The conference aims to analyze the mutual transcultural transfer of notions of bureaucratic order, efficiency and ethos. It brings together both scholars from Asia and Europe to present papers and discuss the adaption and implementation of foreign ideas of governance and administrative institutions in Europe and Asia from the Early Modern era to the early 20th century.

Program:

September 20th

11.00 Campus Tour (Meeting in Hotel Lobby)

12.30 Lunch

13.30 Welcome: Vice-President of Tsinghua-University (Beijing)

13.45 Welcome: Zhang Guogang (Beijing)

14.00 Introduction: Susan Richter (Heidelberg)

Panel 1: Comparison and Flows of Administrative Ideas between Europe and China Chair: Guido Mühlemann (Zürich)

14.30 Elisabeth Kaske (Pittsburgh): Bureaucratic Efficiency and the Question of Office Selling in Late Qing China

15.15 Wang Shuo (Heidelberg/Freiburg): The Canton System. A Window, which didn´t want to open?

16.00 Coffee Break

16.30 Wu Liwei (Beijing): Discourses on Administrative Institutions in Europe and China during the Ming and Qing Period

17.15 Yang Nianqun (Beijing): "Ideas of Education" and "Scholar-Bureaucrats" in local administration of Qing Empire. A case of the implementation of an edict from Emperor Qianlong through local officials

18.00 Wang Xianming (Beijing): Western Theory and Chinese Practice: A Study of the Experiment in Constitutional Government in the last Years of the Qing Dynasty".

Joint Dinner

September 21th

Panel 2: Perceptions and Impacts in Europe Chair: Elisabeth Kaske (Pittsburgh)

09.30 Walter Demel (München): Political Order, Administration and Jurisdiction in East Asia – European Views, 16th to 18th Centuries

10.15 Armin Kohnle (Leipzig): State and Administration as Perceived by European Protestant Missionaries in Asia during the Early Modern Period

11.00 Coffee Break

11.30 Stefan G. Jacobsen (Aarhus): Inoculating European Administration with ‘l’esprit Chinois’

12.15 Lunch Break

Panel 3: Changing Practices in South Asia and Southeast Asia Chair: Armin Kohnle (Leipzig)

14.30 Antje Flüchter (Heidelberg): Justice or Despotism? Shifting Perceptions of Judiciary in India between Archetype or Antipode

15.15 Gauri Parasher (Heidelberg): Dynamics of Governance. Administration of French Territories in India during the 18th Century

16.00 Coffee Break

16.30 Sebastian Meurer (Heidelberg): Administrative Reform by Principles. The “Cornwallis-System” of Colonial Rule in the British Imperial Context

17.15 Ahmad Kamal Ariffin Bin Mohd Rus (Kuala Lumpur/Malaysia): The Consolidation of the British Control in the Administration of the Federated Malay States, 1896-1909

20.00 Public Lecture by Jon S.T. Quah (Singapore): Meritocracy and Corruption Control in Singapore: Enhancing the Legacy of British Administrative Reforms (everyone is welcome, especially students) Chair: Xu Zhangrun (Beijing)

September 22th

Panel 4: Governing the Military Chair: Wang Hui (Beijing)

08.30 Isabelle Deflers (Freiburg): The Prussian Military Constitution Revisited. Transfer of Knowledge from Prussia to France in the Aftermath of the Seven Year’s War

9.15 Barend Noordam (Heidelberg): Sino-European Encounters: Mutual Perceptions of Military Capabilities in the Seventeenth Century

10.00 Nicolas Schillinger (Heidelberg): Micro-techniques of Governance. Soldierly Bodies in China around 1900

10.45 Coffee Break

11.15 Zhang Guogang (Beijing): The Relationship between Hildebrandt and the Late Qing Government during the Construction of the “Jinan-Qingdao Railroad”

12:00 Comments and Final Discussion: Chaired by Walter Demel (München) and Susan Richter (Heidelberg)

12.30 Administration of the Qing Court: Guided Tour of the Forbidden City organized by Wang Shuo

Conference Languages: English, Chinese, German

Conference Venue
Jinchunyuan Building, Tsinghua University
Shuangqing Road Nr. 30, Haidian District, Beijing