FENG Guifen Féng Guìfēn 冯桂芬 1809–1874 Chinese Intellectual and Official

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FENG Guifen Féng Guìfēn 冯桂芬 1809–1874 Chinese intellectual and official

Feng Guifen was a scholar-official of Qing China Under Li’s lead the Qing government launched the responsible for launching the Self-Strengthening Self-Strengthening Movement in 1861, which ended in Movement. Arguing for a comprehensive re- 1895. Li recruited Feng for assistance and advice. Some of form of the country along Western lines, he en- Feng’s measures were adopted, and some were left aside. Following Feng’s advice to acquire Western knowledge, visioned the selective adoption of Western ideas a number of Tongwenguan, academies focusing on West- as a way to supplement traditional Chinese civi- ern publications, were established, and Feng was charged lization. Despite the failure of the movement, to run the Shanghai branch, which opened in 1863. To Feng’s vision was important to succeeding re- strengthen the nation’s wealth and power, Li adopted form movements. Feng’s proposals to develop the Chinese economy and to manufacture modern weaponry along Western lines. Learning from Britain and Prussia, factories and arsenals were constructed during the 1860s and 1870s. Yet Feng’s orn to a merchant family in October 1809 in Su- proposal to revise the civil service examination—namely, zhou, Jiangsu Province, Feng Guifen 冯桂芬 replacement of the Eight-Legged Essays with a more prac- was determined to become a civil servant of the tical content—was left unrealized, primarily because of imperial Qing government. During his study Feng en- opposition from the conservatives for fear of losing their countered Commissioner Lin Zexu, who resented foreign influence in the government. penetration into China. After several attempts, Feng suc- Feng was not the first scholar-official to call for reform, cessfully earned the Jinshi degree (a rank in the imperial yet his contributions had far-reaching consequences. civil service) and joined the Hanlin Academy in 1840. In Unlike senior officials such as Lin and Li and earlier re- 1850 Feng went to Yangzhou to revise and enforce the salt formers such as Wei Yuan, Feng believed that mere bor- law. Meanwhile, Feng wrote a number of works urging tax rowing and adaptation of Western techniques, primarily relief for the masses. weaponry and military technologies, was not sufficient In 1853 Feng was transferred back to his native prov- to strengthen China. Feng argued for a comprehensive ince to assist the anti-Taiping resistance, where he met reform in many areas, including the economy, education, Li Hongzhang. Feng remained in Jiangsu, during which politics, and customs. To accomplish this, Feng believed, time he wrote numerous manuscripts, later complied as China should learn Western ideas and systems. At the Jiaobinlu Kangyi (Protest from the Jiaobin Studio), argu- same time, Feng was aware that this proposal of learning for self-strengthening to defend against domestic and ing from the West would inevitably arouse suspicion from foreign enemies. Feng’s works attracted the attention of the Confucian-trained officials and intellectuals, for it Li in Beijing. embodied the issue as to which civilization—Chinese or 806 B © 2009 by Berkshire Publishing Group LLC FENG Guifen n Féng Guìfēn n 冯桂芬 807

Western—was superior. To resolve this Feng reiterated of the Eight- Legged Essay in the civil service examination the superiority of China’s cultural heritage to the West. was endorsed in the next reform movement of 1898. This remained the essence of his proposed reform. He then LAW Yuk-fun clarified that reform did not mean complete Westerniza- tion; only those practices deemed beneficial to China Further Reading would be selectively adopted. Feng argued that Western ideas and techniques were merely supplemental, to be used Cohen, P. A., & Schrecjer, J. E. (Eds.). (1976). Reform in for utilitarian purpose with no intention to displace the nineteenth-century China. Cambridge, MA: East Asian Research Center, Harvard University. glorious Chinese civilization, thereby diluting the contro- Feng Guifen. (1998). Jianbinlu kangyi [Protest from the versial issue of Sino-Western cultural conflicts. Jiaobin Studio]. Zhengchou, China: Zhongzhou Guji Feng died of illness on 13 April 1874. Although Feng Chubanshe. did not live long enough to ensure that all his reform Spence, J. D. (1999). The search for modern China. New measures would be implemented, his contributions were York: Norton. widely recognized and had far-reaching consequences. To Xiong Yuezhi. (2004). Feng Guifen pingzhuan [Biography honor his contribution, Li requested the construction of a of Feng Guigen]. Nanjing, China: Nanjing Daxue memorial hall for Feng. Feng’s proposal for the abolition Chubanshe.

Feng Shui ▶