Abstracts Category : Other

Colonialism in contention: the 1874 and 1898 Siming gongsuo riots in Qing China

by Taoyu Yang

The 1874 and 1898 Siming gongsuo riots were two violent conflicts that occurred between a local commercial guild and the French authority in the French concession in Shanghai. Arguably, these two incidents were the greatest popular disturbances in the history of foreign concessions in Shanghai. Although previous scholarship has shed light on the reasons for and the repercussion of the riots, a rigid Sino-France dichotomy and China-centered approach seem to have been uncritically applied. Based upon voluminous multi-lingual primary sources housed in the Shanghai Municipal Archive and the Shanghai Library, this study, first and foremost, suggests that the 1874 and 1898 riots are much more complicated than a simplistic Sino-France binary. Also, this study aims to draw attention to the multi-dimensional challenges with which the French colonial institutions were confronted in these cases. In order to better conceptualize the two riots, I propose the concept of the modern colonial quandary to describe the convergence of local opposition from China, imperial rivalry between Britain and France and the internal discord within the French colonial institutions. Moreover, this study draws heavily on the recent studies of empire and its correlation with colonialism which highlight empire not as an invincible and all-powerful hegemon but as a constantly expanding entity replete with anxiety and vulnerability. Lastly, the present study also attempts to contribute to the growing body of scholarship on examining Chinese history from an international perspective.Advisors/Committee Members: Chow, Kai-wing (advisor).