Zheng Guanying

Zheng Guanying

Zhèng Guānyīng (other transcription: Cheng Kuan-Ying, Chinese 鄭 觀 應 / 郑 观 应; * July 24, 1842 in Guangdong Province ; † May 1923 ) was a Chinese reformer. He was one of the first Chinese to deal with the political system of the West and called for the introduction of a parliamentary system of government for China . Zheng was a major influence on both Kang Youwei and the Hundred Day Reform and Sun Yat-sen .

Life

Zheng Guanying was born the second of nine sons and eight daughters into an educated family of traders. Zheng went to Shanghai at the age of 17 to begin an apprenticeship in business administration after failing the imperial civil servant examination . He worked for several British companies. During the devastating famine of 1878/79 he got involved personally to help the suffering population. A little later he worked in a managerial position in the newly established Shanghai cotton mill. This spinning mill was the first of its kind in China, its aim was to make the country less dependent on the overpriced western imports. In the early 1880s, Zheng worked at the Chinese Telegraph Office in order to accept a post in the newly established Chinese State Shipping Company in 1882 to compete with the foreign shipping companies. In the coming years, he will make various reform proposals that will make the company a real competitor to foreign companies, which will help bring prosperity and strength to China. At the same time he worked as an arms buyer and even a spy on behalf of Prince Chun, as well as on a diplomatic mission to Bangkok . In 1902 he became police chief in Sanjiang, Jiangxi Province , and in the following year he assumed a high office in the Nanning region . Until his death in 1923 he worked - with a few interruptions - for the shipping company mentioned.

Reform activities

In addition to his activities at various domestic and foreign companies, Zheng was also an important reformer of his time. His main thoughts can be found in his work Shengshi Weiyan (Chinese 盛世 危言, for example: 'Warning words in a flourishing time'). He was always concerned with the question of how China can strengthen itself again ( zi qiang ) in the face of the dominance of foreign powers . He sees a way to achieve this in the strengthening of the Chinese economy and industry, whose weakness is the ineffectiveness of the Chinese state's economic policy. In his opinion, China has always been an agricultural country, while the West has been oriented towards trade. Only if China becomes active in trade itself can it break the dominance of the West. Zheng sees another reason for China's weakness in the education system, more precisely: in the system of official examinations. "Oh woe! What they [the students] learn is not what they need; what they need is not what they learn! ”The Confucian official examinations no longer served their purpose, the traditional knowledge of the classics should not be discarded as such, but still no longer usable today to respond to the demands of modern times . Therefore, the exams would have to be abolished and universities ( daxue ) introduced according to the western model, in which the students should learn not only humanities content (including the classics ), but also natural science and technical subjects. In addition to trade and the educational system, Zheng Guanying sees another reason for the West's strong position in its democratic system. This thought is expressed in the Yiyuan chapter of Shengshi Weiyan (see next point).

The idea of Yiyuan

For Zheng, China is a weak country that is dominated by the West. In matters of trade in particular, it has little room for maneuver itself, and is militarily inferior and politically weak. To change this, China needs to reform. Because China has potential: "England is smaller than some Chinese provinces and has fewer inhabitants, yet it is a sea power and one of the strongest countries in the West." Why is the so much larger China so weak? Zheng sees the reason for this in the various political systems. China, according to Zheng, is a centrally governed state in which everyone only pursues their own interests: at the top is the emperor, below him are the ministers, who are often incompetent and corrupt. The people are at the bottom. But people and rulers are separate from one another. The ruler does not know what the people want, "the interests [ zhi ] come into conflict". And:

“Today's ministers in China only know the past but don't understand the present. Young people have only read Western books, they only know the present, not the past. Both are one-sided, they each have advantages and disadvantages. There are 400 million people in China, are there one or two of them who know both the past and the present, know home and abroad, can balance interests and can contribute to a rich China? "

In the west this is different, because there are parliaments here ( yiyuan , chin. 议院). For Zheng, the western parliament essentially fulfills two functions: First, it represents a connection between people and rulers: “Parliament is the place of public discussion and politics. It gathers the thoughts of the people, politics is shaped most justly, the legislation is honest and good, the ideas just and beautiful “The people can thus articulate themselves through parliament. Hence for China:

“If we want to fight the foreigners, then the country has to get stronger. If the country is to get stronger, the citizens must be satisfied. If the citizens are to be satisfied, the ruler must know the state of the people. If he wants to know the state of the people, he needs a parliament "

Parliament thus re-establishes the lost connection between people and rulers. Second, for Zheng, parliament is a place to find political ideas:

“Whether a country is strong depends on the skills [ cai ] of the people. Whether people's abilities are actually used depends on choices. The parliaments exist for the citizens, the deputies are elected by the citizens. If parliament is elected by only one person [d. H. determined by the emperor], then it is not certain whether this is capable of it. If it is elected by all citizens, then this is much safer. "

So Zheng relies on the people's ability to make the right decisions. Parliament is a place of representative participation.

However, Zheng does not want to abolish the empire, rather he wants to combine it with democratic elements, as in constitutional monarchies. In a constitutional monarchy, the people appoint the ruler ( li jun ), no longer the heavenly mandate. The emperor is still above the people and parliament because he can simply reject bills. In doing so, however, he must not become a despot. If so, the people could overthrow him. Because even in ancient China there was the following saying, which Zheng applies to the present: “Heaven creates the people and installs the ruler. The ruler is like a boat, the people like water. The water can carry the boat, but it can also knock it over ”(the saying goes back to Xunzi ).

literature

expenditure

• Dongyuan Xia (Ed.): Zheng Guanying Ji Shang Ce. (Collected Works of Zheng Guanying, Volume 1). Shanghai Renmin Chubanshe, Shanghai 1982. (in Chinese)
• Dongyuan Xia (Ed.): Zheng Guanying Ji Xia Ce. (Collected Works of Zheng Guanying, Volume 2). Shanghai Renmin Chubanshe, Shanghai 1982. (in Chinese)

Secondary literature

• Johannes Kehnen: Cheng Kuan-Ying - entrepreneur and reformer of the late Ch'ing period . Verlag Otto Harrassowitz, Wiesbaden 1975, ISBN 3-447-01716-3 .

Web links

Commons : Zheng Guanying  - collection of pictures, videos and audio files

• Short biography ( memento from December 30, 2012 in the Internet Archive ) (Chinese)

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Shengshi Weiyan, Yiyuan , S. 313th

Note: This article places the family name before the person's first name. This is the usual order in Chinese. Zheng is the family name here, Guanying is the first name.