China, 1898–1912

Book excerpt: Challenging most accounts of China's revolutionary transformation at the turn of the century, Douglas Reynolds argues that the political toppling of the Qing dynasty in 1911 was less important than the Xinzheng or "New System" reforms of the late-Qing government itself. He then provides a detailed account of the debt those reforms owed to Japan. For the Chinese, Japan offered models for major modern institutions; training for administrators, military officers and modern police; a shortcut to Western knowledge through translations from the Japanese; a ready-made modern vocabulary using Kanji or Chinese characters; and advisers and instructors in many fields. After establishing the broad areas in which China underwent a lasting and peaceful revolution during a "Golden Decade" of beneficial relations with its island neighbour, Reynolds recounts the activities of Chinese students in Japan and those of Japanese teachers and advisers in China. He examines the effect of translations from the Japanese on textbooks and general publishing; and outlines Chinese borrowings from Japanese Western-style institutions in education, the military, police and prisons, modern law, the judiciary, and constitutional government.