Rethinking the World in East Asia 1850s-1990s

Culturally, both the Choson period in Korea (1392-1910) and the Tokugawa period in Japan (1603-1868) were heavily influenced by the Neo-Confucianist tradition and its social norms that consequently demanded a very specific, hierarchical structure of society. Within this structure, women were understood to assume a subordinate position to men and fulfill their roles within the family as daughters, wives and mothers. However, despite the ideological foundations of the social systems being based on the same canon of Neo-Confucian morality, we can detect differences in women’s positions and roles when comparing the societies of Choson Korea and Tokugawa Japan.
By analysing chapters 6 (“Propagating Female Virtues in Choson Korea”, by Martina Deuchler) and 8 (“Norms and Texts for Women’s Education in Tokugawa Japan”, by Martha C. Tocco) of the book “Women and Confucian Cultures in Premodern China, Korea and Japan”, I have identified several differences, exterior to potential dissenting interpretations of Neo-Confucianism in Korea and Japan, that could explain why women’s roles were not more similar in the two countries. While a difference in the rigidity of societal stratums as well as a difference in economic prosperity are certainly major explanatory angles for this question, a large part also seems to come down to dissenting interpretations of what constitutes “women’s nature”. This is the aspect the following article will focus on.

1. Diverging interpretations of “women’s moral nature”

While moral education for women (or “indoctrination”¹, as Deuchler calls it in the Korean case) was valued in both Neo-Confucian Korea and Japan, the underlying reason for this, based on each culture’s understanding of what constitutes “women’s moral nature”, varied greatly.

In Korea, women acting according to Confucianist principles were considered essential “for setting the domestic realm in order”². Yet, at the same time, women were thought to possess “inferior natural qualities”³ in comparison to men, which made their moral education all the more important, as they were basically expected to overcome their biological predispositions in order to contribute and not pose a danger to the Korean Confucianist society. Men, on the other hand, would “naturally distinguish between right and wrong [and] are able to keep themselves [on the right track]”.⁴ Teaching especially women about Confucian norms would hence have to be a central concern, according to Korean Choson society.

In Japan, on the other hand, Tocco claims that the education of Confucianist norms was regarded to be essential for both women and men. While moral guides outlining a woman’s subordinate role in society existed and were highly popular, similar to Korea⁵, “exhortational tomes”⁶ were just as important for the education of male members of society. This implies that the moral nature of women and men was not seen as inherently different in Tokugawa society. Furthermore, Tocco argues that moral guides for women gradually moved away from their original purpose of educating women about their societal role and status towards being used as textbooks for learning how to read and write.⁷ In this sense, their purpose would have been more emancipatory than oppressive.

2. A difference in understanding the links between women’s biological roles and the roles they could assume in society

Women in Korea were effectively banned from public life and confined to the inner chambers. Their social roles were limited to their positions as daughters, wives and mothers within the family⁸, and a great focus was placed on elite primary wives’ capability to produce the male heir of the family’s wealth and social status⁹. Therefore, especially elite women’s social role and biological role, based on natural predispositions, got conflated. Within their nurturing capacity of mothers, Korean women also took on the role of educators of their children, at least when it came to basic knowledge and morality. For this purpose, a fundamental education was essential. Still, “excessive learning was deemed dangerous”¹⁰ for women, as it was seen as potentially disruptive for the family peace and potentially the wider social order.

In Tokugawa Japan women were also responsible for the education of their young children. However, several differences are crucial: For one, texts from the early 1700s show that this education was seen as part of a parenting task that ultimately relied on the involvement of both mother and father.¹¹ On another note, the Japanese elite family structure, relying on concubines and wet-nursing rather than on a strict hierarchical separation between primary and secondary wives as in Korea, led to the fact that the responsibility to take care of any children was shared between all the women in the family. According to Tocco, it was thus uncommon to assume that “the physiology of childbearing was the origin of the qualities of nurturance required by child rearing”¹². Rather, parenting was considered a skill that can be taught. This professionalization of women’s role as educators also led to them becoming schoolteachers and hence members of the public sphere, which is a level of emancipation that was not reached within the strict confinements of women bound to the domestic realm in Choson Korea.

1. Martina Deuchler, ‘Propagating Female Virtues in Choson Korea’ in Dorothy Ko et al. (ed.), Women and Confucian Cultures in Premodern China, Korea and Japan (Berkeley, 2003), p. 144. [↩]
2. Quoted in Deuchler, ‘Female Virtues in Choson Korea’, p. 146. [↩]
3. Ibid., p. 147. [↩]
4. Sohye quoted in ibid., p. 147 [↩]
5. Cf. Martha C. Tocco, ‘Norms and Texts for Women’s Education in Tokugawa Japan’ in Dorothy Ko et al. (ed.), Women and Confucian Cultures in Premodern China, Korea and Japan (Berkeley, 2003), pp. 199-200. [↩]
6. Ibid., pp. 200-201. [↩]
7. Cf. Ibid., p. 200. [↩]
8. Cf. Deuchler, ‘Female Virtues in Choson Korea’, pp. 142-143. [↩]
9. Cf. Ibid., p. 145. [↩]
10. Ibid., p. 150. [↩]
11. Cf. Tocco, ‘Women’s Education in Tokugawa Japan’, p. 196. [↩]
12. Ibid., p. 197. [↩]

Through his efforts to re-interpret the study of Confucius, Robert C. Neville has become one of the most important philosophers and theologians in recent memory. ‘Boston Confucianism’ is the slightly tongue-in-cheek moniker Neville uses for his branch of the Confucian discourse, first formulated in New England in the late 20th century.  It’s also the title of his seminal work on the subject, which advocates a more serious examination of Confucian teachings in a Western context. To Neville, Confucianism belongs not within academic cloisters, condemned to sinological scholarship, but in the schoolrooms and homes of modern America, where it can complement existing traditions to form a more inclusive global religion.

Neville’s attempts to bridge the divide between East and West are not unlike the efforts of early Christian missionaries in China, who used religion as a means to unite the two disparate cultures. In particular, I feel similarities can be drawn between Neville and Samuel W. Williams, a pioneering sinologist active during the middle 19th century. Born in Utica, New York in 1812, Williams arrived in China during a time of great philosophical debate and political upheaval. At the time, he was one of only two missionaries in the entire country. Williams’ sympathy toward locals distinguished him from many Western colleagues – he felt the opium trade was unjust and was poisoning Chinese civilization (a belief common among nascent Chinese political and faith traditions). Published in the wake of the First Opium War, The Middle Kingdom was Williams’ finest work and was considered the authoritative survey of Chinese civilization for many years. For most intellectuals in the West, The Middle Kingdom was their first introduction to the Confucian precepts Neville would later try to revive.

The Middle Kingdom describes the leading features of Confucianism as “subordination to superiors and kind upright dealing with our fellow-men”, which resembles the ‘humanness’ inherent in Neville’s concept of ren. Williams also clarifies that Confucianism is “destitute to all reference of an unseen power… (its followers) look only to this world for their sanctions”¹. In distinguishing Confucian thought from religious doctrine, Williams allows other scholars (including Neville) to bring it into the philosophical mainstream. Williams understood the centrality of Confucianism to Chinese life, and considered its eminent practicality to exceed the contributions of any Western philosopher.

Much like Neville, Williams had become something of a public intellectual. He was a prolific lecturer in the United States, and had mastered a good bit of the Chinese language (he would later become the first professor of Chinese at any American university). Williams even helped to author one of the earliest English-Chinese dictionaries. This background in linguistics drew him to primary sources, especially the ‘Four Books and Five Classics’ that form the core of Confucian thought. His admiration was boundless – Williams felt the Confucian texts exerted an “incomparable influence… which no book, besides the Bible, can claim.”² Neville shares this appreciation for classical scholarship, which forms a core element of any transported philosophical or religious culture. Beyond primary and secondary scriptures, Neville also highlights the ‘interpretive context’ behind Confucianism, which Williams (as a scholar of language and history) would have well understood.

Both scholars share a particular fascination with the concept of li, described by Neville as ‘ritual propriety’. Boston Confucianism calls for a revival of ritual propriety, or the “focus (of) ethical life on the development of social forms and styles that properly humanize people”.³ Neville echoed the Confucian understanding that people could not cooperate, nor be properly governed, without elaborate learned ways of behaving within a culture. Williams focused especially on the The Book of Rites (one of the five classics), which he knew to be critical for the healthy functioning of Chinese society. He wrote that “the religion of the state is founded upon it, and children are early instructed in all the details it contains… (the book is) singular in its object and scope among all the bequests of antiquity”.⁴

Williams had traveled to China to convince its people to accept Christ, but during his stay he would come to preach to a new audience: Americans. His work did invaluable service in extolling the “richness, the complexity, the flaws… the overall worthiness of Chinese civilization” to a nation largely ignorant of its finer points⁵. While recognizing the peculiarities of China’s civilization, Williams felt they masked a deeper similarity between China and then West – an “innate sameness of the peoples of the earth”⁶. Neville echoes the same sentiment when he writes that the first meaning of Boston Confucianism is “bringing the Confucian tradition into play with the other great civilized traditions in the creation of a world religion”⁷ . The higher purpose behind Boston Confucianism – the application of Confucian thought beyond an East Asian ethnic context – certainly exceeds Williams’ passive observation. Nonetheless, both men understood that Confucianism was the best bridge between the disparate cultures of East and West. Close study of the Confucian tradition deserves to be more than an academic curiosity – it has the potential to be the cornerstone in the construction of a more inclusive world.

 

1. Samuel Wells Williams, The Middle Kingdom (London: Wiley & Putnam, 1848), 530, https://babel.hathitrust.org/cgi/pt?id=yale.39002008743776&view=1up&seq=638. [↩]
2. Ibid, 531. [↩]
3. Robert Neville, Boston Confucianism: Portable Tradition in the Late-Modern World (Albany: State University of New York Press, 2000), 7. [↩]
4. Williams, The Middle Kingdom, 510. [↩]
5. John Rogers Haddad, The Romance of Chine: Excursions to China in US Culture, 1776 to 1876 (New York: Columbia University Press, 2007, 263. [↩]
6. Ibid, 308. [↩]
7. Neville, Boston Confucianism 1. [↩]

Perhaps the most enduring legacy of Kotoku Shusui, as Robert Tierney stresses in his work Monster of the Twentieth Century: Kotoku Shusui and Japan’s First Anti-Imperialist Movement, was his prominent leading role in the strife against Japanese imperialism at the start of the twentieth century. Kotoku’s actions sparked widespread interest in his personality as someone who openly resisted the absolutism of the Meiji state. Kotoku represented a radical journalist and socialist whose intellectual and political efforts in the anti-imperialist movement have left him to be widely regarded as a prolific forerunner to the modern pacifist movement in Japan.

Tierney seeks to examine Kotoku’s impact on the movement by dissecting the work which his own piece is named after, Imperialism: Monster of the Twentieth Century (1901). What is most interesting about Kotoku’s work is that it preceded both Hobson’s study on Imperialism and Lenin’s 1916 work, Imperialism: The Highest Stage of Capitalism. Tierney wants to emphasise the importance of Kotoku Shusui and his 1901 publication given that these later approaches do not fit well with the case of Japan’s early imperialism (p.57). Such theories of economic causation, from Tierney’s perspective, do not seem as relevant to the Japanese case given that Japan at the time was still borrowing significant funds from England and the United States in order to finance the nation’s own industrialisation. Tierney takes a unique stance in his work, focussing more on the intellectual contribution of Kotoku to the anti-imperialist movement instead of other anarchist efforts.

Tierney dissects the preface of Kotoku’s Imperialism and locates the Japanese journalist’s definitive observation on the state of Japanese imperialism. Tierney extracts the quote, “Ever since the great victory in the Sino-Japanese War, Japanese from all walks of life burn with fever to join the race, like a horse suddenly freed from his yoke” (p.38). Critics of Kotoku’s work have noted his overbearing emphasis on ideals such as patriotism and militarism, forces that may only be described as mere symptoms of imperialism. This idea does come across somewhat when looking at the above quotation. Most Marxist historians have tended to reject Kotoku’s argument based on his explicit omission of the economic causes behind Japanese imperialism. Okochi Kazuo has pointed out on reflection that Kotoku’s failure to identify imperialism as the most recent stage of capitalism reflects merely the “limitations of the time in which he lived” (p.8).

Additionally, Tierney emphasises the role of Kotoku in the anti-imperialist movement by pulling up his work for the Heimin newspaper, and its own significance. Kotoku founded this socialist paper in 1903, and played a key role in pushing it to become one of Tokyo’s leading publications advocating the growth of socialist ideas just a year after it was founded. The Heimin newspaper certainly stood out as a representative banner for the anti-war movement in Japan in Tierney’s eyes. What is also striking about the significance of the newspaper is the ability it granted Kotoku to establish direct links with Chinese and other Asian revolutionaries that were stationed in and around Tokyo; the most notable of these being Sun Yat-Sen. If there was one idea that Heimin newspaper served to reiterate, it was that such a “bulletin board for sharing ideas” offered a clear illustration of how journalism could be utilised as a means of fostering communities of insurrection (p.109).

One of the primary case studies that Tierney uses in order to examine Kotoku’s condemnation of Japanese imperialism is the Boxer Rebellion of 1900. The Boxer Rebellion was arguably the catalyst that explains Kotoku’s adoption of such an anti-imperialist stance, one that differed greatly from his earlier anti-Western nationalist perspective (p.86). This conflict represented a truly imperialist war in from Kotoku’s point of view. Japan’s attack on its semi-colonised neighbour China, a nation that was equated with lawlessness given the uprising, was seen therefore as a means of upholding civilisation through the use of a heavy contingent of troops (pp.86-7). As Tierney evaluates, Kotoku shunned this European style of procedure, one that seemed only to be motivated by military expansion and profit. Japan would go on after the rebellion to enter into an agreement with Great Britain in which both sides recognised mutual interests in China and provide for joint support in the event of Russian aggression. This western style of diplomacy that Japan had entered into only seemed to validate the militarist arguments put forward in Kotoku’s Imperialism.

The key question that Tierney summarises his work with is whether Kotoku’s Imperialism is still relevant, and if so, to what extent? The term relevant may be better replaced with applicable here, as Tierney himself even highlights earlier on in his piece that Kotoku’s own intellectual efforts in the anti-imperialist movement have tended to be replaced in terms of historical memory by later anti-imperial movements (p.12). Hence, in terms of modern applicability, we arrive at numerous instances whereby we can recognise patterns between modern politics and the views of Kotoku Shusui. Tierney’s primary example of this is President Reagan’s use of the term “evil empire” as a means of solely insulting the Soviet Union in  the 1980s (p.211). American politicians and journalists nowadays no longer hesitate in defining the United States as an empire, and indeed one that extols its “benevolent hegemony” (p.212). This summary point relates to a large extent back to the definitions that their East Asian counterparts offered  much in the same way as Kotoku at the start of the twentieth century.

Yan frequently espouses the peaceful benefits of a cosmopolitanist international world order in his essay “How to Prevent Warfare and Establish the Foundation of World Unity.” He defines cosmopolitanism as “one world in which the interest of mankind is coherent and homogeneous.” (8) It is a political theory that promotes the formation of peaceful relations between states, be it based on economic, political or social grounds. In understanding cosmopolitanism within the context of international relations, the democratic peace theory provides an interesting complement to cosmopolitanism theories of cooperation and peace. The democratic peace theory is a tenet of liberal political theory that posits that democracy are highly unlikely to go to war with each other due to their shared values and the domestic consequences for war within a liberal society.

At the center of both the democratic peace theory and Yan’s cosmopolitanism is the idea of shared values preventing conflict between two or more nation-states. Yan, throughout his work, emphasises the need for shared values and interests that promote the betterment of mankind. Many of his beliefs as such are also reflected in the liberal political theory that the democratic peace theory stems from. By creating an international society that is reliant on cooperation and shared values and interests, the need for conflict should, as per both Yan and liberal IR scholars, be non-existent.

However, where this two political theories diverge is on the nature of who should dictate the creation of such shared values. While both are based in the creation and maintenance of democracy, Yan supports the creation of a ruling overseer that will create meritocratic democracy, rather than one based upon popular elections. Liberal political theory, while it does support the creation of international organizations, such as the United Nations, also heavily supports state’s rights to sovereignty and ability to shape their political future. There is an emphasis on the success of liberal democracy in maintaining more successful, peaceful states, but there is no hierarchy within the international order, unlike Yan’s theory. Whereas Yan’s political theories towards peacebuilding are built upon the creation of a tiered international system with the creation of shared values, the democratic peace theory, and by extension, liberalism, rely on the existing shared democratic values as a means of preventing conflict.      

Owen, John M. (Autumn 1994). “Give Democratic Peace a Chance? How Liberalism Produces Democratic Peace”. International Security. 19 (2): 87–125.

Yan Xisan, How To Prevent Warfare and Establish the Foundation of World Peace, pamphlet, pp 1-41.

In Zen at War Brian Victoria attacks the post-war revisionist version of the role of Religion in modern Japan by examining the relationship between Zen and War in the modern period, with particular reference to Zen’s endorsement of Japanese warfare and the Japanese Imperial project. Although at times problematic, its role in exposing the intellectual dishonesty of Japanese Buddhists and their collusion with the Japanese War effort is significant, as Victoria remarks ‘the book you are about to read is simply not a book about religious history but also one that has made history’[1]. However, there are a number of issues within Victoria’s work that could lead to a misunderstanding of the extent to which Zen was responsible for Japanese atrocities during the war. As Victoria overtly focuses on the Buddhist religious justifications for the Japanese imperial vision he runs the risk of inducing readers into believing that the explanations for the political atrocities of the Japanese can be found purely within their religious doctrines. He also risks inducing readers into believing that only Buddhism should be held responsible for its involvement in the Japanese war effort. Although Victoria mentions shinto and confucianism within his works he does not explore this fully.

In reality state Shinto, played an equally damning role in the Japanese war effort and imperial project through its prominence within the Kominka movement, repressing traditional religions within Taiwan and Korea by replacing shrines and temples[2]. The Kominka movement and Shinto thus permeated colonies through the importance of youth groups in which youths were expected to perform the Misogi[3]. The State Shinto saw the religion utilised as ‘a major force for mobilizing imperial loyalties on behalf of nation building’[4]. Although State Shinto was technically ended with the end of World war II its importance in the Imperial project of Japan should not be understated.

Victoria’s interpretative strategy thus runs the risk that readers will ignore the normality of Imperialist violence within the development of the Japanese Modern state irrespective of the involvement of Buddhism and the involvement of other religions including Shinto. Although Victoria’s work could largely be considered a polemical attack on Buddhist denial rather than one with a work with historical intentions; there is still a possibility that readers will not consider the broader participation of religions in the imperial project alongside Buddhism.

[1] Brian Victoria, Zen at War, (2^nd Edition) (Oxford, 2006), pxi.

[2] Jo-Ying Chu, ‘Japan’s colonial policies – from national assimilation to the Kominka Movement: a comparative study of primary education in Taiwan and Korea (1937–1945)’ in International Jounral of Historical Education, Vol, 53, 2017, 4.

[3] Sayaka, Chatani, ‘Between “Rural Youth” and Empire: Social and Emotional Dynamics of Youth Mobilization in the Countryside of Colonial Taiwan under Japan’s Total War’ in The American Historical Review, Volume 122, Issue 2, 1 April 2017, p381.

[4] Wilbur M. Fridell, “A Fresh Look at State Shintō”, Journal of the American Academy of Religion 44.3 (1976), p548.

 

Pan-Asianism is most frequently defined as a politiocultural movement to unite the countries of Asia in opposition of western influences. Author Eri Hotta outlines three strands of pan-Asianism in Japan in the 1930s: firstly, it emphasized Asian commonalities in the philosophical context of Asian civilization, particularly in China and India, secondly, they sought to create alliances, more narrowly focused to East Asian, and finally, it established Japan as the “Asian alliance leader” in a fight to save the rest of Asia from the West. While these tenants are not significant deviations from other pan-nationalist movements, pan-Asianism is unique in two ways: the conception of Asia as a geographical and cultural entity and the desire to rid Asia of Western imperialism. Pan-Asianist’s definition of Asia is generally limited to South and East Asia, primarily China, Japan, Korea and India. Japan was amongst the first of the Asian nations to engage with pan-Asianism, which to some extent is resultative of their early interaction with the Western powers. Unlike other Asian countries, Japan was never colonized or under imperial rule by a western country but rather was able to establish diplomatic and economic ties with the United States and Western Europe. This allowed Japan to leverage a position amongst the negotiators at the end of the First World War, and also marked Japan as the most powerful, independent Asian country in the inter-war period.

In contrast to the rise of Japanese pan-Asianism’s rise in the 1930s, pan-Germanism had existed long before the World Wars. It arose in the mid-nineteenth century as the question of German unification shaped central Europe’s geopolitical climate. In essence, pan-Germanism sought to unite all Germanic and German-speaking populations; this included large areas in central Europe, including parts of the Austro-Hungarian Empire, where there were large ethnic German populations. Unlike pan-Asianism, which is based upon a rejection of imperialism and is largely geographical, pan-Germanism is largely ethnolinguistically based. It was through a pan-Germanist, nationalist policy that the German Empire was formed from the German States in the second half of the nineteenth century, despite many non-ethnic Germans being included in the population of the German Empire.

Both of these pan-nationalist movements underwent a radicalization in the inter-war period. In Japan, pan-Asianism became synonymous with a desire for the creation of a Japanese empire in Asia. In Germany and Central Europe, pan-Germanism became closely connected to the ethno-nationalist beliefs of Adolf Hitler and the Nazi Party.  In both states, a sense of ethnic or cultural superiority was felt and both states felt as if they should have greater status or power within the international community. During the Paris Peace Conference in 1919, the Japanese delegation strongly opposed the creation of the League of Nations as they believed that it was merely a continuation of the status quo, in that it promoted Western Europe and the United States above all else. The Japanese delegation, and by extension, Japan as a whole, felt as if Japan was not given the proper respect that it’s position in the international community afforded it. This mentality contributed significantly to the rise of pan-Asianism in the Japanese context of resisting Western imperialism and creating a Japanese empire.  

Pan-Germanism underwent a similar revival in a similar time period. Just as pan-Asianism resurged in Japan as a means to gain power in the region, pan-Germanism provided a reason for German expansion in Europe. The reclamation of ethnic German territories and population formed the backbone of German expansion in Austria and other German-speaking regions. In a similar manner, pan-Asianism was used to justify the Japanese invasion into China in 1937. 1937 proves to be a useful comparison for these two strands of pan-nationalism as in 1937 Japan invaded China in the name of pan-Asian values and in the same year, Nazi Germany began to seriously pursue unification with Austria, resulting in the Anschluss in 1938. Unlike the invasion of China in 1937, the Anschluss was not a direct military conflict, but rather was the result of a popular referendum. To a significant portion of the Austrian population, the Anschluss was the culmination of a long-standing desire to create one German state.

Pan-Germanism, unlike pan-Asianism, had a more universal element to it as it centered on the German language where pan-Asianism was based around a vague sense of geographical location and some degree of shared culture, but not language. However, both of these movements morphed into the basis for empire building in Europe and Asia.  

Works Cited.

Hotta, Eri, Pan-Asianism and Japan’s War 1931-1945. New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2007.

Redlich, Joseph, “German Austria and Nazi Germany”, Foreign Affairs 15, no. 1 (1936), pp. 180-181.

“The Situation of Germany” The New York Times. 1 July 1866.

Ch’iu Chin is widely acknowledged as one of China’s first feminist figures and has been recognised universally for her significant contributions to the reform movement and her heroic inspiration behind the 1911 Revolution.¹ Her character, however, is much more convoluted than would appear at first glance. Ch’iu efforts in the lead up to the revolution granted her great prestige as a heroine of the movement, nevertheless, we need to address how much of an exceptional individual she was, and whether or not her case spoke for the majority of those who sought reform during the early twentieth century in China.

Mary Rankin’s piece on Ch’iu Chin, entitled “The emergence of women at the end of the Ch’ing: The case of Ch’iu Chin”, focuses predominantly on the ways in which Ch’iu set about challenging the traditionally ingrained roles of women in society¹. Ch’iu advocated education to other women at the time, imploring them to learn and seek other professions outside the home. This provoked the a growth in mentions of “woman scholars” (nü-shih) across various newspapers at the time (p.45). The association of education with the reform movement was very significant. It was becoming more and more clear that girls’ education was being conceived as a modern education in an environment of expanding opportunities.

Rankin emphasises how the writings of Ch’iu represented an intense rejection of the established imperialist order in China (p.57). Ch’iu’s writings tended to unite the key themes of revolution, nationalism, and feminism in which she offers “passionate harangues on the evils of women’s life” that are set against “alarmed descriptions of foreign encroachment and government corruption” (p.58). Ch’iu grew up with a strong nationalist concern for the future of her nation. This perspective heightened further as she came into contact with other prominent revolutionaries like Sun Yat-Sen. One of the key messages that Rankin seeks to promote in this work is how Ch’iu recognised that social equality was not likely to be achieved without major reform and structural change to the nation. The eventual liberation of women would therefore result from revolution, to which Ch’iu devoted her greatest efforts.

Ch’iu’s personality is one that certainly requires discussion. In her youth she was heavily exposed the a way of life that saw her study, ride horses, and even wield swords which clearly puts her in her own unique category, and not the most stereotypical representative of the reform movement. Furthermore, Ch’iu even came into contact with explosives and weaponry during her time fighting for the revolution. This contributed greatly to her own heroic fighter status and perhaps gave  her recognition in other East Asian nations like Japan who offered her integration into a new society. Nonetheless, the peculiarities surrounding Ch’iu’s character only seem to accentuate the uniqueness of her example. This is not necessarily something that Rankin alludes to either. Ch’iu’s involvement in the reform movement highlights somewhat a trend of greater social inclusion for women in Rankin’s eyes, yet she does not address just how much of an enigma Ch’iu may represent given her wealthy upbringing and repeated exposure in her youth to radical ideas.

Overall, we cannot escape the fact that Ch’iu Jin will be remembered in China for her inspired efforts in the fight for women’s rights in China. As a result of her martyrdom in 1907, she was endowed with such heroic qualities as bravery, uncompromising morality, and devotion to duty (p.62). By the time of the 1911 revolution, many women’s armies sought to romanticise and evoke her spirit in the conflict. Although the aspirations and achievements of Ch’iu were extraordinary, her career tends to illustrate the problems faced by her contemporaries and too the motives that inspired them (p.40). For Ch’iu, her own unique heroic status became a way to justify her own radical actions to herself, for others to follow the example of. This luxury was not something than other members of the reform movement in China had at their disposal

Jen Kucharski, “Qiu Jin: An exemplar of Chinese feminism, revolution and nationalism at the end of the Qing dynasty“, p.92

1. Mary Backus Rankin. “The Emergence of Women at the End of the Ch’ing: The Case of Ch’iu Chin,” in Roxane Witke Women in Chinese Society (1975) [↩]

Edmund Fung’s exploration of the politics of conservatism within Republican China certainly raises an interesting set of arguments surrounding the links that existed between nationalism and modernity during the period. In his work, The Intellectual Foundations of Chinese Modernity: Cultural and Political Thought in the Republican Era, Fung makes a clear point of stressing the way in which conservatism itself was committed to the cause of modernity, but also that advocates were wary that a continuity of national spirit ad prestige should be upheld at the same time. The cultural and political nexus in Chinese conservatism in the context of a landscape of modernity is one that Fung himself describes as hard to get to grips with, but appears generally assured of his argument that Chinese conservatives, in their pursuit of modernity and economic reform, were acting explicitly in the interests of the nation, but not necessarily those of the state (p.98).

This distinction between nation and state is one that Fung looks to reinforce through analysis of several non-Marxist historians in order to reinforce his secondary argument that Marxist theology was no where near as ubiquitous as previously envisaged during the period. Fung first consults the works of John Hutchinson in order to help define his potentially confusing term ‘politico-cultural nationalism’ that encompassed Chinese conservative motives during the Nanjing decade. Fung deduces that cultural conservatives during the period sought a “moral regeneration” of the nation itself and looked to make use of heritage to promote social, political and economic reforms (p.102). It must be clarified however that these Chinese conservatives were in favour of the state and the regime.

Cultural identity and heritage is two of the most crucial themes raised within Fung’s work. Fung examines how the Chinese nation needed to steer itself away from the cultural state of decay that it had devolved into. To achieve this, China was forced to save itself by its own efforts and not be so preoccupied with external influences that may save them. On this point, he brings in the ideas of Liang Shuming, notable of course for his explicit change of opinion with regard to the West and how China should no longer be required to emulate European or American democracy (p.107). Liang proposed a program of rural reconstruction for the Chinese nation to continue on its path towards modernity and cultural rejuvenation.¹

This would in turn allow democracy to flourish. The main takeaway from Fung’s interpretation of Liang is that he was not entirely anti-Western; he did recognise several promising features of western society such as individual rights and moderate socialism, but ultimately, for China to reestablish itself economically and culturally, the nation should not seek inspiration from abroad.

At the crux of Chinese conservatism during the period were concerns about imperialism, the future of the Chinese nation itself, and the threat of foreign invasion (p.126). A strong consensus for democratic reconstruction existed within the movement in order to stabilise the political realm of the Chinese nation, but also to promote scientific and technological skills in an increasingly modern age. This would help simultaneously to promote a sense of moral self-realisation among the people of their place in the modern world.²

The concept of the nation-state formed a central pillar of modernity within China at the time, and this certainly the basis in Fung’s eyes for mutual interest existing between conservatism and nationalism (p.126). This idea of constructing a nation-state was especially prevalent when connected with the idea of reviving China politically and economically.

Conservatives within Republican China certainly stood in a complex position with regard to the nation-state and the pre-existing regime. In which direction China should proceed given its current ongoing cultural and economic crisis was a hot topic of debate. As discussed, some held reservations about the western liberal style and preferred the idea of a more imposing type of leadership. Reform was indeed in the best interests of conservatives, and as Fung neatly summarises in his work, Conservatism in China “represented a morally innovative path to modernity” (p.127).

1. Chun-Ying Cheng and Nicholas Bunnin (eds.) Contemporary Chinese Philosophy, (Oxford, 2002), p.160 [↩]
2. William Theodore de Bary and Richard Lufrano (ed.), Sources of Chinese Tradition: From 1600 to the Twentieth Century, vol. 2, 2nd. edn., (New York, 2000), p.554 [↩]

In his article “China and the Esperanto Movement”, Gerald Chan raised the issue of language barriers within the United Nations; the Chinese solution to the language issue is to use Esperanto. Chinese Mandarin has long been one of the six official languages of the United Nations, which also include Arabic, English, French, Russian and Spanish. Chinese was established as an official language in 1946 during the beginning of the United Nations, as the Chinese state, then controlled by the Kuomintang (Nationalist) Party.

While the inclusion of six official languages may appear on the surface to create linguistic inclusivity, not all the official languages are used equally. English and French are used by the United Nations Secretariat and are used in day-to-day professional exchanges. Chinese is perhaps the least used of the six languages as while it has the largest population of speakers, it is primarily limited to China and Taiwan, which does not hold a seat. The lack of Mandarin used in the United Nations and more globally has at times been viewed by the Chinese as a weakness and is not on par with China’s international status. In other transnational organizations, Chinese delegations have experienced issues due to translation and language issues. However, Chinese is not an easily accessible language – it is challenging for non-native speakers to learn both to speak and to read and is not frequently taught outside of China. As such, a movement has risen within China for Esperanto to be made the official language of the United Nations.

This movement is arguably motivated in two ways, and both provide great benefit to China’s international status. Firstly, making Esperanto the official language of the United Nations would move the language primacy away from Europe and more importantly, the United States. Secondly, promoting Esperanto is in the interest of other developing countries who struggle for influence in the United Nations, and would thus further establish China as a leader for developing countries.

Renowned political scientist Joseph Nye has constructed the concept of “soft power”, which he defined as “A country may obtain the outcomes it wants in world politics because other countries – admiring its values, emulating its example, aspiring to its level of prosperity and openness – want to follow it.” Soft power has long been favored by the Chinese government in lieu of hard military power, which has been limited since the end of the Cold War to minor flare-ups in the South China Sea. It can be evidenced in China’s significant economic support in the Middle East and Africa primarily, where large sums of Chinese money have been invested in developing countries as a means of diplomacy. If Nye’s theory of soft power is applied to Chinese support of Esperanto, there is a clear benefit for the Chinese as many developing countries suffer from “language hegemony and discrimination” in the United Nations. China’s mere support of adopting Esperanto certainly indicates China’s further commitment to bringing developing countries further into the United Nations. As such, China’s desire to adopt Esperanto as the official language raises questions about if it is out of a genuine belief in Esperanto as a uniting language or rather another way in which China can gain support for its position in the international community and build closer ties.      

Chan, Gerald. “China and the Esperanto Movement.” The Australian Journal of Chinese Affairs, no. 15 (1986): 1–18.

Nye, Joseph, Soft Power: The Means to Success in World Politics (New York: Public Affairs, 2004).

The United Nations, Official Languages, <https://www.un.org/en/sections/about-un/official-languages/>.

The United Nations, Multilingualism, <https://www.un.org/sg/en/multilingualism/index.shtml>.