Yuan Shikai

Yuan Shikai (1859–1916) has been both hailed as China’s George Washington for his role in the country’s transition from empire to republic and condemned as a counter-revolutionary. Yuan Shikai: A Reappraisal sheds new light on the controversial history of this talented administrator and modernizer who endeavoured to establish a new dynasty while serving as the first president of the republic, eventually declaring himself emperor. Drawing on untapped primary sources and recent scholarship, Patrick Fuliang Shan offers a lucid, comprehensive, and critical new interpretation of Yuan’s part in shaping modern China.

This book attempts to explain this aspect of Yüan Shih-k'ai's political power by analysing the relationship between him and Sir John Newell Jordan, British minister at Peking from 1906 to 1920.

The story of reformer Yuan Shih-k'ai, who was later seen as the "betrayer of the republic" and the "father of warlordism."

This text addresses the corporate causes of the collapse of the Qing Dynasty and the emergence of modern Republican China. Weaving together political, legal and business histories, it focuses on the key relationship between China, cement and corporations, and demonstrates how the particular circumstances of cement manufacturing in nineteenth- and early twentieth-century China serve to illuminate key aspects of Chinese political economy and illustrate the importance of legal frameworks in the emergence of industrial enterprises. Examining the centrality of legal personality in China’s historical story, seen from the angle of cement manufacturing corporations, it offers an alternative historical perspective on the making of the modern Chinese States and delves into the involvement of larger-than-life historical figures of modern China such as Yuan Shikai, Chiang Kai-shek and the revolutionary and the father of modern China, Sun Yat-sen, in the unfolding of these events.

Relations between the Choson and Qing states are often cited as the prime example of the operation of the âeoetraditionalâe Chinese âeoetribute system.âe In contrast, this work contends that the motivations, tactics, and successes (and failures) of the late Qing Empire in Choson Korea mirrored those of other nineteenth-century imperialists. Between 1850 and 1910, the Qing attempted to defend its informal empire in Korea by intervening directly, not only to preserve its geopolitical position but also to promote its commercial interests. And it utilized the technology of empireâe"treaties, international law, the telegraph, steamships, and gunboats. Although the transformation of Qing-Choson diplomacy was based on modern imperialism, this work argues that it is more accurate to describe the dramatic shift in relations in terms of flexible adaptation by one of the worldâe(tm)s major empires in response to new challenges. Moreover, the new modes of Qing imperialism were a hybrid of East Asian and Western mechanisms and institutions. Through these means, the Qing Empire played a fundamental role in Koreaâe(tm)s integration into regional and global political and economic systems.

This collection examines corruption and abuses of power in China from the end of the imperial period to the present. The interdisciplinary group of contributors examines how the Chinese Communist Party has adapted to economic and social changes while continuing to control the law, state, and mass media.