Staging Modern Statehood: World Exhibitions and the Rhetoric of Publishing in Late Qing China, 1851-1910

View metadata, citation and similar papers at core.ac.uk brought to you by CORE provided by Illinois Digital Environment for Access to Learning and Scholarship Repository STAGING MODERN STATEHOOD: WORLD EXHIBITIONS AND THE RHETORIC OF PUBLISHING IN LATE QING CHINA, 1851-1910 BY HYUNGJU HUR DISSERTATION Submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy in East Asian Languages and Cultures in the Graduate College of the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, 2012 Urbana, Illinois Doctoral Committee: Associate Professor Dan Shao, Chair Professor Kai-Wing Chow, Director of Research Professor Ronald P. Toby Professor Teemu Ruskola, Emory University Abstract This dissertation examines how the objective of the Qing government to stage its modern statehood through participating in the world exhibitions and hosting the Nanyang Industrial Exposition of 1910, the first national / international exhibition of China, was challenged and transformed by various agents with different views and rhetorics regarding the representation of China at the exhibitions. The Imperial Maritime Customs, a product of European imperialist encroachment on China, echoed the imperialist discourse on an “uncivilized” China. Simultaneously, Japan strove to demonstrate its status as the only “modern” or “civilized” state in Asia at the world exhibitions and continuously attempted to overwhelm China with its more grandiose exhibits, including those from its colony, Taiwan. In the wake of the Hundred Days’ Reforms of 1898, Chinese intellectuals were becoming increasingly antagonistic toward the Qing government, whose incompetence and corruption were considered major reasons for the humiliating representations of China at world exhibitions, particularly those at the Osaka Exhibition of 1903 and the St. Louis Exposition of 1904. Furthermore, by taking advantage of a transnational network of publication operating beyond the control of the Qing government, the Chinese reformers and revolutionaries circulated rhetorical attacks on the Qing government, undermining its political legitimacy. They condemned the Qing government as the cause of “national humiliation.” Their coverage of the Chinese exhibit was often exaggerated, even fabricated. However, by the time the Nanyang Industrial Exposition was held in 1910, the Qing government had agreed to establish a cabinet and a parliament in order to transform China into a modern, constitutional state. As a result, the Chinese intellectuals adopted a supportive stance toward the exposition, thereby embodying the political reconciliation between the ii Qing government and the Chinese intellectuals under the rhetoric of constitutionalism. This dissertation shows that the representations of China at the world exhibitions during the late Qing period bespeak, on the one hand, the obstacles China encountered in building a modern state worthy of participation in world exhibitions, and on the other, how their modernizing efforts contributed paradoxically to the undermining of its own legitimacy through transnational communication and the movement of populations in East Asia. iii Acknowledgement I would like to give special thanks to all my dissertation committee members. I’m very grateful to Professor Kai-wing Chow for his academic inspiration and endless support as my advisor. I would like to thank Prof. Dan Shao, who always gives me thoughtful guidance and heartfelt encouragement. I was truly lucky to study with Professor Ronald Toby, the eminent scholar all his students, including myself, want to model themselves after. I also owe Professor Toby the opportunity to do research at Kansai University, without which I could not have completed this project. I cannot thank Professor Teemu Ruskola of Emory Univeristy enough for his generosity to be on my committee and for giving me insightful advice. I appreciate Professor Brian Ruppert for all his support as the head of the department, without which I could not have finished this longtime project. It is ineffably regrettable that I did not finish this dissertation early enough to present it to the deceased Professor David Goodman, who taught me what a true mentor would be like. This dissertation is the fruit of many years’ research at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, Beijing University, the Academia Sinica, and Kansai University, and I am indebted to many people at these institutions. I appreciate the librarians and staffers, particularly Ms. Mary Fryer, who helped smooth the process of completing my dissertation. I would like to thank Professor Tao Demin for generously letting me do research at Kansai University and inviting me to a symposium held in Shanghai, which was my first chance to present a paper at an international conference. I appreciate Mr. Ninomiya Ichirō, who allowed me to refer to his personal photocopies of the diplomatic documents of the Meiji government regarding the Osaka Exhibition. I’m very grateful to Tomoko, my old friend, for iv everything she did to refresh me in Osaka and Kyoto. My family in Korea, parents-in-law in Florida, and best friend, Hyeryon, have always bolstered me with their unconditional support. I would like to specially thank Chris, my husband, who has enriched my life with affection, trust, food, and shoes. Lastly, I dedicate this dissertation to Lee Eulsoon, my grandmother, who, if alive, would have been proud of her granddaughter more than anyone else for this achievement. Remembering the moment when I, a ten-year old girl, was teaching my grandmother in her sixties the Korean alphabet, I will never take what is given to me for granted. v Table of Contents Introduction ..........................................................................................................................1 Chapter One: China and the World Exhibitions before 1903 ................................................................... 11 Chapter Two: China, the “Barbarian” Guest of Honor at the Osaka Exhibition of 1903 .........................47 Chapter Three: Recurrence of Trauma at the St. Louis Exposition of 1904 ...............................................86 Chapter Four: The Nanyang Industrial Exposition of 1910, the Last Show of the Qing Dynasty .........124 Conclusion .......................................................................................................................163 Bibliography ....................................................................................................................173 vi Introduction The Shanghai World Exposition of 2010, which enjoyed record numbers of participating countries (246) and visitors (73 million), was celebrated as another glorious event demonstrating the national prestige of China to the world after the 2008 Beijing Olympics. As it coincided with the centennial anniversary of the Nanyang Industrial Exposition of 1910, the first national exhibition of China, the Shanghai World Exhibition assumed greater historical gravity. At the time of the Shanghai Exposition, the mass media and the scholarly world of China constantly referred to Liang Qichao’s political novel, Xinzhongguo weilaiji 新中國未來記 or the Future of New China (1902), which presented a Great Exhibition taking place in Shanghai in year 2062 in order to celebrate a new, or more exactly, world-dominant China, as if it were a prophecy of the Shanghai Exposition of 2010. Thus, associating Liang’s The Future of New China with any projects related to China and the world exhibitions probably would sound like a cliché, at least to Chinese readers. This dissertation was also partially inspired by Liang’s novel, but it was more substantially motivated by the stark discrepancy between the Liang’s hopeful picture of China as a future host-nation of the world exhibition and what China actually had experienced at the early world exhibitions during the late Qing period. Particularly, Japan’s Osaka Exhibition of 1903 almost degraded China to the status of a “primitive” nation and even as a potential colonial subject, igniting critical reactions which were published in Chinese newspapers and journals, and which in turn influenced the reading publics of the Chinese community in Japan as well as mainland China. Thus, my project 1 came to engage two primary agents, Chinese publishing and Japan, in examining the Chinese experiences at the international exhibitions, particularly the Osaka Exhibition of 1903 and the St. Louis Exposition of 1904, and the Nanyang Industrial Exposition. The existing, related scholarly works have tended to highlight China’s participation in the world exhibitions at the turn of the 20th century in the light of its attempt to be a part of the modern world and the practical benefits of developing new knowledge and technology for the industrial development of China.1 The Nanyang Industrial Exposition, the first and last exposition of the Qing dynasty, has also been approached in a similar vein, particularly from economic perspectives, for instance, its contribution to the development of early capitalism of China, or its manifestation of the burgeoning bourgeois class.2 At this point, according to these scholarly works, it is a truism that China intended to stage its modern statehood by participating in the world exhibitions and holding its own exposition during the late Qing period. It is undeniable that participation in the world exhibitions brought China new knowledge and technology, which would lead to industrial development, an index of a modern country. However, these

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