Foreigners and the Making of the Chinese Diplomat

当清朝在19世纪70年代开始设立第一批使领馆时，它的外交官们第一次遇到了现代西方意义上的外交。那么清朝是如何应对解读西方外交概念和架构的挑战的呢？此外，这一过程是如何在20世纪初，随着中华民国取代清朝的出现，出现了一批有能力处理这些任务的专业外交官的？这个项目将通过分析在清朝和民国的公使馆和领事馆工作的西方人所扮演的多种角色来解决这些基本问题。这对中国近代史和外交史的理解都有重要的影响：(1)外交角色向这些西方人的转移；(2)这种权力下放与中国官僚制度的先例有何关系，即把官僚在儒家制度中没有接受过培训的工作外包给专家；(3)由于国内迅速意识到培养专业“外交官”的重要性，西方的存在开始被拆除。首先，它将帮助我们理解外交作为一种实践和作为一个现代国家的重要意识形态基础，是如何在早期现代中国的官僚框架和想象中被编码的。其次，它将使我们能够追溯近代早期中国羽翼未熟的外交服务按照西方范式走向专业化的过程，以及它是如何摆脱传统外衣的。第三，对西方势力逐渐消失的分析将特别有助于我们理解新出现的民族主义叙事和现代国家建设在20世纪初中国外交背景下的直接影响。在构建我对上述研究问题的答案时，我将采用三种分析视角。第一部分是关于当时清朝的观点。19世纪，清朝羽翼未丰的外交体系表现出许多外国同行所没有的特质。在任的部长们并没有在一个明确的严格的结构中运作，他们最初也不是构成“威斯特伐利亚范式”的大师。我看到清朝公使馆和领事馆的这些特点，再加上清朝将工作外包给私人专家的制度先例，创造了一个真空，在这个真空中，在西方，传统上由外交官执行的职能，由外国人执行。因此，晚清外交的特质允许，也许是鼓励，大臣们给予这些人相当大的自主权，并以非正统的方式利用他们。第二个对这个话题很重要的观点是James Hevia，在谈到晚清中国的外国帝国主义时，称之为“监护”。外国人的行为是否在某种程度上被清朝设计为，或者可能无意中成为，一个“教学项目”，试图教会这些清朝大臣和他们的工作人员，如何为一个现在是“国际大家庭”的国家进行外交？如果他们的行为本质上是说教，他们是否对灌输或影响清朝关于“外交官”应该如何行事的话语有任何直接影响？第三，我试图将我的作品置于更广阔的世界历史视野中。清朝并不是唯一一个在外交场合雇佣外国人的国家：类似的例子在日本和奥斯曼帝国也有。通过将我的工作与其他地区类似人物的资料进行对话，我相信这将有助于澄清清朝外交的内在特点，并使本研究能够阐明专业外交官和领事是如何从非欧洲背景中出现的。

When Qing China's first legations and consulates began to be established in the 1870s, its diplomats encountered diplomacy, in the modern Western sense, for the first time. How then did the Qing engage with the challenge of deciphering the concepts and constructs of Western diplomacy? Furthermore, how did this process culminate in the emergence of a class of professional diplomats equipped to deal with such tasks in the early 20th century, as the Republic of China emerged in place of the Qing?This project will address these fundamental questions through an analysis of the versatile roles performed by Westerners who served in the employ of Qing and Republican China's legations and consulates. There are significant implications for both modern Chinese and diplomatic history for understanding: (1) the devolution of diplomatic roles to these Westerners; (2) how this devolution was related to the Chinese bureaucratic precedent for outsourcing to specialists the work for which bureaucrats did not, in the Confucian system, undergo training; and (3) the point at which this Western presence began to be dismantled, due to a burgeoning domestic awareness of the importance of fostering professional 'diplomats'. Firstly, it will help us to understand how diplomacy, both as a praxis and as a crucial ideological underpinning of a modern state, came to be encoded in the early modern Chinese bureaucratic framework and imagination. Secondly, it will allow us to trace the process by which early modern China's fledgling diplomatic service came to be professionalised according to Western paradigms, and how it thus came to shed its traditional skin. Thirdly, an analysis of the gradual dismantling of the Western presence will specifically help us to understand the direct implications of newly emerging narratives of nationalism and modern state-building in the diplomatic context of early 20th century China.In framing my answers to the above research questions, I will employ three analytical perspectives. The first regards the contemporaneous Qing perspective. The Qing's fledgling diplomatic system in the 19th century exhibited many idiosyncrasies which were not found in its foreign counterparts. The serving ministers did not operate within a defined stringent structure, nor were they initially masters of what constitutes the 'Westphalian paradigm'. I see these characteristics of the Qing legations and consulates, coupled with the Qing institutional precedent for outsourcing work to private specialists, as creating a vacuum in which functions which, in the West, were traditionally performed by a diplomat, were performed by foreigners. The idiosyncrasies of late Qing diplomacy thus allowed for, and perhaps encouraged, the ministers to afford considerable autonomy to these individuals, and to utilise them in unorthodox ways.The second perspective of importance to this topic is what James Hevia, in reference to foreign imperialism in late Qing China, coined as 'tutelage'. Were the actions of foreigners engaged by the Qing to some extent designed as, or did they perhaps inadvertently serve as, a 'pedagogical project' which sought to teach these Qing ministers, and their staff, how to conduct diplomacy for a country which was now part of 'the family of nations'? If their actions were inherently didactic, did they have any direct influence on inculcating or influencing Qing discourse on how a 'diplomat' ought to act? Thirdly, I seek to situate my work within broader world-historical perspectives. The Qing was not alone in employing foreigners in diplomatic contexts: similar instances can be noted in Japan and the Ottoman Empire. By framing my work in dialogue with materials which shed light on comparable individuals in other regions, I believe it will help to clarify the inherent peculiarities of Qing diplomacy, and enable this research to elucidate how professional diplomats and consuls emerged from non-European contexts.