Rethinking the World in East Asia 1850s-1990s

While not often being discussed in major scholarships, anarchism in China played an important role in shaping the thinkings of Chinese society during the late Qing and early Republican periods and beyond by suggesting radical social changes and emphasising cultural transformations. The Great Leap Forward during 1958 – 1960 and the Cultural Revolution between 1966 and 1976 in China were also major events that reshaped Chinese society by radical transformations and struggles. Interestingly, though anarchism and the revolutionary ideologies (especially by the Red Guards) during the Maoist movements years seemed not to be very relevant, I found some similarities of these movements in different periods of modern China.

 

Anarchism emerged in China around 1905 when Sun Yat-Sen’s Revolutionary Alliance was established.[1] During the time of a weak Qing government and huge rise in anti-Manchu nationalist thinking among the public, anarchists also sought to overthrow the Qing empire and to begin a “cultural transformation”.[2] The anarchists’ expected “cultural transformation” included almost all aspects of life, such as property, family, nation and race.[3] Especially in traditional Chinese society during the imperial dynasties that the Confucianism and Neo-Confucianism-oriented family system has always been the cornerstone of the fundamental structure in terms of social relations, and thus the traditional family system and gender role was under fierce attack of the anarchists as “wasteful” and unhelpful for individuals to be economically independent.[4] Similarly during the Maoist period, traditional gender roles and family concepts were also being rejected, and anti-Confucian style of gender equality was emphasised through the famous slogans such as “Woman Holds Up Half the Sky” and “Iron Girls”, which the latter was a well-spread praise word for the “degendered behavioural patterns” of Chinese women participating in the “battles” during the Cultural Revolution years.[5]

 

Another similar aspect was about the over-idealised economics. From the Paris anarchists that they defined social revolution as aiming to abolish private property and class distinctions, which this radical Western thinking was introduced for Chinese socialists.[6] This also influenced Chinese anarchists such as Chu’s claim that “a self-interested society is not a fair (gongping) society” as it was “contrary to the very “organic structure””.[7] The anarchists’ chase for an absolute economic equality in the society was also in coincidence with the fanaticism of the abolish of all private property and to establish People’s Commune (renmin gongshe) to create a utopia-like society which the production was done by all and the economic distribution was equal for all, with the slogan “Run into communism” – which was overly idealistic to be achieved, just as the anarchists’ beliefs to abolish all economic inequality and social classes by radical transformations during the last Qing decade and early Republican periods when the productive forces of the society were still inadequate to do so.

[1] Arif Dirlik, Anarchism in the Chinese Revolution (University of California Press, 2023), pp. 78 – 79.

[2] Ibid, pp. 79 – 80.

[3] Ibid, p. 99.

[4] Ibid.

[5] “Iron Girl of Dazhai: Once an Icon of an Era”, Shanxi Evening News, accessed 7 October 2025, <https://www.chinanews.com.cn/cul/2014/03-07/5926021.shtml>.

[6] Arif Dirlik, Anarchism in the Chinese Revolution (University of California Press, 2023), pp. 80 – 82.

[7] Ibid, pp. 96 – 97.

The Taiping Heavenly Kingdom Movement in the last decades of Qing dynasty of China and Tonghak Movement in the last decades in the kingdom of Joseon of Korea both had significant influence to the nation, which both brought major social transformations and spread of a religion, but also caused devastating results to the occupied regions’ economy and population during a short period of time. Also, it was coincidently similar that the Taiping rebellion in China and Tonghak rebellion in Korea were both known for their religious-led characteristics, one claimed to be Protestant Christianity, and the latter to be Cheondogyo, developed from Tonghak “Eastern Learning”. However, different with many religious-led reformations, warfare or revolutions in early modern Europe, these two movements in East Asia were more likely to be socioeconomic-led peasant uprisings under the ‘guise’ of religious beliefs.

 

For the Taiping Heavenly kingdom’s case, Christopher Hill’s book The English Bible

and the Seventeenth-Century Revolution provided an insight of the major use of the Bible and Christian religious beliefs in the English Revolution – while his study of an European revolution also provided a comparison between the role of the Bible and Christianity in a more ‘traditional’ sense of religious-oriented revolutions and the Taiping Rebellion.[1] Hong Xiuquan’s Taiping Heavenly Kingdom indeed claimed to uphold Christianity as the only official religion, and thus put much effort in the publishing of the Bible and to spread religious texts to churches and to implement weekly worships, all seemed to be formal Christian practices.[2] However, the Taiping’s version of the Bible was altered to conform to the moral values of Taiping theology, and some text were either deleted or rewrote to fit Hong’s own personal understanding of Christianity.[3] In this way, Taiping’s version of ‘Protestant Christianity’ was somehow far from original Protestant teachings, and was more like a combination of Protestantism and local Chinese customs and ideologies – even with some Confucianism beliefs that Hong was taught to before he established the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom.[4]

 

While the Taiping’s use of Christianity as the official religion was not aimed to bring Western-patterned Christian practices to China, but to self-establish legitimacy to start a social uprising against the Qing emperor’s reign. By using Christianity in its name (on the surface), Hong agreed with English missionary Medhurst’s claim that the title of Chinese emperors (huangdi) was blasphemous to the God (shangdi) by using the word di since Qin dynasty, and they needed to overthrow the blasphemous imperial system.[5] This way of applying and interpreting Christian theology provided Hong a new form of legitimacy to start his Taiping rebellion. However, the reason for the Taiping rebellion could be in a deeper level rather than Christianity itself. After the defeat of Qing forces in the First Opium War in 1842, the legitimacy of Qing’s imperial government began to be challenged, as the perceived ever-strong empire was suddenly in threats by more powerful Western forces. The devastating economic compensations from the Qing court to British authorities was in no doubt to put extra burdens on normal Chinese people, while the defeat of Qing forces in the Second Opium War at the mean time of Taiping rebellion only made the economic situation worse for the Chinese public, and therefore the breakout of a peasant rebellion was only a matter of time which eventually broke out in 1851, and Christianity was more like an excuse.

 

Tonghak rebellion in Korea was also in similar situations. The Tonghak believers self-established legitimacy by raising a “Righteous Army” and to resist Japanese and Chinese influences in Korea, and also publicly claimed to carrying patriotic duties in the anti-Japanese and anti-Chinese campaign, which was obviously not oriented from the spread of Catholicism into Korean peninsula in the mid-19^th century and the subsequently emerged “Eastern Learning”.[6] From the Twelve Reforms Proclaimed by the Tonghak Overseer’s Office we could also see that the breakout of the Tonghak rebellion was also related to the economic burdens on Korean peasants since the mid-19^th century when foreign powers’ influence increased in Korea, as the Tonghak believers aimed to void “all past debts, private or public”, to redistribute farmland, and to reduce sundry taxes as their resorts to reduce Korean people’s economic burden – this was also obviously emerged from the very real socioeconomic difficulties in late 19^th century Korea, rather than solely the spread of Catholic beliefs, as Catholicism was rather more irrelevant from this rebellion in Korea.[7]

[1] Thomas H. Reilly, The Taiping Heavenly Kingdom: Rebellion and the Blasphemy of Empire (Seattle, 2011), p. 57.

[2] Ibid, p. 74.

[3] Ibid, p. 75.

[4] Ibid.

[5] Ibid, pp. 87 – 88.

[6] Peter H Lee, William Theodore De Bary and Yŏng-ho Ch’oe, Sources of Korean Tradition (New York, 1997 – 2000), p. 267.

[7] Ibid, pp. 265 – 266.

In the past, both Western and Eastern scholarship have been guilty of oversimplifying the history of Confucian women. Some put forth a narrative of women as simply victims of Confucian society, conflating Confucianism with patriarchy and arguing that it suppressed their rights and offered little opportunity to recognise their achievements.¹ However, recent scholarship is challenging these kinds of stereotypes about the complex relationship between East Asian women and Confucianism, specifically the relationship between Choson women and Neo-Confucianism. Recent revisionist histories focus on how women expressed themselves through art and literature, and how they used their agency within their social, ideological, and political confines. In addition, scholars are beginning to study marginalized women, including widows and nonelite women, by looking at census records and legal texts.²
In Women and Confucianism in Choson Korea: New Perspectives, Youngmin Kim and Michael J. Pettid advocate for the replacement of the Confucian oppression narrative and other generalisations by more nuanced portrayals of Choson history that consider how different women’s experiences varied from one another based on personality, class, and situation.³ Women of Korea’s Choson dynasty (1392-1910) used various strategies to work within and around the confines of their Confucian society and were sometimes protected by the state.
One example of this is the tradition of chongbu rights in mid-Choson. In China and Choson, the chongbu was the eldest daughter-in-law of a family, meaning the wife of the eldest son of a family lineage. She was treated with deference by other daughters-in-law and given special privileges. According to the Lizhi (the Book of Rites, one of the core texts of Confucianism), the chongbu’s role was to serve during ancestor rites (jesa) and treat honoured guests.⁴ Traditionally, if her husband died and she had no child, the chongbu’s role in jesa passed down to the second son of the family. Over time, the role and rights of the chongbu in Choson expanded. By adopting a son to act as an heir (iphu) (traditionally one of her nephews, but tended to be a distant blood relative), the chongbu could bolster her position in the family and maintain her status. This was essential for the chongbu, who faced the disastrous possibility of being expelled from her home if or when the ancestral rites duties were given to the second son of the family.⁵ The adopting of heirs by women to maintain their chongbu status not only shows how these women were able to protect their position and power within a Confucian context but also demonstrates how women helped shape the dynamics of families and practice of ancestral rites throughout Choson.⁶
Contrary to popular narratives that Confucianism generally oppressed women, women received support from the state on several occasions. In Lee SoonGu’s ‘The Rights of the Eldest Daughter-in-Law and the Strengthening of Adoption of Lineage Heirs in the Mid-Choson Period,’ they note that in 1547, the Office of the Censor-General defended the rights of chongbu to adopt a son and continue jesa duties, a decision also supported by the king.⁷ Another example of the state protecting Choson women was the fact that women were state sanctioned to petition the king by striking a gong and kneeling despite the doctrine of separate spheres, a pillar of Confucian gender ethics that dictates that women are to be relegated to the domestic realm.⁸ When considering these examples, it is apparent that the way Choson women experienced Confucianism varied greatly and is not as simple as it appears at first glance.

1. Youngmin Kim and Michael J. Pettid, Women and Confucianism in Chosǒn Korea: New Perspectives, (Albany: State University of New York Press, 2011), 11, Accessed September 24, 2025, ProQuest Ebook Central [↩]
2. Jisoo M. Kim, “Neo-Confucianism, Women, and the Law in Chosŏn Korea,” in Dao Companion to Korean Confucian Philosophy. Dao Companions to Chinese Philosophy, vol 11, ed. Yong Huang (Dordrecht, 2019), unpaginated, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-90-481-2933-1_17. [↩]
3. Kim, Women and Confucianism, 4 [↩]
4. Lee SoonGu, “The Rights of the Eldest Daugher-in-Law and the Strengthening of Adoption of Lineage Heirs in the Mid-Choson Period” in Women and Confucianism in Chosǒn Korea New Perspectives, eds. Youngmin Kim and Michael J. Pettid (Albany: State University of New York Press, 2011), Accessed September 24, 2025, 91, ProQuest Ebook Central. [↩]
5. Ibid, 98 [↩]
6. Ibid, 102 [↩]
7. Ibid, 99 [↩]
8. Kim, “Neo-Confucianism, Women, and the Law,” unpaginated [↩]

With no doubt that the Neo-Confucianism School has played an important role in shaping the Chinese society during the late imperial centuries in China, which this process could have already been started during the Northern Song dynasty. One central belief of Neo-Confucianism was that “self-cultivation is fundamental for all people”.[1] Though the emphasise of self-cultivation of every individual was a pursuit of higher standards of social morality, this practice seemed to be too ideological to achieve, and it eventually caused somehow opposite political effects in later dynasties.

 

Different from the traditional Confucianism and the dominant political ideology “the Mandate of Heaven” (tianming) in ancient Chinese dynasties, which meant that the Heaven mandated the emperor with unquestionable power to rule the empire, Neo-Confucianism, as promoted by Zhu Xi, Cheng Yi and Hu Anguo etc., challenged the mandate doctrine and claimed that the rulers’ authority shall be based on their moral conscience (tianli).[2] This was in line with Neo-Confucianism’s core belief of “conscious commitments” of individuals – which also included the imperial rulers.[3]

 

Zhu Xi’s “learning for emperors and kings” (diwang zhixue) claimed that the imperial ruler’s mind was the ultimate factor for all affairs, therefore established a new way to legitimise the ruler’s authority and the public’s obedience to him, and the way for the ruler to learn and upheld his moral standard was through studying the Great Learning, an important classical Confucianism text.[4] Thus an ideological rule of the empire was established – that the ruler (emperor) could keep high moral standards and to rule the empire wisely as a “sage-king” and a role model of the entire society by studying classical texts of the ancient sages, and therefore a healthy administrative cycle was formed through high pursuits.[5]

 

Besides the high moral standard expected for the ruler, the officials were also expected to behave in a very high standard of loyalty, unity and selflessness without forming factions, according to Neo-Confucianism.[6] In this utopia-like preset political system under Neo-Confucianism, a highly transparent government from the ruler to the officials at each level was established, and justice and equality was promoted to serve the “heavenly principle” (tianli).[7] However, the problem here was that the Neo-Confucianism governance was far too ideological to be really achieved, and in real practice a ‘flawed’ version of Neo-Confucianism’s governance led to a dramatic increase of the emperor’s own power than anything else.

 

Neo-Confucianism’s construction of a “perfect society” aimed to transform the purpose of governance to serve the public’s interest and to promote unity of the society.[8] However, such strong belief in unity and social harmony was very far beyond the then social reality, especially without sufficient social productive capacity and a stable border without external threats (such as Liao, Jin and Mongolia, the neighbours to the north of Song). With real threats that the Neo-Confucianism governance distorted under ‘righteous’ claims in its name, such as emperor Zhu Yuanzhang’s actions of executing over 40,000 officials whom suspected by him of plotting against him yet without solid evidence, under the name of “the well-being of the population” – which was Zhu Xi’s ideology that the Neo-Confucian ruler should be a sage by studying classical Confucianism texts and to be dedicated to the public’s welfare, while the result came out to be the strengthening of the emperor’s own authority during the Ming dynasty and the purging of dissenters to the imperial authority. Therefore, the Neo-Confucianism’s well-known goal of promoting self-cultivation to uphold the heavenly principle (cun tianli) while supressing human desires (mie renyu) came out to be ‘too good to be true’.[9] In real practices between Song and Qing dynasty, the ‘misused’ Neo-Confucianism seemed to become ‘upholding the heavenly principle for those having the imperial authority while supressing human desires for the general public in the society’.

[1] Peter K. Bol, Neo-Confucianism in History (Cambridge, MA, 2008), p. 116.

[2] Ibid, p. 122, 129.

[3] Ibid, p. 195.

[4] Ibid, pp. 133 – 134.

[5] Ibid, p. 135.

[6] Ibid, p. 138.

[7] Ibid, p. 143.

[8] Ibid, 202.

[9] Fangqin Du and Susan Mann, Women and Confucian Cultures in Premodern China, Korea, and Japan (Berkeley, 2003), p. 225.

The idea of masculinity has never been fixed in one mold in Japan. Instead, it was left to remain contestable, even if that meant, at certain times, nervously guarded, challenged and manipulated.¹ Once the Japanese military held in place the authority to determine what a ‘man’ was – through tests of minimal physical requirement and strict psychological standards.² However, what the Japanese bureaucrats and ideologues would desire – the perfect ‘state subordinate man’ – would take more than a military exam to forge as not all young men and their families take great pride in their eligibility for military service.³ Many questioned the value of being found worthy of the emperors armed forces and were generally ambivalent towards Japan’s war efforts.²The postwar constitution situation of November third, 1946, would further unsettle the long-held understandings of gender as the role of the ‘masculine’ was replaced by the white-collar, middle-class, “company man and salaryman” – the embodiment of a middle-class lifestyle.⁴ The salaryman retained the will of self-sacrifice of the soldier. The ‘otaku’, on the other hand, did not.

Masculinity is often judged by its economic productivity in Japanese intellectual writings. What the man has to ‘offer’ – himself, his work, his life. The ‘otaku’ can be seen as a new form of Japanese manhood. Instead of economic productivity, it is manhood through consumption. The ‘otaku’ can be argued to represent men who ‘failed’ to become salarymen. They depict the perspective of masculinity outside the dominant ideal of male success. A lack of good education, salary, loving wife and children does not make a man less of a man.⁵

The role of ‘otaku’ can be further explored in the argument about the future of masculinity in Japan. In the United States, the term ‘otaku’ implies a “serious anime fan”, but in Japan, it is a word used to indicate people with an obsession for “geeky” realms of knowledge and activity, such as anime, manga, and computer games.⁶ This image of a geeky, socially inept, obsessive nerd presents itself to be completely opposite to the image of the gregarious salaryman.⁶ Since the value of masculinity was grounded in productivity, action, there are examples of “bad otaku” and “good otaku” – ‘bad’ produce violence and disturbing, sexualised media; and ‘good’ produce video games, animated films.⁷

They key and biggest differentiation of this new ‘man’, however, is the notion of ‘moe’ that otakus introduce. Japanese men in the past upheld the standard of heterosexual, real life, in other terms, “3-D relationships”. Otaku’s, on the other hand, depicted a new reality of ‘moe’, a term meaning the affectionate longing for the 2-D characters; the internalized emotional response to something with no hope for a reciprocal response.⁸ Indeed, for some writers, such as Honda Toru, ‘moe’ constituted a form of “love revolution” for men. Honda sees the new man’s fascination with 2-D characters as the natural evolution of mankind, of masculinity.⁹ As humanity accepts technology, so too will it accept it through love as well, and that men will “give up on the analog world of real women in favor of the digital world of characters”.¹⁰

Perhaps the rejection of relationships with real women is less to do with enforced gender stereotypes of men in heterosexual relationships, the demands and pressures of being a disputed form of ‘man’, but rather a form of defence for ‘failed men’. Men who did not agree with the stipulations demanded to them by the army begat a new generation of salarymen who begat a new generation of otakus. Failed men forge new identities, but retain the notion of competition and productivity in all spheres, be it 3-D or not, they acquire.

 

 

 

Bibliography:

 

Condry, Ian, ‘Love Revolution: Anime, Masculinity, and the Future’, in Sabine Fruhstuck (ed.), Recreating Japanese Men (Oakland, CA, 2011; online edn, California Scholarship Online, 22 Mar. 2012), https://doi.org/10.1525/california/9780520267374.003.0013, accessed 1 Dec. 2024.

 

Frühstück S., Building the Nation and Modern Manhood. In: Gender and Sexuality in Modern Japan, New Approaches to Asian History. Cambridge University Press; 2022:19-46.

1. Frühstück S., Building the Nation and Modern Manhood. In: Gender and Sexuality in Modern Japan, New Approaches to Asian History. Cambridge University Press; 2022, p. 23. [↩]
2. Frühstück, Building the Nation and Modern Manhood, p. 24. [↩] [↩]
3. Frühstück, Building the Nation and Modern Manhood, pp. 24-25 [↩]
4. Frühstück, Building the Nation and Modern Manhood, pp. 33-34. [↩]
5. Condry, Ian, ‘Love Revolution: Anime, Masculinity, and the Future’, in Sabine Fruhstuck (ed.), Recreating Japanese Men (Oakland, CA, 2011; online edn, California Scholarship Online, 22 Mar. 2012), p. 264 [↩]
6. Condry, Ian, ‘Love Revolution: Anime, Masculinity, and the Future’, p. 264. [↩] [↩]
7. Condry, Ian, ‘Love Revolution: Anime, Masculinity, and the Future’, p. 265. [↩]
8. Condry, Ian, ‘Love Revolution: Anime, Masculinity, and the Future’, p. 263. [↩]
9. Condry, Ian, ‘Love Revolution: Anime, Masculinity, and the Future’, p. 266. [↩]
10. Condry, Ian, ‘Love Revolution: Anime, Masculinity, and the Future’, p. 269. [↩]

Following the end of the Korean war, writers have grappled with what the division of the peninsula means for Korean nationhood, question whether either state has a unique claim to the Korean nation as a whole. Sci-Fi is a uniquely revealing medium to analyse these shifting attitudes because discussing a post-unification future intertwines fictious speculation with genuine policy studies. The vacuum of space, free from the constructed states of the post war world gives writers a chance to explore Korean culture with a new sense of freedom.

During the space race, North Korean writers were deeply influenced by the Soviet Union, as such they play a leading role in depictions of space travel. In Youth space expedition team (1960), a unified Korean expedition to the moon is led by a Soviet mentor and the journey involves stopping at many Soviet space stations.¹. However reflecting the internationalist attitude of socialism, the Koreans are joined by peoples from across the world including Americans and Europeans, all of whom have embraced socialism.². Whilst Koreans play a leading role in the story, the implication is that humanity has only succeeded due to the victory of Socialism and the success of the Soviet Union, putting the unification of Korean nationhood second to the spread of Communism.

When North Korean space stories do make a post-renunciation distinctions between Koreans, South Koreans are viewed with suspicion.³ In King of rare metals (1959), three Korean boys discover a utopian new power source on the moon, but are betrayed by a South Korean scientist who aims to harvest the crystals to make weapons of mass destruction.²This reflects the attitude that even following the triumph of North Korea, South Koreans could still be uniquely selfish due to their contact with capitalism. It is a given that North Korea represents all Koreans and that socialism is the superior system.

South Koreans never held the internationalist views of their Northern counterparts, with president Park Chung Hee writing that reunification would represent “regeneration” of Korean civilization, restoring Korea rightful place within Asia, free from the need for American assistance.⁴ Whilst Scifi such as Beneath a blue moon (1992), reflects North Korean views that post-unification cultural divisions would still exist, there are distinctions in the way Korean nationhood is discussed.

In Beneath a blue moon, Korea is governed by a federation between North and South, with each having a distinct lunar base.⁵ The Northern protagonist starts out as a sceptic of this unification, as Southern corporate greed had led to the death of her family, but she felt it necessary to cooperate due to wealth disparities. Over the course of the story, she allured to capitalism, starting with their experience in a lunar casino. Even though she believes the Northern “altruism is better than self-interest” of the South, she is convinced by the results of capitalism and comes around to reunification. (Ibid, 131.)) At the end of the story, both lunar bases apply to unify, but this is rejected by the federation, leading to their secession.

This achievement of han minjok (one ethnos) in space is done at the expense of the Korea on earth, reflecting the view that neither state represents Korean nationhood, but instead are active barriers to reunification.⁶ This post cold war perspective can also be seen in the depictions of the avarices of South Korean society alongside the authoritarian nature of the North. Whilst the author describes the successes of capitalism as self-evident, unity is achieved through the joining of Northern altruism with Southern ingenuity, reflecting the “true” Korea and not the colonial construct that exists in the present.⁷Unlike Northern science fiction, foreign powers play no role in the story and people on the other side of the 38th parallel are depicted favourably regardless of their political differences.

1. Zur, Dafna. “Let’s Go to the Moon: Science Fiction in the North Korean Children’s Magazine Adong Munhak, 1956–1965.” The Journal of Asian Studies 73, no. 2 (May 2014): 338. [↩]
2. Ibid. [↩] [↩]
3. Ibid, 343. [↩]
4. Samuel Gerald Collins, “Train to Pyongyang: Imagination, Utopia, and Korean Unification,” Utopian Studies 24, no. 1 (2013): 122. [↩]
5. Ibid, 129 [↩]
6. Ibid, 132. [↩]
7. Ibid, 131. [↩]

In Revolutionary Nativism: Fascism and Culture in China, 1925-1937, Maggie Clinton explores the ideological influences of the CC clique and Blue Shirt society, characterising them as ‘Confucian Fascism’. Whilst it’s accurate to say that the Blue Shirts envisioned China “bound together by Confucian culture”, compared to the CC clique their engagement with Confucianism was largely surface level, seeing it as a tool to achieve their aim of reshaping society among military lines.¹. This can be traced back to their origins in the Whampoa military academy, specifically alumni who were members of the “Sun Yat-Senism Study Society”, an anti-communist group who opposed the federation of Young Soldiers, a pro communist organisation in the academy.². This meant that whilst having certain overlapping ideas, compared to the CC Clique’s civilian bureaucrats, military men “constituted the core of the Blue Shirts”.³. As such, the militarization and complete unification of society was the primary goal of the Blue Shirts, something diametrically opposed to the idealized righteous hierarchy of Confucian ethics.

Instead of citing The Four Books, the model for the blue shirts was the Soviet Union and Japan, for what they saw as their successful regimentation of society and national strength.⁴ The founder of the Sun Yat-Senism Study Society, He Zhonghan was a delegate to the Soviet 1922 Congress of the Toilers of the East and would train int he Soviet Frunze military academy.⁵ Regardless of his anti-communist views, his military training the in the Soviet Union and Japan would inspire the Blue Shirt idea to create a nation with “united will” and “iron discipline”.⁶ To achieve this, they would diverge with conservatives in key areas such as land reform and economics, denouncing “feudal remnants” and “landlord exploitation” with goal of implementing a “controlled economy”.⁷ This idealized state mirror that described in Erich Ludendorff’s Totaler Krieg, in which war was a battle between “the life and soul” of competing races that had to be mobilized giving “everything to the army” as an expression of a people’s vitality.⁸. This work was influential for Japanese militarism and mirrors the Blue Shirts obsession with public health and the concept of vitality.

Any aspect of Confucian mandate is absent in the ideology of the blue shirts as any challenge to the state’s authority, regardless of it’s virtue went against fascist principles. When Chang Kai Shek greenlit the creation of the blue shirts, the foremost principle was that Chang was the “supreme and permanent leader”.⁹ Compared to Confucian conservatives, the Blue Shirts found aesthetic inspiration from futurism and concepts of “modernity”, releasing periodicals with titles such as “The Latest in the World of Science” and “Streamlined Forms”, with a focus on military developments.¹⁰

Therefore, beyond a sense of paternalism and reverence for hierarchy, the influence of Confucianism on the Blue Shirts was largely secondary to the events of the 20th century, as they envisioned a “modern” China free from what they considered weakening influences. In the words of Liu Jianqun, their goal was the “immediately overthrowing the feudal influences”, and their affinity for totalitarian states such as the Soviet Union and Nazi Germany had little basis in Confucianism.¹¹

1. Maggie Clinton, Revolutionary Nativism: Fascism and Culture in China, 1925-1937 (Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 2017), 26 [↩]
2. Hung-Mao Tien, Government and Politics in Kuomintang China, 1927-1937 (Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 1972), 54. [↩]
3. Clinton, Revolutionary Nativism, 30. [↩]
4. Ibid, 38 [↩]
5. Ibid, 39 [↩]
6. Ibid, 40. [↩]
7. Ibid, 41 [↩]
8. Erich Ludendorff, Totaler Krieg (London: Friends of Europe, 1936), 5-8. [↩]
9. Suisheng Zhao, Power by Design: Constitution-Making in Nationalist China (Honolulu: University of Hawai’i Press, 1996), 63 [↩]
10. Clinton, Revolutionary Nativism, 51-52. [↩]
11. Frederic E. Wakeman, Spymaster: Dai Li and the Chinese Secret Service (Berkeley, CA: University of California Press, 2003), 75. [↩]

The early twentieth century witnessed the birth of science-fiction (sci-fi) as a literary genre in China. It was initially viewed by Ling Qichao (a prominent Qing period politician) as a gift from the West that would serve to express ideas charting the roadmap of Chinese progress.¹ Over the course of the twentieth and twenty-first centuries, however, the genre has witnessed a meteoric rise across the globe (both in terms of readership and acclaim) that, perhaps, transcends Qichao’s perception of it. But, has Chinese sf truly established itself as something greater than the Chinese nation, or are they still tied to each other in some way?

The time period in which Chinese sf is placed has by no means been a politically stable one. Dissent (and a governmental crackdown on it) has been a recurring theme throughout this phase. I argue that the emergence sf granted Chinese writers the ability to operate in shades of grey, and thus, voice criticism in subtle, creative yet effective ways.

The relationship between artistic expression and compliance with authority has been a complicated one in China, especially in recent times. Mo Yan, a prolific Chinese writer who was awarded the Nobel Prize in 2012, received severe criticism for not using his platform to criticise Xi Jinping’s regime, and being silent on certain pressing political issues. Salman Rushdie called him a ‘patsy of the regime’.² Ai Weiwei also disapproved of Yan- himself, a noted Chinese artist known for expressing brutal criticism of the regime via his artwork. Weiwei is the son of Ai Qing, a poet who was exiled under the Mao regime for his dissentious writings. Weiwei, like his father, too, has been subjected to repeated attempts of silencing made by the government in response to his artwork.³

In this milieu, do artists really have to make a surrender-or-die choice in their artwork? Do they have a responsibility to express criticism? It is noted that western audiences expect art from ‘authoritative’ nations to only be good if it is dissentious.⁴  However, the case of Chinese sf has shown two things: first, that aesthetic merit isn’t compromised by the lack of criticism; and second, if artists do choose to express criticism, they don’t have to do it in an overt manner in order for it to have value.

Consider the skepticism towards rapid development in the works of Wang Jingkang and Han Song. In ‘The Reincarnated Giant’, Wang relays a cautionary tale of rampant development spearheaded by a business tycoon in the fictitious ‘J-nation’ (a reference to Japan), leading to ‘uncontrollable results’ at the cost of human life. Han Song, in ‘Goatie’ and ‘Subway’ uses  Chinese high-speed trains and the Beijing subway network as a metaphor to depict eventual catastrophes that will occur as a consequence of uncontrollable development.⁵  In ‘Goatie’, a high-speed train deviates from the space-time continuum, and cultivates the emergence of a ‘harmonious society’ within it-Song uses this as a metaphor for forced harmony in the face of rapid development in Chinese society.⁶

Sf has also served as an avenue to parody and critique China’s historical memory. In another novel, Song sets his story in 2066 (to mark the 100th anniversary of Mao’s revolution), when China has taken over America as a global superpower; while this does mark change, the 2066 Chinese regime maintains its power by employing a mind-controlling AI, Amuando- intended by the author as a callback to China’s authoritarian ways.⁷ Contrast this criticism of China’s past with Ai Weiwei’s  ‘Dropping a Han Dynasty Urn’; a series of photographs, beginning with Weiwei holding this relic of the Chinese past, ending with it shattering into pieces.⁸ While Weiwei’s art may be lauded for its bold, straightforward approach to voice criticism, I don’t think it’s the only way forward for Chinese artists; as in the case of SF, an artist can use more creative and nuanced ways to deliver similar messages. 

Sf, then, not only represents an alternative way to voice criticisms, but also serves as a novel lens for historians to understand the manner in which dissent has been voiced in China. 

1. Song, Mingwei. “Variations on Utopia in Contemporary Chinese Science Fiction.” Science Fiction Studies 40, no. 1 (2013): 86 [↩]
2. Katie Stallard, “Literature under Xi Jinping,” The New Statesman, March 23, 2022. [↩]
3. Walter C. Clemens Jr., “The Literature of Utopia and Dystopia in China”, Global Asia, 2023 [↩]
4. Michael O’Krent, “The Language of Chinese dreams is Science Fiction- and sometimes, they’re nightmares”,  Reactor Magazine, 2022 [↩]
5. Song, Mingwei, ‘Variations on Utiopia’, pp. 92-93 [↩]
6. Ibid., 94-95 [↩]
7. Ibid., 87-88 [↩]
8. ‘Ai Weiwei dropping a Han Dynasty Urn’. Guggenheim Bilbao. 1995. Accessed 29 November 2024 [↩]

Hello, all! It’s crazy to think that we’ve already arrived at my last blog post. I’ve had such a blast with these, honestly–it’s been really fun and refreshing to play with historical scholarship and questions in this informal, conversational sort of way. Thank you for reading!

Alrighty, then! Today we’re looking at some different philosophical ideas around science fiction and cyberpunk. Specifically, Japanese science fiction media as it has emerged over the last sixty or so years, tracing roughly back to the classic animated series Astroboy (1963-66)–both a hallmark in the worlds of anime and of science fiction (SF). This visual and literary genre, while containing many universal elements, is uniquely suited for continuing long-standing Japanese philosophical discussions around Westernization and modernity. Scholar Kumiko Sato considers the significance of the human/machine duality as representative of the juxtaposition between “…subject and Other, West and Japan, science and occult, as well as machine and human organism.”¹ Here, Sato suggests universalist dimensions of SF’s abstract meanings while also exploring how that dichotomy can tell uniquely Japanese stories. However, cyberpunk is unique from other stories that focus on the simple literary device of juxtaposition: by utilizing fantastical, SF-related visions of technology, cyberpunk places itself into conversation with the anxieties of modernization. In a Japanese context, this connects cyberpunk back to philosophical traditions of the 20th century, including our favorite Kyoto School philosopher, Nishida Kitaro. Just as Nishida famously wrote on “overcoming modernity” by paradoxically working through modernity, the cyberpunk protagonist often works to overcome a larger injustice through usage of the very cybernetic enhancements that form the backbone of their unjust world.² And, yes, I am absolutely delighted to connect cyberpunk with 20th century Japanese philosophy. 

In a similar analysis of Japanese utopia/dystopia fiction, Yoriko Moichi places SF squarely within a tradition of politically-minded utopian literature alongside figures such as Daniel Defoe and Jonathan Swift.³ Through the exploration of “reality and unreality,” as Moichi describes it, political visions of the future could be uncovered with the potential for impactful social influence.⁴ Like with Sato’s analysis, Moichi finds a duality at the heart of SF. Again, this duality places SF into conversation with Japanese intellectual debate around modernization, westernization, and anxiety for the future. 

As a long time fantasy enjoyer and shorter-time SF enjoyer, I’m very intrigued by these dualities and this new perspective on the genre. The way that modern scholarship is seriously considering these fictitious expressions in their larger intellectual contexts is inspiring, and I hope that these scholarly trends continue to engage with popular media so earnestly and critically. As perhaps a final thought, I’m curious about if and how these ideas around SF and cyberpunk could connect to other influential genres of Japanese media. For example, when discussing dystopian fiction, is the horror genre not also within arm’s reach? What about the overwhelming inclination toward high fantasy that exists throughout anime? Comparative analysis across these different flavors of fantastical Japanese media could reveal even more perspectives on its connection to long-standing intellectual and philosophical traditions. 

Right. That’s all from me! Thanks again for reading, and take care.

1. Kumiko Sato, “How Information Technology Has (Not) Changed Feminism and Japanese: Cyberpunk in the Japanese Context”, Comparative Literature Studies, Vol. 41, No. 3 (2004), p 353. [↩]
2. Ibid., 342. [↩]
3. Yoriko Moichi, “Japanese Utopian Literature from the 1870s to the Present and the Influence of Western Utopianism”, Utopian Studies, Vol. 10, No. 2 (1999), p. 90. [↩]
4. Ibid., p. 89. [↩]