Losing the Tributaries: The Sino-French and Sino-Japanese Wars in Vietnam and Korea

09/29/19 • 27 min

In this episode we do some Q&A and then cover the Sino-French War of 1884-1885 and the Sino-Japanese War of 1894-1895.
A couple names from this episode:
Emperor Qianlong: ruled China from 1735 to 1799
Li Hongzhang: high level Chinese statesman and advocate of self-strengthening

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Previous Episode

Book Review of The Shining Path: Love, Madness, and Revolution in the Andes

A review of the new book about the civil war in Peru, The Shining Path: Love, Madness, and Revolution in the Andes, by Orin Starn and Miguel La Serna. This book is the first history of the Shining Path aimed at the general reading public to come out in a long time. Next episode, we'll return to our series on the historical background to the Chinese Revolution.

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Next Episode

Kang Youwei and the Hundred Days Reform

In the wake of the Sino-Japanese War, Kang Youwei works with the Guangxu Emperor to try to replicate Japan's Meiji reforms, before being crushed by Cixi and other Manchu conservatives.
At the beginning of the episode, I talk some about how westerners have written about Chinese history. A good book that goes really deep into this is Paul Cohen's Discovering History in China. If you're into that topic, you may also want to read Fabio Lanza's End of Concern: Maoist China, Activism, and Asian Studies.
Some names from this episode:
Kang Youwei, Confucian advocate of liberal modernization and Qing loyalist
Emperor Guangxu, Emperor of China during this episode, tried to assert his power during Hundred Days Reform
Empress Dowager Cixi, the real power behind the throne
Ito Hirobumi, senior Japanese statesman whose met with Guangxu while Cixi 'sat behind the curtain'
Yuan Shikai, leader of Chinese army
Rong Lu, conservative Manchu governor of metropolitan region and Cixi loyalist
Kang Guangren, Kang Youwei's younger brother
Okuma Shigenobu, Japanese prime minister who offered Kang Youwei aid
Mao Zedong, leader of the Chinese Revolution

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People's History of Ideas Podcast - Losing the Tributaries: The Sino-French and Sino-Japanese Wars in Vietnam and Korea

Transcript

Welcome to episode seven of the People’s History of Ideas Podcast!

This episode, we’ll be taking some questions generated by past episodes, and then we will move on to talk about the Sino-French and Sino-Japanese wars.

So, first off, I heard from a listener that, while they hated to say it, they were having a lot harder time following who is who with the Chinese names than if the narrative were about people with names that the listener was more familiar with. This is perfectly