Liu Kunyi

Liu Kunyi (born Jan. 21, 1830, Xinning, Hunan province, China—died Oct. 6, 1902, Beijing) was an official and modernizer in the later years of the Qing dynasty (1644–1911/12).

A principal figure in quelling the great Taiping Rebellion in South China between 1850 and 1864, Liu became one of the leading provincial viceroys who dominated China after the uprising. He advised the government on its relations with Western powers, and his administration attempted to end corruption and waste. He was one of the first Chinese officials to purchase Western guns and ships for his troops and to build Western-style arsenals and shipyards.

In the late 1890s he kept South China free of the Boxers (secret societies whose motto was “Protect the country, destroy foreigners”). He was not so successful, however, in preventing the spread of the Boxers in North China and could not eliminate their growing influence on the central government. In 1900, when the dynasty decided to support the antiforeignism of the Boxers and declared war on all foreign powers in China, Liu joined with the other South China provincial governors and ignored the dynasty’s orders. This action served to confine the Boxer Rebellion to North China and minimize the number of foreigners killed. As a result, when the Western powers crushed the Boxer Rebellion, they were amenable to lenient terms for China in the final peace settlement.

In 1902 Liu, together with the scholar-general Zhang Zhidong (1837–1909), submitted to the throne several influential memorandums calling for the reform and transformation of the traditional Chinese state along Western lines; only a part of their comprehensive program was adopted by the country’s Qing rulers, and that proved to be too little and too late to save the dynasty from being overthrown in 1911.