Collection of Essays on National Affairs and Chinese Economic Thought：1639-1900

Jie Liang

Shanghai University of Finance and Economics

Abstract

Before modern western economics was introduced into China, Chinese scholars’ research on economic issues were always classified under the topic named as Jing Shi (National Affairs), not Li Cai(Finance

Management) or Jing Ji(Economics, adopted from Japanese) . The idea of economics in Chinese is narrowing down gradually. So, from Jingshi to Jingji, their underlying research scope has been changed.

Jing Shi was a category much broader than economics, which discussed political as well as economic issues in the national level. Furthermore, Jing Shi also has some inner connection with Confucius tradition. Research in this category was compiled under the same name (Collection of Essays on

National Affairs, 经世文编(Jing Shi Wen Bian)). It was the Chinese format of economics before twentieth century.

In this paper, we comparatively investigate three collections, which were compiled in different periods, from seventeenth to twentieth century, with the same name but discussed different topics. Based on the comparison, the development of economics in China is revealed.

I Beginning of Collection of Essays on National Affairs

In South Song Dynasty (1127-1279) in China, the printing technology had been developed and become popular. The advance of printing technology also encouraged Chinese scholars compiling and printing their own works, including literature poems and reviews on politics and economy. Since then, the publication of personal works became the most important part of Chinese printings besides the research books of the Confucius school. Those personal works were compiled based on authors’ personal taste but not research questions. The aim of printing those books was to leave a lasting personal influence across the generations later, and to assure the authors to be remembered.

From the very beginning, most of the Chinese scholars were Confucius school scholars who valued ethics most, so politics and economic issues were not their key research concerns. It was till

Ming Dynasty (1368-1644), some scholars became aware of the importance of the personal works which discussed specific political and economy topics. They attempted to compile these discussions, and such selections of political and economy articles were printed under the name of Collection of

Essays on National Affairs (Jing Shi Wen Bian, 经世文编), which were rudiments of Chinese economics research.

In late Ming Dynasty, a young Confucius scholar, Chen Zilong（陈子龙）compiled an excellent collection of politics and economics discussions, named as Collection of Essays on National Affairs during Ming (Huang Ming Ji Shi Wen Bian, 皇明经世文编) published in 1638. In 1644, six years after this collection had been published; Ming Dynasty was conquered by Qing Dynasty. Chen Zilong sacrificed his life in the anti-Qing war. As a hero, his collection became even more famous. It had five hundred and eight chapters, and covered topics in Yellow River regulation, salt administration, military affairs, city and borderland defense. These topics were defined as economics by scholars during Ming

Dynasty.

Among all topics, the ones concerning Yellow River regulation constituted the largest class. This was because in Ming Dynasty disastrous floods of Yellow River, as well as Huai River, resulted in formidable challenges to the government. Besides, key research questions were about public finance and land ownership. Topics in modern economics such as monetary policy or population policy were not discussed in the essays.

Chen Zilong’s collection followed the tradition of Chinese essays collection which classified essays by authors rather than by topics. So, it was mainly classified as works in history of thought.

However, it was a collection of economics essays, rather than a collection of economics thoughts essays. Chen Zilong’s concerns in economic issues were ignored.

Since Chen Zilong was a famous hero in anti-Qing war, his collection was prohibited by Qing government in early Qing Dynasty, and scholars avoided compiled similar format of collections. Two hundred years later, in late Qing Dynasty, this collection was re-compiled, revising its classification from by authors to by topics which highlighted its nature as collection of economics essays. However, since similar collections by successive authors were published then, this revised version was of little impact. Among the successive collections, the most influential one was compiled by Wei Yuan and He

Changling, named as Collection of Essays on National Affairs during Qing Dynasty (Huang Chao Jing

Shi Wen Bian, 皇朝经世文编) and published in 1827. It was published just before the Opium War in

1840, which started China’s modernization process.

II Wei Yuan and Collection of Essays on National Affairs during Qing Different from traditional Chinese scholar, Wei Yuan was not good at the imperial civil service examination. His time and effort had been devoted to learning modern knowledge originating from

Europe. His most famous work was a book which first introduced history and geography of western countries to Chinese, named as Records and Maps of the World (Hai Guo Tu Zhi, 海国图志) and published in 1843. It was the first text book for not only Chinese but also for Japanese to learn global history and geography. It was introduced to Japan in 1851, and had great influence on Japanese politician in Meiji Restoration.

Wei Yuan’s main ideas in Records and Maps of the World, such as “ Chinese economic and political policy should give great attention to southeast China rather than northwest China”, originated from his Collection of Essays on National Affairs during Qing. Wei Yuan’s collection had different format from Chen Zilong’s collection. Its first six volumes were about moral philosophy, following by eight volumes about political philosophy. Essays on political and economic practice came after the philosophy discussions, and constituted one hundred and six volumes. Their classification followed Chinese traditional administrative system, which contains six ministries (ministry of civil official, ministry of public finance, ministry of rites, ministry of military, ministry of law and ministry of public construction). Philosophy comes first is the tradition of Chinese academic principle. Before twentieth century, research in practical issues had to articulate its philosophy supporting. Classification based on six ministries also originated from The Rites of Zhou Dynasty (Zhou Li, BC 10TH century), which proved this collection’s legitimation in Chinese research. This shows that, till nineteenth century, discussions of political and economic issues had to find supporting from traditional and classic works, rather than positive science.

However, in Wei Yuan’s collection, philosophy section covered not only classic Confucian topics, but also western thoughts introduced by missionaries. He believed that Chinese should learn from

European philosophy, as well as its science and technology. The essays on political and economic practice were classified by traditional six ministries, but they discussed topics far beyond tradition, which were about the situation in the period they were written.

Wei Yuan pointed out that political issues and economic issues should be investigated together.

There were two cases for Wei Yuan’s thoughts. The first one was about Yellow River regulation, a huge challenge for the government since fourteenth century. It was the key part of Chen Zilong’s collection, and again a significant topic in Wei Yuan’s collection. On one hand, disastrous floods occurred frequently; on the other hand, grain transportation to the Empire’s capital was based on the Grand

Canal in the Yellow River area. In early nineteenth century, the prohibition of domestic maritime transportation was removed. So, scholars and officials argued about changing grain transportation route from canal transport to maritime transport. Essays on this controversy were compiled in Wei Yuan’s collection. Wei Yuan was a supporter for maritime transport, because he had the foresight to the importance of maritime transport for the national economy.

The second case was that Wei Yuan emphasized that Chinese economic and political policy should give great attention to southeast China rather than northwest China. Since Wei Yuan had realized the importance of maritime transport, he was aware of the significance of trades through maritime transport, especially the ones between China and European countries. So, Chinese government should pay attention to the management of southeast China. In the past hundreds of years, the main threat to

Chinese government was its neighbors in northwest China, and so, the management of northwest frontiers was an important research question for Chinese scholars and officials. But now, Wei Yuan pointed out, Chinese view on global geography had to be reshaped. This idea prompted his writing on

Records and Maps of the World.

Since Wei Yuan’s collection did not focus on Confucian research, it was criticized by conservative researchers, such as Li Cimin. They argued that this collection contained little valuable essays.

III the Wave of Compiling Collection of Essays on National Affairs

From late nineteenth century to early twentieth century, especially around the Hundred Days

Reform in 1898, at least twenty versions of Collection of Essays on National Affairs had been compiled.

Even after Adam Smith’s the Wealth of Nations had been translated into Chinese, and ideas of western economics had been introduced to China, several scholars were continuing compiling Collection of

Essays on National Affairs, discussing economic issues in this Chinese format. This Chinese format of economics worked as obstacle to introducing western economics for decades of years.

In late nineteenth century, the dominance of Confucianism had been weakened. The Collections of Essays on National Affairs had the room to not follow the traditional compilation style, and to compile essays on boarder topics. Most importantly, the moral philosophy part had been removed, which signified that Confucianism was not the principle for compiling the collection.

In 1870s, Chinese government initiated the Westernization Movement, in which officials attempted to modernize Chinese army and industry. It meant that Qing Dynasty eventually faced the interaction between China and western countries. Ge Shijun compiled the Sequel of Collection of

Essays on National Affairs during Qing. The feature of Collection of Essays on National Affairs was its focus changed with times. So, Ge Shijun’s collection added a section whose title was Westernization and discussed international relations, international trades and reforms in oversea countries. Similar topics were compiled in the Collections in this period, because compilers were concerning how to handle the relationship between China and western modelized countries.

Liang Qichao, the most important thinker in Modern China, also had attempted to compile a New

Collection of Essays on National Affairs. However, he adopted this Chinese format of economics, but translated a book on history of western economic thoughts. This was the first book in Chinese which formally introduced the complete system of western economics. It inspired scholars in his period and later exploring modern economics, and it was the beginning of modern Chinese economics.

IV Collections of Essays on National Affairs and Economic Thought: in the late imperial China

This paper investigated the Collection of Essays on National Affairs in three periods. The first one was around 1639 which was the transition period between Ming Dynasty and Qing Dynasty. The second one was around 1827, when China started concerning maritime transport and trades. The third one was around 1888, when China initiated its modernization process and faced challenges from western countries. Since the academic situation and political concerns were quite different in the three periods, the three Collections significantly differed from each other.

The key difference was the principle of selecting essays. The 1639 Collection, compiled by Chen

Zilong, was under the principle of Confucianism. Although Confucianism was not discussed specifically, it was self-evident for compiler as well as readers that economics and politics was sub-sections of Confucianism. However, in the 1827 Collection, Wei Yuan set the first section as moral philosophy to assure the legitimation of this collection, but included thoughts beyond Confucianism, which ironically signified his doubts on Confucianism. The 1888 Collection, the philosophy and Confucianism section were totally removed. All the essays were about political and economic practice.

The content of the three Collections also changed. In 1639 Collection, the western countries were out of the vision of Chinese scholars. In 1827 Collection, the compiler pointed out that Chinese government and scholars should pay attention to the interactions between China and western countries.

In 1888 Collection, how to handle the international relations constituted an important section.

Although the content of the Collections changed with times, it had one continuous concern. This was the Yellow River regulation. It remained a big challenge for Chinese government and scholars till middle twentieth century.

V Conclusion

In this paper, we discussed three Chinese books compiled in different period but all named as collection of essays on national affairs. The first one was compiled in 1639, the second one was compiled in 1827 and the third one was compiled in 1888.

During the process, we can clearly figure out the changes both in the category and in the content.

The principle of essays selection indicates the framework of understanding economy in those time. We can find that although the fashion is always under critics, the Confucius moral philosophy plays less and less role in the economics thinking after 1639. Finally, Chinese scholars accept western economic analysis terms after 1900.

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