In a previous blogpost (see here), I commented on a passage that appears in Chinese author Jung Chang's Empress Dowager Cixi: The Concubine Who Launched Modern China. Having finished reading Chang's book about two months ago, I am finally getting around to writing a review of it.
Chang is perhaps most famous for her first book Wild Swans, an account of modern China as reflected in her own life and the lives of her mother and grandmother. In Empress Dowager Cixi, Chang recounts the life of the Empress Dowager Cixi (1835-1908), who dominated China politically for most of second half of the 19th century and into the early 20th century. The subtitle of the book--The Concubine Who Launched Modern China--rather succinctly presents the overall thesis of Chang's book--that Cixi, rather than being the arch-reactionary she is usually portrayed as, was in fact a reformer who sought to bring China into the modern world.
Cixi began her life in the imperial court as a low-level concubine to the Xianfeng Emperor (1831-1861). At that time, China was under the rule of the Qing Dynasty. The Qing emperors were not actually Chinese; rather, they were Manchus. The Manchus had invaded China proper from their homeland in what is today northeastern China in 1644, overthrowing the Ming Dynasty (1368-1644). However, although the Qing rulers were not ethnically Chinese, they attempted to legitimize their rule by adapting themselves to a large extent to Chinese culture, while retaining aspects of their own culture.
Cixi was able to raise her status within the Qing court by bearing the Xianfeng Emperor a son. When her husband died at the young age of 30, Cixi, with the help of the late emperor's widow and his half-brother, engineered a coup which overthrew the council of regents appointed by the deceased emperor to rule in the name of his infant son. From that time on, Ci Xi would largely dominate China's political life--although she officially "retired" from political affairs during the brief reign of her son, the Tongzhi Emperor (who died at the age of 18), and for part of the reign of her nephew, the Guangxu Emperor (1871-1908), who Cixi chose to succeed her son.
During Cixi's time in power, China faced a number of crises, including increasing encroachments on China's sovereignty by various Western powers and Japan, the Taiping Rebellion (1850-1864), and the Boxer Rebellion (1898-1900). The first of these rebellions, known in Chinese as the Taiping Tianguo ("Heavenly Kingdom of Great Peace") was launched by a religious movement whose leader claimed to be the younger brother of Jesus. It would devastate much of central China, and led to the death of millions before it was suppressed. Unlike the Taiping Rebellion, the Boxer Rebellion was not aimed against the ruling dynasty but against Westerners in China, including Christian missionaries, as well as Chinese converts to Christianity. Cixi actually threw her support behind the Boxers (so called because they practiced "shadow boxing" techniques that they believed made them immune to the weapons of foreigners). The result was a disaster for China, as the various Western powers and Japan intervened militarily to stop the depredations of the Boxers and forced China to pay a huge indemnity. After the Boxer Rebellion, Cixi began a series of political and social reforms, which, however, proved insufficient to save the Qing Dynasty, which collapsed a few years after her death.
As mentioned above, traditionally, Cixi has been portrayed as an archconservative who refused to undertake needed reforms in China--that is, until forced to do so after the Boxer Rebellion. However, throughout her book, Chang attempts to show that Cixi was in fact a sort of conservative reformer, one who tried to introduce Western technology and ideas into China while retaining aspects of Chinese culture. Consequently, according to the author, Cixi should be regarded in a more favorable light. She concludes her book by stating:
In terms of groundbreaking achievements, political sincerity, and personal courage, Empress Dowager Cixi set a standard that has barely been matched. She brought modernity to replace decrepitude, poverty, savagery and absolute power, and she introduced hitherto untasted humaneness, open-mindedness and freedom. And she had a conscience. Looking back over the many horrific decades [in China] after Cixi's demise, one cannot but admire this amazing stateswoman, flawed though she was. (p. 373)
In my own judgment, Chang makes a fairly strong case for a reassessment of Cixi. Certainly, the traditional view of Cixi is probably too harsh, and is perhaps reflective of a certain male chauvinism among Chinese historians. On the other hand, it seemed to me at times while reading Chang's book that she was trying too hard to paint Cixi in a positive light. For example, near the end of the book, Chang mentions, almost casually, that, while dying herself, Cixi ordered the death the Guangxu Emperor, by poisoning. The reason was that the Empress Dowager, knowing of her nephew's pro-Japanese leanings, feared he might surrender China to Japanese control once she was dead. Even if done for supposed reasons of state, ordering the death of one's near relative seems inexcusable to me. Another weakness of the book for me were the occasional infelicities in the author's English--although overall I admired her for accomplishing something I could never do: authoring an entire book in a language not my own.
In short, even after reading this book, a reader might find it hard to decide whether Cixi was largely a force for good or ill in the long history of China. Nevertheless, the author certainly deserves respect for attempting to make the case for Cixi as "the concubine who launched modern China."
Image of Jung Chang from jungchang.net