From Foreign Affairs To Domestic Affairs:Governance On Christian In Last Decade Of Qing Dynasty

During the last ten years under regulation of Qing Dynasty,Christian generally presented a trend of development from outer foreign affairs to internal domestic affairs.Revising missionary treaty of foreign affairs is a major governance orientation for the Qing Dynasty,which gives considerable political significance during negotiating Boxer Protocol by rulers.There are cognitive gaps in the complexity and sensitivity of missionary affairs among Beijing Plenipotentiary,Southeast Governor and court of Xi’an,which also leads to discrepancies in the determination of the weight of missionary treaty among them.Li Hung-chang held a negative attitude toward the revision of missionary treaty,and although he made some representations,he was willing to accept the downgrading of diplomatic treaty to an internal charter;The court in Xi’an attached great importance to the missionary treaty,but was unable to influence the process of peace negotiations.He still need to rely on it although he was dissatisfied with plenipotentiary.H.E.Chang Chih-tung was the main initiator of the missionary treaty,actively cooperated with Liu Kunyi bypassing the Plenipotentiary,and negotiated with Britain,France,the United States,Germany,and Japan by the envoys of those countries.Western countries were cautious about missionary issues and held an evasive attitude,so that the demand of Qing Dynasty wasn’t respected as it should be.The revision of the missionary treaty became a historical problem,which bore bitter fruit for the subsequent conflicts,and also laid the groundwork for the Qing’s Christian negotiations and governance.After the Peace Protocol of 1901,the missionary treaty still attracted the attention of the Qing court for a long time.Under the auspices of the southeast governor,the Sino-British and Sino-American negotiated on the Commercial Treaty in 1902,The Qing Dynasty achieved some results in the negotiation of missionary treaty,that is,the British promised to investigate the religious affairs,and the United States added restrictive clauses.Catholicism was regarded as the main "culprit"of the missionary cases,and France,which took the post of defending the religion as its own,was the main object of the negotiation.After the missionary cases of Nanchang in 1906,H.E.Chang Chih-tung,who was entrusted by the Qing court,failed to open the situation.The negotiation of missionary treaty was shelved indefinitely from 1908 until the 1911 Revolution.A "happy ending"didn’t happen in this diplomatic history of Qing Dynasty.During this period,the top officials of the Qing court gradually realized the inadequacy of traditional negotiation,and Christian governance gradually became an internal affair.In terms of internal governance,under the auspices of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs,the Catholic Archbishop Alphonse Favier negotiated with the Protestant representative Timothy Richard appointed by the Qing court in 1902,.Each of the three parties proposed different versions of their missionary charter.The churches in China released a positive signal and made certain concessions.However,on the core clauses,the consensus was relatively limited;Missionary representative system proposed by the Qing court was in conflict with the organizational structure of the Protestant church.Before and after the agreement,Timothy’s representative qualification was generally questioned by the Protestant side.In the end,the interaction between the official and the church failed to achieve the expected results and a national unified missionary clauses.The enlightenment of Christian knowledge was a major measure during the late Qing government.In order to prevent people from hating Christianity,through the traditional education system,the Qing Dynasty spread knowledge to the lower classes in the newspapers,with simple slang words.The appearance of the special reading book "Peace between the people and church",marks that the popularization of knowledge gradually been united and standardized.Eliminating discriminative identity labeled with region and Christians,establishing national identity have become a basic Christian policy of Qing government.The popularization of Christian governance knowledge for government officials generally revolves around cultivating legal concepts and strengthening treaty cognition.There are specialized training institutions and specially compiled official political books.The northern faction was the vanguard of this intellectual enlightenment.After the missionary cases of Nankang in 1907,with Yuan Shikai becoming the head of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs,the intellectual enlightenment was extended to the entire country.At the last years of the Qing Dynasty,the another major sign of Christian governance turned to internal affairs was reflected in the inspection of the Missionary affairs.After the Nanchang Church Case in 1906,the power on Missionary affairs,which was traditionally conducted by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and carried out by the local Westernization Bureaus,was gradually transferred included within the Ministry of Civil Affairs and the provincial patrol bureaus.The diplomatic aspect gradually faded.And then,the focus of the investigation shifted from church to parishioners.When the Xuantong Dynasty census was conducted,the Ministry of Civil Affairs vigorously promoted the census of the Ministry affairs throughout the country in the form of registered permanent residence established by the religious people.Although the investigation was again interfered by France,it was successfully resolved by the Qing Court.In the late years Qing dynasty,the investigation was not fully completed,but its governance philosophy was inherited by the Republic of China,which had a profound influence on the modern religious inspection.Public opinion is the lookout window for Christian governance in the last decade of the Qing Dynasty.By using newspapers and periodicals,the new intellectuals put forward a large number of governance strategies for missionary cases from foreign affairs to domestic affairs.Their demands ranged from restricting missionary interference in justice at first,to the separation between church with government,appealing for religious freedom,and further to accountability for government.Discussions on internal affairs revolved was around the issue of Christian privileges.When discussing on the equal rights between civilians and Christians,the intellectuals extended the realization of equal rights between officials and civilians,and there was some reflection of institutional system.The new gentry used the public’s panic on the missionary case to urge the Qing government to implement constitutionalism as soon as possible,and the anti-religious issue evolved into an anti-Manchu discourse.Although Qing government made certain achievements in Christian governance,it quickly lost its status as a ruler in the face of public opinion,and was eventually abandoned by history in a revolutionary way.