The Free Flow of Communication Between High and Low: The Shenbao as Platform for Yangwu Discussions on Political Reform, 1872-1895

This article studies the role played by the Shenbao 申報 between 1872 and 1895 in framing Chinese discussions of the problems of their polity and possible reforms. It challenges the narrative that such discussions only began after the loss of the war in 1895, and shows that the discussions documented by Onogawa Hidemi for the 1880s actually followed earlier Shenbao precedents. The case study presented here concerns how the lack of communication between high and low social classes was at the heart of China’s problems. The Shenbao discusses modern Western institutions such as independent newspapers and a parliament as ways to ensure such communication, and as modern developments of a political ideal that existed in the Three Dynasties (Sandai 三代). The dismantling of that ideal state reflects, in the lines of thought expressed in the Shenbao articles, the despotic nature of Chinese rule since the Qin dynasty (221-206 bce).