International Law as World Order in Late Imperial China SINL-78-svarverud_CS2.indd i 2-5-2007 14:51:16 Sinica Leidensia Edited by Barend J. ter Haar In co-operation with P.K. Bol, W.L. Idema, D.R. Knechtges, E.S.Rawski, E. Zürcher, H.T. Zurndorfer VOLUME 78 SINL-78-svarverud_CS2.indd ii 2-5-2007 14:51:17 International Law as World Order in Late Imperial China Translation, Reception and Discourse, 1847-1911 By Rune Svarverud LEIDEN • BOSTON 2007 SINL-78-svarverud_CS2.indd iii 2-5-2007 14:51:17 On the cover: World order in China. The title of this map is “Partitioning China like a melon” and is reproduced in E’shi jingwen from a British newspaper. A Russian bear, an English dog, a French frog, a German snake, a Japanese sun, and an American crow represent the partakers in the partitioning of China. This partitioning of China is the result of the 1895 American-Japanese treaty, according to the editors of the E’shi ingwen. (E’shi jingwen ঎ࠃᤞፊ 15 December 1903) This book is printed on acid-free paper. ISSN: 0169-9563 ISBN: 978 90 04 16019 4 Copyright 2007 by Koninklijke Brill NV, Leiden, The Netherlands. Koninklijke Brill NV incorporates the imprints Brill, Hotei Publishing, IDC Publishers, Martinus Nijhoff Publishers and VSP. All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, translated, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without prior written permission from the publisher. Authorization to photocopy items for internal or personal use is granted by Koninklijke Brill NV provided that the appropriate fees are paid directly to The Copyright Clearance Center, 222 Rosewood Drive, Suite 910, Danvers, MA 01923, USA. Fees are subject to change. printed in the netherlands SINL-78-svarverud_CS2.indd iv 2-5-2007 14:51:17 In memory of my mother, Åse Svarverud, and my father, Leif Svarverud CONTENTS Acknowledgements .............................................................................. ix CHAPTER ONE – CHINESE WORLD ORDER: PERSPECTIVES AND FRAMEWORKS......................................................................................... 1 Linguistic challenges in Sino-Western transfer of ideas................ 5 The tribute system and the traditional Chinese world order.......... 8 Chinese trade as diplomacy ........................................................... 12 International law as world order.................................................... 16 CHAPTER TWO – INTERNATIONAL LAW AS DISCIPLINE WEST AND EAST................................................................................... 21 International theory ........................................................................ 22 The early international systems ..................................................... 28 Jus gentium of the Middle Ages .................................................... 29 The international system of the Spanish Age and the first theories of international relations ............................. 32 The 1648 Peace of Westphalia and the beginning of a new international order ............................ 35 The international order 1648 to 1815, and the first Chinese encounters with the international order of the West..................... 37 Consolidation of the 19th century order of international practice 45 The end of the period of classical international law..................... 49 The Western discourse on international law in the East .............. 52 CHAPTER THREE – THE EARLY INTRODUCTION OF INTERNATIONAL LAW: TRANSLATIONS AND LANGUAGE............................................... 69 The language of Qing China and early language contacts........... 70 The first attempts at a Chinese translation of international law .. 75 Martin, Tongwenguan and the first systematic translations of international law......................................................................... 87 Fryer, the Jiangnan Arsenal and an alternative tradition for international law translations................................................. 112 Indigenous Chinese introductions of international law.............. 127 The potential merging of traditions into an indigenous Chinese school of translation....................................................... 130 viii CONTENTS CHAPTER FOUR – THE EARLY DISCOURSE ON INTERNATIONAL LAW IN CHINA ........................................................ 133 International law as self-strengthening ....................................... 133 Statecraft and international law ................................................... 139 Shenbao and an early discourse on international law ................ 140 The discourse on international law in ancient China ................. 150 CHAPTER FIVE – JAPAN AND CHINESE TRANSLATIONS OF INTERNATIONAL LAW ........................................................................ 163 1902–The year that changed the influx of international law translations .................................................................................... 165 Japanese international law translations in China........................ 169 Two Chinese traditions replaced by the influence from Japan.. 176 The Japanese terminological influx............................................. 177 China’s theoretical orientation in international law as a Japanese loan......................................................................... 184 CHAPTER SIX – INTERNATIONAL LAW AS WORLD ORDER IN EARLY 20TH CENTURY CHINA....................................................................... 187 The reformers on Darwin, Confucius and international law...... 190 The conservatives and a Confucian international order............. 211 International law, Darwin and Chinese tradition in Hunan ....... 215 International law and Chinese students in Japan ........................ 231 International law and revolutionaries in Japan: Xenophobia, anti- Manchuism and the protection of Han Chinese national rights. 246 International law and the Shanghai revolutionaries: Neutrality and national rights in Manchuria ............................... 251 The universalist approach to international law towards 1911 ... 256 International law from structure to procedure in the Chinese discourse ................................................................... 263 Appendix International law texts in Chinese: A chronological bibliography 1847-1911............................................................... 267 Bibliography....................................................................................... 303 Index ................................................................................................... 317 ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS My research project on the intellectual history of international law in late imperial China would not have been possible without the initial kind support from The Research Council of Norway (Norges Forskningsråd). As a post.doc fellow attracted to this topic I was generously included in the research project “Modern Chinese Scientific Terminologies” headed by professor Michael Lackner at the University of Göttingen. In my work with translated texts and the corresponding terminologies of early international law translations from Western languages I am deeply indebted to the resources and working tools developed by that project and the very rich and energetic working environment made available to me through Iwo Amelung and Joachim Kurtz in Göttingen and Berlin. The resources made available to me in Germany included access to good libraries and collections of relevant texts. Further research into the textual histories of these translations and the various sources for the discourse on international issues in late imperial Chinese periodicals was also facilitated through access to Chinese libraries and collections. In that work I have been assisted by the goodwill of a number of kind colleagues in China, among which I particularly would like to mention professor Bu Jian () (Chinese Academy of Arts), professor Li Guilian () (Beijing University), professor Ma Jun () (Shanghai Academy of Social Sciences), professor Shen Guowei ( ) (Kansai University), professor Wang Jian ( ) (North-West University of Politics and Law), professor Wang Yangzong ( ) (Chinese Academy of Sciences), professor Xiong Yuezhi () (Shanghai Academy of Social Sciences), professor Zhang Haipeng () (Chinese Academy of Social Sciences), professor Zhang Naigen () (Fudan University) and professor Zou Zhenhuan () (Fudan University). I also want to express my gratitude to the University of Oslo, which has supported me with an excellent working environment, and to the staff at the university library, who at all times are prepared to do their utmost in obtaining obscure editions of texts published and deposited in far away places. x ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS At the University of Oslo I have also been blessed by the generous supervision of Iver B. Neumann in finding my way through the literature on the history of international law, a field initially fairly unfamiliar to me. Last but not least, I wish to thank my anonymous reader(s) at Brill for very helpful and to-the-point suggestions and comments on the first manuscript for this book. Needless to point out, when this book still abounds in shortcomings and inadequacies, the responsibility is mine alone. Beijing, July 2006 CHAPTER ONE CHINESE WORLD ORDER: PERSPECTIVES AND FRAMEWORKS China’s foreign relations in pre-modern and early modern history have often been framed within one of two mutually exclusive and historically