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Sung Roots of Chinese Political Conservatism: the Administrative Problems

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  23 March 2011

James T. C. Liu
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The Sung period (960–1279), as is generally recognized, shaped the pattern of China's development for the last millennium. Carrying forward the trends originating in late T'ang, it integrated both the traditional and the new ingredients into a distinctive way of life which gradually permeated the entire society down to the level of the average villager. The result was a broadly based, deeply rooted, stable, but conservative culture. Remarkable economic advancement and social reconstruction took place. The same was generally true, though to a lesser extent, of political institutions and thought: the bureaucratic empire was now thoroughly centralized under a generally attentive and restrained absolutism; great gains were achieved in the number, quality, and especially the status of the nonaristocratic scholar-officials; the enriching variety of theoretical formulations known as neo-Confucianism carried increasing weight. Government administration in particular, the most effective ever to exist in China itself, was probably the best in the world then and for several centuries to come. Improvements made by the Ming and the Ch'ing, after the intervening period of the Mongols, were more or less within this general pattern.

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The Journal of Asian Studies , Volume 26 , Issue 3 , May 1967 , pp. 457 - 463
Copyright
Copyright © The Association for Asian Studies, Inc. 1967

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References

1 Liu, James T. C., “Note on the Neo-Traditional Period (ca. 800–1900) in Chinese History,” JAS, 24:1 (Nov. 1964), 105–107CrossRefGoogle Scholar; cf. Meskill, John, The Pattern of Chinese History (Boston, 1965).Google Scholar

2 Among several contributions by ProfessorKracke, E. A. Jr., see his latest, “The Chinese and the art of government,” in The Legacy of China, ed. Dawson, Raymond (Oxford, 1964), pp. 309–39.Google Scholar

3 Professor Hsiao Kung-ch'üan in his best standard work on Chinese political thought, being translated by my colleague Mote, Frederick W., Chung-kuo cheng-chih ssu-hsiang-shih (Shanghai, 1046), 2:143–67, has probably overstated the case of the utilitarian trend during the Sung, as little is mentioned about its decline.Google Scholar

4 See various works by Miyazaki Ichisada and Sudo Yoshiyuki, among other authors. A forthcoming article of mine will deal with the Sung views on the control of the clerks, principally the ones in the central government.

5 Yeh Shih, Yeh Shih chi (Peking, 1961), 3:806–07.

6 WHTK, 32:301; see also Chu Hsi, Chin-ssu lu (Taipei, 1957 ed.), 9:248–50.

7 Same as note 5.

8 HNYL, 128:6.

9 Ou-yang Hsiu, Ou-yang Yung-shu chi (TSCC ed.) 8:17.

10 HCP, 53:6; see also Lo Ts'ung-yen, Lo Yü-chang chi (Cheng-i-t'ang chiian-shu), 5:7–8 and Wang Fu-chih, Sung Inn (SPPY ed.). 4:4.

11 SHY: chih-kuan, 59:12.

12 WHTK, 38:365.

13 SHY, chih-huan, 4:45–51.

14 Ibid., 8:34–35.

15 Yeh Shih, Shui-hsin chi (SPPY ed.), 3:15.

16 HCP, 48:5.

17 WHTK, 38:360.

18 HNYL, 122:5.

19 Ibid., 174:2.

20 Yeh Shih, Shui-hsin chi, 5:3.

21 HNYL, 174:20; see also 200:23 as well as HCP 77:11.

22 Wang Fu-chih, Sung lun, 4:21–24.

23 WHTK, 31:293; see also 32:302.

24 HNYL, 189:9.

25 WHTK, 32:301; see also Wang Feng-yüan, Kwang-ling Hsien-sheng chi (Chia-hsing ed.), 14:2.

26 HCP, 1:4–15; also found in T'ai-p'ing chih-chi t'ung-lei, (Shih-yüan ts'ung-shu), 2:13.

27 HCP, 104:1.

28 HCP, 84:18.

29 HCP, 82:13 and Chung-hsing Hang ch'ao sheng cheng (Wan wet pieh ts'ang ed.), 55:17–18.

30 Chung-hsing liang ch'ao sheng cheng, 15:9 and 22:15.