The Native Place and the Nation: Anti-Imperialist and Republican Revolutionary Mobilization

Informed public opinion and political organization developed rapidly in Shanghai in the years following the 1898 riot, reflecting broad public awareness of China’s humiliation in the Boxer Uprising (1899–1900) as well as the Empress Dowager Cixi’s subsequent recognition of the need to radically restructure China’s commercial, educational and political organization through a series of reforms collectively referred to as the “New Policies.” This meant rapid institutional innovation at the local level: the development of Chinese Chambers of Commerce following western and Japanese models, of modern schools featuring “western” learning and of provincial assemblies and a local self-government movement. In