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Li Hongzhang(李鴻章)

Li Hongzhang (李鴻章, 1823-1901) was a Chinese statesman during the Qing Dynasty. Commonly known as Northern Ocean Minister (北洋大臣), his official title was '太子太傳文華殿大學士商務大臣北洋大臣直隸總督部堂一等肅毅伯,' according to the Boxer Protocol (辛丑和約 or 北京議定書) signed in 1901 with the nations involved in quelling the Boxer Rebellion. Much like Kim Ok-gyun (1851-1894), a Korean politician in his time, Li Hongzhang has polarized people judging his merits and faults in history.

Li Hongzhang with Mixed Reviews for His Merits and Faults in History

Born in the village of Qunzhi (群治), 14 kilometers from Hefei (合肥), now the capital of Anhui (安徽) Province, Li Hongzhang earned the status of an "advanced scholar (進士)" in 1847. Two years later, he gained admittance into the Hanlin Academy (翰林院). In 1851, during the Taiping Rebellion, Li organized a militia to fight in defense of his hometown. Soon, he was discovered and drafted by the influential Zeng Guofan (曾國藩, 1811-1872). Recognized for his merits of quelling the 'Rebellion' by organizing the Huai Army (淮軍) modeled after the Ziang Army (湘軍), Zeng Guofan's volunteer troops for homeland, Li Hongzhang succeed Zeng Guofan as the Viceroy of Zhili (直隶: the administrative district that refers to the area north of the lower Yellow River (黃河)). As he was also Northern Ocean Minister then, the Huai Army came to be called 'Northern Ocean Warlord.'

Li Hongzhang was also the initiator of the Self-strengthening Movement from the 1860s onwards, establishing such organizations as Ji'angnan Manufacturing Bureau (江南製造局), Ship & Sale Bureau (輪船招商局), and Telegraph Bureau (電報局). Above all else, the Northern Ocean Minister began to control more and more of the Office for the General Management of the Affairs of All Nations (總理各國事務衙門), the organization which was in charge of foreign affairs but reducing its functions, until he was placed almost full in charge of making important diplomatic policies or negotiating and signing important conventions or treaties with foreign countries.

Li Hongzhang's Diplomacy with Korea

The 1871 Sino-Japanese Friendship and Commerce Treaty (淸日修好條規) was signed at Japan's new Meiji (明治) government's request to China to forge a new international relationship based on International Law once the same request was refused by Korea. The one in charge of negotiating and signing this treaty on China's side was none other than Li Hongzhang. During the so-called Gangwha Incident (1876) and the negotiation and signing of the Korea-Japan Treaty of Amity (1876) as a follow-up measure, the Japanese diplomat Mori Arinori (森 有禮: 1847-1889) persistently asked Li Hongzhang to define the nature of Sino-Korean relations, to which Li Hongzhang stated that Korea, though a tributary state (屬邦: shupang) of China, was an independent state not 'interfered' by China in political and religious affairs, and regulations (政敎禁令). That's why Article 1 of the Korea-Japan Treaty of Amity recognized Korea as an 'independent state (自主之邦),' which would later cause a serious misunderstanding and dispute among Japan and Western powers over whether or not Korea was an 'independent state.'

One cannot fully comprehend Li Hongzhang's Korean policy without considering "Korean Strategy (朝鮮策略)" by Huang Zunxian (黃遵憲, 1848-1905). In this booklet, which the Korean envoy Kim Hong-jip brought into Korea from Japan, it was suggested that Korea's new diplomatic policy should be to stay close to (親) China, associate with (結) Japan, and ally with (聯) America. Li Hongzhang's suggested this policy to Korea because he wanted to control Russia, Japan, and Western powers having emerged as threats to China through his Northeast Asian policy of 'letting the barbarians control the barbarians (以夷制夷).' In other words, he viewed that opening Korea to the West could help establish 'a balance of power' in Northeast Asia and that the traditional tributary relationship between China and Korea could be used to help reestablish the 'Sino-centric order system' that was becoming increasingly nominal.

Li Hongzhang, feeling that China as a traditional supreme power was being challenged by the Western treaty system based on International Law threatening to reshape the international order, took a measure that would place China over the Western powers; in an effort to reinforce the existing tributary system by means of China's vassal relationship with Korea, he signed "regulations" with Japan (Sino-Japanese Amity Regulations, 1871), a country that once was in a tributary relationship with China, and signed 'rules,' equivalent to regulations, with Korea (Communication and Commerce Rules :朝淸商民水陸貿易章程, 1882), a vassal state of China. According to him, the regulations, referring to the rules specially authorized by the court, differed from treaties in both name and meaning. While a treaty was signed between countries in equal status, he argued, regulations or rules are signed between a superior country and a subordinate country. His idea was that if Korea, a tributary state of China, signed a treaty in equal status with Western powers, then China as the suzerain of Korea would be naturally placed above all the nations. At the turn of the 1880s, Li Hongzhang immediately set out to actively persuade Korea to sign treaties with the Western powers, partly to achieve the balance of power by 'letting the barbarians control the barbarians' but fundamentally to seek a new international order in which China would be dominant by fighting and 'incorporating' the treaty system into the tributary system. In fact, the United States, which signed the 'United States-Korea Treaty' with Korea in 1882, could not announce it for a while, viewing the treaty as genuflection for China. And this new international order system (='rules system') dominated by China, highly controversial though it was in the international community, lasted until the conclusion of the Peace Treaty (also known as the Shimonoseki Treaty) in 1895 following China's defeat in the Sino-Japanese War (1894-1895).

A Traitor or a Diplomatic Hero?

Because his warfare relied almost solely on the army of his own establishment and leadership without any support from the army led by his rivals and political enemies, Li Hongzhang eventually lost the Sino-Japanese War. When he visited Shimonoseki for the humiliating peace negotiation, he was even shot and injured by a Japanese assailant. It was decided during the negotiation that China should pay Japan a war indemnity in the amount of about 1 trillion and 29 billion and 400 million yens in current value (quadruple of Japan's general budget at that time). The astronomical amount of money Japan took from China financed the leaps they would take to become a capitalist country, paving their way into imperialism and militarism in earnest, which, as is well known, would lead to their victory in the Russo-Japanese War (1904-1905) and the annexation of Korea.

Because of the unequal and humiliating nature of the all kinds of treaties he signed with foreign countries, Li Hongzhang had been denounced as a 'traitor (漢奸)' for a long time. However, a number of 'heroic episodes' of his relating to foreign countries (foreigners) were also revealed as many historical records relating to him were discovered and published later. In one episode, the German ambassador in Beijing gave two of their proud German shepherds to Li Hongzhang as a 'tribute.' Not having received any comment, the German ambassador asked Li Hongzhang in person when he had a chance, "How did you like the German shepherds that our Prime Minister sent you the other day?" Li Hongzhang replied casually, "Oh! I really liked them. They tasted great!" This episode illustrates the wit of Li Hongzhang, who criticized the 'barbaric' Westerns who not only massacred people and captured pandas the endangered species but also ruthlessly took away mining rights, railroad construction rights, and the rights to use the ports.