Skip to main content
SpringerLink
Log in
Book cover

Interpreting China as a Regional and Global Power pp 7–29Cite as

Palgrave Macmillan

Early Chinese Nationalism: The Origins under Manchu Rule

  • Chapter

Part of the book series: Politics and Development of Contemporary China Series ((PDCC))

Abstract

This chapter deals with the early development of Chinese nationalism around 1900 and its significant influence on the nationalist selfperceptions of the present-day People’s Republic of China (PRC), despite the Communists’ claim to have broken with the imperial and Republican past. Acceptance of the idea that today’s Chinese nationalism is based on this heritage is essential to understand modern developments in the PRC and the special problems it faces when dealing with its non-Chinese inhabitants in Tibet, Xinjiang and even Inner Mongolia.

This chapter is based on the first part of my PhD dissertation: J. Schneider (2012) Ethnicity and Sinicization: The Theoty of Assimilative Power in the Making of the Chinese Nation-State (1900s–1920s) (PhD dissertation, Ghent University and University of Göttingen), Chapters 1–3.

This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution.

Chapter
USD   29.95
Price excludes VAT (USA)
  • Available as PDF
  • Read on any device
  • Instant download
  • Own it forever
eBook
USD   84.99
Price excludes VAT (USA)
  • Available as EPUB and PDF
  • Read on any device
  • Instant download
  • Own it forever
Softcover Book
USD   109.99
Price excludes VAT (USA)
  • Compact, lightweight edition
  • Dispatched in 3 to 5 business days
  • Free shipping worldwide - see info
Hardcover Book
USD   109.99
Price excludes VAT (USA)
  • Durable hardcover edition
  • Dispatched in 3 to 5 business days
  • Free shipping worldwide - see info

Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout

Purchases are for personal use only

Learn about institutional subscriptions

Preview

Unable to display preview. Download preview PDF.

Unable to display preview. Download preview PDF.

Notes

  1. J. R. Levenson ([1953] 1959) Liang Ch’i-ch’ao and the Mind of Modern China (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press);

    Google Scholar 

  2. J. Townsend (1992) ‘Chinese nationalism’, The Australian Journal of Chinese Affairs, 27, pp. 97–130;

    Article  Google Scholar 

  3. P. Duara (1995) Rescuing History from the Nation: Questioning Narratives of Modern China (Chicago: University of Chicago Press);

    Book  Google Scholar 

  4. R. E. Karl (2002) Staging the World: Chinese Nationalism at the Turn of the Twentieth Century (Durham/London: Duke University Press).

    Book  Google Scholar 

  5. J. Leibold (2007) Reconfiguring Chinese Nationalism: How the Qing Frontier and its Indigenes Became Chinese (Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan); J. P. Harrison (n.d.) Modern Chinese Nationalism (New York: Hunter College of The City University of New York);

    Google Scholar 

  6. P. H. Gries (2006) ‘China and Chinese nationalism’, in G. Delanty and K. Kumar (eds.) The SAGE Handbook of Nations and Nationalism (London/Thousand Oaks/New Delhi: SAGE Publications), pp.488–99;

    Chapter  Google Scholar 

  7. J. Unger (ed.) (1993) Chinese Nationalism (Armonk, NY: M. E. Sharpe);

    Google Scholar 

  8. C. X. G. Wei and X. Liu (eds.) (2001) Chinese Nationalism in Perspective: Historical and Recent Cases (Westport, CT/London: Greenwood Press).

    Google Scholar 

  9. E. Rhoads (2000) Manchus & Han: Ethnic Relations and Political Power in Late Qing and Early Republican China, 1861–1928 (Seattle/London: University of Washington Press), pp.142f.;

    Google Scholar 

  10. E. Rawski (2012) ‘Beyond national history: Seeking the ethnic in China’s history’, in F. Fiaschetti, J. Schneider and A. Schottenhammer (eds.) Ethnicity and Sinicization Reconsidered, Crossroads, 5 special issue, pp.45–62, 55.

    Google Scholar 

  11. J. K. Fairbank ([1968] 1970) ‘A preliminary framework’, in J. K. Fairbank (ed.) The Chinese World Order: Traditional China’s Foreign Relations (Cambridge: Harvard University Press), pp.2f; Levenson, Liang Ch’i-ch’ao, p.103.

    Google Scholar 

  12. J. Legge (transl.) ([1861–1879] 1972) The Chinese Classics, vol. 2, The Works of Mencius — Mengzi (Taibei: Wenshizhe chubanshe), pp.253–4 (Book III. Tâng Wân Kung, Part I, Chap. IV).

    Google Scholar 

  13. Liang Qichao ([1903] 1983) ‘Zhengzhixue dajia Bolunzhili zhi xueshuo’, in Yinbingshi heji (Beijing: Zhonghua shuju), Wenji, 13, pp.67–89, 73.

    Google Scholar 

  14. J. K. Bluntschli (1874) Deutsche Statslehre für Gebildete (Nördlingen: C. H. Beck), pp.36f; Liang, ‘Zhengzhixue dajia Bolunzhili zhi xueshuo’, pp.73f.

    Google Scholar 

  15. Liang Qichao ([1912] 1983) ‘Yi nian lai zhi zhengxiang yu guomin chengdu zhi yingshe’, in Yinbingshi heji, Wenji, 30, pp.16–18, p.17.

    Google Scholar 

  16. A. D. Smith (2000) The Nation in History: Historiographical Debates about Ethnicity and Nationalism (Cambridge, UK: Polity Press), pp.2f.

    Google Scholar 

  17. Lecture delivered at the Sorbonne, 11 March 1882. Ernest Renan (1947–1961) Oeuvres Complètes, vol. 1 (Paris: Calmann-Lévy), pp.887–906.

    Google Scholar 

  18. Leibold and Henrietta Harrison point out that Chinese nationalism has been left aside by scholars of nationalism on the claim that it would be an exceptional case. (Leibold, Reconfiguring Chinese Nationalism, p.17; H. Harrison (2001) China (London: Arnold; New York: University of Oxford Press), p.1).

    Google Scholar 

  19. See e.g. E. Gellner ([1983] 2006) Nations and Nationalism (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press);

    Google Scholar 

  20. E. Hobsbawm (1990) Nations and Nationalism since 1780: Programme, Myth, Reality (Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press). Benedict Anderson avoided the Eurocentric perspective by introducing the ‘Creole Pioneers’.

    Google Scholar 

  21. B. Anderson ([1983] 2006) Imagined Communities (London/New York: Verso Books), pp.49–68.

    Google Scholar 

  22. J. A. Hall (2006) ‘Structural approaches to nations and nationalism’, in G. Delanty and K. Kumar (eds.), The SAGE Handbook (London/Thousand Oaks/New Delhi: SAGE Publications), p.36.

    Google Scholar 

  23. G. Xu, ‘Nationalism, internationalism, and national identity: China from 1895 to 1919’, in C. X. G. Wei & X. Liu (eds.), (2002) Chinese Nationalism in Perspective Durham/London: Duke University Press, p.104.

    Google Scholar 

  24. In Fairbank’s The Chinese World Order, Yang Lien-sheng shows that the ’Chinese world order’ was not valid for long phases and thus actually undercuts Fairbank’s concept. Yang Lien-sheng, ‘Historical notes on the Chinese world order’, in Fairbank (ed.), ([1968] 1970) The Chinese World Order, pp.20–33.

    Google Scholar 

  25. P. Duara (1993) ‘Bifurcating linear history: Nations and histories in China and India’, Positions, 1/3, pp.779–804, p.786;

    Article  Google Scholar 

  26. P. Duara (1993) ‘Deconstructing the Chinese nation’, The Australian Journal of Chinese Affairs, 30/2, pp.1–26, p.9; P. Duara, ‘De-construction the Chinese nation’, in Unger (ed.), Chinese Nationalism, pp.34–35; Townsend, ‘Chinese nationalism’, p.105. Also

    Article  Google Scholar 

  27. H. C. Tillman (1979) ‘Proto-nationalism in twelfth-century China? The case of Ch’en Liang’, Harvard Journal of Asiatic Studies, 39/2, 403–28; and

    Article  Google Scholar 

  28. R. Trauzettel (1975) ‘Sung patriotism as a first step toward Chinese nationalism’, in J. W. Haeger (ed.) Crisis and Prosperity in Sung China (Tuscon: University of Arizona Press), pp.199–214, interpret Song identities as sentiments that could be called nationalist.

    Google Scholar 

  29. Liang Qichao ([1906] 1983) ‘Lishi shang Zhongguo minzu zhi guancha’, in Yinbingshi heji, Zhuanji, 41, pp.1–13, pp.1f;

    Google Scholar 

  30. Liang Qichao ([1922] 1983) ‘Zhongguo lishi shang minzu zhi yanjiu’, in Yinbingshi heji, Zhuanji, 42, pp.1–35, p.32;

    Google Scholar 

  31. Zhang Taiyan ([1907] 1984) ‘Zhonghua minguo jie’, in Zhang Taiyan quanji (Shanghai: Shanghai renmin chubanshe), vol.4, pp.252–262, pp.252–6;

    Google Scholar 

  32. Tao Chengzhang ([1904] 1986) ‘Zhongguo minzu quanli xiaozhang shi’, in Z. Tang (ed.), Tao Chengzhang ji (Beijing: Zhonghua shuju), pp.212–48, p.215.

    Google Scholar 

  33. Liang, ‘Zhongguo lishi shang minzu zhi yanjiu’, p.32, gives the definition Hanzu for Zhonghua minzu still in 1922. However, in 1923, Lü Simian ([1923] 1933) Zixiu shiyong Baihua benguo shi, vol. 1, (Shanghai: Shangwu yinshuguan), pp.13–4, wrote that Zhonghua minzu would not be the same as Hanzu, because Zhonghua would refer to a state and to the ‘five ethnicities’.

    Google Scholar 

  34. D. Y.-ho Wu and J. Leibold (1991) ‘The construction of Chinese and Non-Chinese identities’, Daedalus, 120/2 (Special Issue: The Living Tree: The Changing Meaning of Being Chinese Today), pp.159–179, p.162 and Leibold, argue that Zhonghua would have referred to the five ethnicities already since late imperial times. Leibold, Reconfiguring Chinese Nationalism, p. 10).

    Google Scholar 

  35. In the writings of late imperial intellectuals, China (Zhongguo or Zhongxia) refers to the whole Qing empire, whereas the Chinese inhabited regions are called ‘China proper’ (Zhongguo benbu). (Liang Qichao ([1901] 1983) ‘Zhongguo shi xulun’, in Yinbingshi heji, Wenji, 6, pp.1–13, p.3; Liu Shipei ([1905] 1997) Zhongguo minzu zhi in Liu Shipei quanji (Beijing: Zhonggong zhongyang dangxiao chubanshe), vol.1, pp.597–626.

    Google Scholar 

  36. M. Elliott (2000) ‘The limits of Tartary: Manchuria in imperial and national geographies’, The Journal of Asian Studies, 59/3, pp.603–646, p.638, argues that ‘by the end of the 1700s […] “China” was no longer simply the territories inhabited by the people of the Central Plain; it became a space, the territories over which the state claimed sovereignty’. Due to the lack of primary sources to prove this claim, I am doubtful that this was a general development. Also

    Article  Google Scholar 

  37. G. Zhao (2006) ‘Reinventing China: Imperial Qing ideology and the rise of modern Chinese national identity in the early twentieth century’, Modern China, 32/2, pp.3–30, p.4, states that the Qing emperors would have changed the meaning of ‘China’ to represent the multi-ethnic empire.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  38. Liu Shipei, e.g., settled for Da Xia (Great Xia); Liang preferred Zhongguo. (Liu Shipei (1903) Rangshu, in Liu Shipei quanji, vol.2, pp.1–17, p.2b; Liang, ‘Zhongguo shi xulun’, p.3).

    Google Scholar 

  39. Zhang, ‘Zhonghua minguo jie’, p.252. Translation based on Zhang Taiyan, ‘Explaining “The Republic of China”’, trans. P. Cassel (1997) Stockholm Journal of East Asian Studies, 8, 16–77.

    Google Scholar 

  40. F. Dikötter (1992) The Discourse of Race in Modern China (Stanford: Stanford University Press), p.97; Liang, ‘Zhengzhixue dajia Bolunzhili zhi xueshuo’, p.75.

    Google Scholar 

  41. Kang Youwei ([1898] 1981) ‘Qing jun min he zhi Man Han bu fenzhe (Yi ba jiu ba nian ba yue)’, in Tang Zhijun (ed.) Kang Youwei zheng lun ji (Beijing: Zhonghua shuju), vol.1, pp.340–3.

    Google Scholar 

  42. This has also been called ‘traditional absorption theory’. (K. A. Wittfogel and C. Feng (1949) History of Chinese Society: Liao (907–1125) (Philadelphia: The American Philosophical Society), p.14.)

    Google Scholar 

  43. Liang ([1897] 1983) ‘Chunqiu Zhongguo Yi Di bian xu’, in Yinbingshi heji, Wenji, 2, pp.48–49, p.48.

    Google Scholar 

  44. In fact, Bluntschli explains this case in both Bluntschli, Deutsche Statslehre für Gebildete, p.42, and J. K. Bluntschli ([1886] 1965) Lehre vom modernen Staat (Aalen: Scientia Verlag), pp.108–9.

    Google Scholar 

  45. Liang Qichao ([1902] 1983) ‘Xin shixue’, in Yinbingshi heji, Wenji, 9, pp.1–32.

    Google Scholar 

  46. Zhang Taiyan ([1904] 1984) Qiushu zhongding ben, in Zhang Taiyan quanji, vol.3, pp.328–33.

    Google Scholar 

  47. Q. E. Wang (2012) ‘Narrating the nation: Meiji historiography, new history textbooks, and the disciplinarization of history in China’, in B. Moloughney and P. Zarrow (eds.), Making History Modern: Constructing the Discipline in China (Hong Kong: Chinese University of Hong Kong Press), pp.117–8.

    Google Scholar 

Download references

Authors
  1. Julia Schneider
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

Editor information

Editors and Affiliations

  1. Centre for Languages and Cultures, Ghent University, Belgium

    Bart Dessein (Professor of Chinese Language and Culture) (Professor of Chinese Language and Culture)

Copyright information

© 2014 Julia Schneider

About this chapter

Cite this chapter

Schneider, J. (2014). Early Chinese Nationalism: The Origins under Manchu Rule. In: Dessein, B. (eds) Interpreting China as a Regional and Global Power. Politics and Development of Contemporary China Series. Palgrave Macmillan, London. https://doi.org/10.1057/9781137450302_2

Download citation

Publish with us

Policies and ethics

Search

Navigation