A Study On Xu Shichang’s Diplomatic Thought (1907-1909)

Xu Shichang was appointed as the first governor-general of Northeast Three Provinces in April,2012.With his assumption of office, the reformation of Northeast Three Provinces was gradually carried out and pushed on. Russian’s occupation of Northeast had changed to divide up spheres of influence with Japanese in the north and south respectively after the signing of the Russo-Japanese Portsmouth Treaty and the Meeting of the Northeast Three Provinces Matters Treaty. At the same time the United States had stepped up its economic aggression, causing tensions in the northeast. In order to resist Japan and Russia’s invasion, the aim of the reformation of Northeast Three Provinces was self-renewal. Obviously, the political environment of reformation depended on how to deal with the foreign affairs properly, while the foreign policy in the reformation had double influences internally and externally as a result of hundreds years of the political system concerned with bannermen in the Northeast of Qing Dynasty. For this reason, Xu Shichang proposed a series of diplomatic measures, such as opening more treaty ports, implementing open policy, keeping the balance of power by allowing more foreign forces interfered this area, observing the treaties, cooperating with those foreign forces, implementing migration to strengthen frontier defence and so on. It was worty of studying these aspects,that is the origins of Xu Shichang’s diplomatic thought, how to introduce these diplomatic thought into concrete cases,the influence on Xu Shichang’sdiplomatic activities.The dissertation con sists of five parts including conclusion: Part Ⅰ is about the origins of Xu Shichang’s diplomatic thought. Based on Xu Shichang’s personal experience, before his administration of Northeast Three Provinces, he had not involved any foreign affairs. It was hard to explain why Xu could brought up his diplomatic theory in such a short time, if just considering that it took him two months to inspect the situation of Northeast. This chapter is divided into three parts in order to investigate the origins of Xu Shichang’s diplomatic thought. The first part discussed about statecraft ideological trend in the late Qing dynasty. Secondly, after the Opium War, the influence of western foreign diplomatic thoughts and patterns, the establishment of new modernized diplomatic ministry all caused the change of Qing dynasty’s diplomatic system, besides these, the local officials’ conventional approaches to tackle the foreign affairs, the existing cases also contributed to the formation of Xu’s diplomatic theory. Thirdly, disserting on some important figures’ influence on Xu’s diplomatic thought at that time such as Yuan Shikai.Part Ⅱ described Xu Shichang’s diplomatic reform. This chapter consists two parts. The first part is mainly about the primary content of Xu’s diplomatic thought, such as maintaining state sovereignty, implementing open policy, cooperating with those foreign forces and so on. The second part illustrated Xu Shichang’s diplomatic reform during his administration of Northeast Three Provinces. In order to handle foreign affairs bitterly, After Xu’s assumption of office, he reformed the diplomatic ministry, established the Representations Division System, which became the main ministry to deal with foreign affairs. He also made the governor generals’limits of authority more clearly, easy to mobilize all forces to increases the efficiency of transaction affairs. At the same time, he recruited diplomatic officers all over the country through the Board of Personnel, on the other hand, recommended and kept the effective diplomatic staff. Besides this, in order to strengthen capable staff building, set up some language schools to train some specialized professional personnel.Part Ⅲ mainly studied about XuShichang’s diplomatic representations and activities with foreign forces from two aspects, that is, Jian Island Diplomatic Matter and Harbin Council DiplomaticBy the study of the selecting two representative cases,we can know that Xu Shichang involved directly and indirectly to introduce Xu’s diplomatic attitudes, principles and methods.PartⅣdiscussed and appraised the effect and influence of Xu’s diplomatic representations and activities. First of all," the influenceon on the Northeast area ", The innovation of diplomatic institutions is mainly setting up diplomacy division which is the first special diplomatic institution to effectively deal with local foreign activities nationwide.secondly, it is about the influenceon on Xu Shichang’s diplomatic thought and his future.PartⅤis the last part of the Thesis. On the one hand,It is necessary and significant to demonstrate that Xu Shichang’s directly or indirectly participating in diplomatic negotiations; On the other hand, this section emphasizes on because of the restricting of practical factors, Xu Shichang original diplomatic planning could not be fully realized. In addition to frequent bargaining activities,in order to maintain the peace of the northeast situation,Xu Shichang quite valued diplomatic ceremonies.