A Study On The Foreign Negotiation Of Shanxi Province In Late Qing Dynasty

After the Second Opium War, with the signing and implementation of a series of unequal treaties, Western forces gradually penetrated deeper into Shanxi province, which led to the increasing movements of Chinese people’s anti-Christianity preaching struggles in Shanxi province. As a result, the span of the foreign negotiation has been extended form dealing with church affairs and mass-versus-church cases primarily in previous years to such a degree as coping with the aspects of the railroad, religion administration and mineral work. Due to the intervention of the missionaries, the contents of the foreign negotiation of the government of Shanxi province have become increasingly complex. Since the Qing Government decentralized its foreign negotiations as much as possible to the local official governments, the local officials who served in the government of Shanxi province gradually become direct participants in the process of foreign negotiation. This paper primarily falls into three parts to research and analyze the foreign negotiations of Shanxi province in late Qing Government period.Chapter one is devoted to a brief introduction about the system and pattern of the late Qing Government’s foreign negotiations, and the evolution of foreign negotiations of the central Qing Government as well as the general situation of how the local officials of all levels and the local governmental departments in Shanxi province dealing with the foreign negotiations.Chapter two gives out a detailed and specific discussion and analysis on the foreign negotiating affairs dealt with by Shanxi province, including the aspects of the railroad, religion administration and mineral work,and the negotiating affairs of Shanxi University. It also discussed the foreign negotiating affairs related to the certain colleges and churches in Shanxi province, taking the Dong Yong College as an example; and it also mentioned the negotiations for expenses and costs which often result in the disputes and conflicts between the church and local people.Chapter three draws a conclusion to foreign negotiating policies and methods applied by local governmental officials in Shanxi province and diplomatic measures taken by the local officials in response to the intervention of the missionaries. When it goes to the policies, they can be divided into three categories:the Standoff Ideology under the guidance of idea---Cherishing the Men from afar,"Impartial Handling" policy, and "Act in compliance with the Treaty" policy. It also gave a detailed description about the measures taken by local officials when dealing with the mass-versus-church cases resulted from the intervention of the missionaries. At last, it then discussed the foreign negotiating characteristics shown by the local officials in Shanxi province when negotiating with Western Powers. After the research and analysis we can find out that the local officials in Shanxi province did not necessarily perform their foreign negotiating diplomatic function according to the direction and instruction of the Qing Government, and that some local officials often ignored the importance of the foreign negotiations, coupled with factors such as the local officials’lack of awareness, lack of knowledge for the foreign negotiations, which has exerted an negative affect on the forging negotiations in late Qing Dynasty.To sum up, under the circumstances of such a diplomacy system as "a weak nation has no diplomacy", local governmental officials in Shanxi province made their every effort to negotiate with Western Powers in the various aspects and fulfilled its mission successfully to a certain degree so that they have contributed to maintain the interests of local governments in Shanxi province and late Qing government in their own way.