情報革命と義和団事件 : 電気通信の出現と清末中国政治の変容

抄録

The pupose of this paper is look at the events surrounding the Yihetuan 義和団 Incident in the light of the communications revolution touched off by the invention of the telegraph during the late Qing period and consider the overall political transformation brought about by this technological breakthrough. During the Yihetuan Incident, communication between the capital and the provinces became very difficult due to the destruction of the telegraph lines around Beijing by the Yihetuan. The speedy transmission of information had taken on utmost importance: for example, in the conclusion of a mutual defense agreement between the southern provinces and foreigh countries, there was fear of contradictions arising from the central government already having declared war on them. This possible conflict of interest was easily dissolved by telegraph messages sent from Baoding 保定 via Shangi 山西. Just after this event, the Yihetuan began to tear down telegraph lines in Shangxi, thus pushing the Qing empire to verge of destruction. During the occupation of Beijing by the allied forces of the eight world powers, the telegraph network was put under their control. Under this state of affairs, the lack of telegraph facilities for communication concerning peace ne-