

is that a lot of power had

30:10

drained away from the Qing court during

30:13

the last two or three decades of

30:15

the 19th century. So what is that?

30:17

Because of the Taiping rebellion, where essentially

30:19

it had only been put down because

30:22

the Qing court in desperation allowed local

30:24

provincial leaders, people like Zhang Guofan and

30:26

Li Hongdrang, to actually launch provincial

30:29

armies of their own. Bearing in mind that

30:31

a Chinese province can be and is the

30:33

size of European countries, so that's still substantial.

30:35

But it meant that from a centralized system

30:37

there was much more of a move to

30:39

the kind of local provincial areas in terms

30:41

of military power. And once that

30:43

had begun, the process that by the 20th

30:46

century would become known as warlordism, in other

30:48

words local military leaders kind of fighting each

30:50

other for power, had begun

30:52

to be set in train. In

30:54

particular there was one northern-based area known

30:57

as the Beyang, which would have a

30:59

succession of leaders who actually would become

31:01

a sort of power in

31:03

their own right and would push back against

31:05

what the court in Beijing actually wanted to

31:07

do. Sometimes they'd act in concert with them

31:09

and other times they would actually oppose them.

31:12

And that means that when we consider what

31:14

Tzu-shi was doing and the court was doing,

31:16

we should always remember that in some senses

31:18

it's a tribute to her that there was

31:20

as much centralized power in the court as

31:22

there was, because a great deal of the

31:24

military power and political power and even taxing

31:26

power had moved down to the Chinese provinces

31:28

during the period that she was actually behind

31:30

the throne. How did she react to that?

31:32

She is very interesting because she knew that

31:35

she needed to control these men as

31:37

well. So she cut something, you know,

31:40

she can control them, she would knight

31:42

them, you know, give them titles, make

31:44

them do things for her, but then

31:47

at the same time she would pit

31:49

them against each other as well for

31:51

competition, for projects, for money. So she's

31:54

really very skilled at managing people that

31:57

make all these Han Chinese men were

31:59

kind of loyal to her. For

32:02

managing people in her own interests. Yes. But

32:04

the interests of the empire, as she saw

32:06

it, I mean, to be fair to her,

32:08

all of her actions, everything from assassinations

32:10

to subversions, were done with the belief

32:12

that the Qing dynasty must survive and

32:15

that at a time of crisis she

32:17

was the one to actually continue to

32:19

keep it stable. Three years later in 1898,

32:21

you get a

32:23

desperate surge of more radical reform

32:25

being proposed. The hundred days of

32:28

reform that are put forward by

32:30

certain reformers, Kanyue, Langtichao, at first

32:32

with the agreement, with the acquiescence

32:35

of the Taoist empress, Tixi, but

32:37

then she turned against them very

32:39

strongly and actually shut down these

32:41

reforms. The hundred days reform

32:44

seems rather dramatic and

32:46

it was rather dramatic, it's

32:48

not that effective in hindsight,

32:50

but it does serve as a wake-up

32:52

call for some of the intellectuals in

32:55

China by saying that, well, the Qing

32:57

empire was really not into substantial reforms,

33:00

so they were actually trying to advocate

33:03

another path, for example, to overthrow

33:05

the Qing empire. Actually,

33:07

the failure of the hundred day

33:09

reforms was planting the seed of

33:11

those revolutionaries in China to overthrow

33:13

the Qing empires later in 1912.

33:16

Did she herself as a

33:18

traditionalist or reformer? For

33:22

me, maybe it's a little bit

33:24

different from Rana, for me it's

33:26

her power. For me, she's neither

33:28

a reformer nor a conservative. Her

33:31

goal is for the Qing dynasty to

33:33

live on, for herself, her own power

33:35

to go on. So, in

33:38

a way, she's very complex, she's not

33:40

just a reformer, she's supported reform, but

33:42

to a degree, to a

33:44

degree, that doesn't threaten the survival

33:46

of the dynasty, and she would

33:49

go become conservative when necessary. But

33:51

she manages it very well. Yes,

33:53

I would say so, Rana. Well,

33:55

in 1898, during the hundred days reform,

33:58

which basically takes place over the summer and

34:00

early early autumn, you see both specific and

34:02

general reforms that are being put forward, which

34:04

is associated with, which actually do seem quite

34:07

progressive. So perhaps the real keynote one is

34:09

the foundation in 1898 of the institution that

34:13

still exists today in the form of Peking

34:15

University, essentially China's first modern university. And she

34:17

was actually very supportive. What did they mean

34:20

by modern? Well teaching modern

34:22

subjects such as languages, sciences that

34:24

have been brought in through Western

34:26

channels and and so forth, rather

34:28

than the old Confucian style of teaching,

34:30

which was essentially the old classics that had, you

34:32

know, been there for 2,000 years

34:34

or so. A few years later they would actually

34:37

abolish the old traditional exam system, but the university

34:39

itself in its first form was founded in 1898.

34:41

At the same time she was also

34:45

keen to make sure that while

34:47

reforms were encouraged that they didn't

34:49

overthrow the entire system. So for

34:51

instance, constitutional monarchy would be a

34:53

good way of thinking about what

34:55

some of these figures, Kangya Wei,

34:57

who's been mentioned, and also Yang

35:00

Chi-Chao, probably one of the other major

35:02

modernist thinkers of this of this time.

35:04

If you think about figures like Benjamin

35:06

Franklin or in a slightly different way about

35:09

someone like William Morris, in other words, people

35:11

who bring together literary and artistic skills with

35:13

a certain sort of political sensibility, that's what

35:15

these men were like. And they were brought

35:17

in essentially as a sort of think tank

35:19

to try and find new and radical ways

35:21

to change society. They put forward

35:23

ideas like constitutional monarchy, like the

35:26

idea of adapting traditional Confucian thought

35:28

so that it would throw off

35:30

its old hierarchical sorts of mechanisms

35:33

and instead become more egalitarian. And for a

35:35

while she seemed actually quite keen on this

35:37

as indeed the the Emperor, the Guangxi Emperor,

35:39

but when it looked like they were moving

35:42

in a direction of reform that was perhaps

35:44

closer to revolution, something that she found uncomfortable,

35:46

that's when the screws turned and essentially she

35:49

shut down the reforms and essentially sent

35:51

out to have these reformers arrested or exiled.

36:01

communist regime today because Beijing

36:03

also undertook reform and it

36:06

enabled them to live a few

36:09

decades longer and so is

36:11

the regime today right because but

36:13

then the Qing refused political reform

36:15

that's why in the end collapsed.

36:19

For me as a historian I'd like to

36:21

see kind of the patterns. Rana.

36:24

In 1900 a couple of years later

36:27

you have the Boxer Rebellion, a peasant

36:29

uprising which Tzu-Shee decides actually to throw

36:31

in the way to the Chinese Empire

36:34

on the side of the rebels

36:36

against the Westerners leading to a

36:39

terribly destructive incursion by the Western

36:41

powers that essentially leads to again

36:43

a sort of defeat for China.

36:46

Rana, can you tell us about the Boxer Rebellion

36:48

and how she dealt with it? So yeah in

36:50

the 1900 there was lots

36:52

of like religious incidents that's the

36:55

tension between the Westerners, Western

36:57

merchants, Western missionaries in China and Han

36:59

Chinese in China we have been brewing

37:02

and there was some like burning of

37:04

the churches mean killing of some of

37:06

these Westerners in China and a wave

37:09

of anti-foreigner sentiments mean happening in China

37:11

during that period of time. At

37:13

the very beginning actually Tzu-Shee was didn't

37:16

really trust these boxes. Rana.

37:19

The Boxers was the term used

37:21

by Westerners for these peasant rebels

37:23

who essentially came from a very

37:25

devastated part of North China where

37:27

they'd been drought and poverty and

37:29

they became known as Boxers because they basically

37:32

went through the villages in the countryside wearing

37:34

sort of always magic costumes saying that

37:36

special ceremonies which involved clenching their fists

37:38

could be used to try and push

37:40

back against this poverty and desperation so

37:43

they they used essentially ideas of magic

37:45

and superstition to inspire the peasants to

37:47

hit back a bit against the two

37:49

groups that they thought were their enemies

37:51

one were Westerners and the others were

37:54

Chinese Christians. Yeah indeed. Back

37:56

to Tzu-Shee her role with the Boxers were

37:58

also quite complex. was because as

38:00

I said I mean at the very beginning she didn't

38:02

really trust these people but when

38:04

the tensions between the Qing court and

38:07

those foreign powers began to grow and then

38:09

so she really wanted to make use of

38:11

these boxes to buy her time at least

38:14

meant to inflict some kind of late

38:16

damage to the foreign communities or the

38:18

foreign powers in China so she began

38:21

very supportive of these boxes against the

38:23

foreigners and after that of course I

38:25

mean that we know that after the

38:28

Boxer Rebellion the Qing court was forced

38:30

to sign another unequal treatise. One really

38:32

important moment concerning Tzu-Shi during the Boxer

38:34

Rebellion is that moment when

38:37

she actually says that she's going to

38:39

declare war against the Westerners. Lots of

38:41

people at court actually advise her against

38:43

this. If we're looking for decisions

38:45

that Tzu-Shi makes personally that go one way or the

38:47

other you can blame her for or praise her for

38:50

that's a really important one because lots of others there

38:52

even a couple of people who are executed for telling

38:54

her that she shouldn't do this and

38:56

by declaring war against essentially the Allied

38:58

powers the British the French the Japanese

39:00

the Americans and so forth she

39:03

brought in what was in the end I think a 20,000 troop

39:06

army of foreigners to come in and

39:08

put down the rebellion which then became

39:10

not just an attack on the Boxers

39:12

but actually a fight back against China

39:15

itself and for that particular decision in

39:17

its aftermath she can I think legitimately

39:19

be blamed. She fled Beijing in the

39:21

capital when the Boxers

39:26

arrived the night before she

39:28

disguised herself as a country woman and

39:30

she fled of course taking the Emperor

39:33

you know the puppet Emperor with her

39:35

so yeah it

39:37

was a disaster she was personally

39:39

responsible for. And as Ron was saying the

39:41

aftermath of the Boxers including the indemnity that was

39:43

paid at that time and was devastating for China.

39:45

Indeed it was devastating and Tzu-Shi I mean was

39:48

also like at that time after the war and

39:50

then she blamed the Boxers by saying

39:52

that you were the one who incited me all

39:54

these like turbidans and troubles me it wasn't my

39:57

fault it was your guys me you guys are

39:59

doing things wrongly speed

44:00

and possibly failing. Well,

44:03

thank you all very much. Thanks to

44:05

Rong Po, Yang Wenzang and Rana Mitter.

44:08

And to our studio engineer Bob Nittles.

44:10

Next week we go back to the

44:12

14th century and a political theorist seen

44:14

as a founder of modern democracy and

44:16

an inspiration for the Reformation. That's Marcilius

44:19

of Padua. Thanks for listening. And

44:22

the In Our Time podcast gets some extra time

44:24

now with a few minutes of bonus material from

44:26

Melvin and his guests. So what would you like

44:29

to say you don't have a chance to say?

44:32

I'd like to just say that the

44:35

reformers who we've mentioned, particularly as the

44:37

ones who were first given 100 days

44:39

to try and propose reformers and then

44:41

essentially purged from court and either execute

44:43

or send to exile, they're

44:45

fascinating thinkers in their own right. Kang

44:47

Youwei, Yang Qichao, they're a real

44:49

sort of generation of people who thought in

44:51

ways that Chinese thinkers simply hadn't done before.

44:54

Quick example, Kang Youwei is one of the

44:56

most original thinkers, not just really in Chinese

44:58

history but anywhere. He believed in really radical

45:01

reform. He believed that marriage should be an

45:03

annual contract that was renewed by the consent

45:05

of both parties. That would sound modern even

45:07

today. At one point he tried

45:09

to launch a colony in Mexico. He got

45:12

very into hot air balloons and was sort

45:14

of flying those around for a while. That

45:16

turned out not to be a profitable enterprise.

45:18

But this was a man who not only

45:20

thought outside the box, there wasn't really a

45:22

box in which he thought. And

45:24

his big intellectual contribution, a thing for which

45:26

he's still read today by people who look

45:28

into Chinese intellectual thought, is the

45:31

modernisation of Confucian thinking. He believed

45:33

in something called the D'atun, the

45:35

great unity, which was the idea

45:37

that somehow you could bring together

45:39

traditional Chinese thinking with modernisation. So

45:41

he loved Confucius. He wrote a

45:43

great essay, still read, called Confucius

45:45

as a Reformer. But in it

45:47

he said that the hierarchy, the

45:50

lack of equality in traditional Confucianism, that wouldn't do

45:52

anymore in a modern world. And instead Confucius

45:54

had to be someone who could be seen as

45:56

someone who could push forward equality as well.

45:58

And you could see the sort of, you know,

46:01

like socialists who came before Marx in a sense

46:03

in the European context, the people

46:05

in the 20th century who pushed equality,

46:07

Mao became the most famous, Mao Zedong,

46:10

in some senses draw from that push

46:12

in the direction that Kanye away and

46:14

others put forward. So I do think

46:16

that understanding these people as really interesting

46:18

thinkers in their own right is something

46:21

that deserves attention to. Ron,

46:23

what about you? Well, okay, I would like

46:25

to talk about a century of humiliations because

46:27

well, so first of all, this is a conception coined

46:30

by the PRC government later to

46:32

sort of to blame the Qing

46:34

empire in the 19th century by

46:37

like losing all of these humiliating

46:39

battles against foreigners or foreign powers.

46:41

And so that's why the late Qing in which

46:43

means he played a big role in ruling this

46:46

empire at that time was being

46:48

blamed, criticized heavily because of losing

46:51

those wars. And also

46:53

feel like I mean, China, I mean, during

46:55

the late 19th century, didn't really have too

46:57

much progress and didn't really have too much

47:00

development because of these centuries of humiliations, this

47:02

course. But what I would like

47:04

to add is that I've been going back to

47:06

what we have just talked about earlier. Well, there

47:08

were lots of various kinds of reformations, modernizing

47:11

campaigns and so forth mean that

47:13

is worth mentioning. And so

47:15

she played a crucial role in supporting most of

47:18

these reforms. So the 19th century wasn't

47:21

simply a century of humiliations. I

47:24

would say it was also full of opportunities and

47:27

new chances mean for the empire

47:29

for the intellectuals for the officials

47:31

really to thrive. Yeah.

47:33

And you? I think I'm going

47:35

back to what I said earlier.

47:38

I'm always thinking about what we

47:40

could learn from history. So

47:42

you see the late Qing launch

47:44

reform, they built four navies, they

47:47

bought warships from Germany, from

47:49

Britain and trained everybody. So

47:51

they acquired all the hardware

47:54

needed, but they didn't save

47:56

the dynasty. So coming to

47:58

today, it seems China China

48:00

is the same, acquiring a

48:03

lot of hardware, infrastructure, high

48:05

speed trade, battleships and

48:07

navies and what have you. Would

48:09

they save the Communist regime? I

48:11

don't know. So for me, that's

48:13

a very interesting parallel that

48:16

late Qing launch reform didn't save. It

48:18

seems the more reform they did, the

48:21

more disastrous it did. And

48:23

today, the same post-Mao reform,

48:25

Deng Xiaoping, China is very powerful. Would

48:27

they save the Communist regime? I don't

48:29

know. That's something I would like to think

48:32

more about. Well, I just want to

48:34

add something about the navy because that's my comfort zone.

48:37

And actually the late Qing navy, what we haven't

48:39

really emphasised, it was one of the greatest navies

48:41

in East Asia. Like 10

48:43

years before the first sign of the Japanese

48:45

war, it was being reported by Western columnists

48:47

and reporters saying that China, the Qing, actually

48:50

are one of the greatest navies not just

48:52

in Asia, but in the world. So

48:54

it's not just the hardware, assuming that we're

48:56

really impressed. The foreigners and

48:59

also the others, but also like

49:01

training up the very capable navies, meaning learning

49:03

from the West is quite impressive to me.

49:06

But we have to understand that by maintaining

49:08

a navy is a costly end of us.

49:10

So it's not easy for the Qing Corps

49:12

to really keep pouring in money to build

49:14

up a navy. So that is the reason

49:16

why eventually they lost. But it doesn't mean

49:18

that they didn't really have a golden era

49:20

in their naval history. And

49:22

I just add that Yang Wan mentioned

49:25

high speed trains. Famously,

49:28

there was a railway, one of China's

49:30

first railways built under Tzu-shi, but she

49:32

refused to allow a steam

49:34

engine to actually pull it and insisted it should

49:36

be, I think, pulled by a bullock, I think,

49:38

in that case. Eunuchs. Sorry?

49:41

Eunuchs. Was it eunuchs? Eunuchs, gosh, by humans

49:43

in that case. Yes, even more so because

49:45

essentially there would be a sort of ritual

49:47

impurity, essentially, if she allowed a steam engine

49:50

to pull it. That hasn't been so much

49:52

of a problem with today's China's high speed

49:54

trains, I think. No, no, no. How

49:57

much do they reach back to her, the

49:59

Chinese politician? at the moment, look

50:01

back to those days, or the glorious days,

50:03

or the days that they... Oh my goodness.

50:05

This is one of the most politically sensitive

50:07

periods in contemporary China. It's very hard to

50:09

talk about. The reason being, actually, the bit

50:11

that we mentioned briefly at the end of

50:13

the programme, but actually for many people is

50:15

one of the most interesting areas which is

50:17

the very last phase of reforms under Tzixi,

50:19

the so-called new reforms of 1902

50:22

until the Empire suddenly collapsed with the revolution of

50:24

1911. The reason being that essentially

50:27

those reforms were trying to turn

50:30

China into a country that was a sort

50:32

of constitutional monarchy with locally elected assemblies that

50:34

would work from the bottom up. People would

50:36

learn about elections and democracy at the local

50:38

level and then eventually you would get national

50:41

level elections. Now you could see why today's

50:43

Communist Party might consider this as a lesson

50:45

they do not want people to learn. And

50:47

actually doing research on what seems a very

50:50

long time ago, more than a hundred years

50:52

ago, is actually still a deeply sensitive subject

50:54

in China today, precisely for that reason. Yes.

50:56

Well thank you all very much. Thank you.

50:59

Thank you. Would you like your

51:01

tea or coffee, anybody? Melvin, do you

51:03

want tea? I'd like a cup of tea. Coffee, please. A cup

51:05

of tea, if that's what's for some. Thank you. Yes,

51:07

please. I'm okay. I

51:09

have more tea. Thank you very much. Three teas.

51:11

Thank you. Great. In

51:13

our time with Melvin Bragg is produced

51:15

by Simon Tillotson and it's a BBC

51:18

Studios audio production. Okay,

51:21

he's coming in underneath your... He

51:25

was underneath us and that's when he came

51:27

and rammed into our left wing. A collision

51:29

between a Chinese jet and an

51:31

American spy play. We flipped inverted and

51:33

weren't an inverted dive with no nose,

51:36

explosive decompression and severe problems. With

51:38

relations between the West and China

51:41

increasingly strained, what are the

51:43

chances of things spinning out of control? The

51:46

Western world was asleep and

51:48

it's had a rude awakening. I'm

51:52

Gordon Carrera. In Shadow War, China and

51:54

the West from BBC Radio 4, I'll

51:57

be exploring the friction in this most important... of

52:00

relationships and asking, has the

52:02

West taken its eye off the ball? Well,

52:05

unlike many of my colleagues, I don't talk

52:07

about what's discussed around the cabinet table. I'll

52:10

be speaking to politicians, spies, dissidents and

52:13

those caught up in the growing tension.

52:16

You cannot ignore China. Listen

52:18

on BBC Sounds. I

52:30

can't believe this. It's

52:36

almost like it's become this moral obligation to find her.