In her chapter on the new police and urban reform, Kate Stapleton argues that the creation of a reforming, and above all, dignified police force in Chengdu was an important component in the programme to modernise China. She discusses the reforms of politician Cen Chunxuan in the creation of such a force, establishing a police academy and a training camp for constables.[1] The new police force was to be highly bureaucratic, recruited from “upright families”, literate, and follow specific rules of behaviour.[2] Constables were required to not laugh, to walk in a dignified way, to speak politely, and no not smoke, eat, drink, or purchase things while on duty.[3]
Looking at William Greener’s 1905 book “A Secret Agent in Port Arthur”, it is possible to see that these rules of Chengdu’s new police force were based on expectations of the behaviour of soldiers in imperial armies. Greener notes his impressions of the Chinese soldiers of the viceroy Yuan-shi-kai in contrast to Russian officers and troops. Of Yuan-shi-kai’s soldiers, he writes that ‘they are fine men in clean, neat uniforms; they carry Mauser magazine rifles…have plenty of ammunition and get their pay regularly’.[4] His extensive discussion of their appearance and equipment conveys the sense that the soldiers are a symbol of Chinese authority in the area. Chinese control is clearly strong and their soldiers reflect this in looking dignified and authoritative. Greener was much less impressed by Russian soldier in China, writing that ‘they drank freely, lived as well as their means permitted, and enjoyed themselves as far as circumstances allowed…they lack seriousness, refinement and education’.[5] In Greener’s eyes, the Russian soldiers clearly have no discipline, and so Russian presence in China seems weak in Greener’s writing. The soldiers represent a foreign presence in a local space—a reflection of foreign power.
Thus, it is unsurprising that in creating the new police force to reform Chengdu, Cen Chunxuan and his team placed a huge emphasis on the appearance and behaviour of their police force. The officers and constables were to be symbols of higher authority operating within the local community.
This move in Chengdu to modernise the police form seems to be part of a greater trend in early 20th c. China to create change and instigate reform from the ground up. Zhou Shanpei, the man Cen Chunxuan assigned the job of drafting regulations for police and training personnel, not only drafted a document outlining the regulations for his police bureau, but also ensured these regulations were publicised and distributed to citizens, encouraging them to report abuses by the police to the bureau.[6] In encouraging an increase in community involvement, Zhou played an important role in enforcing the idea of the new police force as a symbol of nationhood: both civilians and police played a role in enforcing the laws of their new community.
The view that true change must emerge from the people of the community, not just their leaders, is echoed in the writings of Putnam Weale, a British author and translator working in China. In Weale’s chapter on ‘Cleansing the Augean Stables’ in Sir Robert Brendon’s Three Essays on the Value of Foreign Advice in the Internal Development of China, published in 1915, he argues that true change in China must come from the bottom up. ‘Until changes enter into the very lifeblood of the people’, he writes, ‘and are the result of conviction and not of compulsion, they will have no more significance than freckles or mumps or any other minor ailment on a healthy body’.[7] Weale means this in the context of international interference in China’s development—however, his argument can be extended to the context of an actively involved local police force. Not only does true change come from within China itself, but also it must come from ‘the common man’.[8] By involving the “common men” in upholding laws and regulations alongside the police force of Chengdu, Zhou Shanpei and Cen Chunxuan reflected the broader concerns about China both internally and internationally to modernise from the ground up and to create a stronger sense of local and national identity.
[1] Kristin Stapleton, “The Key to Urban Reform: The New Police Force,” in Civilising Chengdu: Chinese Urban Reform 1895-1937 (Cambridge MA and London: Harvard University Press, 2000), 82.
[2] Ibid, 83.
[3] Ibid.
[4] William Greener, A Secret Agent in Port Arthur (London: Archibald Constable & Co Ltd., 1905),159.
[5] Ibid, 234.
[6] Stapleton, “New Police”, 83.
[7] Putnam Weale, “The Cleansing of the Augean Stables,” in Advice and Advisers: Three Essays on the Value of Foreign Advice in the Internal Development of China, by Sir Robert Brendon (Peking: Peking Gazette, 1915), 17.
[8] Ibid, 21.
Bibliography:
Greener, William. A Secret Agent in Port Arthur. London: Archibald Constable & Co Ltd., 1905.
Stapleton, Kristin. “The Key to Urban Reform: The New Police Force.” In Civilising Chengdu: Chinese Urban Reform 1895-1937. Cambridge MA and London: Harvard University Press, 2000.
Weale, Putnam. “The Cleansing of the Augean Stables.” In Advice and Advisers: Three Essays on the Value of Foreign Advice in the Internal Development of China, by Sir Robert Brendon. Peking: Peking Gazette, 1915.