Social Sciences in China (Chinese Edition)

No. 7, 2021

 

A Re-Evaluation of the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom: Reflections on the 170th Anniversary of the Jintian Uprising

(Abstract)

 

Xia Chuntao

 

Over the past century, scholarly evaluation of the Taiping Tianguo 太平天国 (Taiping Heavenly Kingdom) has changed numerous times. The fulsome praise of the past has given way, over the past thirty years, to the emergence of an intellectual movement that demonizes Hong Xiuquan and the Taiping Rebellion and sings the praises of Zeng Guofan and the Hunan Army. Some have even denied the justice of the Jintian Uprising and completely rejected the Taiping Rebellion. This trend is due to many overlapping factors, including changes in the Party and in national conditions, changes in the paradigm of modern Chinese historical research, and the weakening of theoretical research on history. In particular, research on the Taiping Rebellion has gone from flourishing to a state of decline, leaving academics unable to respond in a timely and positive manner. Therefore, the academic community should avoid allowing Taiping Rebellion studies to go from being a dominant field of research to being an extinct discipline; they should study and view the Taiping Rebellion in a balanced manner, and abandon the simplistic choice between “deification” and “demonization.”