Rethinking the World in East Asia 1850s-1990s

In reading Susan Glosser’s “Chinese Visions of Family and State”, we are able to register the heavy importance of the personal in spawning the New Culture Movement. The call for industrialisation by mid 20^thcentury young urban males in China simultaneously aimed to dismantle and reconfigure the family unit. Spearheading the project to disentangle themselves from their overbearing fathers, fiscal co-dependency and minimise the inventory of filial obligations, Yi Jiayue and Lou Dunwei cite superficially Marxist theory to figure themselves in the wider national context to achieve those ends. When we read Glosser against Ko, Liu and Karl’s The Birth of Chinese Feminism: Essential Texts in Transnational Theory, we can further see that the New Youth’s purported understanding of women’s liberation, industrialisation and the patriarchy is very limited by the male experience it largely drew on. Having intellectual tunnel-vision and clutching at theoretical straws, the proponents’ hang-ups about the family system only made visible young male and elite female urban struggles.

Yi Jiayue’s criticism of patriarchal authority was that it stood in the way of personal freedoms of men such as himself, obstructed progress for the wider Chinese world[1] and that the family institution which it that world was hinged on also inserted itself into “every aspect of [young men’s’ lives”.[2] Since Confucian ideology pervaded all matter of state – making the personal and political synonymous – the New Youth perceived the family unit as symptomatic of national failures and illnesses. Taking remedial action, the New Youth’s advocacy for industrialisation was because of their belief that it was a process capable of destroying the family system that was causing them so much distress.[3]

Interestingly, however, the New Cultural Movement’s belief that it was servicing progress and helping women realise their personhood was largely erroneous or at least exclusive.[4] The main form of progress it was affecting was not just that of young urban males’ everyday-life experiences, but the achievement of placing young Chinese men in some sort of historical moment. The New Culture radicals’ eagerness to participate in history and locate the movement in an international intellectual conversation. Although modernization and industrial mobilization may have distanced men from their family, prevented the creation of “extended families”, their antiquated ideals and led them to deferring the start-up of a new generation because of their renewed focus on factory work or intellectual engagement, as Glosser notes, the New Youth’s understanding of the past was a cursory one which was to the end of reenacting “revolution in the present”.[5] Importantly, the movement neglected the experiences of women in rural society who were adversely affected by the very industrialisation the men urged for. As Ko et al note, “laboring women and [their] rural economic hardship remained largely invisible” and male dominated discussions about the oppressed female position were largely glossed over.[6] Thus, although one may look positively on the Movement’s prohibition of “taking concubines, collecting slaves etc…”, the reality of the situation was that China’s insertion into the capitalist system was detrimental, primarily to women, in numerous ways. The Youth’s desperation for the destruction of the family unit through industrialisation and espousing Marxist ideology to justify that particular route, would thus go on to destroying some families economically. “Women, whose family livelihoods were being ruined” at the hands of “competition in silk and cotton from Japan, British-colonised India, and the revival of the American South” were not considered when rethinking the family and the nation. [7]

Ultimately, we are able to see that the superficial applications of Marxist ideology, a theory which itself focussed on class-based struggle at the expense of treating the women’s plight, in its attempt to ease the burden young urban males were subjected to by their families as well as well as in marking itself as a moment on the Chinese historical timeline. As a result of such exclusivity, the New Culture Movement failed to address the working class struggles of China, the problem of women’s rights and intersection at which those issues compound.

[1] Glosser, Susan L. Chinese Visions of Family and State, 1915-1953. University of California Press, 2003, p.9

[2] Ibid, p.7

[3] Ibid, p.6

[4] Ibid, p.17

[5] Ibid, p.5G

[6] Liu, Lydia He, Rebecca E. Karl, and Dorothy Ko. The Birth of Chinese Feminism: Essential Texts in Transnational Theory. Columbia University Press, 2013 p.32

[7] Ibid, p.31-32

With Arishima Takeo’s dissolution of the tenant farm in Niseko (1922), the consequent emergence of a cooperatist farm saw an experimental phase of anarchist living in Hokkaido. Sho Konishi understands that cooperatist activity and the alternative modes of living on the farm as a rejective response to Western notions of progress and modernity.[1] The land which the farmers inhabited was to uniquely serve as fecund ground for many different and coexistent values. The cooperatist ideology encouraged political participation of all farm members, was loose in its outline of viable economic schemes and, chiefly, espoused egalitarian ideals. Popular understandings of anarchism catalogue the ideology as traditionalist, irrational and disordered.[2] However, when we look at the development and embodiment of cooperatist farms, we see that this particular brand of anarchism was a largely equalised ground on which the inhabitants enacted the process of political, governmental and social trial and error. With that expression of trial and error in mind, a conclusive ‘right answer’ was not sought out so much as the process was to be calibrated.

The “Hokkaido cooperative” resisted subscription to Western ideas of modernity which the wider Japanese state adopted.[1] On the smaller and larger scale, the anarchists sought to enshrine “sōgo fujo” (mutual aid) as a central tenet to an ideal lifestyle. Both interpersonal relations and the organisation of labour were to be characterised as interdependent and harmonious, rather than Darwinist, competitive and tension inducing.[2]However, to the end of that cooperation, conflict was not eschewed. Indeed, discursive conflict was encouraged where it could service democratic decision making and secure future relations. With the “elimination of hierarchy”, society’s reorganisation along horizontal lines naturally saw a greater range of opinions and perspectives on the affairs of the farm as well as its relation to other political actors.[3] The “day-long discussions” which required the result of “every members’ approval” before ratifying decisions demonstrates that the cooperatist farm did not stubbornly and naively aim to develop a utopian and fully agreeable society. Instead, cooperativism decided its idea of a progressive society included compromise, and was even necessary for, consensus. In this way, we can see that the cooperative farm, a society in which many values were cultivated, was without a strict hierarchical order but not disordered.

Economically, while the Hokkaido anarchists sought to distance themselves from the liberal capitalist system projected by the West, the farmers located themselves as “part of and a response to the modern condition”.[4]Therefore, at the time they were disowning personal property, communalising resources and pooling their labour efforts, they were not violently and universally overthrowing the “existing system”.[5] Furthermore, cooperatist modernity was not only subsistent, but, in entrepreneurial and profit seeking spirit, it also allowed for the marketing its agricultural produce.[6] In 1926 when rice prices in Japan fell, there was a sober reality that their trajectory was affected by the international and so the farmers experimented with dairy farming after learning from Utsunomiya farm.[7] This small case illustrates the way in which the anarchists located themselves not as an isolated society far removed from the wider globe, but rather a community, working with the help of others, which could carve out its own path to a modernity they defined on their own terms. Their embracement of agricultural technology was also a nod to the constant trial and error they practiced in developing an ideal, but not insular, society.[8]

Ultimately, the cooperatist farm did not abide by a strict ideological doctrine which prevented it from participating in a particular system or espousing certain ideals. Instead, with its basic aim to operate as an egalitarian society in which interdependent individuals lifted each other up, the definition of modernity was constantly updated in line with the processes which most well lent to that foundation. Understanding the cooperatist farm in this way is important to reconceptualising as forward thinking not only in terms of its ideals, but also as a process which continually revise itself.

[1] Konishi,Sho“OrdinaryFarmersLivingAnarchistTime:ArishimaCooperativeFarminHokkaido.”Modern Asian Studies 47, no. 6 (November 2013), p.1847

[2] Ibid, p.1846

[3] Ibid, p.1845

[4] Ibid, p.1848

[5] Ibid, p.1852

[6] Ibid, p.1863

[7] Ibid, p.1864

[8] Ibid, p.1860

In early 20^th century Chinese intellectual discourse, the thread of utopianism and revolution were weaved into the concepts and movements of both nationalism and anarchism, it was just done in very different patterns. While imperial China and emergent Chinese interests within that political bloc were reorienting themselves to external influences and also internally reorganising society, they were discursively reshaping time and space in revolutionary ways. Indeed, the meaning of revolution and its political legitimacy here are the contested concepts which characteristically define that competition of ideas. In the abstract sense, Arif Dirlik’s analysis of nationalism, utopianism and anarchism helps us treat revolutionary politics in China as a topic which is centred on the discomfort of the individual, political authority, and their divergent visions of the China as a social space in the future

Focusing on external forces, a Darwinian take on the new national consciousness China was to realise explains that building the state was crucial to China’s survival on the wider global stage.[1] In protection of China, a streamlined and dynamic political system would “ward off the threat to the country’s existence in a new world”.[2] While the idea that an encounter with the West directly caused a national conscience is a one-dimensional one, an appreciation of the global helps us treat the problematique of revolutionary discourse as hinged upon China’s place and mode of operation in a reconfigured world. On this note, Dirlik points to the state’s “ability to represent” the “society over which it rules” as a barometer of its success.[3] Ironically, as a result, subjects became conscious citizens of the state and occupied space in a way that led them to more closely criticise social relationships themselves and vis-à-vis political authority.[4]

Dirlik cites “discomfort” as a key precondition to anarchist revolutionary intellectual discourse in China.[5] The utopian aim to insert itself as a transformer of humanity on the global scale was developed in order to form a nationalist ideology that went beyond creating the state as an end in itself.[6] By locating itself on the globe this way, China set a project to spatially revolutionise the scope of its political legitimacy. However, internally, this understanding of scope did other things. Tan Sitong’s belief that there should exist “one world” where no one “belongs to any state” and where there are “no boundaries” is an anarchist sentiment expressed in response to the incipient nationalist sentiment in China. The belief is based on an almost utopian desire to eliminate power struggles, inequality between the sexes, as well as the rich and the poor, and culture of war which the nation was said to foster.[7] This anarchist resolution of “mutual harmony” provides an alternative vision and treatment of time and space. It was a vision that, in terms of ideals, departed greatly from the nationalist one.

In this way, Chinese political revolution in the early 20^th century was defined differently within nationalist and anarchist discourses. While nationalism sought to bring society closer to the state through political reorganisation, anarchists sought to dismantle the very idea of a politically organised community. These intellectual concepts do diverge in their views of political authority and the end image of the future, but both ideologies have a key interest in re/disorganising society through reflecting on social interests. Through this process, they have also revolutionised the way time and space were thought of in China.

[1] Dirlik, Arif. Anarchism in the Chinese Revolution. University of California Press, 1991, p.48

[2] Ibid,p.47

[3] Ibid, p.50

[4] Ibid, p.49

[5] ibid

[6] ibid

[7] Ibid, p.56

Bibliography: 

It certainly wouldn’t be unreasonable to point out the similarities between K’ang Yu-wei’s ‘Ta t’ung Shu’ and the writings of Karl Marx. Both take the reality of their time and attempt to present a way forward that eliminates suffering, both push for a wholesale shift in the way society is organised, and both found themselves in opposition to their contemporaries. It seems as though, however, a work of social idealism can rarely exist in its own right without a comparison to Marx being drawn. This article attempts to navigate tricky waters and approach the comparison between these two monumental works of social philosophy and establish whether or not it is appropriate for such a comparison to be drawn.

It is clear that K’ang was aware of communist theory, he devotes a small passage to it in Ta t’ung Shu.[1] His sceptism is equally clear however, as he doubts how realistic its aims actually are. Whether or not K’ang was aware of actual Marxist theory is up for debate, after all his mentions of communism are sparing and only seem to analyse it in the frame of ‘what not to do’ rather than as a valid theoretical framework. Laurence Thompson would certainly argue that whilst K’ang had a cursory knowledge of what communism entailed, his knowledge of Marxist theory more widely was non-existent.[2] The question of Karl Marx’s awareness of Ta t’ung Shu certainly is not up for debate, he had died before the work was written, let alone translated into a language he would understand.

A brief discussion ought to be given to the differences between these two individuals as thinkers. Hierarchy was, to Marx, the root of suffering among humans; K’ang was a proponent of the emperor, albeit in a ceremonial sense not unlike the monarchs of the United Kingdom.[3] Hierarchy under K’ang’s One World philosophy was almost ritualistic and was greatly influenced by the maintenance of the emperor as a spiritual figure. There is no question that this would have been an unsurpassable point of contention for Marx, monarchy represents, in the Marxist perspective, all that they sought to dismantle.

I was struck by the difference in scale of these two works, and an analysis of scale brings with it the analysis of the philosophies themselves. It may be argued for example that, as a work of philosophy, Ta t’ung Shu represents a more comprehensive, all-encompassing work that seeks to analyse suffering as a phenomenon with multiple roots, not simply class. K’ang Yu-wei delves into human nature, and concurs with traditional Chinese thought, such as that expressed by Mencius, that man is innately compassionate, and bad deeds are a result of negative stimuli in one’s environment.[4] He specifically cites economic hardship as the root of such deeds as robbery, taking away responsibility from the individual and placing it in the environment in which the individual exists, effectively laying the groundwork for his One World postulation founded on economic equality. Marx, by contrast, made fewer sweeping statements on the nature of humanity, and instead cited the historical precedent of class segregation and class struggle. Where Marx’s utopia comes about following revolution and the abolition of wealth as material possession, K’ang Yu-wei’s ideal is a spiritual exercise wherein the efforts of man are put into the cultivation of a healthy environment and the promotion of things that bring pleasure.

Nevertheless, comparisons are drawn, and for many it would appear as though these two works of social theory produce the same end: a society free of suffering and devoid of class, where an individual works for the good of society and can subsequently expect all that they require in return. To me, however, such a comparison is largely unfounded and is based upon the mere fact that both offer a socialist utopic vision for the future of humanity. Das Kapital and the Communist Manifesto offer a materialist view of the development of human society up to the 18^th century and posit a future wherein class struggle necessitates a revolution. Ta t’ung Shu is a work not only of political theory and materialist philosophy, but moral and existential philosophy that borrows ideas from classical Chinese thought and will go on to lend ideas to Maoist communism. The works may be comparable in their end goals, but in their substance, there lacks a sustained thread of similar thought.

[1] Laurence Thompson, K’ang Yu Wei, Ta T’ung Shu and the One World philosophy of K’ang Yu-Wei, (London, 2005). p.51.

[2] Ibid. p.52.

[3] Federico Brusadelli, ‘A tale of two utopias: Kang Youwei’s communism, Mao Zedong’s classicism and the “Accommodating look” of the Marxist Li Zehou’, Asian Studies, 103:5, (2017). p.104.

[4] Thompson, K’ang Yu Wei, p.47.

The theory of kokutai 国体 was a pre-war Japanese concept that envisioned an imperial family with ‘unbroken lineage (bansei ikkei 万世一系)’ to rule Japan as the spiritual, ethical, and political centre of the nation. This ideology formed the core of the Japanese political system from the Meiji Restoration to World War II. It was Aizawa Seishisai 会沢正志斎, one of the leading scholars of the Later Mito Learning (kōki mitogaku 後期水戸学), who developed the concept of kokutai in New Theses (Shinron 新論). In Aizawa’s later years, Yoshida Shōin 吉田松陰 attempted to create his own theory of kokutai after discussing with Aizawa. While both the kokutai theories of the two scholars, whose philosophies greatly influenced the nationalist ideology of ‘revering the emperor and expelling the barbarian (sonnō jōi 尊皇攘夷)’, proposed a state system centred on the emperor, differences arose in response to the changes in domestic order after the arrival of the Black Ships commanded by American Commodore Matthew C. Perry.

Firstly, Aizawa and Yoshida disagree on the perception of kokutai and other countries. According to Aizawa, kokutaiconsists of the principle of loyalty and filial piety (chūkō no genri 忠孝の原理) through ancestral rituals.[1] This means that the subjects are loyal to the emperor as he shows filial piety to the preceding emperors and ancestral gods through rituals, and at the same time, the history of the ancestors’ loyalty to the preceding emperors confirms the present meaning of filial piety. Furthermore, Aizawa regards Japan as a divine country (shinshū 神国) and assumed the rule of all nations by the emperor was eternal and unchanging. While praising Japan as a divine country, he also called it the ‘Land of the Center (chūgoku 中国)’,[2] based on the idea of ‘Little China (shōchūka 小中華)’ and regards the ‘barbarians of the West (seikō no ban’i 西荒の蛮夷)’ who were advancing into the world as a particular threat to kokutai.[3]

On the other hand, Yoshida initially recognises that kokutai is the emperor military subjugation of others and argues that it was the duty of the shogun to assist the emperor to govern by defeating foreign enemies. In addition, based on the national consciousness, he criticises the situation that shoguns and feudal lords were only defending their strongholds and argued that the people should cooperate to protect the nation. However, when Japan was overwhelmed by the dominant military power of the United States, which made it difficult for Japan to maintain its isolationist system, Yoshida shifted his theory of kokutai. He acknowledges that each country has an individual kokutai (national polity) and advocates that superior ‘righteousness of imperial ruler and ruled (皇朝君臣の義)’ to all nations was Japanese unique fundamental principle, kokutai.[4]

Secondly, the difference between the two theories of kokutai can also be traced in their attitudes toward the shogunate. Aizawa’s theory of kokutai was an ideology built on the premise of the Tokugawa feudal system in order for the regime to reorganise its order in response to internal and external crises. In contrast, Yoshida sees the emperor as the permanent sovereign and prioritises the role of all people in Japan as imperial subjects. He argues that people are to devote themselves to the emperor while also serving their feudal lord, and their loyalty to the feudal lord means to promote him to be faithful to the emperor.[5]

The difference between the two theories of statehood can be attributed to the threat of foreign powers, which became increasingly realistic at the end of the Edo period. Aizawa formulates kokutai theory based on the ‘theory of social hierarchy (taigi meibum ron 大義名分論)’, which derives from Neo-Confucianism, with the assumption of governance by the shogunate. However, Yoshida’s theory of kokutai, which he advocated after witnessing the powerful military power of the United States and experiencing a shake in the legitimacy of the shogunate, contained a stronger element of ‘theory of delegation of power (taisei inin ron 大政委任論)’ of National Learning (kokugaku 国学), which assumes that the authority of the shogunate originates from itself but is merely delegated by the emperor. Thus, in comparison to Aizawa, his vision of the national body proved to be an advantageous theory for building a political system with the emperor at the centre, as it undermined the legitimacy of the shogunate’s rule of Japan.

In conclusion, while both the national state proposed by Aizawa and Yoshida are built on the premise of loyalty to the emperor and share some elements of Neo-Confucianist ‘theory of social hierarchy’, they differ in their interpretation of kokutai and other countries, as well as in their attitudes towards the Tokugawa regime. The worsening of Tokugawa Japan’s domestic and foreign situation and the destabilisation of the political order resulted in the transition in the theory of kokutai from Aizawa to Yoshida.

Bibliography

Anderson, Emily (ed.), Belief and Practice in Imperial Japan and Colonial Korea (London, 2017).

Yoshida, Toshizumi 吉田俊純, Mitogaku No Kenkyū: Meiji-ishin-shi No Saikentō 水戸学の研究—明治維新史の再検討 (Tokyo, 2016).

Yamaguchi-ken Kyōikukai 山口県教育会 (ed.), Yoshida Shōin Zenshū Dai 2 Kan 吉田松陰全集第2巻 (Tokyo, 1934).

Yamaguchi-ken Kyōikukai 山口県教育会 (ed.), Yoshida Shōin Zenshū Dai 3 Kan 吉田松陰全集第3巻 (Tokyo, 1939).

Imai, Usaburo 今井宇三郎, Seya, Yoshihiko 瀬谷義彦, Bitō, Masahide 尾藤正英 (eds.), Nihon Shisō Shi Taikei 53: Mitogaku 日本思想史体系53 水戸学 (Tokyo, 1973).

Yoshida, Tsunekichi 吉田常吉 et al. (eds.), Nihon Shisō Shi Taikei 54: Yoshida Shōin 日本思想史体系54 吉田松陰(Tokyo, 1978).

[1] Usaburo Imai, Yoshihiko Seya and Masahide Bitō (eds.), Nihon Shisō Shi Taikei 53: Mitogaku (Tokyo, 1973), pp. 51–53.

[2] Ibid., p. 65.

[3] Ibid., p. 50.

[4] Yamaguchi-ken Kyōikukai (ed.), Yoshida Shōin Zenshū Dai 2 Kan (Tokyo, 1934), p.479–480.

[5] Yamaguchi-ken Kyōikukai (ed.), Yoshida Shōin Zenshū Dai 2 Kan (Tokyo, 1939), p. 566.

Chi’iu Chin was a feminist that lived in the late nineteenth century and was executed in the early twentieth century. She lived a very liberal life and strongly protested the natural Chinese traditions and Confucian way of life. She travelled to Japan and began studying there and grew in prominence for her views on Feminism and reform. However, it is not her unique form of Feminism that she is most remembered for but instead her death.  An exploration of her background and martial ideology will be evaluated in order to show the spectrum of Feminism.

Ch’iu Chin’s independence and strong personality were fostered at a young age, her father encouraged her to learn and treated her as if she was a son. The treatment as an equal meant that Chin very much struggled in the martial sense, while she was a good wife by cultural standards, her independence never vanished, and she decided to leave her husband. At this time, leaving one’s husband was a very controversial decision as Chin had all but in name announced to society that she would not follow social norms. When comparing Chin’s early life to that of other women such as Kanno, the drive behind their aspirations are very much different. Kanno [1]had a difficult childhood and was not appreciated nor given the luxuries that Chin had. It can be argued that the inspirations behind both women were vastly different. For Kanko, it can be argued that it was her coping mechanism and her suffering that shaped her view. While for Chin, her aspiration came from a more naive background, therefore, her interpretation of Feminism was based on fair treatment, and she decided to rebel because she didn’t want the life she had. The stark contrasts in the background of the women very much accounts for Chin’s difference in interpretation of Feminism as hers was driven by more of an educated sense.

In contrast, Kanno was driven into archaism and Feminism in Japan due to reform. The drive behind the two is interesting as it lays a basis for the different approaches the women took but also shows how Chin’s particular view came about and what set her apart. While Kanno is only one woman out of many and she was Japanese, it is interesting to note that regardless of the country, the basis that set both women on their respective course is due to their background. The differences in the background also reflect a spectrum of Feminism. When looking at the overall comparison of the two women, Kanno and Chin sit on opposite ends of the spectrum. Kanno is looking for a way reform, while Chin was very active in politics and her main aim was to modernise and turn the old Confucian system over.

Broadly speaking, the aims are the same. However, there is a difference between reform and modernisation with the purpose of overturning the old traditions. Thus, the spectrum of Feminism is made clear by the active aims of both women, Kanno is looking for reform and acceptance while Chin is actively looking for modernisation.

Chin’s unrelenting pursuit of independence and equality enabled her to look at influential figures in the past, and she developed a very martial sense of Feminism. It is this sense that sets her apart from others. This martial sense of Feminism set her apart from others and is what she is most famous for apart from her death. It here that I will draw your attention to, according to Mary Backus Rankin, “The martial, self-sacrificing, sometimes superhuman and often tragic hero was well-defined in Chinese Culture.”[2]  Chin lived by these ideals, and her death reflected them. However, in terms of implementing them, her dressing in male clothing, riding astride, and carrying a weapon, endeared her to the public but also sometimes caused her to be scorned. This is where the spectrum of Feminism comes into play. Using the example just stated, Chin’s use of history gave her historical backing and furthered her cause and added legitimacy, and was accepted.

On the other hand, her controversial dress caused her to be alienated from the higher classes of society and by the more educated women. While the main problem was her controversial dress, an underlying thread is that most women her Chin’s background found it hard to relate to her, because they did not have the unconventional background she had. While the women were accepting of furthering Feminism and stopping foot binding, they were not able to leave their families or their fathers due to the Confucian system. Here we can see the broad spectrum.

Overall, while only two main topics were covered, it is clear that there is a spectrum of Feminism and that it can be seen in many different ways. Significantly, throughout the lives of  Chin and Kanno, it is clear that the background of these women is the most important as it forms the basis of the way they choose to interpret and further the aims of Feminism. While these are only two of many women, they are examples of women who lived roughly around the same time. Still, their approaches were vastly different, this is a point that should be kept in mind when evaluating women in Feminism.

[1] Mikiso Hane, Reflection on the way to the gallow: rebel women in pre-war Japan, (London:1993),

[2] Mary Backus Rankin, The Emergence of Women at the end of the Ch’ing: The case of Ch’iu Chin, Margery Wolf and Roxane Witike, “Women in Chinese Society,’ (California: 1975), p. 52.

Communist revolutionaries faced an interesting problem following their acquisition of power. Weaponizing the very real class debate won them the civil war, but family and marriage would, like it so often has in Chinese history, get in the way of their vision of progress.

Susan Glosser in her successful work “Chinese Visions of Family and State” provides a unifying narrative that illuminates a common thread running through successive Chinese policy thinkers and makers. Balancing a changing nation in an increasingly globalised world with internal pressures grasping onto tradition would prove difficult for most post-imperial attempts at governance.[1]

The New Culture Movement was perhaps the first attempt at family reform following the collapse of imperial power. What was an ambitious movement seemingly overestimated its support, as a series of surveys revealed the reluctance of the youth population to adopt reforms that would threaten the centralised family model.[2] In fact, 72% of respondents voiced their desire to maintain the family model that ties to them to their parents. Surveys are of course to be taken with a pinch of salt, but it wouldn’t be farfetched if these views were held, as we see opposition to reform crop up in subsequent contexts. Veneration for one’s elders is a matter of morality in this case, as Alan Chan argues.[3]

CCP attempts at family reform faced similar obstacles, revealing a level of continuity and persistence of traditional standpoints. Rural communities, which it ought to be pointed out constituted over 95% of China’s population, appeared to pose a consistent threat to any hopes of family reform. The result of this unwillingness to adopt the entirety of what revolution truly meant had very real impacts on the direction of communist policy in China. Kay Ann Johnson notes the reluctance of the CCP in pushing their family reform agenda in rural communities, and how this reluctance even birthed a system of penalties for those who attempted to raise such issues in these areas.[4] Even a revolutionary movement, hellbent on uprooting much of what China had formed itself around for millennia, seemed to cower away from the prospect of challenging one of the most fundamental structures in society.

This persistence of thought among much of Chinese society throughout a politically turbulent time illuminates a key aspect of Chinese intellectual history. The separation of family and state as matters of different historical fields, or at least as themes that can be discussed independently, would come relatively easily in western historiography. The same cannot be said for the Chinese example, and it is here where the idea of a revolution at the mercy of tradition, I would argue, can be seen. Maurice Freedman notes the importance of filial relationships in their position as a foundation for public and state relationships, specifically in their establishment of the duty of a man.[5] Reading this within the framework given to us in Glosser’s work, we see an interesting conflict between how emerging forms of state view themselves and how the public view them. Paradoxically, regimes with an interest in dismantling family structures face off against an often rural population that believes their existing family situation is necessary to the existence of the state.

Utilising the examples of the New Culture Movement and the CCP, we have outlined a society that is both exposed to the prospect of revolutionary change, yet inherently tied to the Confucian traditions on which its built. Infiltrating this bastion of tradition, the family, is an ongoing battle, and ground has only been won when private spheres are continuously intruded upon. A common thread running through early attempts at reform in early to mid-century China, despite the stark ideological differences, was the inability to completely reform the family.

[1] Susan Glosser, ‘Chinese visions of family and state, 1915-1953’, (California, 2003), p.167.

[2] Ibid. p.59.

[3] Alan Chan, Sor-Hoon Tan, Filial piety in Chinese thought and history’, Psychology Press, (London, 2004), pp.1-11.

[4] Kay Ann Johnson, ‘Women, the family, and peasant revolution in China’, (Chicago, 1983), p.63.

[5] Maurice Freedman, The Family in China, Past and Present’, Pacific Affairs, 34:4, (1962) p.324.