{"id":{"repo_id":"uiuc","oai_identifier":"oai:www.ideals.illinois.edu:2142/46710"},"canonical_url":"https://search.dev.ndltd.org/etd/uiuc/oai:www.ideals.illinois.edu:2142/46710","repository":{"repo_id":"uiuc","name":"University of Illinois - Urbana-Champaign","base_url":"https://www.ideals.illinois.edu/oai-pmh"},"display":{"title":"Soft power and the Qing state: publishing, book collection, and political legitimacy in eighteenth-century China","abstract":"I explore the process by which the Qianlong emperor, who ruled China from 1736 to 1799, and his officials attempted to consolidate the political legitimacy of the Manchu ruling house over the Han Chinese populace through using institutions inside and outside the state to distribute imperial writings. The Qianlong emperor sought to appeal to the values of the Han Chinese literati in writings where he discusses his own understanding of Chinese ideals pertaining to statecraft, emphasizing how it is necessary for the ruler to share political power and concede to authority external to himself. Both officials and private publishers disseminated copies of the emperor’s writings through a variety of channels, most notably commercial bookstores and academies. Active cooperation between officials and the local elite was also crucial in the use of institutions to collect books for the bibliographic project “The Complete Collection of the Four Treasuries”, which the emperor initiated in order to showcase his support for civil learning. I argue that the variety of social classes and channels involved both in the distribution of imperially authored works and in the collection of books demonstrated an approach to consolidating political legitimacy that was more subtle and indirect than other methods that have been studied. I demonstrate that the eighteenth-century Chinese state sought to deploy soft power through the use of print media to appeal to the values of their subjects, reflecting strategies for affirming political legitimacy similar to those used by modern states.","abstract_html":"I explore the process by which the Qianlong emperor, who ruled China from 1736 to 1799, and his officials attempted to consolidate the political legitimacy of the Manchu ruling house over the Han Chinese populace through using institutions inside and outside the state to distribute imperial writings. The Qianlong emperor sought to appeal to the values of the Han Chinese literati in writings where he discusses his own understanding of Chinese ideals pertaining to statecraft, emphasizing how it is necessary for the ruler to share political power and concede to authority external to himself. Both officials and private publishers disseminated copies of the emperor’s writings through a variety of channels, most notably commercial bookstores and academies. Active cooperation between officials and the local elite was also crucial in the use of institutions to collect books for the bibliographic project “The Complete Collection of the Four Treasuries”, which the emperor initiated in order to showcase his support for civil learning. I argue that the variety of social classes and channels involved both in the distribution of imperially authored works and in the collection of books demonstrated an approach to consolidating political legitimacy that was more subtle and indirect than other methods that have been studied. I demonstrate that the eighteenth-century Chinese state sought to deploy soft power through the use of print media to appeal to the values of their subjects, reflecting strategies for affirming political legitimacy similar to those used by modern states.","abstract_has_math":false,"creators":["Chang, Lawrence"],"institution":"University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign","degree_name":"Ph.D.","degree_level":"Dissertation","degree_discipline":"East Asian Languages and Cultures","degree_department":null,"school":null,"contributors":["Toby, Ronald P.","Shao, Dan","Huntington, Rania","Chow, Kai-Wing"],"advisors":[],"committee_chairs":[],"committee_members":[],"year":2014,"date_issued":"2014-01-16T17:59:55Z","date_published":"2014-01-16T17:59:55Z","updated_at":"2026-07-22T22:25:36Z","subjects":["soft power","Qianlong","rulership","political legitimacy","publishing","China"],"languages":["en"],"rights":["Copyright 2013 Lawrence Chang"],"rights_urls":[],"identifier_entries":[]},"links":{"outbound_url":"http://hdl.handle.net/2142/46710","outbound_label":"Handle","outbound_source":"dc:identifier"},"metadata_groups":[{"id":"people","label":"People","entries":[{"key":"dc:contributor","label":"Contributor","values":["Toby, Ronald P.","Shao, Dan","Huntington, Rania","Chow, Kai-Wing"]},{"key":"dc:creator","label":"Author","values":["Chang, Lawrence"]}]},{"id":"academic_context","label":"Academic Context","entries":[{"key":"dc:date","label":"Dc Date","values":["2014-01-16T17:59:55Z","2013-12"]},{"key":"dc:type","label":"Dc Type","values":["text"]},{"key":"thesis:degree_discipline","label":"Discipline","values":["East Asian Languages and Cultures"]},{"key":"thesis:degree_level","label":"Degree Level","values":["Dissertation"]},{"key":"thesis:degree_name","label":"Degree Name","values":["Ph.D."]},{"key":"thesis:institution_name","label":"Thesis Institution Name","values":["University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign"]}]},{"id":"subjects_keywords","label":"Subjects and Keywords","entries":[{"key":"dc:subject","label":"Dc Subject","values":["soft power","Qianlong","rulership","political legitimacy","publishing","China"]}]},{"id":"language_rights","label":"Language and Rights","entries":[{"key":"dc:language","label":"Dc Language","values":["en"]},{"key":"dc:rights","label":"Dc Rights","values":["Copyright 2013 Lawrence Chang"]}]},{"id":"identifiers","label":"Identifiers","entries":[{"key":"dc:identifier","label":"Identifier","values":["http://hdl.handle.net/2142/46710"]}]},{"id":"additional","label":"Additional Metadata","entries":[{"key":"dc:description","label":"Description","values":["I explore the process by which the Qianlong emperor, who ruled China from 1736 to 1799, and his officials attempted to consolidate the political legitimacy of the Manchu ruling house over the Han Chinese populace through using institutions inside and outside the state to distribute imperial writings. The Qianlong emperor sought to appeal to the values of the Han Chinese literati in writings where he discusses his own understanding of Chinese ideals pertaining to statecraft, emphasizing how it is necessary for the ruler to share political power and concede to authority external to himself. Both officials and private publishers disseminated copies of the emperor’s writings through a variety of channels, most notably commercial bookstores and academies. Active cooperation between officials and the local elite was also crucial in the use of institutions to collect books for the bibliographic project “The Complete Collection of the Four Treasuries”, which the emperor initiated in order to showcase his support for civil learning. I argue that the variety of social classes and channels involved both in the distribution of imperially authored works and in the collection of books demonstrated an approach to consolidating political legitimacy that was more subtle and indirect than other methods that have been studied. I demonstrate that the eighteenth-century Chinese state sought to deploy soft power through the use of print media to appeal to the values of their subjects, reflecting strategies for affirming political legitimacy similar to those used by modern states.","Item withdrawn by Laura Spradlin (lspradl2@illinois.edu) on 2013-11-20T14:46:53Z Item was in collections: University of Illinois Theses & Dissertations (ID: 1) No. of bitstreams: 1 Chang_Lawrence.pdf: 1107858 bytes, checksum: 0d23be9e9fdbfdfcb632dba8fac0d42f (MD5)","Made available in DSpace on 2014-01-16T17:59:55Z (GMT). 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