Hundred days reform free#
However, Tsai falls far short of Kang, Liang and the six martyrs in that she clearly does not have the same determination to pursue reform and “break free of all constraining nets,” as Tan put it. When Guangxu was overcome by reactionary forces in the imperial palac headed by the Empress Dowager Cixi (慈禧太后) and her cousin, General Ronglu (榮祿), Kang and Liang were forced to flee abroad, while Tan Sitong (譚嗣同) and other fellow reformers were beheaded, earning them the title of the “Six Martyrs of the Hundred Days’ Reform.” Kang and Liang, in contrast, relied on the support of Emperor Guangxu (光緒). Tsai is more fortunate than Kang and Liang in that she has the backing of a majority of the public, as expressed by the votes in the legislative and presidential elections, and this support can serve as a force for reform. Now, as in the past, people usually put their own interests first. In a similar way, Tsai’s proposed pension reforms have met with resistance from military personnel, civil servants and public school teachers who enjoy a preferential 18 percent interest rate on some of their savings.
However, scholars from all over China - including hundreds of hanlin (翰林), thousands of juren (舉人) and tens of thousands of xiucai (秀才), as well as millions of tongsheng (童生) who had taken, but not passed, the imperial examinations - rebelled against these reforms, because they felt that they would mean that they had wasted all their efforts. Kang and Liang’s Hundred Days’ Reform sought to abolish the imperial examination system with its “eight-legged essays” and to reorganize administrative institutions. However, compared with conservatives, the resistance of vested interest groups is much harder to overcome. Whereas Kang promoted reform by alluding to ancient precedents, Tsai has reassured KMT supporters by affirming the legitimacy of the Republic of China. However, changes are inevitably met with resistance from conservative forces and vested interests, so reformers have to think of comforting pretexts for reform to allay opposition by conservatives. Tsai has now had her own “100 days’ reform,” in which the most prominent reforms have been the enactment of the Act Governing the Handling of Ill-gotten Properties by Political Parties and Their Affiliate Organizations (政黨及其附隨組織不當取得財產處理條例) and the scrapping of the greater China-oriented “adjustments” made to high-school history curriculum guidelines under the former Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) administration. In Taiwanese culture, the phrase “100 days” has connotations of mourning, but for me, as a historian, it brings to mind the Hundred Days’ Reform initiated by Kang Youwei (康有為), Liang Qichao (梁啟超) and others in 1898, toward the end of China’s Qing Dynasty. Saturday last week marked President Tsai Ing-wen’s (蔡英文) first 100 days in office.
0 kommentar(er)
