Zheng Guanying, Merchant Reformer of Late Qing China and his Infl ...

transforming the identity of the urban elite. If the broader involvementin national politics by lower literati was a main theme of Wei Yuan'sconstitutional agenda, as Philip Kuhn suggested, then Zheng Guanying epitomized a new trend following Wei Yuan's era—this participation further expanded to include merchants and people with no academic degree.²¹

In chapter two, I discuss Zheng's experiences as merchant and sociopolitical activist: his experience and activities as a young comprador in foreign companies to becoming an investor and eventually a manager of Chinese enterprises; his involvement in education; tours in Southeast Asia as a short-term diplomat; and his attitudes toward the 1898 reform movement as well as the 1911 revolution. This chapter highlights Zheng's role in the semi-official enterprises and in late Qing informal diplomacy toward Southeast Asia and Japan, as well as Zheng's visions of a maritime China and an East Asian community. The narrative on Zheng's interaction in the Hundred Days Reform of 1898 provides an interpretation of the 1898 reform movement from the perspective of moderate Shanghai gentry-merchants.

Chapter three examines public opinion in both Chinese and Western print media and focuses on the Shenbao, one of the most influential print media outlets in China before 1949. The examination of the background, editorial principles, and opinions of the Shenbao demonstrates that the commercial newspaper was introduced into Shanghai as a Western-style mass medium and forum of public opinion. Although British merchants owned and managed the Shenbao, the Chinese urban elite edited it and contributed to it. As a result, they helped form public opinion to articulate Chinese national interests and express explicit nationalistic concerns and the pursuit of social progress. By publishing in the Shenbao, Zheng Guanying found a new channel to articulate his ideas to the public and joined the formation of this elite public opinion in the 1870s. More importantly, I argue that a loose network of independent and critical intellectuals was formed among the editors, authors, and advisors of the newspaper and that this network was an indispensable component of the new urban space.