ABSTRACT
The Qing dynasty replaced the Ming in 1644, and had not encountered serious threats from the sea. The Taiwan conquest in 1683 1 was one exception, which still had not provided enough justifi cations for investing in a modern navy, or to expand the maritime sector. For the fi rst half of the Qing regime, overseas trade grew despite offi cial bans and indifference from the central government. Booming overseas trading business had owed much to the extensive settlement of overseas Chinese in diaspora community in Southeast Asia. However, maritime communication was not received well in the central government, when a row of coastal defence and relevant policies were ordered in mid-seventeenth century. 2
The 1683 Taiwan conquest shed light on how maritime policies were shaped by a continent-oriented mindset. On the one hand, within certain periods both before and after the Taiwan conquest, policies had much negated the importance of the coast as a battleground. Examples included the prohibition of sailings with unauthorized personnel and onboard resources and the ordering of coastal inhabitants to move inland. Even if the Qing government had established a naval fl eet for coastal defence, this fl eet appeared to be more an issue-driven institution, from which the central government had soon directed resources to other hot spots of crisis. The Qing navy had not remained on a war footing for very long after the Taiwan conquest in 1683, when the Qing government turned its attention to the land-based expansion of the Russians in northeast part of the Asian continent. On the other, the Qing expansion continued in the southwestern part, seeking progress to the Tibetan plateau and Turkestan. The terrestrial domain of the Qing empire had greatly expanded, as the Qing navy largely remained a coastal defence operation up to the eve of the First Opium War in 1842. The capacity and capability of the Qing fl eet was used principally for defence against outside pirates and local marauders. 3
Even with the enthusiasm of reform-minded intellectuals, the replenishment, renovation and establishment of a modern navy by the Qing government 4 had met serious tests – fi rst in the Sino-French war from 1884 to 1885, 5 and second, during the fi rst Sino-Japanese war from 1894 to 1895. 6 In the Sino-French war, the Fuzhou fl eet was almost completely destroyed by the French vessel. Holding other fl eets from running to the rescue of the French raid in Fuzhou fl eet, China chose to settle the issue with negotiations. Despite a Chinese land victory over the French, the outcome nevertheless was bitter. Inter alia, one profound implication was the French annexation of Vietnam, which debilitated further the consistently withering Chinese tributary system, already at its last breath. The Qing government encountered another harsher strike in 1894, when the Qing and Meiji governments were quarrelling over the dominance upon the Korean peninsula, later escalating to formal hostilities between China and Japan. The war was ended with the evisceration of the North Fleet and the loss of senior commanding offi cials.
