Cui Guoyin's Attitude To The World, Thought Of National Defense, And Thought Of Diplomacy (1889～1893)

Cui Guoyin (1831-1909), born in Taiping county in Anhui province, acted in America as a Chinese ambassador to USA in the late Qing Dynasty from 1889 to 1893. Relative to abundance of studies on the ambassadors in history circles because of their important roles in China modem history, however, the study is lacking for Cui Guoyin.. Combining the situation of the world, the article will analyze Cui Guoyin's thoughts of the world, the national defense, and the diplomacy on base of firsthand data such as his diary, interrelated archives and newspaper to have a correct understanding of him.The article includes six chapters, in addition to introduction and epilogue.The introduction brings forward the significance of this article and explains the layout of the article after reviewing the study about Cui Guoyin.Chapter one describes Cui Guoyin's life and the world situation of that age. With poor birth, he studied hard in a temple, became xinwei faculty Jinshi in 1871 and was awarded editor of Hanlin Academe. When Cui Guoyin went home, he was dismissed from office because somebody was against him. When Cui Guoyin was in America, the Occident had new change in national defense force. The sunrising capitalistic nations formed the Triple alliance, including Germany, Italy and Austria while the traditional capitalistic nations formed the Triple Entente in order to protect their own interests.Chapter two studies Cui Guoyin's understanding of Germany, Italy and Austria, and the Triple alliance which were friendly in his eyes. He couldn't realize aggression ambition of the three countries, especially Germany. In his eyes, the Triple alliance was strong force to prevent war. His understanding was wrong. He couldn't accurately know international affairs.Chapter three will describe Cui Guoyin's attitude to France and Russia. In his opinion, France and Russia were aggressive because of the influence of cultural tradition and international affairs. In his eyes, the affair that France allied itself with Russia was dangerous to the Europe. Influenced by the attitude to France and Russia, he had some inaccuracy understanding of the development of Europe situation and national defense.Chapter four will describe his understanding of balance of Europe power and analyze Cui Guoyin's attitude to the development of Europe. Cui Guoyin's understanding of balance of Europe power was correct and accurate, but his opinion...