China – Rethinking the World in East Asia 1850s-1990s

Confucianism as a World Philosophy: Is This East Asian Tradition Portable to the West?

There is a belief that the Confucian tradition can only be understood under an East Asian context—that only by being raised in East Asia, could one truly understand Confucianism. However, the existence of the Boston Confucians contradicts this assumption. The demonstration of how aspects of Confucianism are present within Boston (and, more widely, America), such as in Robert Neville’s connection between ritual propriety and pragmatic semiotics and the articulation of ren and filial love, which can be related to Christianity, illustrates how Confucian tradition is apparent in Western culture, ultimately proving that it is possible as a world philosophy.

In his book, Boston Confucianism: Portable Tradition in the Late-Modern World, Neville draws a link between li, or “ritual propriety”, and pragmatic semiotics.¹ By highlighting this connection, Neville reveals Confucian virtues that relate to Western philosophies. Furthermore, this relation exemplifies the West’s ability to conceive Confucianism; thus, it emphasizes Confucian’s possibility as global philosophy. In order to recognize this relationship, let us look at Neville’s definition of both, ritual propriety and pragmatic semiotics. The deeper meaning of ritual propriety to Neville is that it ‘creates culture, is conventional, and is a particular kind of harmony’.² In other words, rituals are not simply having “good manners” and following some grand exhibition of rites. Rather, ritual propriety should be understood as simpler and common. For instance, rituals transform procreation into the concept of a family. Certain actions which indicate a family dynamic, like parents caring for the wellbeing of their children, are culturally understood. Hence, ritual propriety is communicated through socially acceptable demonstrations of larger concepts, such as family, friendship, and respect.

Pragmatic semiotics holds a similar definition. Pragmatism views language and interpretation as the creation of meaning rather than mirroring reality. Moreover, pragmatic semiotics studies how signs and symbols constitute meaning.³ For example, the difference between mere cooperation and a close friendship are the signs, like a person’s actions, which portray the difference. Certain signs are culturally understood as equating friendship, such as levels of intimacy and trust. In this context, pragmatic semiotics creates culture, is conventional, and is harmonious. These signs symbolize higher associations, like family and friendship, similarly to ritual propriety. Therefore, a formulation of ritual propriety exists in Western culture. This existence shows that vital parts of Confucianism can be perceived outside of the Eastern context. Thus, Confucianism is portable into a world philosophy.

The similarities between Confucianism’s ren and Christianity’s underscore of family also illustrate a Western understanding of Confucian values. Ren is often translated into a benevolent, human “love”, yet it is also a differentiated form of love, which means that it recognizes a difference between a stronger love for one’s family compared to love for a stranger. Still, ren maintains a compassion for others. In Book One, Confucius states that ‘a young person should be filial when at home’ and that ‘he should display a general care for the masses’.⁴ In Confucian tradition, filial piety plays a vital role as a virtue.⁵ Likewise, Christianity emphasizes agape and parental love. The Bible contends that ‘thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself’⁶; additionally, the Bible instructs people to ‘honour thy father and thy mother’.⁷ Both traditions hold parallel beliefs pertaining to love. Furthermore, both acknowledge the necessity of filial piety to this love. Hence, an essential aspect of Confucianism, that of ren, is already understood in the Western context under Christianity. This understanding allows the West to grasp the teachings of Confucianism—without the requirement of an Eastern context. Thus, Confucianism is possible as a global philosophy.

Robert Neville, Boston Confucianism: Portable Tradition in the Late-Modern World (Albany, 2000), p. 2. [↩]
Ibid., p. 9. [↩]
Ibid., p. 12. [↩]
Confucius, ‘The Analects’, in Philip J. Ivanhoe and Bryan W. Van Norden (eds), Readings in Classical Chinese Philosophy (Indianapolis, 2001), p. 22. [↩]
Tu Weiming, Centrality and Commonality: An Essay on Chung-yung, (Honolulu, 1976), p. 55. [↩]
Leviticus 19: 18 (KJV). [↩]
Exodus 20: 21 (KJV). [↩]

The Cold War and Cosmopolitanism

Yan Xishan, former premier for the Republic of China, authored a treatise on the establishment of a Cosmopolitan International government for the purpose of ending war globally. This proposal is titled How to Prevent Warfare and Establish the Foundation of World Unity and was dedicated to the Moral Re-Armament World Assembly. Yan Xishan believed that these American based moral reformists would share his cosmopolitan vision for the betterment of the world. The M.R.A World Assembly maintained a similar world view to Xishan in that they detested communism, but were dissatisfied with the inequality of the capitalist system.¹ This shared belief reflects the broader global political tension at the time of publication in 1952. The context of the Korean War and the escalation of the nuclear arms race between the United States and Russia acts as a backdrop of Yan Xishan’s cosmopolitan solution to the problem of dissatisfaction with both capitalism and communism. When conflict had implications for the globe, a universal solution was necessary.

Yan Xishan’s proposition for a Cosmopolitan Internal system of government echoes the ideas of K’ang Yu-wei, a late Qing scholar who originated the idea of Ta T’ung Shu or the Great Unity. K’ang Yu-wei’s cosmopolitan vision called for the abolition of the nation state, the family, religion, and all divisions which create suffering.² Similar to Xishan, K’ang’s worldview is largely influenced by Confucianism. Both align with Mencius’s idea that human nature is inherently good and can be perfected through the cultivation of the individual.³ This perfection of man serves as the basis for the effective establishment of a cosmopolitan world.

Yan Xishan diverges from K’ang Yu-wei in his reference for establishing his cosmopolitan utopia. Rather than turn towards the United States or Germany as a framework for the unification of states as K’ang does, Xishan turns inwards toward China for a solution. This is likely due to Xishan’s familiarity with American imperial aggression and the destructive consequences of both World Wars. Xishan uses the Golden Mean as the foundation of world unity and rejects American and German models in the process.⁴ This is a direct recollection of foundational Confucian principles, and the use of Chinese intellectual tradition to establish a new world order outside the confines of Western thought.

Yan Xishan’s worldview cites conflicting economic interests as the causes of disorder in the world. His proposal largely focuses on economic solutions for the cessation of suffering and the problem of capitalist and communist conflict. He cites the inability of communists and capitalists to find economic harmony as a source of global conflict.⁵ Yan Xishan’s fear of the spontaneous outbreak of World War III is clearly informed by the proximity and uncertainty of the Korean war.⁶ For Xishan, Cosmopolitanism is not only a solution to the suffering of the individual, but the ending of the Cold War and the threat of further nuclear destruction in East Asia. In his eyes, the Cosmopolitan solution would ultimately bring peace to the world by establishing a disarmed government, removing the fear of mass nuclear destruction from the equation.

Boobbyer, Philip. ‘5 Strategy and Organization’. The Spiritual Vision of Frank Buchman, University Park, USA: Penn State University Press, 2013, pp. 110-111 [↩]
Kang, Youwei, and Laurence G Thompson. Ta t’ung Shu: The One-World Philosophy of K’ang Yu-Wei. London: Routledge, 2005. p. 37 [↩]
Ibid., p. 46 [↩]
Yan, Xishan. How to Prevent Warfare and Establish Foundation of World Unity, pamphlet, p. 38 [↩]
Ibid., p. 7 [↩]
Ibid., 5 [↩]

Religion or Propaganda: The Red Swastika Society and the Conflict between Nationalism and Imperialism in Manchuria

The Red Swastika Society was founded in early twentieth century China as a philanthropic faith-based organization. However, with the encroaching Japanese militarism in Manchuria, the society was constantly drifting between being persecuted by the ruling authorities and being utilized by them for political purposes. So, to what extent did this organization actually partake in propagandistic politics? Although both Chinese nationalists and Japanese imperialists manipulated the Red Swastika Society to promote their ideals, the founding principles of the society, the persecution by the KMT, and the confusion of its classification under the Manchukuo regime all demonstrate the failure to successfully apply this organization as political propaganda.

In 1922, the Red Swastika Society was officially approved as a legitimate association with the goal of advancing social welfare and world peace. Its founding principles included ‘promoting moral virtue’ and ‘no involvement in partisan politics’.¹ As a philanthropic group, the society desired a universal humanitarianism; they wanted to transcend national borders in the name of altruism. For instance, the Red Swastika Society held offices in Paris, London, and Tokyo—showcasing its international quality.² Motivating certain ideologies would divide the organization from its original purpose. Therefore, at least in the beginning, the Red Swastika Society had little interest in politics.

Furthermore, the persecution of redemptive societies by both the KMT and the Japanese imperialists highlights their distrust of superstitious organizations—including the Red Swastika Society. Ultimately, this distrust hindered these authorities’ usage of the Red Swatika Society as propaganda. The Red Swastika Society is recognized as a redemptive society, which is a term for the religious organizations popularized in China during the early twentieth century. These religious organizations often followed local religions rather than the major groups like Buddhism and Christianity. For example, the Red Swastika Society combined Daoism and Buddhism practices.³ Along with its goal of transcending national boundaries, the superstitious character of the society marked it as a target of KMT’s persecution. The KMT focused on Chinese nationalism and modernity. So, the KMT was critical of superstitious religions, which conflicted with their idea of modernity; they were also threatened by the society’s challenge to nationalism. Therefore, the KMT banned redemptive societies in 1928.⁴ Although the Red Swastika Society was permitted to operate in the 1930s, this underlying distrust made it difficult for the two groups to work together. Thus, the Red Swastika Society was not completely politicized by the KMT.

While the Japanese imperialists had more success in transforming the Red Swastika Society into a propagandistic tool, they still faced difficulties due to their own troubles understanding how to treat the society. In 1932, Japan set up a puppet government (Manchukuo) in Manchuria. Unlike the KMT, the Manchukuo government sought to convert redemptive societies into jiaohua organizations by minimizing their religious qualities and emphasizing their welfare focus—rather than trying to simply eradicate the groups.⁵ This goal of transformation influenced the government’s classification of the Red Swastika Society, consequently causing it to be separated into three different categories. First acknowledging the society as a similar religion, the Japanese officials desired to restrict it for fear of encouraging political apathy.⁶ In this way, the society was treated as it was under the KMT rule. However, the Japanese realized that a manipulation of the society would benefit them. The second classification of the Red Swastika Society as a solely philanthropic entity, without religious connections, demonstrated the early changes to the society. By removing superstitious aspects of the society, the Manchukuo government could mold the society to promote their ideology. The third classification was as a moral suasion organization. With this classification, the society was overseen by the Union Society.⁷ The Union Society assisted the Manchukuo government in public security. Hence, the Red Swastika Society reinforced imperialist propaganda under the authority of the Union Society. These three different classifications of the Red Swastika Society exemplify how the Manchukuo government could not cohesively decide on a singular strategy for handling the society. This indecision weakened the society’s application as propaganda, for two of the three classifications understood it in non-political terms. Therefore, it was difficult to reconcile these conceptualizations and portray the society as motivating imperialism. Consequently, the Red Swastika Society did not interact with propagandistic politics to the extent in which it could have.

Jiang Sun, ‘The Predicament of a Redemptive Religion: The Red Swastika Society Under the Rule of Manchukuo’, Journal of Modern Chinese History, 7: 1 (2013), p. 110. [↩]
Prasenjit Duara, Sovereignty and Authenticity: Manchukuo and the East Asian Modern (Lanham, 2003), p. 105. [↩]
Sun, ‘The Predicament of a Redemptive Religion’, p. 108. [↩]
Duara, Sovereignty and Authenticity, p. 109. [↩]
Ibid., p. 115. [↩]
Sun, ‘The Predicament of a Redemptive Religion’, p. 117. [↩]
Ibid., p. 122. [↩]

Shifu’s Purist Anarchism: How His Beliefs Separated Him from Other Anarchists

Although Shifu’s introduction to anarchism followed similar paths of his fellow anarchists, his later articulation of a pure anarchist ideology and critiques of various anarchists differentiated him from others.

Born as Liu Shaobin in 1884, Liu grew up in a supportive, prosperous family. His father encouraged progressive ideals, such as educating his daughters and advocating to end foot binding.¹ Liu performed well in school, and he eventually went to study abroad in Japan. There, he encountered revolutionary ideas, which served as the preface to many other contemporary anarchists as well. Following this introduction, Liu changed his name to Liu Sifu and joined Sun Yat-Sen’s Revolutionary Alliance, which promoted assassination as a means for reform. After a failed assassination attempt, Liu lost his left hand and was arrested. In prison, Liu’s conceptualizations of anarchism would foster, ultimately leading to his rejection of violence as the path for reform and to the creation of his own understanding of anarchism.²

In 1912, three years after his release, Liu and three others established the Conscience Society. The twelve points of this society serve as the basis of Liu’s anarchist ideology, which members must follow. Despite the inclusion of a loophole for members to join while not precisely following the twelve points, Liu committed to them fully.³ His change of name to Shifu, rejecting the patriarchal power of a family name, most clearly represents his strict adherence to the points. His refusal to eat meat and ride in rickshas, even in his ailing health, further depicts his devotion. Shifu understood anarchism as a rejection of politics. Politics caused corruption in humanity, and the only way to rid this corruption from society was to take on social revolution. Shifu reasoned that ‘government would be replaced by people’s voluntary self-regulation’, which would depend on people’s management of their consciousness and behavior.⁴ The problem with society was politics; only with the complete eradication—not a mere replacement—of all forms of government could China be free. And in order to initiate this eradication, one must strictly devote themselves to dismantling the structure which society was built on by holding themselves to these specific standards.

His critique of fellow anarchists illustrates how Shifu’s strict belief in a pure anarchism separated him from other contemporaries. Shifu condemned multiple people for a failure to uphold anarchist ideology, including Zhang Ji and Wu Zhihui of the Paris anarchists and Sun Yat-Sen and Jiang Kanghu of the socialists. For Shifu, to maintain the anarchist ideology, one must reflect on themselves to completely reject the current structure of society: politics. Restructuring is difficult to do, for a complete reimagination of the foundation of society is often impractical. So, many anarchists accepted offices in the new Republican government, such as Zhang Ji and Wu Zhihui, under the pretense that these offices would allow them to strengthen their beliefs through government-backed organizations.⁵ However, Shifu contended that this acceptance of governmental office fundamentally went against the concept of anarchism and leaders of the Paris anarchists failed to moderate their own behaviors. Thus, Zhang and Wu could no longer be considered anarchists, for they did not align with Shifu’s strict anarchism.

Furthermore, Shifu discredited socialism as anarchism, on the basis of socialism’s narrowness. Shifu’s explanation that socialism concerns only the economy, while anarchism concerns all politics, sets the foundation for his criticism. In this explanation, anarchism is the broader concept which socialism fits under.⁶ Socialism argues for social policy to economically equalize society, not social revolution and the elimination of politics. Moreover, socialism works within the government to enact these policies; it simply replaces one government with another sympathetic to its ideology. Therefore, socialists should not portray themselves as anarchists, for they do not follow all of the requirements of anarchism. From this separation between socialism and anarchism, Shifu cements his concept of anarchism, which is strictly followed, as true anarchism. Thus, Shifu’s pure anarchism distinguishes Shifu from other contemporary anarchists.

Edward S. Krebs, Shifu, Soul of Chinese Anarchism (Lanham, 1998), p. 2. [↩]
Ibid., p. 7. [↩]
Ibid., p. 115. [↩]
Ibid., p. 119. [↩]
Ibid., p. 121. [↩]
Arif Dirlik, Anarchism in the Chinese Revolution (Berkeley, 1991), p. 142. [↩]

Failure to Reject Tradition – The Evolution of the New Culture Movement’s ‘xiao jiating’

The family-reform ideals of the Chinese New Culture Movement in the early twentieth century gained widespread popular support from the nation’s young men through periodicals, such as Family Research, which encouraged individualism and attacked patriarchal society. Their absorption in individualism blinded them to the inherent misogyny in their search for the ideal wife—one who was educated and politically conscious. However, it lacked the appeal necessary for a socioeconomic revolution, as those young men did not subscribe to all of the Movement’s radical ideas; often, they subconsciously preferred traditionalism despite their ambition to form a modern state. Moreover, the Chinese Communist Party retroactively revised and imposed the New Culture Movement’s xiao jiating, or conjugal family, by forcing individuals to devote themselves equally to their emotional relationships and the state.

In her monograph, Chinese Visions of Family and State, 1915-1953, Susan L. Glosser argues that those who started Family Research believed family reform was the ‘necessary first step in China’s modernization’, as individuals must first be ‘happy at home’ in order to provide their full contribution to the urban reform movements throughout China.¹ The primary obstacle preventing young men from this domestic happiness, they contended, was the patriarch. Under the Confucian standard, the patriarch held great control over his children’s lives. Thus, to free themselves for their ultimate goal of a ‘transformation of the Chinese economy’ and ‘political structure’, they began by attacking the patriarch due to his control and ‘as a stand-in for the nebulous forces of “power” and “class” that strangled China’.² It was only then, with the happiness from their new family, that they understood that China could modernize economically and socially.³

As happiness, and thus productivity, was believed to be derived from the family, those involved in the New Culture Movement ‘developed a new set of expectations for their wives’.⁴ In opposition to traditional arranged marriages, they argued in favor of a concept of marriage based on romantic love, in which the couple involved jointly shared ‘intellectual and political interests’.⁴ However, Glosser declares, these young men failed to consider what an ideal husband might be, and pushed unrealistic standards onto the women of their time.⁵ Thus, they thought only of what would make them happy in marriage, while expecting their wives to work independently in the domestic sphere and join other social spheres, revealing a misogynistic core behind their advocacy for women’s rights.

The surveys of two Chinese sociologists, Chen Heqin and Pan Guangdan, that Glosser examines, reveal that despite the insistence of the New Culture radicals, many young men appear ‘to have been willing, and even happy, to make their peace with much that was traditional in the Chinese family’.⁶ The primary family-reform ideals of the New Culture Movement that they supported were the rejection of arranged marriages and the education of women. However, many young couples were not too interested in establishing ‘households independent of their parents’.⁷ Moreover, despite wanting to choose their own wife, the qualities they looked for in a wife were more traditional than they might have anticipated—over three-quarters of Chen’s respondents did not list any interest in an ideal wife’s talents.⁸ In conclusion, Chen and Pan found that many of their respondents simply picked and chose certain aspects of the New Culture’s xiao jiating and ‘ignored or modified others’.⁹

The Marriage Law, passed by the Central Committee of the Chinese Communist Party in 1950, promised the right to choose spouses and ensured equality among men and women.¹⁰ It was described by the Party as the final step in ‘the long fight, begun by the New Culture Movement, against the “feudal” customs of traditional China’.¹¹ However, the Party initially hesitated to enforce the law due to concerns that the peasants might react negatively toward legislation that abruptly hindered tradition. Glosser contends that the Party ‘promised to resolve the tension that the conjugal family ideal had created between the individual and the state’ through their ‘version’ of the ideal xiao jiating.¹² Although, their method of doing so was to absorb the citizens entirely into the state and make the state the sole legitimizing factor of marriage. Thus, the individuals were forced to jointly devote themselves to their emotional relationships and the state, as marital privacy was stripped away, disguised as the Party’s loyalty to New Culture ideals.

Susan L. Glosser, Chinese Visions of Family and State, 1915-1953 (Berkeley, 2003), p. 31. [↩]
Ibid., p. 38. [↩]
Ibid., p. 44 [↩]
Ibid., p. 49 [↩] [↩]
Ibid., p. 51 [↩]
Ibid., p. 57 [↩]
Ibid., p. 62 [↩]
Ibid., p. 69 [↩]
Ibid., p. 77 [↩]
Ibid., pp. 169, 171 [↩]
Ibid., pp. 169-170 [↩]
Ibid., p. 195 [↩]

Cat Country: How Story Mirrors Reality

In Celestial Empire: The Emergence of Chinese Science Fiction, Nathaniel Isaacson discusses the emergence of Chinese science fiction in the early to mid 1900’s. He highlights many different Chinese science fiction stories, but one that especially stood out was City of Cats by Lao She, written in 1933.

The story follows that the narrator crashlands on Mars and finds a city run by cats in “Cat Country”. The cats in Cat Country have a corrupt economic system, government, and education system, and everyone is addicted to the “reverie leaves”, which are drug-like leaves that are similar to opium. The narrator watches as the civilization falls into greater and greater disrepair, and tries to save it, but ultimately loses the civilization. An army of short people overruns Cat Country and kills all the cats. The narrator later leaves on a French ship back to earth, leaving Cat Country behind.

I found City of Cats more interesting than the other stories Isaacson covered, partially in its symbolism of China at the time by the author, and also from the simple dystopian plotline. In between the strangeness of cats on Mars, and armies of short people, the story boils down to a simple dystopia that reflected the anxieties of a person in China in the 1930s and can represent the anxieties of people around the world today.

There were many themes that were prevalent in Chinese science fiction in the early 1900s. Social collapse, colonial modernity, and the metaphor of the Iron House, popularized by Lu Xun–known as the father of Chinese science fiction– all came together in the anxieties of the writers of Chinese science fiction. Lu Xun’s popular metaphor of the Iron House was a comparison of Chinese society to “an iron house: without windows or doors, utterly indestructible, and full of sound sleepers— all about to suffocate to death. Let them die in their sleep, and they will feel nothing. Is it right to cry out, to rouse the light sleepers among them, causing them inconsolable agony before they die?”¹. This metaphor, along with the others above, is pertinent to the despairing society that cannot seem to bring themselves to shed their skins and work together to revive their society.

The parallels to Chinese society at the time, or at least what Lao She thought of Chinese society at the time are clear. As Isaacson so succinctly puts it “[t]hese observations lead to the diagnosis of social and institutional illness, and the prognosis is devastatingly bleak from the outset,”². Lao She’s “suffocating image of Chinese culture” is a human reaction to what he sees as China’s “own cultural decay and selfishness were to blame for the national plight” and is a stirring thought for those of us reading it ages later³.

The anxieties of any person at any time can be translated through writing and through time. City of Cats and the bizarre cats on Mars can be a warning to anyone about working as a community to do better, and can also be an interesting read for someone craving a story of cats on Mars.

Isaacson, Nathaniel. Celestial Empire: The Emergence of Chinese Science Fiction. Middletown, Connecticut: Wesleyan University Press, 2017, p. 4 [↩]
Ibid, p. 125 [↩]
Ibid, p. 127 [↩]

An analysis of Ci Jiwei’s ‘Moral China in the Age of Reform’

Ci Jiwei’s Moral China in the Age of Reform argues that China, since the collapse of Maoist communism, has been facing a profound moral crisis with no end in sight.¹ He attributes many reasons to this moral crisis, such as the faulty nature of the Chinese Party-Government and the lack of past moral standards. His work engages in interesting analytical philosophy with the influence of Nietzsche and Foucault, yet is often too philosophical and anecdotal for what he identifies as a real problem affecting over a billion people.

In his first chapter, Ci writes that China’s moral crisis is greater than any other societies’ and that every aspect of society is implicated. The nature of this crisis is that cooperation is breached on a massive scale; that elementary norms are violated; and that this state of affairs is normalised. Evidence of this is the prevalence of unsafe foods and medicine, poor quality of water and dangerous levels of traffic.

As the book progresses, he describes many reasons for why this moral crisis has come to be. For example, the end of communism saw the rise of individualism, in which ordinary people became uninterested in collective endeavours and thus abandoned altruism. His third chapter particularly deals with what he calls the progression from utopianism to hedonism via nihilism – that is, the progression from communist hopes to the open pursuit of wealth and pleasure through the erosion of the belief in communism.² Yet also bearing responsibility for the moral crisis is the Party-Government, which has designated itself as the initiator and authoriser of morals and norms, yet is understood by nearly everyone to be corrupt. The Party-Government has replaced what Confucianism was for traditional China and what communism was for Maoist China; but unlike Confucianism and communism, the perception of the Party-Government is not as infallible.

To combat this moral crisis Ci recommends a number of liberal reforms. He believes that democracy is a positive influence on society, as individuals contribute to the maintenance of societal norms; and that an increased presence of checks and balance limits corruption. However, this is where Ci begins to partly contradict himself; for he also writes that too much liberalism (i.e. individuality) can lead to selfishness, and he attacks the ‘superficial criticisms’ of China for its supposed lack of freedom when compared to Western societies.³

Although Moral China in the Age of Reform is interesting for its analytical philosophy, its real-world applications fall short. Firstly, it relies on mostly anecdotal evidence to confirm the presence of a moral crisis: reused cooking oil and overly-negative news stories from Jiaodian fangtan are definitely problems, but not evidence of a widescale moral collapse which has occurred since (not during) the reign of Mao. Widespread corruption is similarly anecdotal; China is only ranked 76th out of 180 countries in Transparency International’s Corruption Perception Index, on par with the countries of Moldova and North Macedonia.⁴ This does not seem to suggest the vast and globally unique “moral crisis” China finds itself in.

Secondly, Ci engages in very strict analytical philosophy to describe the every motivation and moral character of over a billion people. It must be questioned if it really is the case that every person in China, deciding the practices of their everyday lives, enact moral agency either through freedom or identification.

Finally, Ci seems to support a form of Chinese exceptionalism. He criticises Thomas Metzger’s A Cloud across the Pacific – a book, as Ci writes, about the ‘profound’ differences between China and the West – because it makes too many comparisons between China and the West.⁵

But these criticisms should not undermine Ci’s entire book; Moral China in the Age of Reform is a deeply analytical and profoundly interesting evaluation of modern Chinese society, a cultural monolith with huge influence on the state of the world now and into the future. It will almost definitely remain a classic in the decades following its publication.

Ci Jiwei, Moral China in the Age of Reform (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2014). [↩]
Ibid, pp. 25-26. [↩]
Ibid, p. 37 [↩]
Transparency International, Corruption Perception Index 2023, www.transparency.org/cpi. [↩]
Ci, Moral China, p. 106 [↩]

Morality in Anarchism and He-Yin Zhen’s Conception of Female Liberation

He-Yin Zhen is an early Chinese feminist and anarchist, who alongside her husband Liu Shipei, published the journal Natural Justice.¹ Published between 1907-1908, it is in Natural Justice that He-Yin would articulate much of her feminist theories, in articles such as ‘On the Revenge of Women’, and ‘The Feminist Manifesto’. ‘On the Revenge of Women’ is a text which, through analyses of classical texts in Chinese literary canon, etymologies that embed in them the degradation of women, and the role of social institutions in formalising male domination of women, educe the “instruments of male tyrannical rule”.² Examples from throughout Chinese history are used to argue that women had long been deprived of the right to bear arms, to hold political power, to be educated, and that in their hapless deaths they were denied their right to life itself.³ As with much of her other writings, the ultimate goal of the article is to advocate for a social, economic, and feminist revolution to the ends of the abolition of private property and the state, as a means of achieving true equality between men and women in the absence of the imbalance of power and wealth that results in domination and the oppression of women by men.⁴

Much like other Chinese anarchists of the time, He-Yin saw the necessity of a social revolution as a means of bringing an end to the oppression of the state, and to achieve true equality between men and women. The nature of the social revolution — the bounds of acts and acceptability, arguably constitute a standard of morality by which her feminist-anarchism is to be achieved. It is a standard of morality most explicitly articulated in the article ‘The Feminist Manifesto’, echoing ‘The Communist Manifesto’, of which the earliest Chinese translation can also be found in Natural Justice.⁵ The brief and direct nature of the article suggests her intentions towards the writing as a call-to-arms. In it, He-Yin lists seven actionable things which she implores women to carry out, as a means of combating four basic inequalities which she had identified: monogamy, maiden names, valuing daughters equally, raising daughters without discrimination, separation in marriage, rules for remarriage, and the abolish of brothels.⁶

Condemnation of prostitution and concubinage is a recurring point in her articles. Polygamy, too, is rejected even if extended to women, considered a transgression and a succumbing to lust.⁷ In imploring women to strive for the seven goals, He-Yin sees women’s role in rejecting the oppressive social institutions as paramount to achieving universal justice. The emphasis which she places on social revolution carried by women echoes the primacy which Chinese anarchists of her period accorded to social revolution and education in the struggle against the state for equality.

‘Biography’, in Lydia H. Liu, Rebecca E. Karl and Dorothy Ko (eds), The Birth of Chinese Feminism: Essential Texts in Transnational Theory (New York, 2013), p. 51. [↩]
He-Yin Zhen, ‘On the Revenge of Women’, in Lydia H. Liu, Rebecca E. Karl and Dorothy Ko (eds), The Birth of Chinese Feminism: Essential Texts in Transnational Theory (New York, 2013), p. 146. [↩]
Ibid., pp. 147,152. [↩]
Ibid., pp. 107-108 [↩]
‘Introduction: Toward a Transnational Feminist Theory’, in Lydia H. Liu, Rebecca E. Karl and Dorothy Ko (eds), The Birth of Chinese Feminism: Essential Texts in Transnational Theory (New York, 2013), pp. 5-6. [↩]
He-Yin Zhen, ‘The Feminist Manifesto’, in Lydia H. Liu, Rebecca E. Karl and Dorothy Ko (eds), The Birth of Chinese Feminism: Essential Texts in Transnational Theory (New York, 2013), pp. 182-183. [↩]
Ibid., pp. 183-184. [↩]

Lesbian love in Chinese fiction in the 1920’s

The May Fourth movement in China changed many aspects of Chinese society, and during this time, writers, male and female, used this time to create space in fiction for female same sex love. Because of the lack of prevalence of female same-sex love in Chinese society at the time, female same-sex love or desire was seen, especially in the fiction written by women, in more subtle ways. Female same-sex love was also seen often by Chinese society as a temporary state for young women in same-sex schools. There were many stories of girls in schools having same-sex relationships, but the overarching theme of these stories were that the desire, love, or romantic or sexual feelings for each other would leave when they graduated school and got married. This view of female same-sex love as temporary shaped how lesbian fiction was written in the 1920’s and how different genders wrote about female same-sex love.

Female writers of female same-sex love in the May Fourth movement were more nuanced in their lesbian subtext than men, who wrote predominantly to show their fantasies of female same-sex love and to reassure themselves that it was temporary in order to keep their importance in the growing independent woman’s life. Lu Yin, a writer in the early 1900’s, wrote predominately about the spiritual, ideal and liberating love of female same-sex attachment, which surpassed cross-sex love and marriage¹. Her short story “Lishi’s Diary” is a little more overt in its female same-sex love, with the character Lishi feeling more for her female friend Yuanqing than her male friend, Guisheng. She and Yuanqing plan to live together, but when Yuanqing is forced into a (heterosexual) marriage, she dies of melancholy². Lu Yin also experienced female same-sex desire herself. When visiting Japan with her husband, she remarked on the communal baths. She was self conscious in being naked around other women, but when she finally looked around she “admired their bodies” as she prepared to leave the bath, and her “nerves were excited” on her way home³. Her rapture with the female body is suggestive of female same-sex love she may have felt in her life, in addition to her love of her husband.

On the contrary, female same-sex love fiction written by men was very different. They wrote “more explicitly about female-female physical behaviour” and their stories were seen more as fantasies of the male imagination of female-female eroticism. Yu Dafu, a writer in the early 1930’s, “deployed sexological characterisations” of female same-sex love to “metaphorically represent social disorder and national weakness”⁴. His story about a “monstrous third-sexed woman” who seduced young school girls demonises female same-sex love and desire⁵. Another writer, Zhang Yiping, writes about female same-sex love with the intention of, again, suggesting that it was simply a precursor to a heterosexual relationship. A woman confides in her boyfriend that she had a same-sex relationship when she was younger and that she had died, but it brought them closer together in the sharing of the memory⁶.

A notable cross section of the difference of female versus male written lesbian love, a female rewritten story of male written story becomes far more popular than the original. Two female students play Romeo and Juliet, fall in love, and then when one has to get married to a man, the other faints. Ling Shuhua brings more animation to the “barren” version of Yang Zhensheng’s⁷. Yang attributes the affair to the “lack of a proper emotional outlet”, whereas Ling proves their love with true intimacy⁷.

The dismissal of female same-sex love as temporary in many ways in Chinese society in the 1920’s showed the inability for male dominated society to accept that their place in a woman’s life could be unimportant. With the changing world and the rising women’s independence movement in the 20’s there came the fear that men therefore had no place in an independent woman’s life. This is seen overtly and subtly through the constant critique that female same-sex love had to be temporary in order to reassure men of their place in the world.

Sang, Tze-Lan D, The Emerging Lesbian: Female Same-Sex Desire in Modern China (Chicago, 2003), p. 133 [↩]
ibid, p. 140 [↩]
ibid, p. 146 [↩]
ibid, p. 156 [↩]
ibid, p. 153 [↩]
ibid, p. 155 [↩]
ibid, p. 149 [↩] [↩]

Cai Yuanpei’s ‘New Year’s Dream’ and the contradictions in its views of foreign powers

Cai Yuanpei was a Chinese anarchist intellectual, at first associated with the Paris anarchist societies and later Republican minister of education and chancellor of the University of Beijing.¹ This text, ‘New Year’s Dream’, was written at the height of the Russo-Japanese War and describes Cai’s dream of the future, in which China reaches a period of happiness and prosperity, having defeated foreign invaders of the country and instructed the world on how to achieve global peace.²

The text follows Yimin Zhongguo, an intelligent young man from Jiangnan who, having travelled around the world for his education, returns to China during the Russo-Japanese War. Yimin’s life and, in particular, his foreign education draws similarities with the author, who studied in Paris and Leipzig.

After entering into discussion with a group of strangers, in which he dismisses the celebration of New Year’s Eve as ‘just one day at random’ and accuses them of being selfish and idle, he goes home to rest. At this point his dream begins, which takes up most of the text and can be understood as Cai Yuanpei’s anarchist vision for the future.

In his dream he enters into a large assembly hall, its seating arrangement reflecting the country except divided according to China’s river basins, dialects and local customs rather than arbitrary provincial boundaries (as Cai would see them). A speaker begins to implore the audience that they must begin building the nation of China, lest their country becomes a battlefield for wars between Japan, Russia, England, Germany or France. He likens China’s population to selfish children who care only of their toys when their house is robbed, unaware that the money and deeds being stolen guaranteed their future. This argument is much the same that Yimin deployed on the idle strangers celebrating New Year’s Eve the day before.

The man then distributes a pamphlet with five proposals guaranteeing an effective administration of China: a survey of the land and of the population, a survey of the country’s planning and construction, discussions on employment, and ordinances dictating the life-cycle of a person (education between ages 7 and 24, work between ages 24 and 48) and their daily routine (8 hours work and 8 hours rest).

Another pamphlet is distributed, calling for the recovery of Manchuria: the eradication of foreign spheres of influence; and the dismantling of foreign concessions. Ways to grow China’s military strength are discussed at length.

After a discussion of Yimin’s next steps, his dream then accelerates into the future and describes a situation in which foreign powers repeatedly invade China but are ‘driven back every time’. The invaders convene in Berlin where they lament: “the love of the Chinese for their country is so pure that I fear there is no way to break it”!

Having defended their country, the Chinese propose the abolition of every country’s individual army and their replacement with a world army; this is so popular that other countries ‘took it as words from heaven’. From then on, there were no more wars, ‘and people lived happily and peacefully’ – although, Yuan adds of course, ‘with the happiness of the Chinese naturally greatly exceeding that of others’.

China reaches a Utopian state, with railways built across the country, a new easier-to-learn national language implemented, and designations such as ‘father’, ‘son’, ‘husband’ and ‘wife’ cease to have relevance.

Yim at this moment wakes up and, forgetting his previous dislike of New Years’ festivities, exclaims “Greetings! Congratulations! It is the New Year, a new world has come!”.

What is most interesting about Cai’s text is its seemingly contradictory views about foreign countries. Yimin is clearly a model Chinese citizen – smart, hard-working, and shrewd – a fact which might be owed to his education in the US (‘because he loved the ideas of freedom and equality’), Germany (‘the vanguard of technology’), France, England, Italy, Switzerland, and Russia. Cai, having also studied in Europe, clearly believed this education was both useful and a source of pride.

However, Cai laments the fact that Russia and Japan are at present warring over Manchuria, and fears for the future when the Yangtze region, Fujian or Guangdong might also be battlegrounds for foreign powers. When describing the invading foreigners of the future, he writes: ‘they looked at China and saw it as this wonderful melon that they had discussed carving up a number of times, and now their occasion had finally arrived’, describing them as malicious and power-hungry.

A further irony of this view is that, in Cai’s vision of the future, China sources her military strength from abroad. The speaker rejoices that ‘the cadets which we had sent to study in England have now returned’ and they plan to, instead of building their own warships, ‘send representatives to the largest shipyards abroad, and […] buy warships that are almost finished’. This contradiction – that one should expunge foreign influence, yet use foreign education and manufacturing to do so, is one of the defining contradictions of Chinese anarchist thought – a philosophy that originated outside of China, yet focused solely on China.

Dirlik, Arif, Anarchism in the Chinese Revolution (University of California Press, 1991), pp. 117, 120, 156. [↩]
Cai Yuanpei, New Year’s Dream (1704). Published in Andolfatto, Lorenzo, Hundred Day’s Literature: Chinese Utopian Fiction at the End of Empire, 1902-1910 (2019), pp. 199-212. [↩]