The Research About Huang Zunxian's Diplomatic Activities In Japan And His Related Poems And Essays (1877-1882)

Diplomats are always concerned by the Comparative Literature and Culture Studies. As counselor and secretary of China's first delegation to Japan, Huang Zunxian resided in Japan from 1877 to 1882. In addition to his massive work, Monographs on Japan, he wrote many poems and essays related to his diplomatic activities in Japan. Huang Zunxian attracts extensive researches in recent years, among which there are a lot of papers concerning his poetry and his ambassadorship in Japan. However, few of them deal with the two themes together. And what's more, Huang's diplomatic experience in Japan was a good perspective to understand the transformation of the traditional East Asian world order.The problems about Ryukyu and Korea accompanied Huang Zunxian's whole ambassadorship in Japan. The two decades from 1870s to 1880s saw profound disturbances in the existing world order in East Asia as a result of new waves of Western expansion and the rise of Meiji Japan. The traditional tributary system collapsed while the modern system based on the International Law was affecting the relations between East Asian countries. Though he wanted to"modernize"and legalize the traditional relations with the tributary countries with the western standard, he did realized the law of jungle hidden in the modern system based on the International Law. His imagination of East Asian new world order shared many similarities with the traditional tributary system which was viewed as the best weapon to resist the law of jungle in the modern relations between nation states.Based on the analysis of his poems and essays related to his diplomatic activities in Japan and combined with the concrete history events, this thesis will examine the changes of Huang's diplomatic thoughts and his imagination of East Asian world order during the late 1870s and early 1880s .