In recent years there has been fresh attention to early nineteenth-century China, particularly on the questions of what precisely was done to confront the staggering concerns of the day, as well as how much these concerns contributed to or detracted from the stability of the Qing Empire. Received wisdom suggests that the accumulated crises that shuttered the eighteenth-century “prosperous age” also signaled the eventual collapse of the regime. This was precipitated by woes such as overpopulation, administrative corruption, and the “White Lotus” revolt, exacerbated in later decades by bureaucratic inefficiency, an outflow of silver, trade in opium, and British interventions. Newer approaches recognize these contemporary problems but assert that some ideas and actions—in state reform, literati initiative, or emerging foreign policy—had a beneficial, even restorative, effect that aided dynastic survival. What has remained unclear, however, is how such reformist thinking developed, particularly over the decades of the Jiaqing–Daoguang transition, as well as how it may have linked to the more radical ideas of late Qing activists. In this context, William Rowe's excellent study of the scholar Bao Shichen provides a timely and welcome contribution.
Rowe's book is essentially an intellectual biography, tracing the political-economic planning and proposals of one thinker who was both centered on and at the center of the challenges of his day. In this respect, it is akin to his classic study of the eighteenth-century official Chen Hongmou. Unlike Chen, however, Bao Shichen was not a powerful administrator with rather conventional ideas for his time, but instead a widely respected policy advisor, of a mind more penetrating, precise, and “precocious.” Rowe pursues two basic questions. First, what does a detailed examination of Bao tell us about the “complexities and anxieties of China's early nineteenth-century crisis” and the reformist response to “rescue the empire” (4)? And second, what impact did this response have, extending to the late Qing period and beyond? In his answer, he not only reveals the scope, interconnection, evolution, and gritty detail of Bao Shichen's schemes to bring greater benefit (“profit” li 利) to both common people and the state, but also places Bao in the larger context of middle Qing state activism, “Jiaqing Reforms,” “Daoguang depression,” and Opium War, as well as the respective scholarly literature on these topics.
The discussion proceeds topically. Chapter 1 traces how Bao's humble gentry background and modest examination success led to training in the Changzhou School, and an embrace of its ideals of practical studies, reinforced by his bitter experience with the White Lotus rebellion. Chapter 2 explores Bao's vision for governmental reform as seen in his On Wealth (Shuochu 說儲), written in 1801. A complex plan “for reorganizing the state apparatus” (49), abolishing foreign trade, and limiting middle management while empowering state supervision and local action, it was largely unpublished until 1906, but grounded Bao's overall vision for change.
Chapters 3–6 consider specific policy issues. Chapter 3 explores Bao's ideas on agriculture, notably better planning and a freeing of market distribution to not just feed a growing population but create wealth for both the people below and the state above. Chapter 4 examines the troubled Grand Canal tribute grain system and Bao's plans to bypass a bloated bureaucracy and redirect to sea transport using a system of private commercial carriers and tuntian 屯田 state farms. Chapter 5 turns to the salt monopoly and another specialized bureaucracy that, in Bao's view, inflated prices, encouraged smuggling, and yielded little beneficial wealth. Here he advocated a significantly privatized system that would simplify taxation and allow salt as a commodity for commercial transport and sale—again, ideally eliminating predatory middlemen while contributing to state finances (guoji 國計) and the people's livelihood (minsheng 民生). Finally, Chapter 6 discusses the outlook of Bao Shichen and the scholar Wang Liu on the Qing currency system, particularly in light of the silver drain that upset the copper-to-silver exchange rate and precipitated the Daoguang depression. Both saw need for better control of the Qing monetary system, as well as possible introduction of regulated paper currency.
In this discussion, Rowe emphasizes several points. Bao Shichen embodied an early nineteenth century shift in literati outlook toward more hardheaded and pragmatic concerns of public affairs, akin to contemporaries such as Yan Ruyi and Wei Yuan. In his pursuit of more effective statecraft options, he similarly developed a career as an acknowledged expert (particularly on grain and salt transport), with a distinctive, even singular, ability to combine detailed empirical observation with quantitative analysis that encompassed regional and national scales. Seeing his times as different, Bao was open to innovation, albeit while retaining a passionate commitment to the welfare of both an immiserated populace and besieged state. Nowhere was this clearer than in his views on the market, in which he saw a powerful resource, potential wealth, and alternative to “self-interested parties” and exploitative intermediate layers of imperial bureaucracy. In contrast to scholars such as Lin Man-houng, however, William Rowe is emphatic that Bao Shichen's thinking was “utilitarian” rather than laissez-faire liberalism. Bao did not intend markets to be truly free, but to serve under state supervision as tools for the “maximization of advantage or profit (li)”—his ultimate goal (105). The planner's calculations were not always correct, nor did his plans always succeed. Nevertheless, as Rowe argues, they fed into a discourse of imperial activism that grew in potency over the next century. At its heart of this was Bao Shichen's early advocacy of “wealth and power” (fuqiang 富強) for the state. Associated with this were ideas for improved state finances, reliance on market forces, protectionist barriers from international trade, a national currency system, and national sovereignty that both anticipated late Qing “self-strengthening” reformers and underlay a burgeoning conception of the Chinese nation state.
There is much of interest in Rowe's study. In examining Bao Shichen's early years as an advisor and political thinker, Rowe underscores the pivotal significance of the reforms initiated by the Jiaqing emperor from 1799, opening a door to both literati opinion and administrative innovation. Indeed, Bao's On Wealth indicates that startlingly comprehensive changes were being privately considered, if not implemented. In attention to Bao's development over some four decades, moreover, we see how Jiaqing Reforms idealism was tempered, as the scholar became more pragmatic and selective in the challenges he addressed. I have sometimes wondered whether early nineteenth-century problems, and the manner they were articulated, were somewhat overblown, hyped by contemporaries for their own personal or political reasons. Rowe's discussion of Bao Shichen suggests that this was not the case. From Bao's youth facing the White Lotus revolt, he saw a genuine national crisis, with problems that just kept coming. And for all his faith in the power of proper action, for all that was considered and done, he—like his contemporaries—faced a life in which the dynasty clearly was not getting better. Rowe's treatment of what exactly Bao wanted to do about it is, I think, the most satisfying part of the study. The detail provided is immediate, clear, and skillfully explained. Somewhat fuzzier, however, is the discussion of Bao Shichen's long-term contribution to late Qing reformist discourse. Rowe is convincing in showing that Bao's ideas were part of that mix and deserve recognition as such. Exactly how the impact played out, however, is more traced than examined in detail. On this topic (and others, such as hydrology and calligraphy) the study of this fascinating polymath has not yet been exhausted.
Overall, when one sets out, as Dr. Rowe has, to write a study of the wonkier ideas of a brilliant Chinese policy wonk, one should expect that the discussion will be, well, somewhat wonky. In this sense, the book is perhaps not for everyone. But for those with related interests—in Qing governmental administration and policy, literati activism, comparative early modern reform, the Jiaqing and Daoguang periods, Bao Shichen himself, and more—it rightly deserves attention. Rowe's monograph not only provides needed (re)examination of a complex time and topic, it does so in a manner that is commendably lucid, erudite, and accessible.
