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For an Asian History of Modern Asia
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 01 July 2024
Extract
The history of modern Asia, at least in western countries, for a long time has been conceived only in function of European history. The question was to meditate on the “problem of the Far East,” which is to say on the conditions and objects of the intervention of great Powers in Asia. It consisted in granting privileges to European activities in Asia: missions and trading, military expeditions and diplomatic negotiations. Such a tendency is, for example, very clear in the otherwise notable works of authors such as H. B. Morse or H. Cordier; while the first had been in China for many years as officer of the Imperial Chinese Maritime Customs Service, the second was the son of an agent of the Paris National Bank in Shanghai. Nevertheless neither of them knew any Chinese and they did not consider the use of that language any more necessary for an historian of modern China than it had been for a businessman residing in Shanghai concessions during the belle époque of the unequal treaties. The works they published are dedicated to the history of relations between China and the great Powers (Open Door, concessions and extraterritoriality, functioning of treaties), and are only marginally and occasionally interested in the deep movements of Chinese society and Chinese politics: Tai-ping, reformatory movements, social struggle.
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- Copyright © 1966 Fédération Internationale des Sociétés de Philosophie / International Federation of Philosophical Societies (FISP)
References
1 H. B. Morse, The International Relations of the Chinese Empire (Shanghai, 1910-1918), 3 vols.; H. Cordier, Histoire générale de Chine (Paris, 1920), vols. III and IV; by the same author, Histoire des relations de la Chine avec les Puis sances occidentales (Paris, 1901-1903), 3 vols.; more general, our Introduction aux études d'histoire contemporaine de Chine (Paris, 1965), in collaboration with John Lust.
2 W. W. Willoughby, Foreign Rights and Interests in China (Baltimore, 1927), 2 vols.
3 Cf. the respective place given to both events in a very well documented publication, China Yearbook, published at the time in Tientsin by a group of English journalists.
4 Liu Ta-nien, "Pour une histoire objective de l'histoire de l'Asie," Peking-Information, 7 March 1966, No. 10.
5 Sun Yat-sen dedicates long paragraphs to imperialism in his lessons on the "Three Principles of the People" (san-min zhu-yi), particularly in lesson IV, "White Imperialism and Yellow Imperialism," (Edition d'Elia), pp. 81-101.
6 Cf. for example P. Renouvin and J. B. Duroselle, Introduction à L'etude des relations internationales (Paris, 1964).
7 A. Waley, The Opium War through Chinese Eyes (London, 1958).
8 Cf. for example E. A. Blunt, The Indian Civil Service (London, 1937); G. W. Keeton, The Development of Extraterritoriality in China (London, 1928), 2 vols.
9 Like that by F. C. Remer, Foreign Investment in China (New York, 1933).
10 This term is soiled by Euro-centrism… even if customarily used; "traditional Asia" would be better.
11 Term proposed by P. Worsley, The Third World (London, 1964).
12 An author deeply imbued with colonial traditions, A. Masson, former civil servant in Indochina, published in 1950 in the collection "Que sais-je?" the Histoire de l'Indochine. This book has been re-edited in 1960 under another title Histoire du Vietnam, by simply removing all the paragraphs about Laos and Cambodia. The change in historical perspective that we suggest implies a some what deeper effort on the part of western historians…
13 We utilised the term re-animation (proposed initially by G. Marcel in a message addressed to the Congress of negro writers and artists of Paris in 1958), in a short outline, La réanimation du passé traditionnel chez les jeunes nations d'Asie et d'Afrique, appeared in the book edited by J. Berque and J. P. Charnay, De l'imperialisme à la décolonisation (Paris, 1965), pp. 301-312. Today we prefer the term trans-continuity.
14 J. Needham, "Du passé culturel, social et philosophique chinois et de ses rapports avec la Chine contemporaine," Comprendre (Venice), Nos. 21-22 and 23.
15 J. Needham, Science and Civilization in China (Cambridge University Press), 5 volumes have appeared since 1954.
16 Expression used by J. Romein, The Asian Century (London, 1962).
17 Owen Lattimore, From China, Looking Outward (Inaugural lecture, Leeds University Press, 1964).
18 Cf. C. Blacker, The Japanese Enlightment, a Study of Fukuzawa Yukicht (Cambridge University Press, 1964).
19 Gokhale (1866-1915) was the antagonist of Tilak in the Indian national movement; recommended the negotiation of compromises with Great Britain and insisted on the need for a progressive occidentalization of the Indian society.
20 Phan Chu Trinh (died in 1925) was an admirer of Rousseau and recom mended the study of his works to Vietnamese patriots.
21 Yan Fu, translator of Huxley, Spencer and Stuart Mill in Chinese, died in 1921; cf. B. Schwartz, In Search of Wealth and Power, Yan Fu and the West (Harvard University Press, 1921).
22 Cf. R. Scalapino, Democracy and the Party Movement in Pre-War Japan: The Failure of the First Attempt (University of California Press, 1953).
23 P. Preschez, Essai sur la démocratie au Cambodge (Cahiers ronéotypés de la Fondation Nationale des Sciences politiques, Centre d'études des relations internationales, Paris, October, 1961).
24 The elections of 1949 in the Philippines were "the dirtiest and bloodiest" in the history of the country. Cf. G. Willoquet, Histoire des Philippines (Paris, 1961), p. 79.
25 J. Lossing Buck, Chinese Farm Economy (Chicago, 1930); Land Utilization in China (Shanghai, 1937).
26 M. C. Bergère, La bourgeoisie chinoise et la Révolution de 1911 (Paris, thèse de la Faculté des Lettres, 1966); this work will be soon published by the Editions Mouton (Matériaux pour l'étude de l'Extrême-Orient contemporain).
27 W. F. Wertheim, East-West Parallels, Sociological Approaches to Modern Asia (The Hague, 1964) chap. 6, "Religious Reform Movements in South and South East Asia."
28 Ibid., chap. 8, "Urban Characteristics in Indonesia."