ACIAC Seminar "China Redefined - G. E. Morrison's China Reports and His Connection with the Reform Party in the Qing Government"

DETAILS Date: Thursday, 5 July 2018 Time: 1.00 - 2.00pm Venue: EA.G.03, Australia-China Institute for Arts and Culture, Parramatta Campus (South) Limited seats. RSVP Essential. Please RSVP before 4 July, 2018. Abstract G. E. Morrison’s career in China can be divided into two stages, one being the resident China Correspondent from 1897 to 1912 for the London-based newspaper The Times, and the other being the chief political advisor from 1912 to 1920 to Yuan Shikai, the first President of the Republic of China. Morrison’s focus in his China reports displayed a clear thematic shift, before and after the Westernized reform implemented by the Qing government in the early 20th century, from the struggle for influence and interest between international powers in China to the political and social reforms being considered by the Chinese government. This shift of focus conveyed Morrison’s confidence and optimism towards China’s reform at that time and it had a lot to do with his connection with some progressive bureaucrats represented by the then most powerful Yuan Shikai and Yuan’s Cantonese subordinates such as Liang Tunyen, Liang Shiyi and Tang Shaoyi, all of whom were English-speaking, western-educated high-ranking officials in the central government. Morrison’s reputation as an authority on China affairs was firmly established by his journalistic profession and it led directly to the offer of a job as political advisor by Yuan’s government. It was further augmented by the fact that he later helped to represent China to the Western world in a very different way via his writing and personal influence, not as a hopeless and static country, but as a hopeful and promising land, even though, secretly in his belief, China was never going to be more than an apprentice of the West in its adoption of the Westernized reform.