UC San Diego UC San Diego Electronic Theses and Dissertations Title The making of modern Chinese politics : political culture, protest repertoires, and nationalism in the Sichuan Railway Protection Movement Permalink https://escholarship.org/uc/item/8xm2w2h4 Author Zheng, Xiaowei Publication Date 2009 Peer reviewed|Thesis/dissertation eScholarship.org Powered by the California Digital Library University of California UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA, SAN DIEGO The Making of Modern Chinese Politics Political Culture, Protest Repertoires, and Nationalism in the Sichuan Railway Protection Movement A dissertation submitted in partial satisfaction of the requirements for the degree Doctor of Philosophy in History By Xiaowei Zheng Committee in charge: Professor Joseph W. Esherick, Co-Chair Professor Paul G. Pickowicz, Co-Chair Professor Takashi Fujitani Professor Richard Madsen Professor Cynthia Truant 2009 Copyright Xiaowei Zheng, 2009 All rights reserved. The Dissertation of Xiaowei Zheng is approved, and it is acceptable in quality and form for publication on microfilm and electronically. ________________________________________________________________________ ________________________________________________________________________ ________________________________________________________________________ ________________________________________________________________________ Co-Chair ________________________________________________________________________ Co-Chair University of California, San Diego 2009 iii TABLE OF CONTENTS Signature Page...............................................................................................................iii Table of Contents .......................................................................................................... iv List of Abbreviations...................................................................................................... v Acknowledgments......................................................................................................... vi Vita................................................................................................................................ ix Abstract .......................................................................................................................... x Introduction .................................................................................................................... 1 Chapter One. Sichuan and the Old Regime.................................................................. 34 Chapter Two. The Idea. “Sovereignty lies with the People” ..................................... 122 Chapter Three. The Project. The Chuan-Han Railway Company and the New Policies Reform........................................................................................................................ 156 Chapter Four. Sichuan Constitutional Leaders Consolidated in the Constitutional Reform .................................................................................................................................... 210 Chapter Five. The Struggle. The Movement in Chengdu: Sovereignty of the Nation (Guoquan ) and Rights of the People ( Minquan )........................................................ 267 Chapter Six. The Mobilization, the Expansion, and the Violence of the Railway Movement................................................................................................................... 318 The Ending ................................................................................................................. 403 Conclusion: The Making of Modern Chinese Politics............................................... 410 Appendices................................................................................................................. 418 Bibliography............................................................................................................... 431 iv ABBREVIATIONS Baogao Sichuan Baolu tongzhihui baogao [Newsletter of the Sichuan Railway Protection Association]. Originally published from June-September, 1911. Dang ’an xuanbian Sichuan sheng dang’an guan [Sichuan provincial archive], ed., Sichuan baolu yundong dang ’an xuanbian [Selected archival documents of the Sichuan Railway Protection Movement] (Chengdu: Sichuan dang’an chubanshe, 1981). Dai Zhili 1994 Dai Zhili, ed., Sichuan baolu yundong shiliao huizuan [Collection of historical materials on the Sichuan Railway Protection Movement], 3 vols. (Taibei: Taibei: Zhongyang yanjiu yuan jindaishi yanjiusuo, 1994). Dai Zhili 1959 Dai Zhili, ed., Sichuan baolu yundong shiliao [Historical Materials on the Sichuan Railway Protection Movement] (Beijing: Kexue chubanshe, 1959). Jiao ’an Sichuan sheng dang’an guan [Sichuan provincial archive], ed., Sichuan jiao ’an yu yihequan dang ’an [Archival Records on Religious Cases and the Boxers in Sichuan] (Chengdu: Sichuan renmin chubanshe 1985). Sichuan jindaishi Wei Yingtao et al., Sichuan jindaishi [Modern History of Sichuan] (Chengdu: Sichuan shehui kexueyuan chubanshe, 1985). Wei Yingtao and Zhao Qing Wei Yingtao and Zhao Qing eds., Sichuan Xinhai geming shiliao [Collected Historical Materials on the 1911 Revolution in Sichuan] (Chengdu: Sichuan renmin chubanshe, 1982). v ACKNOWLEDGMENTS I want to give my most sincere thanks to all who have contributed to this dissertation and have helped me during my long years as a graduate student. My gratitude first goes to Joseph Esherick and Paul Pickowicz at the University of California, San Diego. I am forever grateful for their unfailing encouragement and support. Esherick and Pickowicz have trained me to be a historian: to ask important questions, to analyze sources critically, and to tell good stories. More importantly, they inspire me to be a better, stronger, and more mature human being. I am also grateful for guidance and support from dissertation committee members Takashi Fujitani, Richard Madsen, and Cynthia Truant, all of whom encouraged me to trust my historical intuitions and to consider the broader implications of the project. I have benefited greatly from my fellow graduate students at UCSD. Jeremy Brown and Matthew Johnson have been wonderful friends and colleagues. I was also fortunate to have learned from senior students including Liu Lu, Charles Musgrove, Cecily McCaffrey, Sigrid Schmalzer, Elena Songster, and Christian Hess. My growth owes much to classmates Ellen Huang, Dahpon Ho, Elya Zhang, Miriam Gross, Brent Haas, Jeremy Murray, Judd Kinzley, David Cheng Chang, Jenwa Hsung, Jenny Huangfu, and Emily Baum. My editor Bruce Tindall offered me consistent excellent editorial help and constructive critiques over the past one year. To him, I am truly thankful. In Chengdu, my great respect and gratitude go to two senior scholars who have devoted much of their life to writing the history of Sichuan Railway Protection Movement. Dai Zhili, who has spent forty years collecting documentary evidence, took me under his wing and generously shared his original documents with me. I sincerely vi hope that this dissertation will satisfy him and offer him some delights. The other veteran scholar on the Sichuan Railway Protection Movement is Wei Yingtao, who had produced a number of first-rate works on this subject. I thank him for his generous encouragement. I cannot name the many people who helped me to navigate difficulties in the many libraries and archives in Sichuan and in Beijing. Li Deying provided me an excellent home base at Sichuan University. I also appreciated the advice of Yang Xingmei, Zhou Ding, and Gou Deyi. Their unsurpassed knowledge of the history of Sichuan was indispensable to my research. I want to thank all the archivists and librarians at the Sichuan Provincial Archive, Sichuan Provincial Library, Xinjin County Archive, the National Library in Beijing, and the Number One Archive in Beijing, in particular, Chen Xiang, Zhang Xin, and Wang Suxiang. I am forever indebted to my mentors prior to UCSD. Deng Xiaonan, Rong Xinjiang, and Niu Dayong at Peking University inspired me to pursue an academic career. I thank Jonathan Spence, Beatrice Bartlett, and Valerie Hanson at Yale University for teaching me how to write and ask critical questions and familiarizing me with the U.S. academic environment. I also thank the institutions and individuals who provided financial support for this project. Research was supported by a Social Science Research Council International Dissertation Field Research Fellowship and a Pacific Rim Fellowship. Writing was supported by a Doctoral Dissertation Fellowship from the UCSD history department, as well as a UCSD Center for the Humanities Award. Thanks also to John Moore Jr., whose support to the UCSD Chinese history program provided funds during my final year in San Diego. vii At last, this dissertation is dedicated to my mother. She has given me multiple lives. Without her support, it would have been impossible to pursue this project. viii VITA 2000 Bachelor of Arts and Bachelor of Sciences, Peking University 2002 Master of Arts, Yale University 2009 Doctor of Philosophy, University of California, San Diego FIELDS OF STUDY Major Field: Modern Chinese History Studies in Premodern Chinese History Professors Suzanne Cahill, Marta Hanson, and Weijing Lu Studies in Modern Japanese History Professors Takashi Fujitani and Stefan Tanaka Studies in Social Theory Professors Richard Madsen, Hugh Mehan, and John Marino ix ABSTRACT OF THE DISSERTATION The Making of Modern Chinese Politics Political Culture,