In considering the vital role played by imperial rites in claiming political legitimacy and maintaining social stability, Chinese emperors endeavored to present themselves as the perfect model for their subjects in terms of ritual performance. Focusing on a Northern Song (960–1127) ritual debate over the placement of imperial ancestors’ spirit tablets and ancestral chambers, especially that of the Primal Ancestor, this study aims to contribute to a better understanding of discussions on ancestral rituals and how they were intensified during the implementation of Wang Anshi’s New Policies. More importantly, this study reveals the differences between Song scholar-officials’ political positions and intellectual interests, thus providing a new interpretation of Song factionalism from the perspective of ritual politics.
The category of “customs,” or fengsu, was important for the literati of the Song dynasty in writing local histories. It covers local practices of festival rituals, weddings and funerals, rites for passage into adulthood, sacrificial rites, and the like. The main purpose behind the literati’s efforts to record fengsu was not to acknowledge local variations but to censor local customs and transform society. This paper looks at these type of texts as a discourse that is meant to promote the correct, standard performance of rites and suppress those deemed improper. It uses boat racing in Song records of fengsu as a case study to illustrate how the imperial spectacle of boat racing in spring was propagated and how the linkage between the death anniversary of Qu Yuan and Duanwu were reinforced. Meanwhile, the popular ritual of boat racing during the summer, which bore distinct violent and shamanic attributes, was strongly criticised. Through these efforts by the literati, a normative discourse of the boat-racing ritual was repeated and reinforced in the fengsu recording.
This article analyzes China’s attempts to participate in and use the negotiations about reforming the international opium control system in the interwar period. China had a contentious relationship with the international opium control system from its creation in the International Opium Convention of 1912 through the League of Nations opium control system of the 1920s and 1930s. The Chinese government wanted to gain acceptance for China as a modern state no longer in need of tutelage from the international community. They also wanted to portray the Chinese people as a modern race as a way of undermining colonial opium monopolies, which made a disproportionate amount of their profits from sales to Overseas Chinese. While they were not fully successful in either of these efforts, China did manage to win some support, drawing the United States into closer agreement with China’s positions. Engagement with the international system also had a considerable impact on China’s domestic opium politics and its broader diplomatic relationship with the major powers.
Increasingly, Chinese history is becoming a more significant component of academic international history. This is particularly true in light of the Chinese economic reform, whereby historical narrative has been able to go beyond more traditional standards of periodization, allowing, for example, Ming and Qing-era historical research to grow and develop qualitatively as well as quantitatively. In this sense, the field has greatly benefitted from the “ideological liberation” which followed in wake of the reform. However in a broader sense, this development is also closely related with academic exchange. Communications among domestic and international scholars of Ming and Qing history, as well as of international history, has normalized in the years following the reforms. This has not only led to a considerable influx of “overseas” historical research to China’s mainland, but has also allowed for a larger-scale access to and citation of Chinese historical research by these overseas scholars. Domestic and international scholars have, from this, established much closer academic relations with one another. This tremendous progress made within the field Ming and Qing-era historical research during the past forty years was established upon the foundation of Chinese scholars’ assiduous efforts as well as their increasingly frequent exchanges with international scholars and academics.
In the wake of the Chinese economic reform, Chinese scholars have welcomed in the resurgence of historical social research. Looking back over the past 30-odd years of research development, it could be said there existed four general periods: A brainstorm period, an initial “beginning” period, a period of maturation and lastly an expansion period. From looking at the context of [its] theoretical development, it is clear that scholars researching Chinese social history were, from the beginning, focused on how exactly to define “society.” This, however, resulted in much debate about the different concepts of social history itself. Though the matter has yet to be settled, the ultimate research objective for the field of historical social research is in its pursuit of truth. In recent years following the dissolution of disciplinary boundaries, the interdisciplinary viewpoint(s) established by social and cultural history have also provided forth a new horizon for the development of Chinese historical social research.