University of Cambridge Faculty of Asian and Middle Eastern Studies From Empire to Nation: The Politics of Language in Manchuria (1890-1911) He Jiani Newnham College This dissertation is submitted for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy January 2018 From Empire to Nation: The Politics of Language in Manchuria (1890-1911) He Jiani Abstract This thesis explores the issues of language and power in the Qing Empire’s (1644-1911) northeastern borderlands within the larger context of political reforms in late Qing China between 1890 and 1911. To the present, much research on the history of language in late Qing China continues to fall within the framework of national language. Drawing on Manchu and Chinese sources, this thesis argues that the Qing emperors devised a multilingual regime to recreate the imperial polyglot reality and to rule a purposefully diverse but unifying empire. From the seventeenth century, the Qing emperors maintained the special Manchu-Mongol relations by adopting Manchu and Mongolian as the two official languages, restricting the influence of Chinese, and promoting Tibetan in a religious context in the Jirim League. From the 1890s, the Jirim League witnessed a language contest between Manchu, Mongol, Chinese, Japanese and Russian powers which strove to legitimize and maintain their control over the Jirim Mongols. Under the influence of European and Japanese language ideologies, the Qing Empire fostered the learning of Chinese in order to recreate the Jirim Mongols as modern nationals in an integrated China under a constitutional monarchy. Meanwhile, the Qing Empire preserved Manchu and Mongolian, which demonstrated the Manchu characteristic of the constitutional monarchy in a wave of Chinese nationalism. However, the revised language regime undermined the Jirim Mongols’ power and challenged their special position in the traditional Manchu-Mongol relations, which caused disunity and disorder in the borderlands. This thesis challenges the notion of language reform as a linear progress towards Chinese national monolingualism. It demonstrates the political and ritual role of Manchu and Mongolian beyond their communicative and documentary functions, and unfolds the power of language pluralism in Chinese nationalist discourse from a non-Chinese and peripheral 1 perspective. By investigating how ethnic, national, and imperialist powers interacted with one another, this thesis allows us to understand the integration of Manchuria into modern China, East Asia, and the world from a different perspective. 2 Contents Acknowledgements ................................................................................................................ 4 Note on Transcription, Names, and Toponyms ...................................................................... 6 Qing Reign Periods ................................................................................................................ 8 Introduction ............................................................................................................................ 9 Chapter 1 Language Segregation and Integration: The Formation of Imperial Multilingualism in the Early Qing Empire .......................................................................... 32 Chapter 2 The Jirim League: A Brief Account of Geography, History, and Languages ...... 68 Chapter 3 Teaching Chinese in the Jirim League: The Literacy Question at the Turn of the Twentieth Century ................................................................................................................ 99 Chapter 4 Literate in What Language: The Origin of the Trilingual Policy towards the Jirim League ....................................................................................................................... 132 Chapter 5 The Reimagining of China and the World in the Trilingual Textbook .............. 156 Chapter 6 Trilingual Practice in the Jirim League and Manchuria .................................... 179 Conclusion ......................................................................................................................... 216 Bibliography ...................................................................................................................... 242 3 Acknowledgements Upon the completion of my doctorate, I want to express my sincere gratitude to people who have supported and contributed to my long journey. First thanks goes to my supervisor, Professor Hans van de Ven, for his kindness and patience in going through my manuscript at various stages and for his comments and suggestions that keep my work on a good track. My gratefulness also goes to Professor Peter Kornicki. He led me in the way of Manchu studies and sparked my interest in the language. The Manchu tutorials have been by far one of the most pleasant, stimulating, and rewarding experiences during my course at Cambridge. I have benefited from the generous support of many institutes during my doctoral study, which greatly alleviated my burden in life. I would not have been financially sustained without the research funding from both Newnham College and the University of Cambridge. My fieldwork was sponsored by the Universities’ China Committee in London (UCCL), the Great Britain-China Educational Trust (GBCET), Chiang Chen Industrial Charity Foundation, the Sidney Perry Foundation, and Wing Yip. At the writing-up stage, I was awarded a dissertation fellowship by the Chiang Ching-kuo Foundation for International Scholarly Exchange (CCKF), which greatly enhanced my concentration in the last foot of the expedition. I owe a big thanks to all the benefactors for their generosity and good will. I wish to thank Ren Wanping from the Palace Meseum in Beijing, Di Juan and Zhang Zhiguo from Liaoning Provincial Archives, Liu Bing from Liaoning Provincial Library, Chen Hsi-yuan from Institute of History and Philology, Academia Sinica, Lin Man-houng and Wu Zhe from Institute of Modern History, Academia Sinica, and colleagues from the First Historical Archives of China and Jilin Provincial Archives, for the support to my archival research in Beijing, Liaoning, Jilin, and Taibei. Their insightful and resourceful guidance has made it possible for me to make the most of my time in the archives. Parts of this thesis have been presented at seminars, conferences, and workshops. Part of the introduction and conclusion has been published in History Compass (He Jiani. “Late Qing Multilingualism and National Linguistic Practice in the Qing Borderlands.” History Compass 15(2): 1-12.). My greatest intellectual debt goes to those who have commented on the 4 manuscript at various stages. They are Dr. Joe McDermott, Dr. Adam Chau, Professor Eugene Rogan, Dr. Laurent Mignon, Dr. Mary Augusta Brazelton, Dr. Lars Laamann, Professor Mark Elliot, Professor Peter Perdue, Professor Ning Chia, Dr. Julia Schneider, Dr. Loretta Kim, Dr. Uradyn Bulag, Dr. Franck Billé, Dr. Wu Huiyi, Dr. Gary Chi-hung Luk, Jaymin Kim, Zhang Huasha, and Wang Anran. My special thanks goes to Dr. Kate Daniels, Henry Penfold, Elizabeth Smith Rosser, Emily Martin, Sophie-Jung Kim, Alastair McClure, Joseph McQuade, who have read all or part of my manuscript. I feel extremely grateful for their valuable feedbacks. Feeling lucky that I am not alone in the journey, I owe my sincere gratitude to my friends Wang Shuxi, Pan Zhiyuan, Wu Rong, Vivian Chin, Rudolph Ng, Ghassan Moazzin, Cheng Yang, Dr. Fu Yang, Angel Lin, Bill Moriarty, Li Miao, Huang Jikui, Dr. Funmi Alayaki, Chen Huiying, Zhang Peng, Sun Lin, Amanda Zhang, Helena Lopes, Pete Millward, Nelson So, Kelly Tze, Zhou Yunyun, Arina Mikhalevskaya, Isabella Weber, Professor Zhang Haibin and his family, Peng Xufei, Liu Qiao, Li Heng, Wang Yingzi, Liu Yingqi, Wang Tingting, Li Sen, Zhou Muzhi, Liu Ye, and Wei Tao. Finally, I save these last words of acknowledgement to my parents and grandparents for their unconditional love. I would like to convey my heartfelt thanks to Zhang Guanli, my dear husband, who has been accompanying and supporting me. I want to dedicate this dissertation to my family, though it is far from enough to express my deepest appreciation for their support. 5 Note on Transcription, Names, and Toponyms Chinese terms and names are transcribed according to the pinyin system, with the exception of the names which have entered into common usage by another romanization, e.g., Sun Yat-sen, and the names of authors living in and publications in Taiwan, which are romanized with Wade-Giles. Manchu terms and names are transcribed according to the Möllendorff system, as explicated in A Manchu Grammar (1892). Christopher Atwood’s system (2002: xv-xviii) is used for phonetically rendering Mongolian terms and names. In all instances where two transliterations are provided in parentheses, the first is Manchu, the second Chinese. A comma is added between original texts and their English translations. Chinese and Japanese names are transcribed in the traditional order: family name first. As for Manchu and Mongolian names, in conventional usage, clan names were not a part of the personal name. Therefore, only personal names are given, e.g., Nurhaci instead of Aisin Gioro Nurhaci. Manchu and Mongolian names are transcribed from their original forms and their Chinese forms will be given in brackets, e.g., Erdeni (額爾德尼). Where the Manchu name is uncertain because it is derived from its form in Chinese characters, which usually happened in the late Qing period, the name is written in pinyin followed by the Manchu and