Robert Hart’s relationship with the late Qing bureaucracy

This thesis will argue that Hart did not simply stick obstinately to British blueprints for reform in China. Instead, he tried to fuse the ideas of Qing intellectuals and the Self-Strengthening movement into the British model to develop his own approach to modernisation in China, although these efforts were not always successful.<br><br>This thesis will argue that Hart’s influence within the Qing bureaucracy arose from a number of factors.

Particularly in the early part of his career as a Qing official, Hart gained influence from the perception within China that he enjoyed the support of the British government in the aftermath of the Second Opium War. Hart, however, saw himself as a Chinese servant, not a British one, and sought instead to create a role for himself as an intermediary between China and the West, acting as a ‘man in the middle’ and trying to shape interactions as well as facilitate them.