Wàijiāo Xiǎoshǐ 外交小史
A Short History of Diplomacy Anonymous (撰)
About the work
Wàijiāo Xiǎoshǐ 外交小史 (A Short History of Diplomacy) is a brief anonymous collection of twenty discrete prose essays and anecdotes on the history of Qīng foreign relations, ranging from diplomatic encounters of the Qiánlóng reign through the Sino-Japanese War (1894–95) and into the early twentieth century. The sections are each headed with a black circle (○) and a title. Topics covered include Ān Wéijùn’s 安維峻 memorial impeaching Lǐ Hóngzhāng 李鴻章 (Lǐ Wénzhōng 李文忠 being his posthumous title), the mid-Qīng view of diplomacy, the Kyakhta treaty, the British embassy’s kowtow question before Qiánlóng, British representation of Burma as a tributary state, the Gurkha (廓爾喀) tributary relationship, the Sino-Russian secret treaty, the survival of Sikkim (哲孟雄), the qīngliú 清流 (purist) faction, the qīngliú view of diplomacy, nine anecdotes of diplomatic absurdities (chūshǐ xiàohuà jiǔzé 出使笑話九則), a Chinese pavilion representative at the St. Louis World’s Fair, Chinese exhibits at St. Louis, the Lǐ Chūnlái 李春來 and Zhū Guìzhēn 朱桂珍 case, Singapore, the Opium War, Ryukyu tributary students at the State Academy, Vietnam’s tribute memorials, and Korean diplomatic missions.
Tiyao
No tiyao found in source. This text was not included in the Sìkù quánshū 四庫全書; no WYG edition and no tiyao is applicable.
Abstract
Wàijiāo Xiǎoshǐ 外交小史 is a miscellaneous essay collection on Qīng diplomatic history, written from the perspective of an educated observer who had studied at Běijīng University (北京大學分科, as stated in the opening section). The author’s perspective is critical: he reads the qīngliú 清流 purists’ approach to foreign affairs as evidence of the “narrow and blocked” (gùsāi 錮塞) mentality of court officials and the “dark and ignorant” (ànlòu 暗陋) state of national consciousness regarding foreign relations. The opening section on Ān Wéijùn’s 安維峻 memorial against Lǐ Hóngzhāng 李鴻章 — which accused Lǐ of treason for secretly supplying coal, rice, and ammunition to Japan during the Sino-Japanese War — characterizes the memorial as “mostly far-fetched and forced” (yǔ duō qiānqiǎng fùhuì 語多牽強附會), even while acknowledging it was celebrated by the qīngliú faction and that Ān personally impressed the author when met in person as a quietly studious old man, no longer possessed of his former combative spirit.
The text is not a work of fiction but a collection of historical annotations and personal reflections. Its placement in the KR4k (fiction) division of the Kanripo corpus likely reflects a catch-all classification for non-standard prose. The author’s reference to having seen Ān Wéijùn (who died in 1909) in person, to having studied at Běijīng University, and to covering events up to the St. Louis World’s Fair of 1904 places composition in the first decade of the twentieth century. The authorship remains anonymous; no attribution has been identified in secondary sources. The connection to 羅惇曧 (author of KR4k0234) is circumstantial — both works reflect the same late-Qīng / early-Republican journalistic milieu — but cannot be confirmed without further evidence.
Translations and research
Eastman, Lloyd E. 1974. Throne and Mandarins: China’s Search for a Policy during the Sino-French Controversy, 1880–1885. Harvard University Press. Contextualizes the qīngliú 清流 purist faction discussed in this text.
Paine, S. C. M. 2003. The Sino-Japanese War of 1894–1895: Perceptions, Power, and Primacy. Cambridge University Press. Background on the events addressed in the first section.
No translation of this text into European languages has been located. No specialized monographic study of this text has been identified.
Other points of interest
The section “出使笑話九則” (Nine anecdotes of diplomatic absurdities) is a collection of comic episodes about Chinese diplomats abroad, reflecting the early-Republican fascination with the inadequacy of late-Qīng diplomacy as a genre of cultural self-criticism. This type of anecdote collection — satirizing Chinese diplomatic naiveté before foreign powers — became a minor subgenre in the late Qīng xīn xiǎoshuō 新小說 (new fiction) movement and in early Republican journalism.
Links
- Wikipedia: Qingliú faction
- Wikipedia: An Weijun
- Related text: KR4k0234