Zheng Guanying or Cheng Kuan-ying (1842-1922 or 1923) was a Chinese reformist active in the late

Qing Dynasty The Qing dynasty ( ), officially the Great Qing,, was a Manchu-led imperial dynasty of China and the last orthodox dynasty in Chinese history. It emerged from the Later Jin dynasty founded by the Jianzhou Jurchens, a Tungusic-spea ...

Chinese University of Hong Kong The Chinese University of Hong Kong (CUHK) is a public research university in Ma Liu Shui, Hong Kong, formally established in 1963 by a charter granted by the Legislative Council of Hong Kong. It is the territory's second-oldest university and ...

. Retrieved on 12 November 2017. He was a proponent of fighting economic dominance by Western countries of China through

economic nationalism Economic nationalism, also called economic patriotism and economic populism, is an ideology that favors state interventionism over other market mechanisms, with policies such as domestic control of the economy, labor, and capital formation, incl ...

, of parliamentary

representative democracy Representative democracy, also known as indirect democracy, is a type of democracy where elected people represent a group of people, in contrast to direct democracy. Nearly all modern Western-style democracies function as some type of represe ...

, and of women's rights.Guo, Wu, p
2
Zheng Guanying3

History

His family members resided in

Macau Macau or Macao (; ; ; ), officially the Macao Special Administrative Region of the People's Republic of China (MSAR), is a city and special administrative region of China in the western Pearl River Delta by the South China Sea. With a p ...

,Zheng Guanying
" Mandarin's House, Cultural Affairs Bureau (Macau). Retrieved on 12 November 2017. but his birthplace was Xiangshan,

Guangdong Guangdong (, ), alternatively romanized as Canton or Kwangtung, is a coastal province in South China on the north shore of the South China Sea. The capital of the province is Guangzhou. With a population of 126.01 million (as of 2020) ...

; today this is the Yongmo area of Sanxiang,

Zhongshan Zhongshan (; ) is a prefecture-level city in the south of the Pearl River Delta in Guangdong province, China. As of the 2020 census, the whole city with 4,418,060 inhabitants is now part of the Guangzhou–Shenzhen conurbation with 65,565,622 ...

. He lived in the Mandarin's House in São Lourenço, Macau. He made a career as a comprador after moving to

Shanghai Shanghai (; , , Standard Mandarin pronunciation: ) is one of the four direct-administered municipalities of the People's Republic of China (PRC). The city is located on the southern estuary of the Yangtze River, with the Huangpu River flowin ...

at 16 years of age; he previously took and failed the xiucai imperial examinations at that age;Guo, Wu, p
1
he ultimately never passed any such examinations. He first worked for Overweg and Company, a British firm, and later for

Butterfield & Swire Swire Group () is a Hong Kong- and London-based British conglomerate. Many of its core businesses can be found within the Asia Pacific region, where traditionally Swire's operations have centred on Hong Kong and mainland China. Within Asia, ...

. Initially he used his funds to buy official titles. In 1879 he became a circuit intendant or ''daotai'' as an award for his community service, and he received other titles due to his service work.Davies, Gloria (

Monash University Monash University () is a public research university based in Melbourne, Victoria, Australia. Named for prominent World War I general Sir John Monash, it was founded in 1958 and is the second oldest university in the state. The university h ...

).
Fragile Prosperity
" '' China Heritage Quarterly''. No. 26, June 2011. Retrieved on 12 November 2017. He took night classes on the English language at the Anglo-Chinese School. He began his own firm after turning 41. He went back to Macau in late 1886. His employment background differed from those of other Chinese reformers of that era; others had academic or government backgrounds.

Works

In the early 1870s he published essays about politics. ''

Words of Warning to a Prosperous Age ''Words of Warning to a Prosperous Age'' or ''Words of Warning in Times of Prosperity'' (), also translated as ''Blunt Words in a Time of Prosperity'', is a book written by Zheng Guanying that advocates self-strengthening and seeking wealth, and ...

'' (盛世危言 ''shèngshì wēiyán'') was published in 1893. ''Travels to the South'', a travel log, was the result of his 1884 intelligence-gathering mission in

French Indochina French Indochina (previously spelled as French Indo-China),; vi, Đông Dương thuộc Pháp, , lit. 'East Ocean under French Control; km, ឥណ្ឌូចិនបារាំង, ; th, อินโดจีนฝรั่งเศส, ...

Legacy and scholarship

Zheng's writings had an extraordinary influence, both in his own time and in later decades. Among those who acknowledge his inspiration were

Mao Zedong Mao Zedong pronounced ; also romanised traditionally as Mao Tse-tung. (26 December 1893 – 9 September 1976), also known as Chairman Mao, was a Chinese communist revolutionary who was the founder of the People's Republic of China (PRC) ...

,, p. 21 and

Lu Xun Zhou Shuren (25 September 1881 – 19 October 1936), better known by his pen name Lu Xun (or Lu Sun; ; Wade–Giles: Lu Hsün), was a Chinese writer, essayist, poet, and literary critic. He was a leading figure of modern Chinese literature. ...

. As of 2011 most English-language journal articles discussing Zheng were published in the 1960s, and few English-language books on him existed. Beginning in the 1980s more articles about Zheng were published in Chinese.Guo, Wu, p
3
Escola Oficial Zheng Guanying, a government school in Macau, was given its current name in 2011. "Confrontada com a polémica da mudança dos directores, Wu Kit disse que desde a transformação da Escola Luso-Chinesa de Tamagnini Barbosa para a Escola Zheng Guanying em 2011, .. The 160th anniversary of the birth of Zheng was held in Zhongshan in 2002.

References

Sources

* Guo, Wu. ''Zheng Guanying, Merchant Reformer of Late Qing China and his Influence on Economics, Politics, and Society''.

Cambria Press Cambria Press is an independent academic publisher based in Amherst, New York. The publishing company was established by 2006, with its first titles released in September of that year.Blackwell Book Services (2007) Cambria publishes academic mono ...

. May 28, 2010. .

, Vol. 29, No. 1 (Nov., 1969), pp. 15–22. . Chinese: * Xia, Dongyuan. ''Zheng Guanying Ji Shang Ce.'' (Collected works by Zheng Guanying, Volume 1). Shanghai Renmin Chubanshe, Shanghai 1982. * Xia, Dongyuan. ''Zheng Guanying Ji Xia Ce.'' (Collected works by Zheng Guanying, Volume 2). Shanghai Renmin Chubanshe, Shanghai 1982. * Fung, Yiu-shing () (1998).
Zheng Guanying's (1841-1923) ideas of parliamentary reform as expounded in his Shengshi Weiyan = Zheng Guanying "Sheng shi wei yan" zhong de yi yuan gai ge si xiang
() (Master's thesis).

University of Hong Kong The University of Hong Kong (HKU) (Chinese: 香港大學) is a public research university in Hong Kong. Founded in 1887 as the Hong Kong College of Medicine for Chinese, it is the oldest tertiary institution in Hong Kong. HKU was also the f ...

. DOIbr>10.5353/th_b3195197
''English abstract available''. * Ha, Chi-kwan () (1999).
Zheng Guanying's (1842-1922) ideas of political reform = Zheng Guanying zheng zhi gai ge si xiang yan jiu
() (Master's thesis).

. DOI
10.5353/th_b3195199
''English abstract available''. * Kwong, Ming-wai () (2007).
Daoist influence on Zheng Guanying's (1842-1922) thought = Zheng Guanying de dao jiao qing xiang yu ji shi si xiang yan jiu
() (Master's thesis).

. DOIbr>10.5353/th_b3859870
''English abstract available''. * Siu, Men-yee Anita () (1989).
A study of Zheng Guanying's (1842-1922) economic thought = Zheng Guanying de jing ji si xiang yan jiu
() (Master's thesis).

. DOI
10.5353/th_b3194967At the
University of Hong Kong Libraries Electronic Resources Alumni e-Library. ''English abstract available''. * Wang, Ying-k'ang. "Cheng Kuan-ying ch'i-jen chi chʻi ssu-hsiang" ("The Profile and Ideas of Cheng Kuan-ying"). '' Shih-hsüeh yüeh-kan'' ("Monthly Historical Study"), formerly ''Hsin shih-hsüeh t'ung-hsün'' ("Thorough Investigation of New Historical Study"). Volume 1 (January, 1958), Issue 34. German: * Kehnen, Johannes. ''Cheng Kuan-Ying – Unternehmer und Reformer der späten Ch'ing-Zeit''. Verlag Otto Harrassowitz, Wiesbaden 1975, . {{DEFAULTSORT:Zheng, Guanying 1841 births 1923 deaths Cantonese people Chinese reformers People from Zhongshan

History

Works

Legacy and scholarship

References

Sources

Further reading