Culture & History in Postrevolutionary China: The Perspective of Global Modernity [New ed.] 9789629964740

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Culture & History

in postrevolutionary china

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Culture & History in postrevolutionary china The Perspective of Global Modernity

arif dirlik

the chinese university press

Culture & History in Postrevolutionary China The Perspective of Global Modernity by Arif Dirlik © The Chinese University of Hong Kong 2011 All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from The Chinese University of Hong Kong. ISBN 978-962-996-474-0 The Chinese University Press The Chinese University of Hong Kong Sha Tin, N.T., Hong Kong Fax: +852 2603 6692 +852 2603 7355 E-mail: [email protected] Web-site: www.chineseupress.com Printed in Hong Kong

Contents vii Acknowledgments ix Preface 3

Introduction Modernity, Globality, History: Methodological Reflections

33 Our Ways of Knowing Globalization—the End of Universalism? 63

The Triumph of the Modern Marxism and Chinese Social History

97 Confucius in the Borderlands

Globalization, the Developmental State, and the Reinvention of Confucianism 157 Timespace, Social Space, and the Question

of Chinese Culture 197 Zhongguohua

Worlding China: The Case of Sociology and Anthropology in Twentieth-century China 241 Guoxue

National Learning in the Age of Global Modernity 273 Further Reflections on Global Modernity

Modernity in the Age of Global Capitalism 309 Bibliography 329 Index

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Acknowledgments Chapter 2: “Our Ways of Knowing: Globalization—the End of Universalism?” was published previously in Petra Rethmann, Imre Szeman, and William D. Coleman (ed.), Cultural Autonomy: Frictions and Connections (Vancouver: University of British Columbia Press, 2010), pp. 28–48. Chapter 4: “Confucius in the Borderlands: Globalization, the Developmental State, and the Reinvention of Confucianism,” is a revised and updated version of an essay of the same title first published in boundary 2, 22.3 (November 1995), pp. 229–273. Chapter 5: “Timespace, Social Space, and the Question of Chinese Culture,” is a revised version of an essay of the same title first published in Monumenta Serica 54 (2006), pp. 417–433. Chapter 8: “Further Reflections on Global Modernity: Modernity in the Age of Global Capitalism,” was first published in Manuela Boatca and Willfried Spohn (ed.), Globale, Multiple, und Postkoloniale Modernen (Munich: Rainer Hampp Verlag, 2010).

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Preface The essays in this volume were delivered October/November 2010 as the Liang Qichao Memorial Lectures at the Academy of National Learning (Guoxue yuan) of Tsinghua University, Beijing. Chapters 2, 4, 5, and 8 have been published previously. They were revised and updated for delivery as lectures, and have been revised slightly for publication in this volume. The essays offer critical perspectives on a select number of ideological issues that have figured prominently in Chinese intellectual discourse since the beginning of the so-called “reform and opening”(gaige kaifang) in the late 1970s. They range widely in subject matter, from Marxist historiography to sociology and anthropology in China to guoxue/national studies, but they are conceived here as different windows into a basic problem: the deployment of culture and history in postrevolutionary Chinese thought. Three themes appear recurrently in the discussions. First, the repudiation of the revolutionary past after 1978 has led to the rise of a cultural nationalism, clearly visible by the 1990s, that has had profound effects in Chinese thinking on culture and history. While the issues discussed here go back in their origins to the Sino-Euromodern confrontation beginning in the late Qing, the direction they have taken since 1978 reverses the dominant trends of the previous half century, bringing forth what had been earlier minor discourses that many intellectuals looked upon unfavorably. I argue that this reversal, second, is not merely a product of the repudiation of the revolutionary past, but also of a new-found sense of power that has accompanied the successful emergence of Eastern Asian/Chinese societies as an alternative core of the capitalist world-system. Pasts ix

culture & history in postrevolutionary china | x and cultural legacies that for a century were viewed with embarrassment as hindrances to development have turned over the last four decades into imagined sources of national wealth and power, to be held up with pride as markers of a Chinese identity, and even propagated across the globe for the edification of the world at large, as with the so-called Confucius Institutes. The discussions, finally, place these developments within a global context. The two introductory chapters and the concluding chapter offer conceptual and methodological reasons for this approach, and point to the contemporary transformations in Chinese thought as a problem in the unfolding of modernity. The reversals in the evaluation and deployment of culture and history are not just a phenomenon of Eastern Asian/ Chinese societies but part of a global ideological transformation. From civilizational claims of Confucianism, Hinduism, Islam, and evangelical Christianity to the revival of indigenous worldviews, the last three decades have witnessed the retreat from the hegemony of Enlightenment universalism to the proliferation of pasts once condemned to “the dustbin of history.” The more powerful of these revivals—powerful because of success in global capitalism—have been accompanied by claims to alternative modernities. This is the condition of “global modernity,” when the globalization of capitalism has been accompanied ironically by cultural fragmentation and dissonance. This, it is suggested, is the broadest context for grasping intellectual developments in China since the 1980s. Arguing against a parochialism in studies of China in China and abroad, the volume makes a case methodologically for “worlding” China: bringing China into the world, and the world into China. “Worlding” China is not intended to deny the historical specificity of the conditions which have given rise to these problems and guide their unfolding as discourses. Rather, it underlines the entanglement of Chinese discourses on modernity in a broader field of discourse that calls into question any rigid delineation of the inside and the outside, and its unproductive consequences for a critical understanding of

preface | xi Chinese thought. This is the case not just presently, but for the last century and a half of the encounter with Euromodernity, which not only has played a crucial part in the current formation of modernity, but in the invention of “China” itself. I am grateful to Chen Lai and Liu Dong, co-directors of the Academy of National Learning, for the invitation they extended to me as the Liang Qichao Memorial Visiting Professor to deliver these lectures. Their cosmopolitan understanding of guoxue—very much in the guoxue tradition of Tsinghua University, and especially of Liang Qichao—bodes well for the intellectual future of the Academy. Ms. Yige Dong, who assisted me with the translation and much else besides, deserves special thanks, as do the graduate students from various institutions who attended the lectures and the weekly discussions for their intellectual enthusiasm, which added to the rewards of the experience. My deep thanks also to Gan Qi and Christopher Mattison, respectively director and executive editor of the Chinese University of Hong Kong Press, for their gracious and enthusiastic support for and efficient handling of the publication. It has been a pleasure to work once again on the editing process with Richard Gunde, an old friend from Modern China days. Last but not least, my loving thanks to Roxann and Nicholas for giving me the “leave,” however reluctantly, to undertake the project. I dedicate this volume to the memory of Liang Congjie (1932– 2010), “the father of the Chinese environmental movement,” who passed away in the midst of my tenure as Liang Qichao Memorial Visiting Professor. I never met Professor Liang. This dedication is in recognition not only of his environmental activities and his contribution to civil society in China as founder of Friends of Nature, but also for his social and political engagement as a scholar that was very much in the spirit of his grandfather’s legacy. His was the kind of scholarship that is needed more urgently than ever not just in China, but the world at large. Tsinghua University, October 31, 2010

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Introduction Modernity, Globality, History: Methodological Reflections This opening chapter is devoted to the clarification of several conceptual problems presented by the terms contained in the title: modernity, globality, and history. My understanding of these terms will also guide what I have to offer in subsequent discussions of modern China. Another term, culture, I will take up in greater depth in the next and subsequent discussions. These terms represent keywords in the search for a new paradigm that perhaps will bring some coherence to a historical situation that seems to be beyond the grasp of past ways of understanding the world. For the last two-three decades, they have been subject to intensive debate and disagreement. The central issue is modernity as it appears within the context of a world driven by an unprecedented consciousness of globality, which in turn raises fundamental questions about the history of modernity, as well as modernity’s ways of knowing the past. The incoherence of the world also infects and disorders the terms with which we seek to comprehend it. It may be intellectually counterproductive to try and define them, as any such definition is likely to be vulnerable to partiality for some aspects over others of the phenomena the terms are intended to grasp, but the least we can do is to bring some clarity to the problems they present. The new times call for a “new history,” if you like, and a clarification of the problems of modernity presented by a new situation of globality is an indispensable first step toward that end.

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culture & history in postrevolutionary china | 4 My invocation of Liang Qichao’s call for a “new history” a century ago is intentional, as I think that there are significant parallels between the conceptual challenges presented by our contemporary situation, and the globalizing world faced by Liang Qichao and his contemporaries. While some economistically inclined scholars have pointed to similarities between contemporary globalization and its nineteenth-century antecedents,1 there are significant differences between then and now. Globalization in the late nineteenth century was driven by Euro/American colonialism, which over the next century would result in the consolidation of a colonial modernity and ongoing struggle between Euro/American domination and hegemony and nativist movements inspired by nationalism and socialism that were products of the same colonial modernity. Liang Qichao’s call for a “new history” in 1902 was a direct offshoot of the challenges presented by this colonial modernity. Calls for a “new history” in our day are informed by a different globalization, one that is both postcolonial and postnational. It is informed by an urgent sense of bringing back into history alternative pasts—and alternative modernities—that were erased not just by colonial but also by national histories. It strives to rescue from oblivion cultures marginalized or even erased under the regime of colonial modernity. It seeks to bring into history the voices of the many—not just national as in the case of Liang, but global—silenced in the past. It questions not just Euro/American domination of modernity but modernity itself. And against a “new history” that placed history at the service of nation-building, it calls into question the appropriateness of the nation as a historiographical unit.2 It is increasingly driven by a concern for political ecology over political economy. 1. Paul Hirst and Graeme Thompson, Globalization in Question: The International Economy and the Possibilities of Governance (Cambridge, UK: Polity, 1996), and Jeffrey Frieden, Global Capitalism: Its Fall and Rise in the Twentieth Century (New York: W.W. Norton, 2006). 2. Prasenjit Duara, Rescuing History from the Nation: Questioning Narratives of Modern China (Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press, 1995).

introduction | 5 What the two “new histories” share in common is not in their content but their consciousness of crisis, a crisis of political economic forms and of the historical practices that were their expression. What appeared to Liang and his contemporaries as the crisis of the Qing (or “China”) appears in hindsight as also a crisis of modernity that would soon erupt in world war. Now at the moment of its globalization, a moment of what I call Global Modernity, modernity seems in terminal crisis, marked by a return of societies such as China—what used to be encompassed by the term “third world”— as they make their claims on what it is to be modern. Despite the differences, therefore, Liang Qichao’s experience of modernity, including an ongoing experimentation with history, may well have paradigmatic parallels with the present. I am not a Liang Qichao scholar by any stretch of the imagination. And yet, as with many of my generation of China scholars in the United States, Liang’s diagnoses of the problems facing China around the turn of the twentieth century, filtered through scholarship on his career and thought, has played a major part in shaping my own work on modern China or, more precisely, my understanding of the problems of Chinese modernity. In his seminal biography of Liang, the distinguished historian Joseph Levenson found in Liang’s thought a metonymic articulation of “the mind of Modern China,” key to which was a persistent tension between conviction in new values imported from the West and nostalgic attachment to the legacies of the Chinese past.3 Levenson’s interpretations would be challenged by subsequent studies, but not the centrality he had assigned to Liang as a representative and a foundational figure of Chinese modernity. Chang Hao, who placed Liang more firmly within a native intellectual tradition, observed nevertheless that “a study of Liang’s mind . . . provides an ideal vantage point for exploring the changing consciousness of his time.”4 Similarly, Philip Huang wrote that while Liang was most 3. Joseph R. Levenson, Liang Ch’i-ch’ao and the Mind of Modern China (Berkeley, CA: University of California Press, 1967). 4. Hao Chang, Liang Ch’i-ch’ao and Intellectual Transition in China, 1890– 1907 (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1971), p. 1.

culture & history in postrevolutionary china | 6 “influential as a popularizer of new ideas,” his “writings from 1898 to 1903 defined some of the fundamental assumptions of much of twentieth-century Chinese thought, and they were assumptions that cut across the later divisions between liberals and Marxists.”5 These works established Liang in U.S. China scholarship as a seminal figure in the articulation of a Chinese modernity when he was pretty much out of favor—though not forgotten6—in Taiwan and the People’s Republic of China, for different political reasons. What they could not do was erase the image of “conservatism” that hung over Liang, which had very much to do with his encounters with modernity. Following World War I, Liang became apprehensive about the consequences of Euro/American modernity, which was confirmed by a trip to Europe and personal familiarity with prevalent disillusionment with modernity there. His “conservatism” was as much of mood as of intellect; a pessimism about the possibilities of modernity, which contrasted sharply with the exuberant optimism of leaders of the New Culture Movement. Against his own earlier convictions, he turned inward to greater emphasis on the contemporary relevance of the Chinese past, a position quite at odds with the uncompromising Westward turn in intellectual life that found expression in the New Culture Movement with its slogans of science and democracy. Like other intellectuals of his generation, Liang seemed increasingly like a relic from the past as politics took a social revolutionary turn in the mid-twenties. This view seems more problematic from the perspective of postrevolutionary China, and of contemporary modernity, than it did a generation ago when the above works were written. Indeed, at a time when modernity once again is in question, Liang’s experience of it—from enthusiastic embrace to a disillusioned search 5. Philip C. Huang, Liang Ch’i-ch’ao and Modern Chinese Liberalism (Seattle, WA: University of Washington Press, 1972), p. 5. 6. See, for example, Zhang Pengyuan, Liang Qichao yu Qing ji geming (Liang Qichao and Revolution at the End of the Qing) (Taipei: Zhongyang yanjiuyuan jindai shi yanjiusuo, 1969).

introduction | 7 for alternatives—appears exemplary of its contradictions. This is the conclusion of a more recent study of Liang by Tang Xiaobing, whose reading of Liang is inspired by its context in postmodern and postcolonial critiques of modernity informed by a sense of globality. If I may quote him at some length: Liang remains one of the few social thinkers and cultural critics in modern China who have encountered and contemplated the question of modernity based on a firsthand experience of world space . . . His flight to Japan in 1898, which increased his physical distance from China, firmly implicated him in modern nationalism, and the political space of the nation-state. From this reified nationalist space, he nonetheless celebrated a new global imaginary of identity. For nationalism as the chosen ideology of change was also based on a universal principle of equality and progress. Then, in 1903, Liang’s extensive travels in North America further helped him chart and differentiate modernity as complex political geography . . . The institutional, cultural, and historical differences between dynastic China and republican America compelled Liang to ask questions about the possible content of Chinese modernity. Modernity, in other words, could no longer be embraced as a universal form. By 1920, at the end of his year-long journey through postwar Europe, Liang finally disengaged himself from an understanding of modernity as progressive temporality. Instead, he discovered a dynamic anthropological space in separate but interacting cultural systems, which became accessible and appreciable only in a new global imaginary of difference.7

Liang in this account may sound too much like a contemporary, but Tang’s account eloquently integrates the trajectory of Liang’s encounters with modernity with what seems like the trajectory of modernity itself as it has traveled from its origins in a Euro/ American-centered universalism to a fragmentation of universality itself with the intensified tendency to capture modernity in national and civilizational spaces. Whether this might have been as evident 7. Xiaobing Tang, Global Space and the Nationalist Discourse of Modernity: The Historical Thinking of Liang Qichao (Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 1996), pp. 7–8.

culture & history in postrevolutionary china | 8 then as now is questionable, if only because of the proliferation in the century in between of postnational spaces that is a consequence of the contemporary entanglement of nations in one another economically through the globalization of capital, politically through new international organizations, socially through transnational settlements, and culturally through new modes of communication. Above all, it is arguable that what is novel about the present most importantly is not globalization but a consciousness of globality that was not available earlier. But Liang’s (and the Chinese) experience points to long-term problems of modernity, and provides an instructive point of departure in addressing issues arising from the contemporary crisis of modernity occasioned by another episode of globality.

Modernity The differences between then and now already point to the complexities of the idea of “modernity.” There is something puzzling, to me at least, about assertions by contemporary Chinese leaders and intellectuals that China is modernizing, or has yet to become modern, against the pervasive historiographical practice of describing as “modern” at least the last century and a half of Chinese history, and the revolutionary changes Chinese society has gone through since Liang Qichao and others of his generation embarked on the project of establishing a Chinese modernity. Book titles by non-Chinese historians such as The Search for Modern China or China’s Struggle to Modernize have implied all along that “modern China” has not been quite modern, with the distinguished author of one of these titles asserting as late as 1989 that at no time during the last half millennium, to the end of the twentieth century, could China be considered “convincingly” a “modern” society.8 They have been 8. Jonathan Spence, The Search for Modern China (New York: W.W. Norton, 1989), and Michael Gasster, China’s Struggle to Modernize (New York: Knopf, 1972). The attribution is to Spence, “Preface.”

introduction | 9 joined since the 1980s by Chinese writers equally skeptical of the modernity of “modern China,” who have perceived in Cultural Revolutionary years through the 1970s the continued domination of Chinese society by “feudal” forces inherited from a premodern past. It is even possible to detect in some writing that China has to return to the times of Liang Qichao to rethink the whole project of modernity—as if the period in between did not matter where modernity is concerned.9 The paradox may be understood productively at one level as that of an “unfinished project” of modernity, as Jürgen Habermas observed of modernity in general, which would implicate “modernity” as an integral part of the problem of Chinese modernity. But this is usually not what provokes skepticism of the modernity of modern China. It is rather the assumption that there are modern societies (finished or unfinished, though this is not an issue often raised), and China (like many others) is not one of them. As Spence puts it, “there were modern countries . . . in a.d. 1600 or earlier, as at any moment in the centuries thereafter. Yet at no time in that span, nor at the end of the twentieth century, has China been convincingly one of them.”10 To his credit, Spence recognizes the fluidity of modernity, and offers a globalized version of it in his definition. Nevertheless, he takes modernity to be definable to the point where we can clearly distinguish the modern and the non-modern. At this he is at one with those who hold a more rigid idea of modernity, to the point of its measurability in quantitative terms.11 9. Li Zehou and Liu Zaifu, Gaobie geming: Huiwang ershi shiji Zhongguo (Farewell to Revolution: Looking Back on the Twentieth-Century Chinese Revolution) (Hong Kong: Cosmos Books, 1996). For an alternative view, see Theodore Huters, Bringing the World Home: Appropriating the West in Late Qing and Early Republican China (Honolulu, HI: University of Hawai‘i Press, 2005). 10. Spence, The Search for Modern China, “Preface.” 11. I am referring here to the approach taken by He Chuanqi and his colleagues at the Center for Studies of World Modernization Processes at Beijing University in various installments of the China Modernization Report. The “scientific” approach presupposed by quantification presumably is appealing

culture & history in postrevolutionary china | 10 Conviction in the possibility of defining the modern quantitatively takes us back to a positivist strain in the modernization discourse of the immediate decades after World War II, but so in many ways does conviction in the distinguishability of the modern and the non- or pre-modern, however fluid its conception of the modern, which still favors some historical experiences over others as candidates for modernity. The problem in either case is that the very restlessness and the ceaseless pursuit of change that is the hallmark of modernity also undermines efforts to define its content or boundaries. The commonality between our times and that of late Qing thinkers is due not to the absence of modernity (and, therefore, history) in twentieth-century China, but because modernity has changed as China has changed, and the modernity that presents itself as a problem presently is not the same modernity that Liang and his contemporaries faced. In fact, the “modernity” of the modern societies late Qing intellectuals faced has been replaced with a postmodernity linked intimately with issues of globalization, which because it brackets complex social and political questions of modernity, as well as issues of culture and values, beyond their contribution to (or obstruction of ) modernization, which has been a basic assumption of modernization discourse since the 1950s, and has been revived recently by conservative advocates of modernization. See Lawrence E. Harrison and Samuel P. Huntington, Culture Matters: How Values Shape Human Progress (New York: Basic Books, 2000). The idea of “second modernization” (based on a knowledge economy, following a first one, based on the industrial economy, to be distinguished from the premodern marked by agriculture) that He advocates echoes Ulrich Beck’s idea of a cosmopolitan “second modernity.” See Beck, “The Cosmopolitan Perspective: Sociology of the Second Age of Modernity,” British Journal of Sociology 51.1 (2000): 79–105. He’s approach, stressing the productive base of society, is closer to a modernization version of the Marxist understanding of “modes of production,” with the added dimension of culture as a force of production. The Marxist version is in many ways more complex as it insistently demands attention to the social as well as the cultural dimension of production. His addition of a “second modernization” in the transition from industrial to knowledge production itself is important in indicating the discursive dimensions of modernity in bending highly problematic developments to suit the assumptions of the discourse. It may not be surprising that He is also the founder of a consulting company dealing in culture and modernization.

introduction | 11 has called into question the self-image of modernity, including its presumption of the possibility of delineating the modern and the non-modern. This is not to deny temporal and spatial differences between societies, or the importance of material conditions in the evaluation of modernity, but serves as a reminder of the importance of discursive context in shaping evaluation. This is the case even with the most material aspects of life, where the distinction between the modern and the non- or pre-modern is subject to prior discursive assumptions, for the most part the assumptions of capitalist modernity.12 Modernity refers both to a condition of existence and a discourse on it, the one deeply entangled in the other. Despite the search for alternative paths in later years, its origins in terms of material development coincide with the beginnings of capitalist development in Northwestern Europe, which in turn coincides with the origins of European global expansion (keeping in mind that “Europe” itself was in a process of formation during these centuries). The discourse is roughly contemporary, appearing as an explicit promotion of the “modern” at the latest by the time of the controversy in the late seventeenth century between “the ancients and the moderns.”13 The controversy drew a sharp, and celebrated, distinction between the present and its past that would assume the power of natural truth with the Enlightenment, and would render the European present into teleological destiny—eventually for all humankind—with the consolidation of the ideology of progress in the writing of history in the nineteenth century. As the discourse of modernity achieved coherence, it drew upon ideals (as the realities had yet to be achieved) that had animated discussions of the contours of emergent capitalist societies: from the celebration of the market economy to the organization of global politics around the nation-state, from a closer integration of the 12. Arturo Escobar, The Making and Unmaking of the Third World (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1994). 13. For this discussion, see J. B. Bury, The Idea of Progress: An Introduction to Its Growth and Origins (New York: Dover, 1932), chap. 4.

culture & history in postrevolutionary china | 12 ruler and the ruled that could be achieved best through the spread of political rights to the constitutional definition of state-society relations, from the assertion of secularism in public life to the upholding of scientific reason over any other form of experiencing life, and the cultivation of citizens to these ends which required bringing the culture of the citizenry into the public life of the polity. The discourse of modernity initially constructed its object with reference to some past or another, of which it was both a negation and a becoming. It was, in other words, historically grounded even if the history it invoked was its own invention. According to Habermas, this connection was broken from the mid-nineteenth century as anti-Enlightenment romanticism “produced a radicalized consciousness of modernity that detached itself from all previous historical connection and understood itself solely in abstract opposition to tradition and history as a whole.” The liberation of modernity from history, however, came at the price of a self-destructive relegitimation as a “spontaneously self-renewing historical contemporaneity of the Zeitgeist to find its own objective expression . . . in the moment of novelty, the New, which will itself be surpassed and devalued in turn by the innovations of the next style.”14 This discourse has retained its power even though modernity as actuality has been continuously reconfigured economically, politically, socially, and culturally, and given rise in response to its many destructive consequences to varieties of antimodernist movements. Postmodernist critiques of modernity may be seen in some sense as the most recent expression of antimodernism.15 That does not negate the importance of its critique of the discourse of modernity for its ideological complicity in covering up the destructiveness of modernity, including colonialism, which was inextricable from its 14. Jürgen Habermas, “Modernity: An Unfinished Project,” in M. P. d’Entreves and S. Benhabib (ed.), Habermas and the Unfinished Project of Modernity (Cambridge, UK: Polity Press, 1996), pp. 38–55, p. 39. 15. Thus one German critic has written, “Postmodernity decisively presents itself as a form of Anti-modernity.” Quoted in ibid., p. 38.

introduction | 13 liberating impulses. This made antimodernism—a response to the destructiveness of modernity—into an integral part of modernity. That this postmodern perspective is not just the work of isolated intellectuals is evident in the contemporary impossibility of speaking about modernity without reference to its destructiveness, or the pervasiveness among many of a sense of modernity as “colonial modernity.” Globalization has brought this sense into the self-image of the modern societies of North America and Europe, now struggling ideologically with the problem of how to bring into modernity memories of its destructive past without undermining it altogether. Habermas, a staunch defender of Enlightenment values in modernity, writes that as soon as the internal links between the concept of modernity and the self-understanding of modernity gained within the horizon of Western reason have been dissolved, we can relativize the, as it were, automatically continuing processes of modernization from the distantiated standpoint of a postmodern observer . . . The premises of the Enlightenment are dead; only their consequences continue on. From this perspective, a self-sufficiently advancing modernization of society has separated itself from the impulses of cultural modernity that has seemingly become obsolete in the meantime; it only carries out the functional laws of the economy and the state, technology and science, which are supposed to have amalgamated into a system that cannot be influenced.16

Like most theorists of modernity, Habermas is remarkably oblivious to the meaning for modernity of the Euro/American conquest of the world, which brought into the interior of modernity many social and cultural differences, creating the conditions for its further relativization and fragmentation. Generalization of the goals globally, on the other hand, was entangled in the politics of imperialism as its justification. The observation above, which is derived from the evidence of intellectual developments within Europe and North 16. Jürgen Habermas, The Philosophical Discourse of Modernity: Twelve Lectures, tr. by F. G. Lawrence (Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 1990), p. 3.

culture & history in postrevolutionary china | 14 America, applies equally directly to the consequences for modernity of its globalization. If making others modern was an impulse and an excuse for imperialism, modernity filtered through other social and cultural sieves has now turned into the capture of modernity in different cultural spaces that no longer permit universality, but lay claim to different modernities. What this adds up to is that the ability to distinguish between the modern and non- or pre-modern has become more complicated than ever, as modernity has been de-territorialized from its origins in Europe and North America. To the inbred self-obsolescence of modernity has been added claims on modernity of pasts that were once the Others in terms of which modernity was defined (most prominent in this regard may be the resurgence of religion into public life globally). This is the crisis presented by its globalization. And like all crises, it presents both anxieties and new possibilities, more often than not wrapped into one. To return to the paradoxical evaluations of Chinese modernity with which I started this section, the paradox is a product of two assumptions concerning modernity. One assumes the modernity of entanglement with others who are unmistakably modern; in other words, relationships between the modern and the non-modern that by extension assume the modernity of the non-modern as well. This accounts for the commonplace historiographical periodizing of “modern China” beginning with incorporation into a “Western” dominated world order. What makes Chinese modernity suspect, nevertheless, is that even after its incorporation in this new world order, Chinese society failed to develop fully in the direction indicated by “Western” modernities. Here the assumption is a substantive one, one which identifies the modern teleologically with characteristics of those modernities. It seems to me that this latter assumption has become increasingly untenable with the blurring of the distinction between the modern and the non-modern with the globalization of modernity, at the same time calling for closer attention to the relationships between societies that have played an important part in the

introduction | 15 formations of modernity from its vague origins lost in the mists of the past to the present when its future is once again rendered uncertain by the revival of pasts that once seemed condemned to oblivion.

Global Modernity Modernization as a paradigm was not articulated fully until after World War II, but its basic assumptions were in place for nearly two centuries before then. As Liang Qichao and his contemporaries encountered it, it was in its Social Darwinian phase. It promised “wealth and power” to those who were able to adjust to its demands, colonization or extinction to those who could not. Key to it was nation-building. The nation-state was the ultimate vehicle of modernity. Its strength lay in the strength and loyalty of its citizens. As China had to be remade from an empire into a nation, its very realization depended on making Chinese out of imperial subjects. This meant also another culture suitable to that end. But what blend of the old and the new would best serve to create such a culture, for on one depended the meaning of being Chinese, on the other survival as a nation? The problem was to drive Liang’s intellectual effort over the years, as it has generations of Chinese—and others who experienced modernity as an outside force. It was also the problem that informed the pursuit of a “new history.” If in the end he assigned greater weight to the past as an answer to problems of modernity, that itself was part of being modern. And the past invoked was a past that was reworked even as it was recovered; what has been referred to as “the invention of tradition,” which itself seems to acquire a life of its own driven by the dialectics of modernity. Much the same could be said of the larger project of modernity as modernity itself has been globalized, in the process incorporating in its constitution the differences globally that belie the universalistic assumptions that had driven the project over two centuries. This does not mean the end of the modernization project, which indeed had assumed the power of a “global faith,” but the project

culture & history in postrevolutionary china | 16 has lost its teleological power: that all societies as they modernize must distance themselves from their pasts (or “traditions,” as they had come to be known in modernization discourse) and converge at some point at the end of history around an ideal realization of the modern, long informed by the political and cultural assumptions of Euro/American societies. The actuality has turned out to be somewhat different. It turns out that traditions, rather than exteriorized obstacles to modernity, are very much constituent parts of it, bringing the issue of cultural spaces (what Tang described as “anthropological space”) into the interior of any critical exploration of modernity. The historicization of modernity, by which I refer to both its temporalities and its spatialities, opens up new vistas not just into the future—fragmented futures within a singular modernity defined by the political economy and culture of capitalism—and the past—alternative modes of development of which capitalist modernity was only one, but ultimately the dominant one. The result in either case is the de-universalization of modernity that has thrown into question all the characteristics that define it— from capitalism to the nation-state to the values emanating from the Enlightenment, from science and secularism to the rational subject, and even the possibility of defining rights and obligations common to humanity as a whole. Efforts to contain modernity in competing cultural boxes make it difficult, if not impossible, to say what modernity might entail beyond its forces of production.17 In contrast to the past when much was left out of history that did not conform to the teleology of modernity, there is presently too much history, or what a French scholar has called “the resurgence of history that threatens modernity at its moment of triumph.”18 17. We might make note here of the work of Bruno Latour, We Have Never Been Modern, tr. by Catherine Porter (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1993). This is also a critique that Habermas makes on the evidence of the unfolding of modernity in Euro/America, especially the preoccupation with consumption and novelty that has come to define it. 18. Jean-Marie Guehenno, The End of the Nation-State, tr. by Victoria Elliott (Minneapolis, MN: University of Minnesota Press, 1995), p. x.

introduction | 17

Modernities This is the question for our times. The global victory of capitalism (i.e., globalization) has been accompanied by cultural revivals that now serve as the basis for claims to “multiple modernities.” While the term “multiple modernities” (or its equivalent, “alternative modernities”) is used most commonly to refer to the present and the future, the idea of fundamental diversity in modernity also has raised important questions about the past; namely, that modernity may be viewed as a European product which then spread out from Europe to conquer the world, remaking the world in the image of Europe. Identified with a Eurocentric teleology, this view of modernity’s history is dismissed these days by many taken with the slogan of “provincializing Europe.”19 And yet, it would be trading one obscurantism for another to deny the transformative part that modern Europe (including the Americas) has played in the shaping of modernity, which is quite evident in the global dominance and hegemony of capitalism and its cultural products. This contradiction is also the point of departure for the contemporary ferment over history. The proliferation of modernities raises two questions of significance that I have already mentioned. First is the resignification of traditions. From a cause of backwardness in an earlier modernization discourse they have turned a globalized modernity into a source of modern national identity—as well as “alternative modernities.” This renders meaningless modernization as a motion from the traditional to the modern, which was the fundamental historical teleology that informed modernization discourse in the immediate postWorld War II era. There is little need to belabor here the culturalism that informed (and enabled) that teleology. But culturalism has now returned in another guise: in the cultural claims to alternative modernities which similarly insist on cultural persistence, but this time around not in the cause of distinguishing the backward from the 19. Dipesh Chakrabarty, Provincializing Europe: Postcolonial Thought and Historical Difference (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2000).

culture & history in postrevolutionary china | 18 advanced, but to vindicate difference, now in an assumption of a common globality. The globalization of modernity, secondly, has called modernity as a concept into question. There is an irony to the fact that modernity globalized has turned into a site for competing claims on the modern, which calls into question not only the possibility of defining the modern (except in a narrow technological sense) but even of centering it historically in any one location. It may be argued with considerable plausibility that the very claims to the multiplicity of the modern constitute a tacit acknowledgment of the universalist assumptions that have guided modernity all along from its initial fulfillment in Europe. It is further evident that this European modernity (now Americanized) still can claim universality as part of everyone else’s modernity, while competing claims to alternative modernity remain mostly of local interest. The new situation nevertheless calls for a reconsideration of the history of modernity, not just as the assimilation by non-Europeans of a set of practices introduced from the outside, but as the emergence of practices the production of which required the participation of many. Equally important are questions concerning the geographies of modernity that are not identifiable with the boundaries of nations, civilizations, or regions. My goal here is not to deconstruct modernity into historical oblivion but to historicize it. However we might wish to define it, a consciousness of modernity as both material and ideological condition is part of our existence, and has shaped our views of the future and the past. Nor do I see much point in redefining modernity because it seems likely that it is impossible to escape reductionism and ideological closure no matter how we define it. Rather, my goal here is to make some speculative suggestions as to how to go about thinking modernity as a historical problem in light of the contestations that have eroded its coherence. But I do start with a few premises of a contradictory nature. One is that the modernity claimed and created by Euro/America, a colonial modernity, is very much part

introduction | 19 of a condition of contemporary global existence no matter how much cultural studies scholars (or nationalists) might contest and deconstruct it.20 Globalization of capital has also come to define the limits of modernity. Socialism and Third World national liberation movements, generated by the contradictions of colonial modernity, for some time promised a different kind of modernity than that of capital, but they were to be overwhelmed in the end by the power of capital to transform the world.21 The result has been the opening up of all global spaces to the activities of capital, which is the substantial meaning of the processes described by the term globalization. Conflicts over modernity are increasingly limited to claims of cultural identity that stay clear of substantial issues of political economy and social process, including ontological/cultural questions raised by everyday practices of production and consumption. Ironically, the historical complexity of Euro/American modernity itself is implicitly denied in most contemporary discussion—especially in post-socialist societies such as the People’s Republic of China—that identifies modernity with contemporary capitalist societies, more often than not with their technical developmental rather than their political-ethical achievements. The colonial past and its present, integral to the expansion of capital, are reconfigured in the process into a teleological narrative of globalization. This is the modernity that appears presently as a global object of desire. 20. While modernity needs to be placed in historical perspective, rather than defining that perspective in the first place, historical work has an obligation to address the becoming of the present, unless history is to become just one macro account of the becoming of humanity. There is much to be said for the latter perspective, but it is not inconsistent with other temporalities of varying durations. For a critique of “modernocentrism,” see Jerry H. Bentley, “Beyond Modernocentrism: Toward Fresh Visions of the Global Past,” in Victor H. Mair (ed.), Contact and Exchange in the Ancient World (Honolulu, HI: University of Hawai‘i Press, 2006), pp. 17–29. 21. These movements were handicapped from the beginning by their internalization of the developmentalist assumptions of capitalism. I have argued this at some length in Arif Dirlik, After the Revolution: Waking to Global Capitalism (Hanover, NH: University Press of New England for Wesleyan University Press, 1993).

culture & history in postrevolutionary china | 20 It does not follow, however, that this modernity was an autonomous development internal to a “European” history or that, once having become a recognizable historical formation, it acted like a magnet, attracting all societies to its practices. European or Euro/ American modernity, inextricably entangled in the political economy of capitalism, was one possibility to emerge from the globalization of economic (if not just economic) relationships in the sixteenth century, which was also its precondition. It was subsequently forced upon the globe, by force of arms when necessary, powered by the twin dynamos of capitalism and nationalism. Ironically, it is the globalization of these two forces of capitalism and nationalism that now empowers claims to alternative modernities among those who would contest Euro/American domination and hegemony. Unlike in an earlier period, however, the differences they claim are conditioned by participation in the global capitalist economy of which Euro/America still remains the core: they are postnational and postcapitalist, which in many ways also mark them as postmodern and postcolonial (in the sense of “post” as formative of what comes after). Modernity is not a thing but the fluid product of a changing topography of economic, political, social, and cultural relationships of varying scope that are not containable neatly or for long periods of time in conventional units of historical and geographical analysis. From a global perspective, it is useful, I think, if only in the formulation of a coherent problematic, to think of modernity in terms of three phases, which indicate at once historical periods and modes of distribution of power.22 To name these phases in order to reveal 22. I will also forego any discussion of the relationship between modernity and modernization. These need to be distinguished in terms of the ways in which they are studied, but they also carry a straightforward relationship that is sufficient for my purposes here, and that has a fundamental status historically: modernization is the process that creates the condition of modernity. The more important distinction, I think, pertains to modernization. Modernization, conceived in path-dependent ways (as it was in modernization discourse), follows a linear path in each nation’s history, and automatically creates different modernities. On the other hand, modernization conceived

introduction | 21 the locations and relocations of modernity that justify them in the first place, they may be described as: Eurasian modernities, a Eurocentered colonial modernity, or Euromodernity, and contemporary Global Modernity. Such a revision of the temporalities of modernity is ultimately informed by its respatialization as well. In the first phase, attention is directed from individual societies or regions (e.g., China and Europe) to transcontinental interactions that were integral to the making of these societies and regions, as well as the formation of an Afro-Eurasian ecumene that provided the broadest context for the formations of modernity. The second phase is informed by Euro/American global hegemony in the making of modernity that historically has served as the standard for the conceptualization of the modern. Without denying the centrality of this modernity in the formation of the modern world, it seems appropriate nevertheless to rename it more concretely as Euromodern in order to overcome a hegemonic identification of the modern with European modernity. The last phase represents the globalization of modernity, and its multi-centering once again, albeit on the basis of global transformations of political economy and the ideology of modernity of which Euro/American colonial modernity has been a formative moment. The challenge, therefore, is not to take Europe out of the history of modernity, but rather to reformulate that history in such a way as to grasp modernity both as a product of processes that were ultimately global in scope, and to recognize, for better or worse, the centrality to the formations of modernity of Europe and Europeans. Without worrying about what may or may not be modern, I would like to propose a double understanding of modernity here: modernity understood in terms of relationships, and modernity understood substantively in terms of certain values and practices of everyday life, ranging from politics to everyday social relationships. in terms of relationships (including colonialism), calls for a more structured analysis which insists, in addition to difference, on the commonalities and connections that shape the structure. The former approach was characteristic of much modernization discourse, the latter of discourses influenced by Marxism.

culture & history in postrevolutionary china | 22 Despite their conflicting implications, I suggest that these two understandings of modernity both may be necessary to comprehend modernity in its unfolding. Modernity conceived in terms of relationships directs us to reenvision it as a global phenomenon both in the forces that went into its making and in its pervasive consequences, which do not presuppose any kind of homogenization, but transformative forces transmitted globally through intensified interactions among societies following the Mongol invasions, assuming global scope with the discovery and invasion of the Americas by Europeans. These interactions were themselves both effects and motive forces of structural transformation. The mediating role Europeans came to play in these interactions was one important source of the power they would exert in the formation of modernity. Otherwise modernity understood in terms of relationships is a multipolar modernity without a center, which took different forms across the width and breadth of what the historian of Islam, Marshall Hodgson, called the “Afro-Eurasian ecumene and, by the sixteenth century, across the ocean to the Americas and Australia.23 This understanding of modernity brings into relief what I describe as the substantive understanding of modernity in terms of certain values and practices (from science to capitalism). These values and practices are particular products of Euro/American modernity, which is what we have understood conventionally by the idea of the modern. That idea was itself invented by Europeans who identified their values and practices as the universal characteristics of modernity—and proceeded to prove it by enslaving and colonizing the world. Through expansion, conquest, and colonialism, this particular version of modernity would become globalized from the eighteenth century, erasing other possibilities of modernity that had 23. For a discussion of Hodgson’s ideas, see Edmund Burke, III, “Islamic History as World History: Marshall Hodgson, ‘The Venture of Islam,’” International Journal of Middle East Studies 10.2 (May 1979), pp. 241–64.

introduction | 23 been produced by some of the same forces that had produced European modernity. It is ahistorical to erase the physical and ideological consequences of the global impact of this European modernity, and neither is it necessary to do so in order to overcome Eurocentrism in history. The discourses of Euro/American modernity are now part of a global discourse of modernity, including, ironically, the legitimation of anticolonialism and antimodernism, which finds expression in contemporary thinking in postcolonial criticism and postmodernism. If nationalist historiography around the world requires denial of the transformative impact of European modernity, it cannot do so without also denying the coloniality that has been built into the very idea of modernity as it has been understood conventionally—through nationalism itself which historically was both a product of and a response to colonialism. Talk of alternative modernities in our day is not very convincing, as the alternatives assumed are but variations on a theme that is global thanks to the globalization of capitalism, and with it, the values and practices of European (now more American) modernity. On the other hand, recalling a precolonial period of modernity—where difference was taken for granted—may help place in historical perspective contemporary “variations,” which have their origins not in some vague premodernity but in “traditions” that already had been shaped by the relationships of an emergent Global Modernity.

Histories The dialectics of Global Modernity—its simultaneous affirmation and negation of modernity—have inevitably raised fundamental questions about the historical consciousness that has been a defining feature of Euromodernity. What we know as “history” is a product of this consciousness which would be globalized with the rise of Euromodernity to global hegemony. The “historical revolution” of modernity, as Reinhart Koselleck has described it, detached a history that had already been de-sacralized from

culture & history in postrevolutionary china | 24 a naturally formed chronology. Up until the eighteenth century, the course and calculation of historical events was underwritten by two natural categories of time: the cycle of stars and planets, and the natural succession of rulers and dynasties. Kant, in refusing to interpret history in terms of astronomical data and rejecting as nonnatural the course of succession, did away with established chronology on the grounds that it provided a guideline that was both annalistic and theologically colored, “as if chronology were not derivative of history, but rather that history must arrange itself according to chronology.”24

The “temporalization of history” (or the appearance of “historical time”) had radical consequences. Like modernity as it liberated itself from the past, secularized history became sui generis, a domain unto itself that was subject to its own internal logic. Its processes, much more complicated than they had appeared when restricted to actions of rulers and dynasties, were not transparent but had to be discovered, or, as is suggested by the quotation from Kant, endowed with meaning and rendered comprehensible “through the interdependence of events and the intersubjectivity of actions.” Historical events were unique insofar as they were not repeatable, but they were also structured by forces from within history that were open to comprehension. In the end, however, “the historicization of history” also historicized the writing of history, which, like everything else, was “historically conditioned” in its perspective.25 The authority history acquired as an account of the past “in and for itself ” was accompanied, ironically, by its “constructability”: the historian shaped by the past also was responsible for endowing it with meaning. What gave this history its coherence was its reconceptualization as a process guided by a new utopia of progress. Progress, Koselleck writes, “was not simply an ideological mode of viewing the future; it corresponded, rather, to a new everyday experience which was 24. Reinhart Koselleck, Futures Past: On the Semantics of Historical Time, tr. by Keith Tribe (Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 1995), p. 33. 25. Ibid., p. 143.

introduction | 25 fed continually from a number of sources: technical development, the increase of population, the social unfolding of human rights, and the corresponding shifts in political systems [including, crucially, revolutions].”26 At its most fundamental, a casualty of this reconceptualization was conviction in the possibility of the past to serve as a model (or “mirror”) for the present, which had prevailed so long as history had been viewed as an expression of timeless sacred or natural truth. Challenges to history in our day from alternative conceptualizations of the past by non-European intellectuals, and the persistence among populations at large of belief in sacred design in the determination of human activity, provide prima facie evidence that the ascendancy of this new historical consciousness was at best partial and incomplete.27 And yet its power is evident in the articulation of its temporal premises, and even of challenges to it. This was the history, the assimilation of which by late Qing intellectuals, foremost among them Liang Qichao, would also “revolutionize” Chinese historiography. Liang’s seminal essay of 1902, “The New History” (Xin shixue), put the historical legacy of the past to the test of this new historical consciousness, and found it to be radically deficient. Two decades later, when, much like critics of modernity in our day, disillusionment with modernity led him to a more favorable evaluation of the native past, he continued to be critical of past historiography not only for its limited scope, but also for its failure to construct out of its confusing jumble of facts a coherent account of the past attentive to the inner workings of history.28 The ascendancy of this 26. Ibid., p. 57. 27. For further discussion, see Arif Dirlik, “Performing the World: Representation in the Making of World Histor(ies),” Journal of World History 16.4 (2005), pp. 1–17. 28. Liang Rengong (Qichao), Zhongguo lishi yanjiu fa (Methodology of Chinese Historiography) (Taipei: Zhonghua shuju, 1968), originally written in 1922, chapter 3, “Reforming History,” pp. 27–36. For “New History,” see Liang Qichao, Yinbing shi wenji (Selections from the Ice-Drinker’s Studio) (Taipei: Zhonghua shuju, 1960), vol. 4, pp. 1–32. This essay was published in the same

culture & history in postrevolutionary china | 26 new consciousness would reach its culmination in Marxist historiography. But the new consciousness pervaded even the defense of past historiographical practices in the works of guoxue, or national studies, scholars. Indeed, guoxue may be understood best not as a throwback to the past but as one particular form of response to history. While debate persists concerning the part history played in the formation of nations and nation-states, probably few would disagree that the emergent secular history was of crucial significance in the ideological construction of national self-images, which for two centuries has linked the new historical consciousness nearly unbreakably to the nation as a social formation. Histories organized around other social clusters (such as class, gender, or ethnicity), or histories of supranational scope, have invariably turned in the final analysis into qualifications of, rather than substitutes for, national history. Ironically, national histories, born of this Euromodern consciousness of history, are presently in the process of challenging the very consciousness of which they are the products. This historical consciousness provides the commonality that endows with meaning the “global” in Global Modernity even as it is pulled apart by the particularities of the national histories it has produced. It seems, in fact, that claims to historical particularity are not weakened by but draw strength from the intensification of globalizing forces. Nations show no sign of weakening, as it is sometimes claimed. On the other hand, they have also become captives of their own historical self-images, unable therefore to deal with forces that no longer seem containable in national spaces: from forces generated by mutual economic, social, political, and cultural entanglement to truly global forces such as those of the environment. The task here year as another seminal essay, “Xinmin shuo” (On the New Citizen). There was an unmistakable relationship between history and the cultivation of new citizens, which resonates interestingly with Koselleck’s observation that as the idea of progress took shape in the eighteenth century, “the bearer of the modern philosophy of historical process was the citizen emancipated from absolutist subjection and the tutelage of the church.” Koselleck, Futures Past, p. 17.

introduction | 27 may be not just to rescue history from the nation, as Prasenjit Duara has suggested, but also to rescue the nation from history so that nations can reimagine themselves in ways appropriate to meeting present challenges. The breaking of the link between the two also requires that nations be explained rather than assumed, and history adopt a perspective that is both broader and narrower than that of the nation so that this may be achieved. The new global perspective suggests not only that this may be necessary to human survival but also that the world of nations has marked a rather brief period, that of Euromodernity, which in the nationalization of history has obscured alternative spatializations of varying scope produced by human interactions—including Euromodernity. The critique of national history is a more radical challenge to Eurocentrism than that based on national particularisms which make claims on modernity without questioning its historical origins. The awareness has also stimulated renewed attention to interactions that continued past the delineation of national boundaries, preparing the ground for what is now viewed as globalization. Hence the increasingly vociferous calls for a “new history” informed by “transnationalism,” or more properly “translocalism,” since “transnationalism” is semantically applicable only to a period of nations and nation-states, a point often overlooked in such calls. Most of the contemporary discourse on modernity is conducted under the sign of the global, or takes globalization as a referent. Efforts to render globalization into a paradigm for the study of history remain marginal, but they no doubt have received impetus from and contribute to the increasing interest in world history. I have argued elsewhere that world history is not just a subject but also a method, which may be described as “world-historical,” that may be deployed even when the subject at hand is miniscule in spatial and temporal scope. This is quite evident in the respectability—and urgency—“transnational” and “translocal” histories have acquired over the last decade or so. We need to be modest in making claims about the novelty, or

culture & history in postrevolutionary china | 28 the consequences, of the new consciousness of globalization in our understanding of modernity’s history. While the term globalization is of recent vintage, a globalized understanding of history has been very much part of a modern Euro/American reconceptualization of the past that was a product of a new consciousness brought about by capitalist modernity. I have discussed elsewhere the importance of a sense of globality in the work of Karl Marx.29 The contemporary version of globalization is directed against this earlier legacy that assigned centrality and priority to Europe in the creation of capitalist modernity. But the challenge to Eurocentrism from a global perspective is itself not very novel. Marshall Hodgson had no need for globalization as concept to write in the mid-1970s that, “Without the cumulative history of the whole Afro-Eurasian Oikoumene, of which the Occident had been an integral part, the Western Transmutation would be almost unthinkable.”30 A previous generation of historians of China (from Wolfram Eberhard to Edward Schafer in the United States, and J. C. van Leur, Niels Steensgaard, Erik Zürcher, and Jean Chesneaux in Europe to Liang Qichao, Chen Yinque [sometimes Yinke] and others in China) were intensely cognizant of transnational relations in the making of China—the product was unique, no doubt, if subject to immense internal differences, but the method of examining it thoroughly cosmopolitan. It seems almost trite to say, after a generation of world historiography, that modernity was the consequence of and had consequences for global social and political relationships. While globalization as paradigm has brought about a new awareness of global relationships, it has in the process resulted in the erasure of other possible relationships, which possibly were important in the making of modernity, and which need to be remembered into the construction of a different kind of modernity. It is necessary to specify, therefore, the ways in which a sense of globalization brings along new insights and new 29. Arif Dirlik, Global Modernity: Modernity in the Age of Global Capitalism (Boulder, CO: Paradigm, 2007), chap. 2. 30. Quoted in Burke, “Islamic History as World History,” p. 250.

introduction | 29 perspectives that were foreclosed to those of a cosmopolitan bent that nevertheless still operated within the limits of modernization discourse, with its well-established teleologies. Globalization as paradigm also presents both new challenges and new opportunities. The opportunity lies in the possibility of placing modernization within a long-term historical context that might enable us to overcome the Eurocentric teleology of capitalist development, which continues to haunt the supposedly anti-Eurocentric alternatives to it. Globalization as paradigm, in forcing a long-term historical perspective, historicizes modern capitalism itself, rather than making it into the given context of history. Similarly, it may also help overcome the teleology of the nation, not by denying its historical significance, but enabling analysis to look past the nation. Globalizing modern history offers the possibility of “worlding” Chinese history: bringing Chinese history into the world, and bringing the world into Chinese history. “Worlding” is the opposite of the idea of a “Chinese history from the inside” proposed by Paul Cohen two decades ago.31 It requires that we conceptualize history by thinking outside of the nation, with due attention to issues of transnationality and translocality, which also provide a context for historicizing the nation. From this perspective, “history from the inside” may be read as the last gasp of “Euro/Sinocentrism.”32 Finally, globalization as paradigm calls for close attention to the dialectic between structure and history: the relationship between the multiple 31. Paul A. Cohen, Discovering History in China (New York: Columbia University Press, 1984). For a recent critique, see Xia Mingfang, “Modern Chinese History Without ‘Modernity’: Paul A. Cohen’s Three Dogmas and the Logical Contradictions of the ‘China-Centered Approach,’” Journal of Modern Chinese History 1.1 (Aug. 2007), pp. 53–68. “Worldliness” is a concept that Edward Said used in making a case for viewing texts in their historical situations but even more importantly in confronting “the numerous and complicated” ways in which they “engaged” the world. Edward W. Said, The World, the Text, and the Critic (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1981), p. 35. I use it slightly differently here, using the metaphor of the “text” to refer to a society. 32. I owe this phrase to a former student of mine, Ana Candela.

culture & history in postrevolutionary china | 30 forces that have structured the modern world, and how particular societies have both shaped and been shaped by such structurings. The challenge is to deal with globalization critically. Globalization itself, while it eschews Eurocentrism, nevertheless is continuous with modernization discourse in the teleology of capitalism (if not of Euro/American development) that is built into it. It perpetuates (and justifies) both unequal development and unequal power relations, legacies of a colonial modernity, that nevertheless continue to structure the world. In this sense, globalization, or the Global Modernity it has produced, may be read as the fulfillment of a colonial modernity, most evident in the ideological hegemony of developmentalism that is a product of modern European capitalism, but also has shaped the socialist response to capitalism. It has been used already in some historical work as an excuse to erase the history of colonialism and, therefore, inequalities of the present that are very much built into contemporary globality. A critical historiography demands that care must be exercised in its deployment as paradigm not to erase but to foreground the shaping of the present by the colonial past. As it is with time, so it is with space. Indeed, globalization as paradigm is distinctive from modernization in the attentiveness it demands to the question of space in modernity. Historians and geographers long have noted the unevenness of development under capitalism. World-system analysts of one kind or another have sought to identify the theoretical reasons for such unevenness. Nations, in other words, are not sufficient as units of analysis, shaped as they are by forces of various magnitudes of space. But much remains to be understood in delineating the formation of units that produced world-systems and other forms of regionalization. Nations are characteristic of one phase of development associated with Euromodernity, and in their own rewriting of history, have erased the transnational (or, translocal, before there were nations) forces of which they themselves were products. Unlike a century ago, the task now is not the writing of national histories, but placing nations (and

introduction | 31 the modernity of which they are products) within a temporally and spatially broader context. If I may cite from a previous work: Transnational is not the same as worldwide . . . What makes transnational radical in its implications is its emphasis on processes over settled units. More importantly, perhaps, the other side of challenging national history from supranational perspectives is to bring to the surface subnational histories of various kinds. The radical challenge of transnational history itself lies in its conjoining of the supranational and the subnational (or intranational), which calls forth an understanding of transnational as translocal, with all its subversive implications historiographically and politically. If national history serves as an ideological ‘strategy of containment,’ the containment of the translocal—as process or structure—is of immediate and strategic importance as it bears directly on the determination and consolidation of national boundaries.33

These are some of the methodological and conceptual points of departure for the discussions I will offer of a persistent unease in reconciling culture and history in Chinese modernity, or should I say, an unease created by the encounter of imperial China with Euromodernity that has refused to go away despite radical transformations in China, the world at large, and the many relations of the one to the other. This reconciliation should be the goal of any critical discussion of the culture/history problem. It is my goal as well. To this end, it is necessary, I think, to grasp how the articulation of this problem has changed over the years in response to the radical transformations of the last century. The problem has been simplified in some ways, complicated in others. Subsequent discussions will trace its unfolding at major conjunctures in the late twentieth and early twenty-first centuries. The lectures on China may be viewed as illustrations of problems that are global in scope and implication. If the analyses tend to favor history over culture (as they appear in these discussions), that, too, is a choice the reasons for which will 33

Dirlik, “Performing the World,” p. 33.

culture & history in postrevolutionary china | 32 hopefully become clearer in the course of the discussions. Hence the following discussion will take up the issue of culture as historical problem, which contemporary circumstances compel us to conjoin to the issue of history as cultural problem.

Our Ways of Knowing Globalization—the End of Universalism? I take up a question now that is raised insistently in contemporary discussions of modernity: the need to rescue modernity from subjection to its Eurocentric legacy and to bring into its interior the legacies of civilizations and traditions marginalized or suppressed in an earlier modernization discourse. In a fundamental sense, this is what globalization is about as a cultural phenomenon, as it makes room for the recognition of cultural challenges to the universalistic claims of values and knowledges that have their roots in the history of European modernity. These challenges themselves are postEurocentric, however, as they presuppose a history in the shaping of which Europe and North America have played a crucial part. They are limited, furthermore, by their complicity with a globalized capitalist civilization which may no longer be identifiable directly with Euro/America, but which is a powerful force in the universalization of values and knowledges that bear upon them the marks of their Euro/American origins. Recognition of these contradictions is essential to grasping globalization both as an end to universalism and as a producer of new universalisms. Rather than a resolution of the problems of modernity, globalization represents most importantly the articulation of the cultural contradictions of capitalism. Foremost among my concerns here is the meaning for modernity of what one French analyst has described as the “resurgence of history.” Jean-Marie Guehenno uses the phrase with reference to those who see in the “resurgence of history” the resurgence of 33

culture & history in postrevolutionary china | 34 nationalism, a conclusion he deems to be insufficiently radical. As he puts it, “1989 marks the close of an era that began not in 1945 or 1917, but that was institutionalized thanks to the French Revolution, in 1789. It brings an end to the age of the nation-states.”1 The resurgence of history is visible in our day in the resurgence of nationalism, but also in the resurgence of claims to history that erode the nation-state both from within and without—which range from localized claims of various kinds to global and civilizational claims. Guehenno’s statement concerning the French Revolution suggests also that what is being eroded, ultimately, is not just the nation-state, but the institutions of modernity which he identifies with the nation-state. The irony is that the resurgence of history may signal also the end of history as we have known it. If history itself is “a sign of the modern,” the conceptualization of the past as history, which has become integral to our very existence, is inseparable from the idea of the modern.2 Indeed, claims against the modern are often accompanied by challenges to historical ways of knowing. The irony points to the many contradictions presented by contemporary discussions of history, modernity, and the nation-state. How could the victory of history, as implied by its resurgence, also signal its demise? How is it possible to declare the end of the nationstate or of national identity when nationalism seems to be on the rise everywhere? What does it mean that modernity is in question when there is every sign that it is becoming a global condition? How do we reconcile the pervasiveness of a sense of global fragmentation with the equally pervasive sense that more than ever in the past globality characterizes the human condition?

1. Jean-Marie Guehenno, The End of the Nation-State, tr. from the French by Victoria Elliott (Minneapolis, MN: University of Minnesota Press, 1995), p. x. 2. Nicholas Dirks, “History as a Sign of the Modern,” Public Culture 2.2 (1990), pp. 25–32. See also the essays in Reinhart Koselleck, Futures Past: On the Semantics of Historical Time, tr. from the German by Keith Tribe (Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 1985).

our ways of knowing | 35 It is this last question that takes priority in this discussion, as it provides a broad framework within which to think about modernity and history in relationship to changing configurations of political economy, culture, and society globally. This question also has a direct bearing on our ways of knowing the world. The concept of globalization, if it is to escape hopeless banality if not ideological mystification of the world, has to account not only for forces of global unity but also forces of global fragmentation.3 While globalization has become something of a slogan in efforts to rethink modernity’s ways of knowing the world, if it is to serve critical rather than ideological purposes, it needs to be grounded in concrete circumstances, which reveal globalization in this other guise of fragmentation.

Multiple Modernities Ours is a time of reversals when traditions and ideologies that were consigned by modernization discourse to the dustbin of history have made a comeback with a vengeance, empowered by reconfigurations in global relations and legitimized by the repudiation of Eurocentrism. A case in point is the Confucian revival in contemporary China. In his seminal work on Chinese modernity published in the early 1960s, Confucian China and Its Modern Fate, Joseph Levenson argued that Marxist historicism had resolved a problem that had plagued Chinese intellectuals ever since the encounter with the modern West had forced a parochialization of Confucian values: a transformation from their once universalistic status into the circumscribed endowment of a national past; an endowment, moreover, that was inconsistent with the struggle for modernity. Continued attachment to Confucianism despite loss of faith in its intellectual validity represented for Levenson a tension between history and value.4 3. Arif Dirlik, “Globalization as the End and the Beginning of History: The Contradictory Implications of a New Paradigm,” Institute on Globalization and the Human Condition, McMaster University, Working Paper Series #3 (Spring 2000). 4. Joseph R. Levenson, Confucian China and Its Modern Fate, 3 vols.

culture & history in postrevolutionary china | 36 Confucianism, necessary as the historical source of a Chinese national identity, had to be overcome if China was to become a nation. While not a Marxist himself, and not particularly sympathetic to the Chinese Revolution, Levenson nevertheless sought to understand the source of the appeals of Marxism, which he found in the ability of Marxist historicism to resolve this fundamental tension in Chinese intellectual life by relegating Confucianism into the museum, salvaging Confucius for the nation, but also rendering him irrelevant to the living present. As he put it, Confucius . . . redeemed from both the class aberration (feudal) of idolization and the class aberration (bourgeois) of destruction, might be kept as a national monument, unworshipped, yet also unshattered. In effect, the disdain of a modern pro-Western bourgeoisie for Confucius cancelled out, for the dialecticians, a feudal class’s pre-modern devotion. The Communists, driving history to a classless synthetic fulfilment, retired Confucius honorably into the silence of the museum.5

It may be one of the profound ironies of our times that this situation has been reversed since Levenson wrote his analysis: Confucius has been brought out of the museum once again, while it is the revolution that is on its way to being museumified, not by feudal worshippers of Confucius, but by the bourgeoisie who once disdained Confucius and the Communist Party that remains in power as the beneficiary of that revolution. Levenson’s analysis, and his evaluation of what the revolution had achieved in resolving the tension between the past and the present, was informed by a teleology of modernity: that the claims of the values of ancient civilizations must inevitably be relegated to the past with the victory of modernity as represented by the modern nation. If the pasts of those civilizations have been resurrected, it is not only because of the passing of revolutions, but more importantly the questioning of this teleology that (Berkeley, CA: University of California Press, 1968). 5. Ibid., vol. 3, The Problem of Historical Significance, p. 79.

our ways of knowing | 37 has come to the fore as globalization has replaced modernization as a paradigm of contemporary change. The passing of the Chinese Revolution, as of socialist revolutions in general, may be attributed to its particular failings. Similarly, advocates of the Confucian revival may attribute the revival to the particular virtues inherent in Confucianism. While there may be something to be said for such views, they suffer from a debilitating parochialism that fails to account for a larger historical context where it is not just socialist revolutions that are relegated to the past but the very idea of revolution, and it is not just the Confucian tradition that is at issue, but the return of traditions in general. Nor do such views explain attempts to articulate Confucianism to values of entire regions, such as Eastern and Southeast Asia, or of an entire continent, such as Asia. Further complicating the situation are conflicts that attend these efforts. For all the talk about Asia and Asian values over the last few years, the idea of Asia remains problematic, and so do the ideological and cultural sources from which Asian values are to be derived. The most visible competitor to the Confucian revival may be the Islamic revival that has also become visible during this same period; but the period has also witnessed a Hindu revival in India, and right-wing nationalists in Turkey, echoing Eastern Asian nationalists and their Euro/American cheerleaders, have resurrected earlier Pan-Turanian utopias to assert that the twentyfirst century will be a Turkish century. In other societies in Asia, Buddhism continues to hold sway. We see a resurgence, globally, of indigenous claims to knowledge that receive serious hearing at the very centers of Euromodernity. It is difficult to avoid an inference that all these revivals, coinciding temporally, are products of the same world situation, though they obviously have local inflections depending on social context and ideological claims. These reversals have been accompanied by challenges to modernity’s ways of knowing. The last twenty years have witnessed calls for the “sinicization” and “islamicization” of sociology. There has been a revival in the People’s Republic of China of so-called “national

culture & history in postrevolutionary china | 38 studies,” which advocates a return not only to the epistemologies but the methodologies of classical studies. The attacks on history and science of thinkers such as Vandana Shiva, Ashis Nandy, and Vine Deloria, Jr., gain a hearing in the most hallowed organs and institutions of Euro/American learning. While the effect of such criticism is felt most deeply in the humanities and the social sciences, as abstract a field as mathematics is under some pressure to recognize “ethno-mathematics” as a legitimate area of study. Even U.S. foundations have joined the chorus of criticism of the equation of modernity with Western ways of knowing.6 What is at issue here at the broadest level is a loss of consensus over the institutional and intellectual content of modernity even as modernity is globalized. As one critic puts it uncompromisingly, 6. For the “sinicization” of sociology, see Cai Yongmei and Xiao Xinhuang (ed.), Shehuixue Zhongguohua (Sinicization of Sociology) (Taipei: Juliu tushu gongsi, 1985). Islamicization of sociology is discussed in Nilufer Gule, “Snapshots of Islamic Modernities,” Daedalus 129.1 (Winter 2000), pp. 91–117, pp. 112–113. See also Park Myoung-Kyu and Chang Kyung-sup, “Sociology between Western Theory and Korean Reality: Accommodation, Tension, and a Search for Alternatives,” International Sociology 14.2 ( June 1999), pp. 139–156. Shiva, Nandy, and Deloria are the authors of many works. For representative titles, see Vandana Shiva, Staying Alive: Women, Ecology, and Development (London: Zed Books, 1989), Ashis Nandy, “History’s Forgotten Doubles,” History and Theory 34.2 (1995), pp. 44–66, and Vine Deloria, Jr., Red Earth, White Lies: Native Americans and the Myth of Scientific Fact (Golden, CO: Fulcrum, 1997). For recent discussions of knowledge systems with reference to Pacific studies, see Robert Borofsky (ed.), Remembrance of Pacific Pasts: An Invitation to Remake History (Honolulu, HI: University of Hawai‘i Press, 2000). For ethnomathematics, see Elizabeth Greene, “Ethnomathematics: A Step Toward Peace?” Dialogue (Durham, NC: Duke University) 15.9 (Oct. 20, 2000), pp. 4–5. For foundations, see Jacob Heilbrunn, “The News from Everywhere: Does Global Thinking Threaten Local Knowledge? The Social Science Research Council Debates the Future of Area Studies,” Lingua Franca (May–June 1996), pp. 49–56. Nandy and Deloria have been distinguished speakers at the Duke University Pivotal Ideas series in Spring 2000 and Spring 2001, respectively. For a discussion of these challenges in relation to modernity, see Arif Dirlik, “Reading Ashis Nandy: The Return of the Past or Modernity with a Vengeance,” in Arif Dirlik, Postmodernity’s Histories: The Past as Legacy and Project (Boulder, CO: Rowman and Littlefield, 2000), pp. 119–141.

our ways of knowing | 39 Colonialism and modernity are indivisible features of the history of industrial capitalism . . .To reestablish three points: The first is that “modernity” must not be mistaken for a thing in itself, for that sleight of hand obliterates the context of political economy. The second is that once modernity is construed to be prior to colonialism, it becomes all too easy to assume, wrongly, the existence of an originary and insurmountable temporal lag separating colonialism from modernity. Thus, the third point is that the modernity of non-European colonies is as indisputable as the colonial core of European modernity.7

In a different political vein, it is this situation that prompted Samuel Huntington to conclude that with socialisms out of the way, the major problem of the present was not a problem of conflict between nations but a “clash of civilizations.”8 It is important to underline two aspects of Huntington’s argument here. First, that the civilizations he referred to, while they represented long-standing cultural traditions, were not relics of the past but products of modernity that were empowered by their claims on modernity. Second, that to impose the values of the modern West on these societies would not only not work, but also represents a kind of imperialism. Huntington’s argument resonates with contemporary cultural claims on modernity in many non-Western societies. It is also echoed, if with greater circumspection, in recent efforts to revise modernization discourse. In his introduction to a recently published special issue of Daedalus, entitled “Multiple Modernities,” the distinguished analyst of modernity and editor of the issue, S. N. Eisenstadt, writes that the idea of “multiple modernities”

7. Tani Barlow, “Introduction,” in Barlow (ed.), Formations of Colonial Modernity in East Asia (Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 1997), pp. 1–20, p. 1. 8. Samuel P. Huntington, “The Clash of Civilizations?” Foreign Affairs (Summer 1993), pp. 22–49; Samuel P. Huntington, “The West Unique, Not Universal,” Foreign Affairs (Nov.–Dec. 1996), pp. 28–46; and Samuel P. Huntington, The Clash of Civilizations and the Remaking of World Order (New York: Simon and Schuster, 1996).

culture & history in postrevolutionary china | 40 goes against the views long prevalent in scholarly and general discourse. It goes against the view of the “classical” theories of modernization and of the convergence of industrial societies prevalent in the 1950s, and indeed against the classical sociological analyses of Marx, Durkheim and (to a large extent) even of Weber. . . that the cultural program of modernity as it developed in Europe and the basic institutional constellations that emerged there would ultimately take over in all modernizing and modern societies . . . The actual developments in modernizing societies have refuted the homogenizing and hegemonic assumptions of this Western program of modernity. While a general trend toward structural differentiation developed across a wide range of institutions in most of these societies . . . the ways in which these arenas were defined and organized varied greatly . . . giving rise to multiple institutional and ideological patterns. These patterns did not constitute simple continuations in the modern era of the traditions of their respective societies. Such patterns were distinctively modern, though greatly influenced by specific cultural premises, traditions and historical experiences. All developed distinctly modern dynamics and modes of interpretation, for which the original Western project constituted the crucial (and usually ambivalent) reference point.9

Eisenstadt’s comments are echoed by another contributor to the volume, Bjorn Wittrock, who reaffirms modernity as a common condition, but goes even further in evacuating it of substantial uniformity even in its origins in Europe, while acknowledging the persistence of the pre- and the non-modern as constituents of modernity. The question Wittrock poses is deceptively simple: whether we associate modernity with an epoch, a certain period in human history, or with “distinct phenomena and processes in a given society at a given time.” He suggests that “the first perspective poses the problem of where to locate the beginning, and maybe the end of the modern age. However, once this has been determined, the question of whether we live in one or many modernities becomes 9. Shmuel N. Eisenstadt, “Multiple Modernities,” Daedalus 129.1 (Winter 2000), pp. 1–29, p. 1.

our ways of knowing | 41 trivial.”10 In order to substantiate modernity, it then becomes necessary to locate it in certain institutions, or modes of thinking, which is Wittrock’s choice (as it is of Anthony Giddens, with “reflexivity” as a distinguishing feature of modernity).11 The important question here is to shift the location of modernity from nations, regions, and civilizations (themselves the creations of a Eurocentric modernity) to institutions and ways of thinking—in other words, discourses conceived both in linguistic and institutional terms. It is possible to suggest in this perspective, as Wittrock does, that there is no such thing as a Western, European, or American modernity, as these all represent different mixtures of modern, premodern, or non-modern elements; there are simply modern discourses that coexist with pre- or non-modern discourses that themselves represent all kinds of local varieties. As modernity is deterritorialized from its spatial associations, moreover, it may also be globalized for, whatever the origins, the discourse is transportable across geographical or cultural boundaries. It is worth quoting his concluding lines: There was, from the very origins of modern societal institutions, an empirically undeniable and easily observable variety of institutional and cultural forms, even in the context of Western and Central Europe. This became even more obvious once the institutional projects that had been originally conceived in Europe were spread to other regions of the world. This multiformity means that we may still speak of a variety of different civilizations in the sense that origins of institutions and roots of cosmological thinking are highly different in different parts of the world. There is no reason to assume that all these differences will just fade away and be replaced by an encompassing, worldwide civilization. However, modernity is a global condition that now affects all our actions, interpretations, and habits, across nations and irrespective of which civilizational roots we may have or lay claim to. In this sense, it is a common 10. Bjorn Wittrock, “Modernity: One, None, or Many? European Origins and Modernity as a Global Condition,” Daedalus 129.1 (Winter 2000), pp. 31–60, p. 31. 11. Anthony Giddens, The Consequences of Modernity (Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 1990).

culture & history in postrevolutionary china | 42 condition on a global scale that we live in and with, engage in dialogue about, and that we have to reach out to grasp.12

While not the cause of global uncertainty over modernity, the disappearance of the socialist alternative to capitalism has eliminated the possibility of an outside to the latter, in the process forcing to the surface of consciousness the incoherence of the inside. Jean-Marie Guehenno writes that “the cold war acted like a vast magnet on the iron filings of political institutions. For several decades, the polarization of East and West gave an order to human societies . . . Today, the magnet has been cast aside, and the iron filings have become sparse little heaps.”13 Guehenno is referring here mainly to political institutions, in particular the nation-state, but an even more interesting facet of fragmentation in the post-Cold War world are the lines of fracture that have appeared in the world of capitalism at its very moment of victory—in the proliferating references to different capitalisms and different cultures of capitalism, which may make it more proper presently to speak of a “pan-capitalism,” a conglomeration of capitalisms based on variant social and cultural repertoires, rather than a Global Capitalism that is homogeneous in its practices.14 The relationship between the consciousness of globalization and the fragmentation of earlier visions of the world is stated most starkly by Zygmunt Bauman, who perceives in globalization the end of the universalisms that had constituted modernity: It is this novel and uncomfortable perception of ‘things getting out of hand’ which has been articulated (with little benefit to intellectual clarity) in the currently fashionable concept of globalization. The deepest meaning conveyed by the idea of globalization is that of the indeterminate, unruly and self-propelled character of world affairs; the absence of a centre, of a controlling desk, of a board of directors, of a managerial office. Globalization . . . is ‘new world 12. Wittrock, “Modernity,” pp. 58–59. 13. Guehenno, The End of the Nation-State, p. x. 14. I owe this term to Majid Tehranian, and thank him for agreeing to let me use it in a slightly modified sense.

our ways of knowing | 43 disorder’ under another name. This trait, undetachable from the image of globalization, sets it radically apart from another idea which it ostensibly replaced, that of ‘universalization.’15

Globalization and the Human Sciences There is little that is novel about globalization as material process. Giovanni Arrighi has argued that capital has been globalizing all along, even before there was a structured and structuring entity that could be recognized as a “capitalist world-system.”16 Roland Robertson likewise sees globalization to be coeval with capitalism, but locates its “take-off phase” in the late nineteenth century, when “globalizing tendencies of previous periods and places gave way to a single, inexorable form.”17 Robertson is not alone in endowing this particular period with formative significance. Paul Hirst and Grahame Thompson, in their recent critique of the concept of globalization, point to this same period as a baseline against which to evaluate contemporary claims to globality, and conclude that at least in terms of the volume and intensity of economic activity between nations and regions of the globe, it is difficult to argue that the last quarter of the twentieth century represents more of a condition of globality than the last quarter of the nineteenth.18 Most interesting 15. Zygmunt Bauman, Globalization: The Human Consequences (New York: Columbia University Press, 1998), p. 59. 16. Giovanni Arrighi, The Long Twentieth Century: Money, Power, and the Origins of Our Time (London: Verso, 1994). 17. Robertson, Globalization: Social Theory and Global Culture (Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage Publications, 1992), p. 59. 18. Paul Hirst and Grahame Thompson, Globalization in Question: The International Economy and the Possibilities of Governance (Cambridge, UK: Polity, 1996), esp. chap. 2. The purpose of this volume, I should note, is not just to draw abstract comparisons between the present and the past but, rather, to deny the novelty of globalization to argue that the nation-state, and social policies enacted through the state, are still relevant presently. Hirst and Thompson are careful to point out that their arguments are directed against “extreme” globalizers who see in globalization the end of the nation. For a more historically oriented discussion, see Jeffry A. Frieden, Global Capitalism: Its Fall and Rise in the

culture & history in postrevolutionary china | 44 may be a New York Times article from May 1999, of necessity less thorough in scholarship but quite well-informed in the expertise it draws upon, that suggests that in terms of trade, financial investments, and transactions and labor flows, the peak of globalization “occurred a century ago, making the twentieth century memorable in economic history mostly for its retreat from globalization. In some respects, only now is the world economy becoming as interlinked as it was a century ago.”19 Similar evidence may be found in the realms of consciousness and culture. From the Suez to the Panama canals, the second half of the nineteenth century witnessed the undertaking of grand projects intended to link together different parts of the world. The American railroad tycoon Edward Harriman visualized a railroad line that would encircle the world, and to that end organized an expedition to Alaska in 1899 to investigate the possibility of building a bridge across the Bering Strait (with imported Chinese and Japanese labor), which would be a first step in his project.20 Organizers of world fairs, prominent cultural/commercial phenomena across Europe and the United States for nearly a hundred years following the Crystal Palace Exhibition in London in the mid-nineteenth century, viewed the fairs as “encyclopedias of the world” that brought together not just peoples and artifacts of the whole world but the world’s knowledges as well.21 It is also to this period that we owe the great museums that sought to bring within their walls for preservation and research the world, its many presents and its pasts. Twentieth Century (New York: W.W. Norton, 2006). 19. Nicholas D. Kristof, “At This Rate, We’ll Be Global in Another Hundred Years,” New York Times, May 23, 1999, “The Week in Review.” For a more scholarly, and extensive, argument, see Frieden, Global Capitalism. 20. William H. Goetzmann and Kay Sloan, Looking Far North: The Harriman Expedition to Alaska, 1899 (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1982), pp. 7–8. 21. See Paul Greenhalgh, Ephemeral Vistas: The Expositions Universelles, Great Exhibitions, and World’s Fairs, 1851–1939 (Manchester, UK: Manchester University Press, 1998), and Robert W. Rydell, All the World’s a Fair (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1984).

our ways of knowing | 45 If such is indeed the case, we might ask, why then did “globalization” have to wait for the end of the twentieth century to emerge to the forefront of consciousness as a new way of comprehending the world? Or, more precisely (if we focus not on the term but its substance), does globalization have the same effect and the same meaning at all times? That globalization has a history does not in and of itself refute the novelty of contemporary processes of globalization. Neither does it prove that globalization is an inevitable evolutionary process, as is recognized by the New York Times article, which suggests that the twentieth century may have represented a retreat from late nineteenth-century globality. Is globalization then a conjunctural phenomenon that derives its meaning at any one historical conjuncture from the moments that go into the making of the conjuncture, which are not merely technical or economic but also political and cultural? Since globalization at every moment of its history involves not only integration but also differentiation, how does difference, and the conceptualization of difference, enter into the consciousness of globality—which may be the most pertinent question in our understanding of globalization as paradigm? While we may perceive in both periods—the late nineteenth century and the present—common globalizing forces, there are nevertheless immense technological differences between the two periods that distinguish the one from the other both in the scope and configurations of globality and the momentum of its processes. What I would like to draw attention to, however, are the political and cultural differences. The processes of economic globalization in the late nineteenth century coincided with the global diffusion of nationalism and colonialism, whereas contemporary globalization is not only postcolonial, but also postnational (in the sense both of following upon global reorganization of societies into nations and also proliferating assaults on the nation-state). Culturally speaking, if we are to characterize the late nineteenth century as a period of intense globalization, we need also to note that this globalization was almost synonymous with the globalization of Euro/American norms.

culture & history in postrevolutionary china | 46 It is not that there was no recognition of difference at the time, but difference was hierarchized in a temporality in which Euro/American economic, political, social, and cultural norms represented the teleological end of history. While these assumptions by no means have disappeared from contemporary conceptualizations of globality, they now have to contend with alternative claims to modernity that draw on alternative historical trajectories. This breakdown of Eurocentric hegemony is crucial to grasping globalization as a paradigm. More than any other realm, it is the world of culture, and cultural assumptions about knowledge, that point to radical differences between the worlds of the present and the late nineteenth century that are not to be captured by statistics on trade, investment, and labor flows. The scientists and even the environmentalists like John Muir—whom Harriman gathered to accompany him on his expedition to Alaska—were there to gather botanical, zoological, and cultural artifacts because they were convinced that progress (of the kind envisioned by Harriman) would lead to the extinction of much that was in Alaska. The World’s Fairs of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries gathered peoples from around the world in their exhibits, but there was no question whatsoever about the hierarchies that shaped the exhibits. The organizers of those fairs were so assured of the supremacy of Euro/American capitalist modernity (with colonialism as its most cogent evidence) that it would have been impossible for them to imagine that a hundred years later the descendants of Geronimo and Sitting Bull, who were put on exhibit in different fairs, would be demanding the return of ancestral bones with which the scientists of the age were stuffing their museums. Conviction in the supremacy of Euro/American modernity justified a racial hierarchy, backed by “scientific evidence,” that placed white Euro/Americans at the pinnacle of evolution, further bolstering their claims to supremacy. They had no need to think global (any more than they did multicultural), because they were convinced that those around the globe who did not respond to the demands of reason and progress would soon go out of existence. Racist contempt

our ways of knowing | 47 was not restricted to peoples deemed “primitive.” In the Congress of Learning that accompanied the St. Louis Exposition of 1904, intended to create one holistic system that would bring together all knowledge, natural or social scientific, only one scholar (Henri Maspero) was invited to speak on the knowledges and cultures of “Asia.” A chart of human types published by the anthropology exhibit placed the Chinese about midway in the ladder of human progress, halfway between “prehistoric man” and European/American whites (although Japanese, represented by a female image, was placed third, after Russians).22 There is a wide range of answers to the question of the emergence of globalization as a paradigm at the end of the twentieth century, most of them technology driven and focused on the unification of the globe: from Marshall McLuhan’s “global village” to the view of the earth from outer space to the internet. Answers that address only issues of global unity seem to me to render globalization into little more than an advanced stage of modernization. One answer that is often ignored, but seems to me to clamor for a hearing, is that the awareness of globalization is at once the product of a making of a Eurocentric order of the world and of its breakdown, which now calls upon our consciousness to abandon the claims of Eurocentrism while retaining consciousness of globality, which would have been inconceivable without that same order. It was necessary before globalization in this contemporary sense could emerge to the forefront of consciousness, for a Euro/American globality to lose its claims to universality as the end of history—which is evident in our day 22. For the conference, see George Haines IV and Frederick H. Jackson, “A Neglected Landmark in the History of Ideas,” Mississippi Valley Historical Review 34.1 (June 1947), pp. 201–220. For the chart of human evolution, see the anthropology volume of the series, Louisiana and the Fair: An Exposition of the World, Its People and Their Achievements, J. W. Buel (ed.) (St. Louis: World’s Progress Publishers, 1904), frontispiece. A friend, Lawrence Schneider of Washington University, has suggested shrewdly that the representation of Japan may have been due to the contemporary influence of Puccini’s Madame Butterfly.

culture & history in postrevolutionary china | 48 most conspicuously not in the economic sphere where those claims may still be sustained, but in the realms of culture and knowledge, which display a proliferation of challenges to Eurocentrism. The latter are voiced most strongly in societies empowered by success in the capitalist economy. Equally important in empowering such challenges is the global visibility of postcolonial intellectuals, who find in the reassertion of native cultures and knowledge systems the means to combat the “colonization of the mind” that survives past formal political decolonization. Failures of political decolonization, combined with the seeming inevitability of capitalism, have played a major part in the foregrounding of culture, which provides both an escape from politics and a way to conduct politics by other means. The cultures and the knowledges that contemporary postcolonial intellectuals proclaim draw upon native pasts, but by no means point to a return to those pasts, as the pasts now revived are pasts that have been reorganized already by a consciousness of a century or more of social and political transformation; they are, in other words, not just postcolonial and postnational, but perhaps even postglobal, as cultural contention and competition is played out presently on a terrain that itself presupposes an uncertain globality. The challenge to the cultural legacies of colonialism is informed by vastly different political affiliations and motivations, which are not necessarily more progressive than the object of their challenges, although that judgment itself is increasingly difficult to sustain as history itself is called into question. In some cases, such challenges bolster the claims of the colonial modernity they seek to challenge, while in others they can sustain their anticolonialism only by resort to the most reactionary revivals of imagined pasts. Nonetheless, they have contributed in their different ways to undermining the universalist claims of Eurocentrism. Claims to universal knowledge express under the circumstances hegemonic assumptions that continue to infuse contemporary arguments for globalization, also revealing its ties to existing structures of power. On the other hand, to abandon those claims is also to resign to

our ways of knowing | 49 the parochialness—and hence, the relativity—of all knowledge, which not only abolishes the commonalities born of centuries of global interactions, but also rules out communication across societal boundaries (wherever those may be drawn at any one time and place).

Multiple Modernities: Global Multiculturalism One of the fundamental contributions of postcolonial scholarship since the 1960s has been to demonstrate an intimate connection between colonialism and modernity that is not only historical but structural, affirming the modernity of the colonized, while demonstrating that modernity from the beginning has been parasitic on the colonized. The human sciences have been entangled in these relationships. Dipesh Chakrabarty writes with reference to history that historicism enabled European domination of the world in the nineteenth century. Crudely, one might say that it was one important form that the ideology of progress or “development” took from the nineteenth century on. Historicism is what made modernity and capitalism look not simply global but rather as something that became global over time, by originating in one place (Europe) and then spreading outside it. Historicism . . . came to non-European peoples in the nineteenth century as somebody’s way of saying “not yet” to somebody else . . . not yet civilized enough to rule themselves . . . Twentieth-century anticolonial democratic demands for self-rule, on the contrary, harped insistently on a “now” as the temporal horizon of action . . . Historicism has not disappeared from the world, but its “not yet” exists today in tension with this global insistence on the “now” that marks all popular movements toward democracy.23

The downgrading of a Eurocentric modernity, accompanied by culturally driven claims on modernity, goes a long ways toward explaining the contradictions to which I referred above and why those 23. Dipesh Chakrabarty, “The Idea of Provincializing Europe,” in Chakrabarty, Provincializing Europe: Postcolonial Thought and Historical Difference (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2000), pp. 3–23, pp. 7–8.

culture & history in postrevolutionary china | 50 contradictions may appear differently to participants in the new dialogue on modernity. On the other hand, too much preoccupation with Eurocentrism or colonialism also disguises fundamental questions of contemporary modernity that cut across so-called cultural divides, especially as the locations of modernity and culture are themselves thrown into question with the reconfigurations of economic and political organization globally. What provokes immediate questions concerning the “multiple modernities” idea is the concomitant ascendancy of globalization as a new paradigm for grasping the reconfiguration of power in the contemporary world. Globalization suggests inescapably that, for all its divisions around issues of culture, the world as we have it shares something in common, which is conceded in the previous quotations in Eisenstadt’s reference to an “original Western project” that continues to serve as a “reference point” globally, or Wittrock’s description of modernity as a “global condition.” Globalization differs from modernization by relinquishing a Eurocentric teleology to accommodate the possibility of different historical trajectories in the unfolding of modernity. But that leaves open the question of what provides this world with a commonality which, if anything, is more powerful in its claims than anything that could be imagined in the past. It is possible that fear of intellectual reductionism, or functionalism, or simply sounding like a Marxist when Marxism is supposedly discredited, makes for a reluctance to stress the context of current discussions of modernity within the political economy of contemporary capitalism. And yet, this context is important to grasping not only arguments for globalization, but also the hearing granted to assertions of cultural difference. I would like to underline “the hearing” here, for while cultural differences have been present all along, what distinguishes our times from times past is a willingness to listen to invocations of cultural legacies not as reactionary responses to modernity but as the very conditions of a Global Modernity. Especially pertinent is the challenge to Eurocentric conceptions of capitalism that became audible from the late seventies

our ways of knowing | 51 with the emergence of Eastern Asian societies as a new center of capitalist power, which remapped the geography of capitalism but also, in its very de-centering of capitalism, signaled the arrival of a Global Capitalism. In this perspective, “multiple modernities” may signify either the proliferation of modernities (in its multiplicity), or its universalization (with the multiplicities as local inflections of a common discourse, but also as its agents). There is a second problem, however, that points to mappings of the world that are in conflict with arguments for globalization, which calls for attention to a different dimension. “Multiple modernities” suggests a global multiculturalism that reifies cultures in order to render manageable cultural and political incoherence; diversity management on a global scale, so to speak. How else to explain the continual slippage in the previous analyses into the language of nations and civilizations against the recognition of the internal incoherence of the entities so described? Arguments for “multiple modernities,” no less than arguments for globalization, state their case in terms of cultural differences aligned around spatialities that are the products themselves of modernization: nations, cultures, civilizations, and ethnicities. In identifying “multiplicity” with boundaries of nations, cultures, civilizations, and ethnicities, the idea of “multiple modernities” seeks to contain challenges to modernity by conceding the possibility of culturally different ways of being modern. While this is an improvement over an earlier Eurocentric modernization discourse, it perpetuates the culturalist biases of the latter, relegating to the background social and political differences that are the products not just of past legacies but of modernity and cut across national or civilizational boundaries. The framing of modernities within the boundaries of reified cultural entities nourishes off, and in turn legitimizes, the most conservative cultural claims on modernity. What an idea of multiple modernities ignores is that the question of modernity is subject to debate within the cultural, civilizational, national, or ethnic spaces it takes as its units of analysis. The problem of Eurocentrism, its foundation in capitalism as a dynamic force,

culture & history in postrevolutionary china | 52 and attendant problems of modernity are not simply problems between nations and civilizations, but are internal to their constitution. The most important difference between now and then is not the appearance of challenges to Eurocentrism from different cultural perspectives, but the recognition that what seemed to be a problem for non-Euro/American societies is a problem for Euro/American societies as well, as the problem of cultural modernity is brought into questionings of Euro/American domination as Eurocentrism long has been a problem of other modernities, calling into question the boundaries in terms of which we think of modernity, in other words, the very locations of modernity. A consideration of these questions compels a somewhat more complicated approach to the question of the relationship between globalization and universalism. Globalization coincides with the disillusionment with universalism, and in turn has opened up spaces for rethinking alternative ways of knowing. On the other hand, it is too easy in the enthusiasm or despair over globalization to overlook that globalization also serves as an agent of spreading the epistemological assumptions of Eurocentrism, which acquire progressively more compelling power as capitalism is globalized. The social sciences and the humanities as we have known them are not merely “European” or “American,” but are entangled in a social system of which capitalism has been the dynamic formative moment. The globalization of capitalism has given additional force to the ideology of development, or “developmentalism,” which forces all societies under the threat of extinction to acquire the technologies of knowledge that contribute to this end. These knowledges are no longer just “European” or “American,” but are internal to societies worldwide which provide the personnel for the global institutions of capital. If “now” has been conjoined to the “not yet,” that does not signal an end to the universal claims of modernity’s ways of knowing. The so-called retreat or “provincialization” of Europe may be the very product of the universalization of those knowledges in their appropriation into different social and intellectual universes, which

our ways of knowing | 53 no longer permits or recognizes European or American monopoly over them. Chakrabarty observes that while alternative knowledge systems mostly remain as objects of scholarly interest, it is the humanities and social sciences of modernity that continue to claim a validity beyond the ethnic or the historical.24 His own work is exemplary of the shaping of Third World intellectuals by the legacies of Eurocentric modernity even as they protest colonial domination. His book, as he describes it, “tries to bring together these two important representatives of European thought, Marx and Heidegger, into some kind of conversation with each other in the context of making sense of South Asian political modernity.”25 I have argued in a recent discussion that the concept of Global Modernity is more appropriate than vaguely conceived notions of globalization to grasping the problem of modernity in its contemporary phase or appearance.26 I understand the term Global Modernity in the singular, as a “singular modernity,” to use Fredric Jameson’s phrase, that is nevertheless productive of contradictory claims on modernity for which it has come to serve as a site of conflict.27 My insistence on the singularity of Global Modernity arises out of a recognition of some validity to arguments for globalization 24. Ibid., p. 6. 25. Ibid., p. 18. 26. Arif Dirlik, Global Modernity: Modernity in an Age of Global Capitalism (Boulder, CO: Paradigm, 2006). 27. I stress this point in order to distinguish the argument here from approaches to Global Modernity in the plural, as in the case of the essays included in the collection Global Modernities, edited by Mike Featherstone, Scott Lash, and Roland Robertson (Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage, 1995), or in the special issue of Daedalus, “Multiple Modernities,” edited by Eisenstadt. The former volume renders “global modernities” into a stand-in for globalization. The Daedalus volume recognizes the singular origins of modernity, but some of the contributions nevertheless stress differences based on culture over the commonalities of modernity. These approaches are problematic, I think, precisely because of their tendency to sweep under the rug issues of the colonial in modernity in the name of globalization. For “singular modernity,” see Fredric Jameson, A Singular Modernity: Essay on the Ontology of the Present (London: Verso, 2002).

culture & history in postrevolutionary china | 54 and the global commonalities it implies. At the same time, Global Modernity as a concept is intended to overcome a teleological (and ideological) bias imbedded in the very term globalization for global commonality and homogeneity. It recognizes as equally fundamental tendencies to fragmentation and contradiction that are also products of globalization, and of past legacies that find exaggerated expression in their projection upon a global scene. Unlike in an earlier modernization discourse, which arranged societies globally along a temporal axis from the primitive to the traditional to the modern, Global Modernity is most important for the acknowledgment (if not acceptance) of the contemporaneity of societies. Globalization in this perspective implies not just some naive expectation of a utopianized global village or, conversely, an undesirable global hegemony, depending on one’s perspective, but a proliferation of boundaries globally, adding new boundaries to already existing ones even as modernity is globalized. Notions of multiple or alternative modernities, in rendering into units of modernity traditions that are themselves the very products of modernity, in fact universalize the claims of modernity by appropriating them as endowments of otherwise vastly different and complex pasts.28 These claims often are also oblivious to the historicity of the present, and assume that present differences or commonalities may be read into the future, which is quite problematic. The long historical struggle against colonialism and unequal power relations has given way over the last two decades to conflicts over modernity, informed by national or civilizational cultural presence in globality even as nations and civilizations are rendered more tenuous in their existence by the 28. I have discussed this in a number of places for the case of China, most notably in “Confucius in the Borderlands: Global Capitalism and the Reinvention of Confucianism,” boundary 2, 22.3 (Nov. 1995), pp. 229–273. For an illuminating discussion of how the assumptions of modernity were internalized into Indian history, see Gyan Prakash, Another Reason: Science and the Imagination of Modern India (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1999). Prakash’s discussion is particularly relevant here for his deployment of “colonial modernity” in addressing this issue.

our ways of knowing | 55 globalizing pressures of an expanding transnational capitalism. This is also what renders the past—colonial modernity—relevant to the understanding of the present, with intensifying struggles to reconfigure the relationships of power that have shaped the world as we confront it today. Global Modernity appears at one level as the end of colonialism, a product of decolonization that has enabled the surge into modernity, as alternatives to colonialist modernity, of the formerly colonized. On the other hand, it may be viewed also as the universalization and deepening of colonialism, in the internalization into societies globally of the premises of a capitalist modernity that was deeply entangled in colonialism, to which there is now no viable alternative. This ambiguity opens up the possibility that what we are witnessing presently—from the transnationalization of capital to human migrations to cultural conflict—is not so much decolonization as the reconfiguration of colonialism as capital is globalized, necessitating the incorporation in its operations of new states that are crucial to global management and a voice for the classes of its creation who provide the personnel for that management. It is remarkable that the destructuring and deterritorialization of earlier regimes of coloniality, rather than putting an end to colonialism, have intensified colonial conflicts—now rephrased as conflicts over globality, “many globalizations,” in the phraseology of a recent volume.29 Earlier colonial structurings of power, including its mappings of both the physical and the social worlds, are still visible in the palimpsest of global geopolitics. They provide both the context and the horizon of global politics even as formerly marginalized states and the subalterns of colonial capitalism enter the fray. One of the 29. Peter L. Berger and Samuel P. Huntington (ed.), Many Globalizations: Cultural Diversity in the Contemporary World (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2002). The title refers to the multiplying efforts in the contemporary world to project national/civilizational values on the global scene. In other words, we are all imperialists now, though we may not be equally good at the undertaking!

culture & history in postrevolutionary china | 56 fundamental contradictions presented by Global Modernity is the reassertion of traditions and alternative ways of knowing, even as modernity’s ways of knowing—represented most cogently by the disciplinary approach to knowledge—spreads globally, accompanying the globalization of capitalism and the transnationalization of production and consumption, their organization, and the social relations they produce, which are increasingly global in scope in their reproduction across national and ethnic boundaries. Global Modernity in this perspective represents the realization of the social and cultural relations of colonial modernity, which presents itself as the point of departure for any historically informed social analysis.30 This is not to suggest that other, non-European, traditions may not serve as reservoirs of values and knowledges with which to amend and enrich modern ways of knowing; but, for better or worse, that is not the same as taking modernity out of the picture by 30. For elaboration, see Arif Dirlik, “The End of Colonialism? The Colonial Modern in the Making of Global Modernity,” boundary 2, 32.1 (Spring 2005): 1–31. The universalization of ways of knowing associated with the political economy of capitalism is most evident in the transformation of higher education globally, for which U.S. universities serve as a direct or indirect inspiration. That what is at issue is not Eurocentrism but the demands of a capitalist economy may be evident in the simultaneous “technologization” and “marketization” of the university. Thus, while jealous of national sovereignty, universities in the PRC have been moving in recent years in this direction. In the two top universities, Beijing and Tsinghua, humanities and social sciences faculty constitute only a quarter of the faculty, indicating the technological domination of the university. See Luo Yan and Ye Fugui, “Reform in Peking University: Reforms of Chinese University System Unveiled,” in Yang Dongping (ed.), China’s Education Blue Book (2003) (Beijing: Higher Education Press, 2004), pp. 124–149. These reforms, which included conversion to instruction in English, proved to be controversial, and have been suspended, but the trends continue. We should note also that U.S., Australian, and European universities, following the lead of transnational corporations, are also transnationalizing themselves by establishing branches abroad. These enterprises, too, place overwhelming emphasis on technical— including business—education. Missionary undertakings of the earlier days of colonialism have given way to the training of a work force to meet the needs of Global Capitalism. The “colonization” here is the colonization of the mind— and of everyday life—with the participation of the natives themselves.

our ways of knowing | 57 an act of will, least of all by intellectuals who are better prepared by their education to participate in Euro/American dialogues on modernity than to serve as representatives of their so-called “cultural traditions.”31 We need to remember also that the present is witness not just to revivals of traditions, but also to an enthusiastic embrace by elites globally of the promises of technological modernity. Even the reassertion of traditions often takes the form of articulating those traditions to the demands of a Global Capitalism. Where there is a stubborn clinging to imagined traditions against the demands of modernity, as in the case for instance of the Taliban in Afghanistan or the Iranian Revolution in its more extreme phases, the result is not acceptance but isolation. On the other hand, those native scholars who seek to “sinicize” or “islamicize” sociology quickly find out that such goals cannot be accomplished without a simultaneous “sociologization” of Chinese values or of Islam.32 The very process of nativization reveals the impossibility of sustaining reified, holistic notions of traditions, which already have been transformed by modernity and appear most prominently as sites of conflict between different social interests and different visions of the modern. Chakrabarty refers to modernity’s “not-yet” deployment of history against the colonized as “the waiting-room version of history.”33 31. Thus a distinguished Chinese academic and a leader in the “national studies” movement writes that Chinese tradition must itself be reinterpreted to accord with the demands of the age, but it contains fundamental ideas that can contribute to the solution of urgent problems. If the emergence of civilizations marked the beginning of the first axial age in the first millennium bc, he suggests, the cooperation of “civilizations” may signal the beginning of a second axial age. See Tang Yijie, “Zai jingji quanqiuhua xingshi xiade Zhonghua wenhua dingwei” (The Establishment of Chinese Culture in the Age of Economic Globalization), Zhongguo wenhua yanjiu (Chinese Culture Research) 30 (Winter 2000), p. 3. 32. See Ma Liqin, “Lun shuli yanjiude Zhongguohua” (Sinicization of Research in Alienation), in Cai and Xiao, Shehuixue Zhongguohua, pp. 191–212, and Nilufer Gole, “Snapshots of Islamic Modernities,” Daedalus 129.1 (Winter 2000), pp. 91–117, p. 113. 33. Chakrabarty, “Provincializing Europe,” p. 9.

culture & history in postrevolutionary china | 58 The same metaphor is used by Agnes Heller in her recent critique of modernity. She writes, “in the modernist view, the present is like a railway station where we denizens of the modern world need to catch one of the fast trains that run through, or stop in this location for only a few moments. Those trains will carry us to the future. Settling in the railway station would have meant stagnation—for them.”34 With the loss of faith in modernity, whose “fast trains ran toward their final destination—Auschwitz and Gulag,” it is no longer possible to sustain faith in modernity’s history. Hence, “the postmoderns accept life on the railway station. That is, they accept living in an absolute present . . . to admit that one is living on the railway station of the present allows for a heightened kind of responsibility.”35 In Heller’s version of the “waiting room” there is no longer a “not yet,” and the colonizers and the colonized all share the same endless temporality, the same fate, and the same responsibilities. As a description of the world, this statement could be dismissed for its obliviousness to continued inequality between societies. The “not yet” has not disappeared from the world of material life or of ideology. If anything, it is arguable that the globalization of the ideology of development has globalized the faith that the good future is yet to come, if we only resign our fates to the promises of technology and capital. I think the statement is important because of the possibilities it offers of thinking against the globalization of this faith, which is perpetuated now in a multiculturalist guise that in its preoccupation with civilizational alternatives in modernity distracts attention from shared predicaments that cut across cultural divides. In this perspective, the so-called “decolonization of the mind” should undertake not an escape from Euro/American cultural hegemony into an imagined national or ethnic culture, but a radical repudiation of this unquestioning faith in development that goes against the evidence of increased marginalization and inequality worldwide that has accompanied the globalization of capital. 34. Agnes Heller, A Theory of Modernity (Oxford Blackwell, 1999), p. 7. 35. Ibid., pp. 9–10.

our ways of knowing | 59

Historicizing the Present: Everyday Struggles and Ways of Knowing It is possible to argue that the current preoccupation with cultures and civilizations is in part an expression of intra-elite conflicts within a globalized political economy. The Malaysian scholar Farish Noor has written with reference to “Asian values” that while most attention is given to elite formulations of Asian values, which stress divisions between East and West, Asian values are produced daily at many levels of society in the struggles of Asian peoples for survival and justice. As he puts it, one could say that while Asian values exist, one must also remember that Asia’s elites are perhaps not the only ones to whom one should turn when one embarks on the search for Asian values. The search for Asian values continues, by Asians themselves, on all levels of society. This search is not only being carried out in the centers of power that dot the Malaysian landscape; it is also happening in the mosques and villages, on the factory work floor and in the plantations, in coffee-shops, at bus stops, and wherever and whenever Malaysians manage to pause a while to contemplate their lot.36

Noor’s stress on the production of Asian values in the processes of daily life is reminiscent of Chakrabarty’s observation in the quotation above that “the global insistence on the ‘now’ . . . marks all popular movements toward democracy.” The “popular movements” Chakrabarty speaks of refers primarily to the peasant populations in India, who were the subjects of the Subaltern historians of whom he is one. I may add here that one of the best-kept secrets of Subaltern historiography is the debt it owes in inspiration to the Chinese Revolution. The Naxalite movement, which provided the political training ground for an earlier generation of Subaltern historians, 36. Farish A. Noor, “Values in the Dynamics of Malaysia’s Internal and External Political Relations,” in Han Sung-Joo (ed.), Changing Values in Asia: Their Impact on Governance and Development (Tokyo: Japan Center for International Exchange, 1999), pp. 146–176.

culture & history in postrevolutionary china | 60 was explicitly Maoist in its orientation, which is confirmed by Ranajit Guha’s reference in the opening essay of Subaltern Studies to the program of New Democracy, which brought Chinese Communists to power in 1949.37 I raise this point here as a reminder of how much is forgotten in the current preoccupation with culture and cultural divides of the origins of our times in the revolutionary movements of the last two centuries which sought to give voice to the voiceless. Where dialogue between traditions is concerned, the distinguished Chinese intellectual and writer Guo Moruo was considerably ahead of contemporary postcolonial intellectuals when back in 1925 he had Karl Marx engaged in a conversation not with Heidegger but with Confucius, which did not do much credit to either of those preeminent representatives of the two civilizations.38 Guo’s story satirized the claims of elites who focused on one another’s curiosities to perpetuate their civilizational claims. What was lost in the process were the problems of the peoples who constituted those civilizations. The problems to which Guo’s short story pointed, which were dramatized subsequently by the revolutionary upheaval in China, haunt present-day consciousness without somehow finding their way into the center of our concerns—as if remembering the problems that revolutionary movements addressed means little more than a nostalgia for the past. There is an uneasiness in contemporary scholarship with the abandonment of modernity’s ways of knowing even as it seeks to overcome the legacies of modernity for its complicity in colonialism at both the global and the national levels. Those legacies served colonialism, but also produced fundamental critiques that have transformed politics globally. If the strategies of containment deployed in the name of modernity may be utilized in 37. Ranajit Guha, “On Some Aspects of Indian Historiography,” Subaltern Studies/I (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1996), pp. 1–9. 38. Guo Moruo, “Mr. Marx Visits the Confucian Temple” (Mashi jin wenmiao), Moruo zixuan ji (Moruo’s Selections from His Works) (Hong Kong: Hsin Yueh Publishing Society, 1962), pp. 377–391.

our ways of knowing | 61 celebration of modernity, the same modernity in its critical guise exposes as a farce efforts at such containment. Modernity has had many consequences; the question is how we choose among them and what kind of knowledge is appropriate to the choices we make. Simply to rail against Eurocentrism, Eurocentric mappings of the world, or Eurocentric histories is not sufficient; in fact, most such criticism ends up reaffirming the very Eurocentric conceptions of the world that they pretend to challenge: a case in point being the rewriting of history as world history, or the remapping of the world in new geographies that do not alter modern histories or geographies in any significant way, but simply confirm modernity’s histories and geographies while pretending to revision by intent. No wonder that they find extensive support in the institutions, including universities, that have come to anchor the cultural domination of the world—if not for the nations in which they are located, then for the corporations and foundations that fund their research, and find in globality a redefinition of their mission for global conquest. Against a seemingly concerted effort to depoliticize culture and knowledge by displacing political questions to the realm of culture, what needs urgent attention presently is the political meaning of the culturalist claims on epistemology. Assertions of cultural difference do not necessarily make for good or desirable politics, as they serve reactionary as well as progressive politics. To take at face value any declaration of difference leaves us at the mercy of ethical and political relativism, as well as of corporate manipulations which seek to define difference. What needs urgent attention is the everyday production of values against a preoccupation with reified notions of cultures and civilizations, as in the case of the “multiple modernities” idea, which perpetuates a hegemonic modernization discourse by other means, or concerns with multiculturalism in the organization of knowledge, which renders into questions of culture complicated questions of class, gender, and ethnic/racial inequality that cut across cultural

culture & history in postrevolutionary china | 62 divides, and require for their reckoning closer attention to the structures of political economy that produce not only the inequalities, but also the mystifications of those inequalities. If we are going to take responsibility for our fates, as the future loses its guarantees, we might want to attend more closely to the ways in which our knowledges, preoccupied to overcome past legacies of inequality, themselves nourish off, and in turn contribute to, new forms of inequality and oppression.

The Triumph of the Modern Marxism and Chinese Social History It was nationalist ferment that launched a new historical consciousness, and a new historiography, in the late Qing period. Conflicts over different conceptualizations of the nation, and corresponding understandings of the nationalist project, since then have continued to animate Chinese historiography. Various nationalist projects, we might observe with slight exaggeration, have called for different histories to justify them and to endow them with the mantle of inevitability. Marxism dominated Chinese historiography during the roughly half century from the late 1920s to the late 1970s, in tandem with a widespread conviction in Chinese politics that a social revolutionary transformation was necessary to the future of the nation. Even more so than its historiographical antecedents and competitors, Marxist historiography was a direct offshoot of the political problems thrown up by the social revolutionary movement of the 1920s. It was already on its way to professionalization by the mid-1930s, and would come to dominate the history profession as politically enforced orthodoxy after 1949. Nevertheless, it remained subject to political intervention and ferment as the demands of social revolution continued to intrude in historical work. Since 1978, Marxism has lost much of its force (and even more of its vitality) as a younger generation has turned to historiographical alternatives more in keeping with a nationalist project that seeks integration in a global capitalist economy. While the legacies of Marxism are still visible in institutions that call in the revolutionary past for their 63

culture & history in postrevolutionary china | 64 legitimacy (above all the Communist Party and the military), and school textbooks continue to present the past in terms of categories derivative of Marxist taxonomies of historical time and social space, most professional historians have moved away from Marxist theoretical positions toward more closely empiricist and textual work that answers intellectually and conceptually to contemporary ideological and cultural concerns with modernization and national identity, as well as transnational cultural trends. While Marxist historical work of the revolutionary years is easily dismissed these days for its openly political intentions and ongoing entanglement in politics, it is important not to lose sight either of the broader intellectual context that endowed Marxist theory and concepts with significance, or the part they played in the production of a new social history, which brought into Chinese historical thinking novel ideas of space and time, and a novel conceptual apparatus that opened up new vistas on society and its functioning—as well as its transformation. Marxist historiography was significant for two other, even more profound, reasons. Postrevolutionary discussions of Marxism in China treat it as an unwelcome intruder in the unfolding of Chinese modernity, if they do not ignore it altogether. It is possible to argue, on the other hand, that whatever its faults otherwise, the ascendancy of Marxist historiography represented the triumph of the modern in historical thinking. If Marxism is to be faulted on the grounds of modernity, it should be not for not being modern or antimodern, but for being too modern; for its uncompromising commitment to the historical consciousness of modernity; commitment to the possibility of a scientific understanding of society; its secular assumption that social development is a product of the inner workings of social structures; its recognition of capitalist society as the point of departure for historical analysis (against its repudiation, for instance, in antimodernist “utopian socialisms”); its prioritizing of technology and the forces of production as motive forces of social development; its intense attentiveness to social relationships as

the triumph of the modern | 65 the fundamental content of history; its modernist appreciation of the contradictions of social development under capitalism as both an unprecedented limitation on human will (“the iron cage,” as Max Weber would view it subsequently) and as a source of liberation, and alienation as a condition of “the experience of modernity.”1 Not the least important aspect of Marxist modernism was its affirmation of the possibility of universal laws in grasping the historical progress of societies globally. These features of Marxism also provided the basic assumptions of Marxist historiography in China at the cost of suppressing the particularities of Chinese historical development. The Marxist understanding of historical development in terms of a succession of internally driven modes of production had another important consequence not anticipated in its universalist assumptions: providing a narrative of national development grounded in social developments far deeper than the more “superficial” succession of dynasties and ideologies. From the perspective of a particularistic nationalism, there was much that was wrong in the imposition on Chinese society of models derived from European-inspired theory. This perspective ignores the implications of the more profound assumption guiding Marxist historiography that the laws of social development were internal to societies, and provided their development with an internal coherence, albeit marked by social divisions and punctuated by dialectical changes over time. Chinese historians in the early part of the twentieth century called for “universal” histories (tongshi) that provided a comprehensive portrayal of Chinese history that would anchor the new national self-image. Unlike the universal histories of the past, with their concern for “the transmission of the way” (daotong) over time, the new secular universal history would take the nation as its unit.2 In his study of nationalism, 1. Marshall Berman, All That Is Solid Melts into Air: The Experience of Modernity (New York: Penguin, 1982). 2. He Bingsong, Tongshi xinyi (The New Meaning of Universal History) (Taipei: Shangwu yinshuguan, 1965), p. 10. First published in 1928. For an overview of efforts to compose universal histories, see Zhao Meichun, Ershi

culture & history in postrevolutionary china | 66 Benedict Anderson wrote that “the idea of a sociological organism moving calendrically through homogeneous, empty time is a precise analogue of the idea of the nation, which also is conceived as a solid community moving steadily down (or up) history.”3 The repudiation of Confucian historiography in the early twentieth century deprived the past of the transcendental purpose implied by “the transmission of the way,” leaving in its wake what Anderson describes, after Walter Benjamin, as “empty, homogeneous time.” Nationalism, more a desire than a reality initially, promised a new temporality, but one that proved elusive. The ferment over history in the early twentieth century was in large measure due to deep disagreement over how to write national history out of the evidence of a past that could not be contained easily in a national narrative. The Marxist conception of society could hardly be described as organismic. But, with its structuralist assumptions that brought together all aspects of society in comprehensive wholes that succeeded one another in time with the inevitability of natural force, Marxism provided a method that endowed national history with an equally compelling inevitability. It also shifted the locus of history to the people, as Liang Qichao had first proposed three decades earlier, who would provide the historical continuity that the national temporality demanded but was missing from the political superstructure, the locus of imperial historiography. Marxists were driven into social analysis in response to the failure of the urban revolutionary movement in the 1920s that had given the fledgling Communist Party premature hopes in the conquest of the revolutionary movement and the state. The initial goal of social analysis was to identify the alignment of forces—especially class forces—so as to draw up a strategy to carry the revolution to shiji Zhongguo tongshi bianzuan yanjiu (Investigation of Universal History Compilations in Twentieth-century China) (Beijing: Zhongguo shehui kexue chubanshe, 2007). 3. Benedict Anderson, Imagined Communities: Reflections on the Origin and Spread of Nationalism (London: Verso, 1991), p. 26.

the triumph of the modern | 67 success. Controversies over the present quickly led to debates over the past that best accounted for the present, as Marxism had already brought with it an acute historicism backed by authoritative claims to a scientifically comprehensible history.4 But while Marxist historiography was a direct offshoot of the revolutionary movement, it answered calls that went back to the nationalist origins of the revolution. As early as 1902, the radical reformer Liang Qichao had written that in order to constitute themselves as a nation, the Chinese people had to see themselves in the mirror of history so as to feel Chinese in the first place. Past histories had failed in this respect as they had concerned themselves only with the rulers. What was needed now was a history of society and the people.5 While there were varieties of experimentation to achieve this goal, it was not until the 1920s that calls for a social history gained in volume—by historians educated abroad who brought back to China the newest trends in Europe and North America. In many ways, Chinese intellectuals were exposed to Marxist ideas in reverse: through contemporary intellectual developments in Europe and North America, of which Marxism already was an integral part in one way or another, back to a confrontation with Marx directly through his texts. Politically, Chinese intellectuals knew more about Lenin than Marx, and knew Marx through Lenin. Likewise, they came to know social history first through contemporary social history, such as the U.S. New History, before they discovered the Marxist legacy that had been integrated into the basic premises of contemporary social history. But the interest in social history was part of a broader social turn in Chinese thinking, as social upheaval brought a new consciousness of social forces from women to workers and peasants, intellectuals 4. Arif Dirlik, Revolution and History: Origins of Marxist Historiography of China, 1919-1937 (Berkeley, CA: University of California Press, 1978), chap. 3. 5. Liang Qichao, “Xin shixueshuju” (The New History), in Yinbing shi wenji, 16 vols. (Taipei: Zhonghua shuju, 1960), vol. 4, pp. 1–31.

culture & history in postrevolutionary china | 68 in revolt against the older elite culture became more sensitive to popular and folk culture, as well as the cultures of the minorities, and the Russian Revolution of 1917 put on the political agenda the issue of a social revolution.6 The idea of a social revolution had been around in Chinese thinking since the early part of the century, but whereas it had earlier denoted an insistence on social restructuring as a fundamental accompaniment to any significant political and cultural change, it now additionally proposed to place the newly visible social forces in charge of the revolution—which may explain why there was a surge of interest in these forces, their structural context, and the part they had played in politics historically. Marxism was a beneficiary of the social turn in Chinese thinking in the post-May Fourth period. It also played an important part in redirecting it. In contrast to the earlier period in which anarchist ideas of social revolution had prevailed, the Marxist idea put far greater emphasis on the social determination of political and ideological activity, making it imperative to understand the configuration of historical forces so as to guide them more effectively into the future, underlining the importance of social history to politics.7

Marxist Historiography: An Overview Marxist history writing in China may be divided into three periods. A first period, 1927–1937, when historical writing was driven 6. See the account by the influential historian Gu Jiegang, a non-Marxist, of his intellectual itinerary in his preface to Gushi bian (Symposium on Ancient History), “Autobiography of a Chinese Historian,” tr. by Arthur W. Hummel (Taipei: Cheng-wen, 1966). See also, Laurence Schneider, Ku Chieh-kang and China’s New History: Nationalism and the Quest for Alternative Tradition (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1971), the essay by Brian Moloughney, and Hon Tze-ki’s important article, “Ethnic and Cultural Pluralism: Gu Jiegang’s Vision of a New China in His Studies of Ancient History,” Modern China 22.3 ( July 1996), pp. 315–359. 7. For the unfolding of social revolutionary thought over the first three decades of the twentieth century, see Arif Dirlik, Anarchism in the Chinese Revolution (Berkeley, CA: University of California Press, 1981).

the triumph of the modern | 69 by questions of revolution and was characterized by debate and diversity of interpretation, which stimulated familiarization with varieties of Marxism as well as historical and theoretical problems in the application of Marxism to Chinese history. A second period of professionalization and extensive historical writing from the mid1930s to the early 1960s, albeit within the framework of enforced orthodoxy, especially after the founding of the new regime in 1949. A third period, the years of the Cultural Revolution through the 1970s, that once again brought revolutionary problems directly into history-writing, led to the maltreatment of an earlier generation of major historians and the repudiation of their historicist Marxism for being too conservative in class issues, and ended up with a theoretical reductionism that in the long run discredited Marxism for its “dogmatism” and its inappropriateness for Chinese history.

The First Phase, 1927–1937 In terms of theoretical diversity and interpretive open-endedness, the first period may have been the most interesting. Grasp of theory was still shallow in the 1930s, and it was subject to revolutionary tendentiousness. It was considerations of revolutionary strategy rather than historiographical thoroughness, moreover, that guided the research that went into the interpretations, which in most cases was hasty and haphazard. Still, debates of this period lay the groundwork in the elucidation of problems in the Marxist interpretation of Chinese history, setting the parameters of interpretation, and producing at least some seminal works of lasting historiographical significance. Two names in particular stand out for their contributions that played an important part in shaping the contours of debate during this period. Tao Xisheng, a Guomindang Marxist often ignored in Communist histories of Marxist historiography, whose extensive works on imperial China opened up new directions of inquiry on issues of historical periodization, capitalism, and feudalism in Chinese history, as well as the study of law, the family, and political thought.

culture & history in postrevolutionary china | 70 The other was Guo Moruo, prominent intellectual and literary figure, influential in post-1949 intellectual life, who broke new ground in the study of ancient society. As noted, these historical discussions of the 1930s had their origins in revolutionary problems prompted by the failure of the urban revolution of 1925–1927, which came to an abrupt end when the Guomindang turned against the Communist Party and cut short hopes of imminent social transformation. These discussions had revolved around the nature of Chinese society, the determination of which seemed to be a crucial prerequisite of further revolutionary change as it was directly pertinent to grasping the alignment of revolutionary forces. Paralleling discussions among the Comintern (Soviet) leaders of the Chinese revolution, the Chinese discussions revolved around the question of whether Chinese society was a feudal or a capitalist society, the answer to which would determine whether or not China was ready for a socialist revolution. An ironic aspect of these discussions was the conversion of rather casual statements by Comintern leaders about forces of feudalism and capitalism into fundamental conceptual issues of Marxism and structural characteristics of Chinese society. In turn, history followed from efforts to bolster claims on the present with the evidence of the past.8 The grounds for controversy were established by Marxists in the Guomindang who claimed in justification of party policy that China was neither feudal nor capitalist but somewhere in between, a view that would find many adherents in subsequent years, and spawn controversy and debate among Marxists over the years. This view most probably originated with the Russian theorist Karl Radek. It found its most articulate spokesman in China in Tao Xisheng (1893–?), an intellectual trained in law, whose influential historical studies published in the late 1920s would establish the contours of the so-called Social History Controversy of the early 1930s. In the 8. See Dirlik, Revolution and History, chap. 3, for further discussion of revolutionary social analysis.

the triumph of the modern | 71 early twenties, Tao was interested in, and wrote on, the relationship between kinship systems and law, influenced by the works of the British legal scholar Henry Maine. He joined the Guomindang in earnest in 1927, and thereafter worked for the party in various academic capacities. It was with his writings on social history that he emerged as an important party theoretician on the left, which in general stood for social change against the right’s insistence on cultural and ideological orthodoxy.9 Like all Marxist historians, Tao took for granted the universalism of the social formations, and their order of development, which Marx had identified within the development of European society. While the exact number and character of the social formations varied depending on where they looked in Marx, and his later interpreters, especially where it concerned the early stages of human development, there was almost uniform acceptance of feudalism as the stage out of which capitalism had emerged. Tao himself changed his views on China’s developmental trajectory more than once as the controversies unfolded, but he held on consistently to the relationship between feudalism and capitalism. The changes pertained rather to the timing of transitions. In the view of those who held contemporary China to be a feudal society (consistent with the Stalinist interpretation that guided the Communist Party, China long had been a feudal society, in most cases beginning with the Zhou dynasty [roughly the first millennium bc]), when there had existed a system that appeared similar to medieval European feudalism that long had been described in Chinese political theory as fengjian, the same term that was employed in the translation of “feudal.” The changes represented by imperial China from the second century bc, not to mention all of the subse9. For further detail, see, Arif Dirlik, “T’ao Hsi-sheng and the Social Limits of Change,” in Charlotte Furth (ed.), The Limits of Change: Essays on Conservative Alternatives in Republican China (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1976), pp. 305–331, esp. pp. 308–314.

culture & history in postrevolutionary china | 72 quent changes, were dismissed in this view as being too insubstantial to qualify as change from one mode of production to another—a proposition that was taken as self-evident since China never had developed into a capitalist society. Those who claimed contemporary China to be capitalist (associated with the Trotskyite position) for the most part went along with this view, arguing, however, that with the coming of Europeans, China had been incorporated into a capitalist world. Tao was not alone in the view that imperial China had left feudalism behind, but had never fully developed into a capitalist society.10 Karl Radek, himself inclined to Trotsky’s views on China, had put forth that thesis in his lectures in Sun Yat-sen University in Moscow, which were well-known to Chinese Marxists. Tao’s addition was to bring a more intimate grasp of Chinese history to the argument. He also differed from Radek, and other Trotskyites, in his contention that while China was no longer a feudal society, and had not been one for a long time, feudal forces still held sway over Chinese politics, and must be the target of revolution. The task of the revolution was political, in other words, not social or economic as it was to those who advocated class struggle of one sort or another. Two theoretical assumptions were key to Tao’s interpretation of Chinese history. One was the use of “extra-economic” (political) means in the extraction of surplus value, made possible by the concentration of political and economic power in the same class, as the defining feature of feudalism, which distinguished it from capitalism. The other was Marx’s category of “commercial capitalism” (as distinct from industrial and financial), as it had been interpreted by the Russian theorist A. Bogdanov. Commercial capital had the power to bring down the self-sufficient economy of feudalism, but it did not necessarily lead to the emergence of capitalism. In the case of China, the regional division of labor had led to the commercializa10. For Tao and the issue of feudal society, see Dirlik, Revolution and History, chaps. 4 and 6.

the triumph of the modern | 73 tion of society as early as the late Zhou dynasty, which had led to the rise of private property, urbanization, and a new class that had replaced the feudal aristocracy of the Zhou. This new class, however, had been different from the bourgeoisie of post-feudal Europe. It had perpetuated the subordination of capital to land by combining commerce with landownership. Capital had never been liberated from land, just as the urban centers remained under the sway of the rural economy. On the other hand, commerce nourished parasitically off regional specialization, periodically destabilizing the system, without the power to establish a new (by definition, capitalist) mode of production. Tao’s interpretations played a seminal part in the controversies of the 1930s, and, in the social-economic issues they introduced, marked new departures in the study of Chinese society, even if later writers dealing with similar issues are quite likely to be incognizant of their origins. His books went through multiple printings (including Japanese).11 To be sure, there were issues of originality (the debt he owed to Radek and Bogdanov) and empirical rigor in these early studies. But Tao stood out among participants in the historical controversies of this period for his persistence in the pursuit of historical questions. In the mid–1930s, as a professor in Beijing University, he directed a center which published one of the first socioeconomic journals in the study of Chinese history, Shi Huo (Food and Commodities Monthly). The theses he put forward in his early works would appear repeatedly in Chinese and Japanese Marxist and postMarxist discussions of Chinese society, as well as the sociologically 11. Most often mentioned were Zhongguo shehuizhi shide fenxi (Historical Analysis of Chinese Society) (Shanghai: Xin shengming shuju, 1929), Zhongguo fengjian shehui shi (History of Chinese Feudal Society) (Shanghai: Xin shengming shuju, 1929), and Zhongguo shehui yu Zhongguo geming (Chinese Society and the Chinese Revolution) (Shanghai: Quanmin chubanshe, 1931). For an evaluation of the significance of these books by a non-Marxist, himself a seminal historian, see Gu Jiegang, Dangdai Zhongguo shixue (Contemporary Chinese Historiography) (Hong Kong, 1964, first published, Nanjing, 1947), p. 100.

culture & history in postrevolutionary china | 74 informed histories of scholars such as Wolfram Eberhard and Karl Wittfogel in Europe and North America (the last two actually visited China and engaged in discussions with Tao in the mid-thirties). They have not disappeared as issues in the historical analysis of Chinese society even though at present they may be framed differently. Tao’s association with the Guomindang made his Marxism suspect from the beginning, and his contributions were disassociated from his name as he faded into relative obscurity with the fall of the Guomindang after 1945. Not so with Guo Moruo (1892–1978), the other major historian of distinction in this first phase, whose version of Chinese history would eventually acquire the status of orthodoxy, especially after 1949.12 Guo was one of the most important intellectual figures not just in Marxist historiography but also in literature and philosophy, and, as head of the Chinese Academy of Sciences from 1949 to 1978, a dominant figure in Chinese intellectual life except for a brief period during the Cultural Revolution. Guo had been educated in Japan from the mid–1910s, and first made his mark in China in the literary movements of the 1920s. He joined the Communist Party in 1927, but returned to Japan immediately after the failure of the revolutionary uprising later that year. He would spend the next decade in Japan. Unlike other participants in the Marxist discussions, Guo displayed little interest in discussions of revolutionary strategy or engaging in revolutionary polemics. The work that brought him into the controversies, Zhongguo gudai shehui yanjiu (Research in Ancient Chinese Society) (Shanghai 1930), dealt with early Chinese history. In the years that followed, it was this same period that held his attention and directed his historical work. It may be ironic, but also an indication of at least one source of the appeal of his scholarship, that Guo’s theoretical orthodoxy, or even dogmatism, matched in its depth his abilities as an empirical sinological scholar endowed with literary sensibilities. He brought 12. This discussion of Guo and the issue of slave society draws on Dirlik, Revolution and History, chaps. 5 and 6.

the triumph of the modern | 75 together in his reading of the past a rigid faith in a technological interpretation of Marxism with the most traditional kind of philological scholarship, the international and the national. Guo’s work was to achieve fame (and notoriety) for its claims that early Chinese history (Shang to Zhou), had witnessed a transition from primitive gens society, dominated by kinship organization, to a slave society comparable to ancient Greece and Rome, which had lasted till the establishment of feudalism within the empire two millennia ago. While different social relations described different historical stages, the transition from one stage to the next was made possible by advances in technology—with copper, iron, more advanced iron technology, and steam having been responsible for evolution through primitive, slave, feudal, and capitalist modes of production. The order, too, permitted no divergence from what the theory demanded. He wrote on one occasion that “the discovery of iron is required by theory to date back to the beginnings of the Zhou; otherwise there would be no way to explain the causes of the advance in agriculture or the great revolutionary changes in Chinese society at this time.”13 As the causation was theoretically determined (as there was no sign of iron at that time), so was the historical order of social formations, as theory demanded that each stage of necessity was a product of the previous one, and producer of the next. Guo’s theoretical pronouncements on the development of Chinese society were more or less superimposed on his empirical scholarship, which focused on the reading of archeological materials from the Shang–Zhou period, most importantly oracle bones and bronzes, that put him in the forefront of historical research. Nevertheless, his theoretical apparatus led him to ask novel questions concerning social and political organization in China during a crucial period of transformation. Guo’s analysis drew for its theoretical inspiration upon the work of Friedrich Engels, especially The Origins of the Family, the State, 13. Guo Moruo, Zhongguo gudai shi yanjiu (Researches in Ancient History) (Shanghai, 1930), p. 127.

culture & history in postrevolutionary china | 76 and Private Property, which itself had based many of its theoretical conclusions on the revelations of Lewis Henry Morgan’s Ancient Society concerning the kinship structures of stateless societies. These works led him to an effort to link transitions in property relations (the rise of private property in slaves), kinship organization (the rise of the family, accompanied by a shift from matriarchal to patriarchal relations), the state (replacing clan organization), and ideology (a transition in views of the relationship of society to nature), all of them prompted by agricultural advances based on the new iron technology. The structural determinism of this interpretation is evident. Nevertheless, it also opened up questions of significance that would be the stimulus for much new research and debate on this period in China and abroad. Guo over the years made adjustments in his arguments, but his account of the history of Chinese society retained the basic structure he had offered in his early work. It would be an exaggeration to claim that the Social History Controversy of the early thirties revolved around Tao Xisheng’s idea of post-feudal commercial society, or Guo Moruo’s identification of Shang–Zhou societies as a slave society. Also important in the controversy was the idea of a “despotic society” or “the Asiatic Mode of Production,” favored especially by Comintern advisors in China, as well as sociologists such as Karl Wittfogel, even after the Soviet leadership had banished it from Marxist discussions by political fiat after 1930. The controversy also provided the occasion for everybody to criticize everybody else, often on the basis of trivial differences. Still, the interpretations of these two authors provided much of the grounds for controversy, and the point of departure in the articulation of alternative schemes of periodization that drew upon different aspects of Marx and Engels’ theoretical formulations. By the mid-thirties, as the debates wound down, there seemed to be some consensus emerging over a four-stage periodization (primitive/gens/Asiatic–slave–feudal–capitalist), as Tao Xisheng inserted a slavery stage in his account, although differences remained over timing, as well as the contending views of imperial Chinese society as

the triumph of the modern | 77 a feudal versus a post-feudal pre-capitalist society. By the end of the 1930s, Guo Moruo’s version achieved ascendancy as the one most consistent with Communist revolutionary strategy.

The Second Phase, Mid–1930s to Early–1960s By the mid-thirties, professional historians of a leftist bent replaced the first generation (not necessarily in chronological age), whose interest in history had grown directly out of their involvement in the revolutionary movement of the 1920s. If the controversies of the early period domesticated the language of Marxism in Chinese historical discussions, it was in this next phase that Marxist historiography bore fruit in the form of major studies of the past, as well as detailed inquiry into various aspects of Chinese society. I have already referred to Tao Xisheng’s activities in Beijing University. Tao and his research group at Beida, including historians who acquired fame in later years as social historians, such as Yang Lien-sheng and Ch’uan Han-sheng, turned to the production of detailed monographic studies of Chinese society. Six out of twenty-five articles included in one of the first major collections of Chinese social history had been published initially in Shi Huo.14 The research group also helped with the collection of materials for Karl Wittfogel’s History of Chinese Society, Liao (907–1135) (Philadelphia: American Philosophical Society, 1949). Tao himself in the mid-thirties published a number of studies of imperial Chinese institutions, as well as a four-volume study of Chinese political thought that was one of the first applications of Marxism to Chinese intellectual history, and one of the first socially based studies of Chinese thought.15 14. E-tu Zen Sun and John de Francis, Chinese Social History: Translation of Selected Studies (New York: Octagon, 1966), published for the American Council of Learned Societies. 15. Qin Han zhengzhi zhidu (Political System of Qin and Han) (Shanghai, 1936), and Zhongguo zhengzhi sixiang shi (History of Chinese Political Thought) (Shanghai, 1937). For evaluations of Tao’s activities during these years, see Teng Ssu-yu, “Chinese Historiography of the Last Fifty Years,” Far Eastern Quarterly

culture & history in postrevolutionary china | 78 The late 1930s and the war years also witnessed the proliferation of historical studies by Marxist or Marxist-inspired historians who would emerge after 1949 as the leading historians of China: Fan Wenlan (1893–1969), Jian Bozan (1898–1968), Hou Wailu (1903–1987), Lu Zhenyu (1901–1980), Bai Shouyi (1909–2000), and Zhou Gucheng (1898–1996), among others. Their works began to appear in print on the heels of the Social History Controversy, proliferating during the Anti-Japanese War (1937–1945). On the other hand, these thinkers were much more thoroughly steeped in theory, and in many cases had received formal education in history and other relevant disciplines such as sociology and economics.16 They, too, were products 8.2 (Feb. 1949), pp. 1–48, and Gu Jiegang, Dangdai Zhongguo shixue. 16. Fan Wenlan was educated as a classical (literally, guoxue, or national learning) scholar at Beijing University in the 1920s. He joined the Communist Party and started studying Marxism in earnest after he moved to Yan’an in the late thirties. He was a favorite of Mao Zedong who praised him on one occasion for his work using Marxism “to settle accounts with classical studies.” (Mao Zedong, “To Fang Wenlan,” in Stuart Schram [ed.], Mao’s Road to Power: Revolutionary Writings, 1912–1949, vol. 3 [Armonk, NY: M.E. Sharpe, 1992], pp. 509–510, p. 509. The letter is dated September 5, 1940.) Some place him on a par with Guo Moruo in his status as a leading historian. Fan served as the chief editor of the four-volume Zhongguo tongshi jianbian (A Condensed Comprehensive History of China) (first edition 1947) that was sponsored by the China Historical Research Association (Zhongguo lishi yanjiu hui), and represented the official party line on Chinese history. After 1949, he would serve as the director of the Institute of History of the newly founded Chinese Academy of Sciences, headed by Guo Moruo. Jian Bozan, of Uighur origin, spent some time in the United States at the University of California in the mid-twenties, where he studied economics and began to read Marx. His many works included Lishi zhexue jiaocheng (A Course on the Philosophy of History) (1938), and the unfinished Zhongguo shi gang (Outline of Chinese History) (1944) in two volumes. After 1949, he taught at Beijing University, where he trained a generation of future social historians. Hou Wailu was educated at the Beijing University of Politics and Law, and Beijing University, and spent three years at the University of Paris in the late twenties. His magnum opus (as chief editor) was Zhongguo sixiang tongshi (A Comprehensive History of Chinese Thought) (1957) in six volumes. He held many posts after 1949, among them head of the History Research Institute, Chinese Academy of Social Sciences. Lu Zhenyu was a student of the famous Marxist philosopher Li Da. He was active in the revolutionary movement of the 1920s. He spent half a year studying economics at Meiji University in Japan

the triumph of the modern | 79 of the revolutionary ferment of the 1920s. Some had been actively involved in revolutionary politics from the 1920s, while others were radicalized by the National Salvation Movement that swept the nation in the mid–1930s in response to Japanese imperialism. Most joined the Communist Party in Yan’an after 1937, although some like Zhou Gucheng were closely associated with the revolutionary wing of the Guomindang (Chinese Peasant and Worker Democratic after the failure of the revolution. He was alone in responding to the Social History Controversy. His seminal work on Chinese “prehistory” challenged Guo Moruo’s periodization of this period, while at the urging of his teacher, Li Da, he wrote his own history of Chinese thought to refute Tao Xisheng’s “irresponsible” analyses in his four-volume history. He was politically active throughout the 1930s, and participated in the Communist-Guomindang negotiations that created the Second United Front. His work was highly appreciated by Mao. In Yan’an, Lu devoted himself to popularizing Marxist history. His posts after 1949 included the presidency of the Dalian University of Technology and a professorship at the Central Party School. Bai Shouyi was a Moslem historian. In addition to his general works on Chinese history, he wrote (or served as the chief editor of ) the first works on Moslem history, helping clarify the origins and meaning of the term hui. He is viewed by some as a founder of ethnic studies in China. After 1949, he participated in the institutional development of historical studies in collaboration with Guo Moruo and Fan Wenlan. With the encouragement of Mao and Zhou Enlai, he turned in the 1960s to the study of Sima Qian and his Historian’s Records, publishing widely on the subject. Jian Bozan’s A Concise History of China and his An Outline History of China were selected in the 1980s for English publication, and contain a flavor of the historical interpretations of the time. Zhou Gucheng alone among these historians (but with Tao Xisheng in the early part of his career) was politically affiliated with the Guomindang revolutionary left. He served in an official capacity in the Chinese Workers and Peasants Democratic Party, as well as a vice-chairman toward the end of his life of the Standing Committee of the National People’s Congress. His Zhongguo tongshi (Comprehensive History of China) (2 vols.), published in 1939, was reprinted nine times by 1947, also serving as a text in a number of universities. Not the least of his contributions was the critique of Eurocentrism in the writing of world history and calls for a “worldbased” world history. Like Tao Xisheng, he used Marxism eclectically, viewing it as a “historical outlook” which, he warned, should not be confused with history. For a recent, detailed examination of the major works of these and other historians,” see Zhang Jianping, Zhongguo Makesi zhuyi shixue yanjiu (An Examination of Chinese Marxist Historiography) (Beijing: Renmin chubanshe, 2009).

culture & history in postrevolutionary china | 80 Party) before and after 1949. Regardless of political affiliation, their radicalism found ideological expression in a nationalism that was infused with Marxism. This ideological orientation also informed their historical work, especially the tongshi (comprehensive history) they produced in the 1940s, which offered the first grand narratives of national formation grounded in struggles of workers and peasants against class and national oppression. Reprinted repeatedly after 1949, these histories have played a crucial role in shaping historical consciousness in China to the present, although they would lose much of their force after the 1980s. There was no end of debate in this second phase, but it no longer had the free-for-all quality of the first phase. Historians were increasingly constrained by limits on the interpretation of Marxist historical theory and the possible choices on the reading of Chinese history that issued from theoretical orthodoxy. Some of it was directly political, as the Communist Party made its own the Stalinist verdict on a five-stage (primitive/slave/feudal/capitalist/socialist) periodization of history universally. But there was another kind of politics as well, a politics of history. The figures just highlighted were foremost among an academic elite that tacitly carried the status of official academics and intellectuals. Debate could occur only within the framework of the agenda they had established—which makes China no different from other places except in the intensity of the hegemony and the range of interpretation possible. That range was established by the five-stage periodization of history. Historians could argue all they liked about the nature of these stages, and when transition from one to the other occurred, but unlike in the controversies of the early 1930s when diversity of political positions was refracted into diverse periodizations and interpretations of the course of Chinese history, debate now was constrained within the framework of a single periodization that assumed the status of political as well as historiographical orthodoxy. There was no shortage of controversy over these years. Controversy continued to rage around the transition from “primitive” gens

the triumph of the modern | 81 organization to class societies of slavery, and subsequently, feudalism. The forms feudalism could assume provided another area of disagreement, as did the formation of the Chinese nation and its ethnic composition. Intense discussion revolved around “the sprouts of capitalism” in Chinese history that had never bloomed into the real thing. Also subject to controversy was the evaluation of historical figures and their ideas to determine their contribution to ideological progress or regress, evaluated according to criteria provided by the progress of class formations and popular struggles in history.17 17. Lu Zhenyu’s disagreements with Guo Moruo over early history have been mentioned. These discussions continued after 1949, fueling and fueled by new archeological discoveries. Discussions over the “sprouts of capitalism” were continuous with the “commercial capitalism” arguments of the earlier period associated with Tao, although there was no acknowledgment of this debt. The question of the forces versus the relations of production, basic to Marxist theory, persisted throughout. Others were products of the post1949 period, and the constraints created by Stalinist orthodoxy—as with the elimination of the category of “Asiatic Society,” which left it to feudalism to contain the problem of a centralized despotic state. For further discussion, see Arif Dirlik, “Social Formations in Representations of the Past: Feudalism in Twentieth-Century Chinese Historiography,” Review (Fernand Braudel Center) 19.3 (Summer 1996), pp. 227–267; Arif Dirlik, “Marxism and Chinese History: The Globalization of Marxist Historical Discourse and the Problem of Hegemony in Marxism,” Journal of Third World Studies 4.1 (Spring 1987), pp. 151–164; Arif Dirlik “The Universalization of a Concept: From ‘feudalism’ to ‘Feudalism’ in Chinese Marxist Historiography,” Journal of Peasant Studies 12.2–3 ( Jan.–April 1985), pp. 197–227; Arif Dirlik, “Chinese Historians and the Marxist Concept of Capitalism: A Critical Examination,” Modern China 8.1 ( Jan. 1982), pp. 359–375; Arif Dirlik and Laurence S. Schneider, “The People’s Republic of China,” in George G. Iggers and Harold T. Parker (ed.), International Handbook of Historical Studies: Contemporary Research and Theory (Westport, CT: Greenwood, 1979); Gregory Blue, “China and Western Social Thought in the Modern Period,” in Timothy Brook and Gregory Blue (ed.), China and Historical Capitalism: The Genealogies of Sinological Knowledge (Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 1997), pp. 57–109; Albert Feuerwerker (ed.), History in Communist China (Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 1968); James P. Harrison, The Communists and the Chinese Peasant Rebellions: A Study in the Rewriting of Chinese History (New York: Atheneum, 1969). Collections of essays considered particularly important by Chinese historians are available in Lin Ganquan, et al., Zhongguo gudai shi fenqi taolun wushi nian, yijiu erqi-yijiu qijiunian (Fifty Years of Discussions on the

culture & history in postrevolutionary china | 82 Fan Wenlan’s Zhongguo tongshi jianbian (Concise Comprehensive History of China) may serve to illustrate the deployment of the five-stage periodization of history, as well as of the strains it placed on the interpretation of the Chinese past.18 While the work was a collective undertaking, Fan provided the interpretive framework which was by no means representative of the views of all historians, if by that we understand some kind of consensus not just over the periodization but its theoretical assumptions. Fan himself repeatedly revised the work in response to the criticisms it provoked. On the other hand, his views were seminal in instigating further research. One historian of an orthodox bent has described it as the first genuinely Marxist comprehensive history of China that opened up “a new stage in the unfolding of Marxist historiography.”19 The same historian writes that while Guo Moruo was distinguished for his stress on the universality of human development, Jian Bozan for propagating Marxist theory, and Hou Wailu for his emphasis on the particularities of China, Fan Wenlan was the most successful in “synthesizing the universal principles of Marxism with the special characteristics of Chinese society,” probably not coincidentally the same formula that is used to describe Mao Zedong’s sinicization (Zhongguohua) of Marxism.20 Fan divided Chinese history—specifically, the history of the Han nationality—before the nineteenth century into three stages.21 The Chinese History, 1927–1979) (Shanghai: Renmin chubanshe, 1982); Editorial Department of Historical Research (Lishi yanjiu), Jianguo yilai shixue lilun wenti taolun juyao (Selections from Discussions of the Question of Historical Theory) ( Ji’nan: Qilu shushe, 1983); Editorial Department of Historical Research, “‘Lishi yanjiu’ wushi nian lunwen xuan (Fifty Years of Historical Research: Selections) (Beijing: Shehui kexue wenxian chubanshe, 2005); Xiao Li (ed.), Zhongguo lishixue sixi nian, 1949–1989 (Forty Years of Chinese History, 1949–1989) (Beijing: Catalogues and Documents Publishers, shumu wenxian chuban, 1989). 18. (Beijing: Renmin chubanshe, 1954). 19. Zhang, Zhongguo Makesi zhuyi shixue yanjiu, p. 155. 20. Ibid., p. 312. 21. China had never reached the fourth stage of capitalism, and the fifth

the triumph of the modern | 83 period from the discovery of Peking Man to the end of the third millennium bc constituted the primitive stage, when the area subsequently known as China had been occupied by a collection of tribal societies at various levels of development and with different cultural characteristics. The tribes were grouped under different names in different parts of the area. They were organized internally into communes (gongshe). This was a society of “small welfare” (xiaokang), without private property and classes. The legendary rulers of traditional historiography, the Three Sovereigns and the Five Emperors (sage emperors of Confucian historiography, traditionally dated in the first half of the third millennium bc) were tribal ancestors who had played an important part in the organization of primitive society which reached its zenith in the middle part of that millennium.22 Primitive society was transformed beginning toward the end of the third millennium, culminating in the slave society of Shang China in the second millennium bc. The transition occurred during the (still legendary) Xia dynasty (roughly the middle of the third millennium bc to the middle of the second) when division of labor, private property, inheritance (including of the tribal leadership) all appeared with the advance of production and exchange. In this society that already was agricultural, slave labor advanced in importance while the domain of the commune shrank. This period also witnessed the consolidation of a central political power with a hereditary ruler for the first time. It was with the Shang dynasty (sixteenth century–1066 bc) that the slave mode of production became fully entrenched. The advance in production due to the replacement of stone by metal tools in agriculture played a major part in this transformation. Herding still played a major part in the economy, but agriculture advanced a pace, accompanied by advances in handicraft production and commerce, thanks to private agriculturalists who already existed side by side with slave production.23 stage, socialism, still lay in the future. 22. Fan, Zhongguo tongshi jianbian, vol. 1, pp. 81–107. 23. Ibid., pp. 107–125.

culture & history in postrevolutionary china | 84 Class struggles of slaves against slave-owners would ultimately bring the Shang down, ushering in the feudal system, which would persist for the next three thousand years. The history of the feudal system comprised more than half of the first volume and the following three volumes of Zhongguo tongshi jianbian. In order to account for the significant changes during this period, Fan divided the feudal system into four stages, or rather three stages with the final stage divided further into two sub-stages.24 Fan’s detailed account distilled the multifaceted changes of this long historical period into transformations in class structure that provided the criteria for distinguishing one stage from another. What justified the description of this long period as “feudal” was the persistence of certain relationships—most importantly, landowners in various guises dominating a class of cultivators who also assumed a variety of guises—namely, independent producers, serfs, and slaves. Fan’s account eschewed a teleology of development; significant transformations during this period, especially the last thousand years, which witnessed the emergence of a highly commercialized society, did not prevent the recurrence of certain features of the primary (or leading) relationship in land, some going back to the early Zhou, as independent producers on the emergence with commercialization were periodically reconverted into serfs and slaves. To summarize, the first stage corresponded to the Zhou dynasty, stretching across the first millennium bc. Zhou feudalism was closely integrated with the zongfa (kinship) system, and was characterized by an aristocracy whose power derived from clan ownership of land, on the one hand, and serf labor that replaced the slaves of Shang, who now coexisted with free laborers as well as remnants of the former slave class. The second half of this period witnessed the emergence of a landlord class that challenged the power of the feudal aristocracy, which itself was heavily stratified and prone to 24. Fan introduced a “fourth stage” in the revised edition of 1954 in response to criticisms of the first edition. Ibid., p. 13.

the triumph of the modern | 85 internal conflict. The serfs brought their own class struggle into these conflicts, in the process gradually liberating themselves to join the swelling numbers of independent cultivators. These struggles also created the tendency toward political unification as the many states of the early Zhou were reduced to the seven major states of the Warring States period (fifth to third centuries bc), and ultimately the establishment of a despotic unified empire under the Qin dynasty, which, Fan argued following a statement by Mao, was quite dissimilar to the unified nation-states under capitalism in retaining feudal characteristics of the previous period. Nevertheless, it was in the early part of this period, when the term Zhongguo was first used to refer to the central states, that national consciousness appeared. This consciousness was class accentuated. While the ruling class continued to identify themselves then and in ensuing years through ruling houses (dynasties), it was among the people that a consciousness of the nation (Zhongguo) took root. Unification under the Qin ushered in the second stage of feudalism, which would last until the Sui dynasty (sixth to seventh centuries ad). The Qin was followed in short order by the Han dynasty, which in its four centuries of existence (late third century bc–end of second century ad) created a new gentry class through its official ranking system. By the end of the Han, this new class consolidated its power through “gentry clans” (shizu), which became the new units of landownership as they expanded their landholdings by expropriating the free peasants who were once again converted into dependent serfs and slaves. Struggles among clans led to another period of disunity, followed by invasions of non-Han ethnic groups that once again led to the disintegration of central political power during the Northern and Southern dynasties. The situation was brought to an end by reunification under the Sui dynasty (589–618 ad), followed by the Tang (618–early tenth century ad), which initiated a third stage of feudalism. Despite political turmoil, the preceding centuries had witnessed economic expansion, especially with the settlement of the south. The Tang also redistributed the land to re-create a class of

culture & history in postrevolutionary china | 86 peasant producers. Economic expansion brought with it increased trade, especially trade with the outside world, further contributing to flourishing economic activity during the Song period (mid-tenth century to 1275 ad, divided into two further periods as the Song were forced to the south with pressure from ethnic groups in the north, culminating in the Mongol invasions and the founding of the Yuan dynasty, 1275–1368 ad). The establishment of the examination system, and its gradual opening up to lower ranks of the gentry and the commoners—including commercial groups by the Yuan dynasty— expanded the social basis of the imperial government. Following the overthrow of the Yuan by the Ming (1368–1644), succeeded by the Qing (1644–1911), Chinese society entered the fourth and final phase of feudalism. The consolidation of centralized despotic power during this period was accompanied by significant economic developments, including enormous advances in handicraft production that signaled “the sprouts of capitalism.” The new ruling class participated in landownership as well as commerce. Among the ruled, tenancy in land was added to the earlier three forms, pointing to further commercialization of landed relations, although commercialization, especially in handicraft production, could also lead to the resurgence of slave labor. Capitalism, however, never emerged, as the invasion of China by imperialism from the mid-nineteenth century created instead “a semi-colonial semi-feudal economy.” Although Fan’s was not the only comprehensive history to be guided by Marxism and Marxist inspiration, his detailed account of Chinese history in four volumes was indeed a significant accomplishment in carrying to a new historiographical level—in both the research involved and the complexities of argument—the rereading of the past that had been initiated by the early generation of Marxist historians. His work has been lauded for its theoretical flexibility, its recognition of complexity in its structural analysis of social forces and spatial variations, its attentiveness to features of Chinese society that differed from what was anticipated in Marxist theory, and its criti-

the triumph of the modern | 87 cal acumen in its evaluation of historical figures and events for both their positive and negative contributions to China of the present. Fan did indeed use theory flexibly, departing also from the strictures of Stalinist historiography with its suggestion of technological determinism. In using class structures as criteria for delineating one historical period from another, he privileged social relations and agency. Still, he refused to give primacy to either the forces or the relations of production as motive forces of historical change, arguing that their role as motive forces of history varied historically. He also approached the past in its complexity. Han society was also differentiated spatially, at different levels of development, which was further complicated by the coexistence of different ethnic groups in the constitution of China. He also recognized that class relations could be complex. Not only were classes internally differentiated, but a multiplicity of class formations could exist simultaneously, even if one formation of necessity had a dominant part in defining the nature of the social formation as a whole. Throughout, finally, he insisted on a historicist attitude toward the past: that the past had an ambivalent relationship to the present, and needed to be approached on its own terms in order for a proper evaluation of its historical role.25 Some of these features of the work were no doubt products of Fan and his collaborators as historians. While the work stuck to an emerging orthodoxy in the periodization of the past,26 how social 25. In his revised edition, he acknowledged that a fundamental weakness of the first edition had been its “anti-historicism” (fei lishizhuyi). Zhongguo tongshi jianbian, vol. 1, pp. 5–6. 26. For variant deployments of the five-stage periodization by other distinguished historians, see the works published in English by the official Foreign Languages Press, Jian Bozan, Shao Xunzheng, and Hu Hua, A Concise History of China, 2nd ed. (Beijing: Foreign Languages Press, 1981, first published in 1964), and Yang Zhao, Fang Linggui, Cong Shuduo, and Zhu Zhongyu, writers, Bai Shouyi, editor, An Outline History of China (Beijing: Foreign Languages Press, 1980).

culture & history in postrevolutionary china | 88 formations differed from one another internally, and how and when one social formation was replaced by another were matters of intense discussion to which the study contributed its own particular version (which challenged Guo Moruo, among others). Theoretically, Fan was willing to stretch Stalinist categories as far as they could go. It is hard to say if his earlier training in classical studies played an important part in his treatment of past figures, as the ambivalence toward them also coincided with the current ideological orientations of the party in the 1940s. Methodologically speaking, these “virtues” of the book were not just personal, but characterized Marxist historians’ efforts to reconcile the past to the demands of theory. “Seeking truth from facts,” as Fan described his attitude,27 did not always lend its support to the demands of theory, which is visible not only in the tendentious reading of data but also in the contortions of theory. The contradictions motivated a search for data that did indeed yield important results in revealing the complexities of Chinese society. The tendentious reading and contortions of theory were products of effort to contain these complexities within the strictures of theory. The two went hand in hand. One thing we may observe, safely, I think, is that the Comprehensive History was a work informed by Mao’s views on history as he saw them in accordance with the new orientation of the party under the sign of New Democracy. At the heart of New Democracy was “the integration of the universal principles of Marxism-Leninism with the concrete circumstances of Chinese society,” which also guided the work of historians such as Fan, as he himself readily conceded as his theoretical orientation. His work not only insisted on the relevance of the past in understanding the present, as Mao had stressed since the late thirties, but also Mao’s pronouncements on the evaluation of the past, which should not be just negative but adopt a historicist attitude that would measure their worth and con27. Fan, Zhongguo tongshi jianbian, vol. 1, p. 7.

the triumph of the modern | 89 tribution to regress or progress in accordance with the standards of the prevailing mode of production at the time. Perhaps the most important expression of the nationalist turn in Marxism was Fan’s account of the emergence of national consciousness in Chinese history, which diverged explicitly from Stalin’s view of nationalism as a product of modern bourgeois society and, simultaneously, the model of development derived from European history. Unlike in Europe, Fan argued, nationalism in China had come into existence with the consciousness of Zhongguo as a cultural space. The consciousness, moreover, was strongest among the common people, especially the oppressed peasants, who had been joined on occasion by the progressive members of the ruling classes, but “the working people were the masters of history.”28 Fan’s narrative wove together peasant struggles against oppression with the formation of the nation, without, however, denying a role to the progressives from other classes, which might be described as the New Democracy vision on the present and the past. Therein lay its importance as a marker of a new stage in Marxist historiography.

The Third Phase, The Cultural Revolution These complexities, however limited by the historical framework of the five-stage development into which they were forced, were to become unacceptable during the next, Cultural Revolutionary phase of Marxist historiography, when the demands of immediate revolutionary upheaval, this time directed from the top against the party itself, and its Marxist intellectuals, once again intruded in historical work, forcing it into the service of a revolution against “class enemies.” Already in the 1960s a controversy had erupted over “historicism versus class standpoint,” which accused a former generation of Marxist historians of being insufficiently class conscious, and 28. Ibid., pp. 48–63. Both the need for water control and the development of a national market had provided a foundation for unity.

culture & history in postrevolutionary china | 90 hiding their reactionary longings behind their ambivalence toward the identification of class positions in the past.29 The ideological turn did not put an end to historical work but narrowed the scope of inquiry and demanded stringent limits on interpretation.30 The five-stage periodization remained as the framework of history, as did the nationalism of an earlier historiography, but emphasis now was on the class struggles of the people against their rulers, which did away with the complexities required by a more structural orientation to the past and more structured grasp of the social categories of Marxist theory. Evaluation of the past in clear-cut terms of class allegiance, often with an eye on the present, replaced more complicated socially-based analysis of cultural figures and questions, including history. Marxist historians of an earlier generation seemed complicit in this view in the reemergence of the ideological hegemony of a new class that sought to restore pre-Revolutionary social relations. At least in the case of one prominent historian, these attacks resulted in tragedy. In 1968, the distinguished historian Jian Bozan committed suicide, accompanied by his wife. In hindsight, Jian’s death also signaled the end of the dominant and hegemonic place Marxism had held in Chinese historiography for nearly four decades. When historical work resumed in the 1980s, amidst the repudiation of revolution and opening up to the world, Marxism was quickly overtaken by competitive paradigms that drew upon liberal historiography in the contemporary West, modernization discourse in particular, as well as pre-Marxist native historiography, including classical studies.

29. Arif Dirlik, “The Problem of Class Viewpoint versus Historicism in Chinese Historiography,” Modern China 3.4 (Oct. 1977), pp. 465–488. 30. Judging by the explosion of publications in the 1980s, there was probably a good deal of unpublished research accumulated during these years.

the triumph of the modern | 91

Concluding Observations: The Legacy As Marxism became an integral aspect of the Chinese search for modernity, it also served as the primary medium through which modern historical consciousness, thinking, and practices entered Chinese modernity. Undue preoccupation with the shortcomings of Marxist historiography inevitably results in underestimation of its historical significance both in shaping historical consciousness and historical practice. For forty years, Marxist interpretations dominated the historical domain that had first been opened up with the stirrings of nationalism, but remained vacant, and alienated from the present, until Marxism once again made possible a coherent and comprehensive account that linked together the past and the present, state and society, social classes, ethnicities, ideologies, and so on and so forth. If the totalism was overdone, the structural links it called for made possible a new reading of the past that grounded it in social and economic processes. Rethinking the past in terms of these processes not only yielded new perspectives on previously unseen aspects of it, but also called for novel kinds of investigation. For all their ideological constraints, Marxist historians opened up broad areas of new research in all aspects of society, from everyday life to philosophy, that now had to be rethought in terms of the structural relationships that informed them. Their legacies continue to shape research to the present, and their work serves as a reminder of how contemporary Chinese historiography, in pursuing alternatives to the Marxist past, also abandons at a price questions that were deemed crucial to the realization of a revolutionary vision.31 Where Marxist historians failed also tells us something about the limitations of the vision that guided them. Their faith in a teleological vision of history, where all societies had to follow a prescribed path through clearly marked stages if they were to reach the universal end of socialism, required a universality of historical development as well, 31. Judging by the explosion of publications in the 1980s, there was probably a good deal of unpublished research accumulated during these years.

culture & history in postrevolutionary china | 92 which at the same time rendered Marxism from a theory to a model of human development. Derived from a particular history, the model in its universalization forced reexamination of the past, but also its reevaluation against a scale it provided, with foreordained results, since it was based on European historical development, which obviously had not been replicated elsewhere. As China had never developed into capitalism, its history appeared as a failed history, rather than possibly an alternative path of development. The empirical complexities historical research uncovered were contained within the categories of the model, which obviated the need to examine them in terms of different possibilities of historical development. This was evident in the treatment of issues of China as a “feudal” society, both in its origins in the early Zhou and in its resistance toward the end to “the sprouts of capitalism.” It is important to remember that two senses of “feudal” persisted in these discussions in the combination of the Marxist notion of feudal, derived from European history, and the Chinese term for it, fengjian, that had a history of its own in Chinese thought, referring to a decentralized system that recognized the autonomy of local officials, in whatever guise they had assumed historically. But the system in its fullness was located in the early Zhou dynasty, the same period when historians located the emergence of feudalism in its Marxist sense. Historians like Guo and Fan were perfectly aware of the difference. Guo warned against the confusion. Fan, like Tao before him, noted a fundamental difference of fengjian from European feudalism. “The fengjian system and the kinship (zongfa) system are inseparable,” he wrote.32 The difference this made was significant. Unlike European feudalism, theoretically based on contract, fengjian in China was grounded in the kinship system. That this might make for a different trajectory in subsequent history, however, was beyond consideration under the universalist assumptions of the develop32. Fan, Zhongguo tongzhi jianbian, vol. 1, p. 37. For Guo’s views, see Dirlik, Revolution and History, pp. 148–149.

the triumph of the modern | 93 mental formula. So were all the changes through the formation of the empire, and its internal transformations. The society that had come into existence by the late empire, a clearly commercialized society, could not be recognized for what it was, since the end of feudalism could come only with the formation of capitalism, which had not existed in China. The best that could be managed was to endow the society with the status of “sprouts.” We must be careful in associating this teleology too closely with Marxism. While the categories may be Marxist, the teleology of capitalism is by no means an exclusive characteristic of Marxism. It is also a central assumption of modernization discourse, of which Marxism may be viewed as a variant, if only as a postcapitalist variant. Substitutes for Marxism since the 1980s have not done much better in this regard. An alternative to Marxism published in the 1980s assigned to Chinese history three thousand years of persistence and stagnation, which was not much different from three thousand years of feudalism, despite the author’s substitution of “systems theory” for Marxism. The same sense of failure informs works inspired by modernization discourse, in which the glories of past development do not conceal the failure in taking the final step to capitalism. More positive assessments of the past still revise the past to underline the presence of elements in it that may have been forerunners to the contemporary, postsocialist, success with capitalism, rather than alternatives to Euromodernity. They recognize the important part played by incorporation in the capitalist world-system in shaping contemporary China, yet insist on the autonomous development in the Chinese past of the very same forces that went into the making of capitalism in Europe, which are now finally flowering in a globalized China.33 33. The systems analysis was by Jin Guantao and Liu Qingfeng, whose book, Xingsheng yu weiji: Lun Zhongguo fengjian shehuide chaowending jiegou (Prosperity and Progress: On the Ultra-Stability of the Structure of Chinese society) (Changsha: Hunan renmin chubanshe, 1984), enjoyed immense popularity in the 1980s as a non-Marxist explanation of the “super-stability” of Chinese society.

culture & history in postrevolutionary china | 94 Unlike in the past, what seems to receive the most attention presently are not the social relations that went into the making of different societies even under the regime of Euromodernity, but science and technology that, having made possible the vanguard role Europe played in the breakthrough to modernity, are transferable from one to another society, spreading modernity around, creating the possibility of other societies assuming leadership roles in its unfolding. Simultaneously, interest has waned in “the masters of history,” the working people, as working people have lost their political importance and been marginalized economically except as mere producers rather than heroic proletarians and peasants. The once “feudal” culture that held back Chinese modernity has made a comeback with a vengeance as the source of Chinese modernization, and the guarantee of its success, stability, and national characteristics. Marxism persists in historical circles, but only as one current among others, and not the most important among them. If it persists as historical outlook and method, it will do so in a different guise than in the past—most likely alongside of, and perhaps even as a component of, different approaches to the past.34 This may blur its identity, but also have beneficial results in rendering theory from a purveyor of developmental models into a heuristic tool of analysis, for For one of the first important applications of modernization discourse to Chinese society (within a world perspective), see Luo Rongqu, Xiandaihua xinlun: shijie yu Zhongguo de xiandaihua jincheng (A New View on Modernization: The Process of Modernization in the World and China) (Beijing: Beijing daxue chubanshe, 1993), and Dong Zhenghua, Shijie xiandaihua jincheng shiwu jiang (Fifteen Lectures on the Process of Modernization of the World) (Beijing: Beijing daxue chubanshe, 2009). For a recent perspective on the process of modernization in Europe, see Qian Chengdan, “Constructing a New Disciplinary Framework of Modern World History around the Theme of Modernization,” Chinese Studies in History 42.3 (Spring 2009), pp. 7–24. 34. For an honest, and illuminating, account by a senior historian of the intellectual and ideological challenges of these changes to the generation of Marxist historians trained in the 1950s–1960s, see Jiang Dachun, “Contemporary Chinese Approaches to Historical Research and the Development of the Marxist Conception of History,” Chinese Studies in History 38.3–4 (Spring–Summer 2005), pp. 114–157.

the triumph of the modern | 95 which there are precedents in the history of Marxist historiography in the work of historians such as Tao Xisheng and Zhou Gucheng. This may also open up Marxism to contemporary developments in historical consciousness that call for closer attention to the many internal and external interactions that produced “China” (among others) in all its social and cultural complexity, empowering historical work to transcend the ideological horizon set by the spatial and temporal teleology of the nation. Equally important may be the implications for Marxism of the new attentiveness in historical work to the part everyday activity and struggles played in the production of structures to complicate the dynamics of the structuring of the everyday by the workings of economic, social, and political processes; social history from the bottom up, so to speak, which Marxist historians insisted on but which in their work usually took a back seat to the determination of metahistorical structures. Marxism should also benefit from the challenge to all historical work presently of the possibility of alternative trajectories to modernity within a common history of global interactions. It may indeed be better prepared to meet this challenge than other historical approaches by virtue of its long-standing theoretical concern with processes and structures—so long as it is willing to qualify the preoccupation with the immanence of development, which assumes ever greater complexity as the recognition of blurred boundaries calls into question distinctions between inside/outside that have been crucial to the delineation of the social, political, and cultural units of history. Finally, coexistence with other theoretical approaches to history may force Marxism to subject itself to the same critical analysis demanded by theory as it applies to its ideological and methodological competitors. This is not possible so long as Marxism claims to hold the key to scientific truth, rather than conceives of itself as a mode of historical interpretation informed by its own particular vision of human society, whose claim to validity lies not with the worth of its aspirations but with its ability to provide guidance to the future without denying human complexity.

Confucius in the Borderlands Globalization, the Developmental State, and the Reinvention of Confucianism The decade of the 1980s witnessed a number of remarkable reversals of what we had taken earlier to be fundamental trends in global history. The so-called Confucian revival must be counted among these reversals. For more than half a century, Chinese and foreign scholars alike condemned Confucianism to the proverbial “dustbin” of history as an ideology rendered defunct by Chinese progress toward modernity, be it under capitalism or Communism. Beginning in the early eighties, Confucianism was to reappear as a central ideological concern. For the past three decades, the airwaves over the Pacific, from Singapore to the headquarters of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences in Washington, D.C., have been filled with talk of Confucius. Confucius has gone global over the last decade with the establishment of state-sponsored Confucius Institutes around the world. In the meantime, popular television shows reminiscent of “New Age” philosophizing in the United States have rendered Confucianism into a diffuse constituent of Chinese popular culture.1

1. For the propagation of Confucianism in popular television series on Confucianism, see Yu Dan, Confucius from the Heart: Ancient Wisdom for Today’s World, tr. by Esther Tyldesley (New York: Atria, 2009). A discussion of popular Confucianism in action is to be found in Sébastien Billioud and Joël Thoraval, “The Contemporary Revival of Confucianism: Anshen liming or the Religious Dimension,” China Perspectives 3 (2008), pp. 88–106. 97

culture & history in postrevolutionary china | 98 My interest in this discussion is in the historical and ideological circumstances surrounding the revitalization of Confucianism from the late 1970s. It is arguable that the beginning of “reform and opening” in the People’s Republic of China (PRC) was a major stimulant to the Confucian revival, but the revival began outside of the PRC, among Chinese societies overseas, and it derived powerful stimulus from non-Chinese scholars and policy makers, only gradually reaching the PRC in the late 1980s. At issue initially was the relevance of Confucianism to the development of Eastern Asian societies, which by the late 1970s constituted a third core of the capitalist world economy (in addition to Europe and North America), and its importance in the definition of a Chinese or Eastern Asian identity. Discussions of Confucianism would take a scholarly turn from the 1990s, culminating in the reestablishment of Confucian studies as an independent academic discipline over the last decade, accompanied by its resurgence as a formative moment of popular culture. Official backing and the cultural nationalist turn of the 1990s since then have endowed the Confucian revival with a new significance. Some of this I will discuss with reference to the “guoxue fever” (guoxue re) of the last decade or so. The relationship of guoxue to ruxue is a problematic one, as I will argue, but it is safe to say I think that while guoxue benefited from the prestige Confucianism had acquired in the 1980s, it also has come to serve as a vehicle for the promotion of the latter. I am not concerned in this discussion with technical philosophical issues of Confucianism but with the ideological meaning of the Confucian revival in the 1980s. I am not a specialist on the history of Confucian philosophy; but then technical philosophical issues came into play at the time only occasionally, and then mainly to call into question the whole enterprise of the Confucian revival.2 The discussions, rather, were guided by a concern with the ideological/ social relevance of Confucianism in the contemporary world. As 2. For a comprehensive discussion, see John Makeham, Lost Soul: “Confucianism” in Contemporary Chinese Academic Discourse (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2008).

confucius in the borderlands | 99 such, they enable us to inquire into two fundamental questions of contemporary cultural criticism: the place of non-Euro/American intellectual traditions in the contemporary discourse on culture, especially in its postcolonial variety, and the question of Orientalism. Both questions, needless to say, are also related to the reconfiguration of global cultural relations with the globalization of modernity. The disciplinary turn over the last decade raises a new set of questions that are not to be reduced to ideology, but it is arguable that it has benefited from the ideological prestige that accrued to Confucianism beginning in the 1980s for its alleged part in Eastern Asian development, of which the People’s Republic of China has emerged as one more manifestation since the 1990s. If anything, Confucianism as the cultural and intellectual embodiment of Eastern Asian, but especially Chinese, identity has come to command even more universal acceptance since the 1980s, and serves to inform arguments for the possibility of an “alternative modernity.” It is not surprising then that ideological considerations of cultural survival and identity should continue to play a significant part in the legitimation of ruxue or guoxue as academic disciplines.3 The Confucian revival since the 1980s is best viewed as a manifestation in Eastern Asia of a global postcolonial discourse. To my knowledge no one participating in the discussions on Confucianism utilized this label in self-description, but that signature term for the postcolonial condition, “borderlands,” was indeed used on one oc3. For discussion of guoxue as a “branch of learning,” see the panel discussion by the heads and participating professors of a number of guoxue institutes, “Guoxue shi yimen xueke” (Guoxue is a branch of learning), Guoxue xuekan (Research in the Traditions of Chinese Culture) 4 (Dec. 2009), pp. 5–12. It is significant, given the claims on guoxue as a repository of national culture and learning, that most of the discussion is directed at the necessity, desirability, and possibility of a discipline of guoxue. The justification is informed by the need for a holistic approach to past learning not as a substitute for but in addition to its distribution in existing departments of history, literature, and philosophy. The discussion also concludes that guoxue is justified by popular demand as well as global intellectual trends. The defense mounted here suggests indirectly opposition to guoxue on disciplinary as well as political reasons, both academic and otherwise.

culture & history in postrevolutionary china | 100 casion to describe the New Confucianism by one of the participants, to whom I owe the title of this chapter.4 For the same reason, the Confucian revival reveals more cogently than any other instance of postcolonial recuperation of native pasts (and the simultaneous challenge to Eurocentrism) of the ideological pitfalls of postcolonial criticism, especially the possibility of ideological complicity in the very structure of power that is the object of criticism. I have argued elsewhere that while postcolonial criticism in the form that it has received attention seeks to challenge inherited structures of power, it does so by articulating new cultural configurations under Global Capitalism. In the case of the Confucian revival, the relationship to contemporary structures of power is direct and explicit, as what is being revived is the ideological legacy of societies that can claim recent ascendancy within Global Capitalism, and in some measure are responsible for creating the practices that characterize Global Capitalism. By implication, the Confucian revival also calls attention to the fact that cultural “borderlands,” the location for postcolonial intellectuals, are inhabited not just by radical literary and cultural critics but also by intellectuals who are culturally every bit as complex but serve as brokers of power within the new configuration of capitalism, to which “borderlands” are essential not as cultural metaphors but as the locations for actual production and exchange relations. “Borderlands” may serve as metaphorical locations for liberation; they serve also as sites for negotiation between diverse ideologies of power in a world where Eurocentrism has lost its credibility.5 The Confucian revival is also revealing with regard to the ques4. Sam Yamashita in The Confucian World Observed: A Contemporary Discussion of Confucian Humanism in East Asia, ed. by Tu Weiming, Milan Hejtmanek, and Alan Wachman, (Honolulu, HI: East West Center, 1992), p. 128. This volume, which I will cite frequently below, is a report on a workshop. The authors are identified by comments, not by individual contributions. 5. For these observations, see Arif Dirlik, “The Postcolonial Aura: Third World Criticism in the Age of Global Capitalism,” Critical Inquiry 20 (Winter 1994), pp. 328–356, and After the Revolution: Waking to Global Capitalism (Hanover, NH: University Press of New England, 1994).

confucius in the borderlands | 101 tion of Orientalism, which postcolonial criticism has announced to be a thing of the past. If essentialist notions of culture (with regard to the “Orient”) have anything to do with Orientalism, the Confucian revival shows that far from being dead, Orientalism may have emerged victorious in the age of Global Capitalism. Basic to the Confucian revival is an effort to propagate a disembodied Confucianism, without historical or social context, that reproduces the essentializing procedures of Orientalism, this time by the “Orientals” themselves. The articulation of such a “Confucianism” to a hegemonic global discourse of capitalism brings Orientalism into the center of global power not in objectification of the “Orient,” but in the very glorification of orientalized subjectivities as a universal model for emulation. Some of the participants in the discussions of Confucianism raised these questions, if not in the terms in which I present them here. Before I return to these questions by way of analysis, it is necessary to outline briefly the context of the discussions, and the themes that have informed them, which are related closely and, by the admission of the most fervent proponents of Confucianism, signify the Confucian revival as a contemporary discourse. I will conclude with a discussion of the ways in which this discourse is marked by the very contradictions of power relations under Global Capitalism that it seeks to overcome and to disguise.

The Death and Resurrection of Confucianism Confucianism, of course, was never dead but appeared to be so against the teleology of modernization in both its Communist and capitalist forms, which have shaped conceptualizations of modern Chinese history in China and abroad. This teleology drew its credibility from the evidence of history. Already, before the Republican Revolution of 1911, Confucianism faced a fundamental crisis as the bureaucratic monarchy it legitimated proved unable to cope with the unprecedented challenges of Euro/American capitalism and the

culture & history in postrevolutionary china | 102 internal social changes it set in motion. The fall of the monarchy in 1912 deprived Confucianism of the institution that for a millennium had provided it with a concrete embodiment, also exposing it in its ideological nakedness as a source of China’s problems. The crisis reached its height during the May Fourth period (late teens and early twenties) when Confucianism came under full-scale attack from a new generation of Chinese intellectuals who held it responsible for the most basic political and social problems of Chinese society, in the process calling into question the role Confucianism had played in sustaining an oppressive family structure that now appeared as the “source of ten thousand evils” in its suppression of women and its extinction of independence and creativity on the part of youth. Intellectual efforts to salvage Confucianism by articulating it to modern values of Euro/American origin seemed to serve only to further undermine it by compromising its integrity as a coherent philosophical system, until little remained of Confucianism but an emotional attachment to its memories as a symbol of Chinese culture which no longer was intellectually relevant in the contemporary world. Political manipulation of Confucianism by militarists and unscrupulous politicians in these same years, rather than reviving Confucianism, contributed further to the deterioration of its reputation.6 This account of the “tragedy” of Confucianism is persuasive from the perspective of a Eurocentric modernizationism, which was also the perspective of the radical Marxist and liberal intellectuals in China who played a major part in discrediting Confucianism. That Chinese intellectuals obviously suffered from an “identity crisis” enhanced its appeal; preoccupation with China’s relationship to the “West,” with continuity and discontinuity between the present and the past, and how to reconcile a parochial nationalism necessary to survival to the memories of universal empire have been staples 6. The classic statement of this view is in Joseph R. Levenson, Confucian China and Its Modern Fate: A Trilogy (Berkeley, CA: University of California Press, 1968). This statement has been quite worrisome to Tu Weiming, the foremost advocate of Confucianism in the eighties.

confucius in the borderlands | 103 in modern Chinese thought. Above all, the account had the backing of the two most powerful theories of modernity, Marxism and Weberianism. Marxist historiography in China attached ideology to social formation. In the case of Chinese history, it suggested that Confucianism had been the ideological expression of a “feudal” period that had lasted for an inordinately long duration (almost three thousand years), and within that period it had articulated the interests of the “feudal” ruling class. It would, therefore, inevitably die a natural death as China became capitalist and communist, breaking with the past through the agency of new social formations. The very “mechanicalness” in the Chinese Marxist treatment of ideology served well where Confucianism was concerned; Confucianism could be preserved as a mark of Chinese national identity, but only in its relegation to a condemned past. This historicization of Confucianism, Joseph Levenson suggested, reconciled “history” and “value,” and successfully resolved the identity crisis that had been created by the ambivalent relationship to the past. In his memorable metaphor, Confucianism had been placed in a “museum,” preserved for posterity without interfering in the task of modernization.7 Equally, if not more, devastating for the fate of Confucian China was the Weberian diagnosis. In his inquiry into the origins of capitalism, Max Weber had focused on the role ideological factors played in the origins of capitalism. Having discovered in China’s past most of the material prerequisites for the emergence of capitalism, Weber was to decide that what held China back in the end were ideological factors. In his classic statement contrasting Confucianism (and Daoism) with the Puritan ethic, to which he assigned a key role in the development of capitalism in Europe, he wrote: The Chinese lacked the central, religiously determined, and rational method of life which came from within and which was characteristic of the classical puritan. For the latter, economic success was not an 7.

Ibid., vol. 3, pp. 76–82.

culture & history in postrevolutionary china | 104 ultimate goal . . . but was a means [for serving God. . . .The Confucian] gentleman was “not a tool”; that is, in his adjustment to the world and his self-perfection he was an end unto himself, not a means for any functional end. This core of Confucian ethics rejected . . . training in economics for the pursuit of profit. . . . Confucian rationalism meant rational adjustment to the world; Puritan rationalism meant rational mastery of the world.8

If Marxist historiography relegated Confucianism to the past, to gather cobwebs in the museum, Weberianism implied the necessity of abandoning Confucianism if China were ever to develop capitalism or, more euphemistically, to modernize. Weber’s are foundational texts of modernization theory, and in their various restatements his views have provided the basis for the liberal historiography of China which, no less than the Communist, has condemned Confucianism as a backward legacy of a stagnant past. I quoted the statement above at some length, and in the form it appears in one of the recent discussions of Confucianism, because it enunciates a position that the Confucian revival challenges explicitly. The problem with this account of the modern fate of Confucianism is that it is a little bit too “convenient.” Having postulated that against the onslaught of “Western” values Confucianism could have no role to play but that of a symbol of nationalist “emotional” attachment, it may then dismiss as mere emotional attachment any effort to cope with Confucianism as a living source of intellectual values. Its plausibility depends ultimately on a single fundamental premise: unilinear modernization after the model of the “West,” whose values must emerge dominant universally as societies modernize (or perish). This assumption was challenged in China even as Confucianism came under widespread attack during the May Fourth period. While 8. Max Weber, The Religion of China (New York: Macmillan, 1951), as quoted in Hung-chao Tai, “An Oriental Alternative: An Hypothesis on Culture and Economy,” in Hung-chao Tai (ed.), Confucianism and Economic Development: An Oriental Alternative? (Washington, D.C.: Washington Institute Press, 1989), pp. 6–37. See p. 9 for the quotation.

confucius in the borderlands | 105 some Chinese intellectuals were fervent Westernizers, others saw in the unthinking emulation of the West the path to disaster, pointing out that if science and democracy (the two slogans of radical modernizers) were valuable products of Western modernity, so was the unprecedented devastation caused by World War I.9 These same intellectuals would in ensuing years engage in efforts to find some reconciliation between “Western” and “Chinese” values, out of which would emerge what has come to be called “New Confucianism.” Unaware that their attachment to Confucian values might be out of emotional nostalgia or, if so aware, unmindful of it, the New Confucians beginning in the 1930s reaffirmed the “intrinsic worth” of the Confucian tradition, and sought a reinterpretation of Confucianism as an “ethicospiritual” system of values that could accommodate science and democracy. Dismissed by their intellectual opponents as “conservatives” in the vein of late Qing Confucians, the New Confucians are better described as antimodernists who called into question the positivism of “scientistic” modernization, and refused to identify modernization with Westernization, calling for a Chinese modernity (by the 1930s, they were not the only ones doing so). That their concern was not merely salvaging Confucianism out of nationalist sentiments (of which they were suspicious) is evident in their interests in Buddhism, as well as other contemporary critiques of modernity, such as Gandhi’s in India. Some were also socialists, albeit of an anti-Communist type. The names associated with New Confucianism include major intellectuals of twentieth-century China: Xiong Shili, Feng Youlan, Liang Shuming, Qian Mu, Mou Zongsan, Tang Junyi, Zhang Junmai, Xu Fuguan, and so on. The last four named were signatories of the 1958 declaration, “A Manifesto to the World on Chinese Culture,” published in Hong Kong, that 9. This was the conclusion drawn by Liang Qichao after a visit to Europe in the aftermath of World War I. Liang was influential on some of the later New Confucians. For his views on Europe, and an alternative Chinese modernity, see Xiaobing Tang, Global Space and the Nationalist Discourse of Modernity: The Historical Thinking of Liang Qichao (Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 1996), especially chap. 5.

culture & history in postrevolutionary china | 106 constituted a major statement of New Confucianism.10 The point here is that far from being dead, Confucianism was the source of considerable intellectual vitality over the years, and the object of reinterpretation and reinvention in what Chang Hao has described as the search for meaning in modern China.11 If the New Confucians were relegated to the margins of modern Chinese history in the consciousness of historians (and many Chinese), the reasons may have less to do with Confucianism than with the consciousness of historians. Crucial I think was the teleology of a unilinear modernization, in both its Communist and capitalist versions, which cast by the wayside, at best as a curiosity, any questioning of its forward march. While Mao Zedong himself sought to create an alternative Communism and, therefore, an alternative modernity, the implicit assumption of unilinearity continued to inform Communist ideology, which refused to brook any competition, especially from Confucianism (hence Confucius was chronically pulled out from the museum, and beaten into a pulp). Secondly, and no less significantly, 10. For discussions of the development of the New Confucianism, see John Makeham (ed.), New Confucianism: A Critical Examination (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2003). See also the essays by Chang Hao and Tu Weiming in Charlotte Furth (ed.), The Limits of Change: Essays on Conservative Alternatives in Republican China (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1976), pp. 276–302 and pp. 242–275, respectively. For a summary and discussion of the 1958 Manifesto, see Liu Shu-hsien, “A Critical Review of Contemporary NeoConfucian Thought with a View to Modernisation,” in Tu Weiming (ed.), The Triadic Chord: Confucian Ethics, Industrial Asia and Max Weber (Singapore: Institute of East Asian Philosophies, 1991), pp. 377–396. For the complete Manifesto, see Carsun Chang, The Development of Neo-Confucian Thought (New York: Bookman Associates, 1962), vol. 2, pp. 455–483. In light of my criticism of the “Confucian revival,” I would like to note here that the absence of these “New Confucian” writings from most compilations on modern Chinese thought is one more evidence of the ideological limitations of the field of Chinese studies. 11. Chang Hao, “Intellectual Crisis of Contemporary China in Historical Perspective,” in Tu, The Triadic Chord, pp. 325–356. This is a problem that Chang has pursued in his various writings. See also his essay in The Limits of Change and his important book, Chinese Intellectuals in Crisis: Search for Order and Meaning, 1890–1911 (Berkeley, CA: University of California Press, 1987).

confucius in the borderlands | 107 New Confucian intellectual activity was literally located after 1949 in peripheral Chinese societies such as Taiwan and, even more marginally, Hong Kong, which carried little significance as centers of intellectual activity when all attention was focused on the People’s Republic of China. The reversal in the fortunes of Confucianism in the eighties came with the reversals in its economic, social, and political (I am tempted to say spatial) conditions. What was to change almost overnight was not the content of Confucianism, but the evaluation of that content with respect to the question of modernity. In the philosophical premises of its most active agent, Tu Weiming, the Confucian revival was direct heir to the reinterpretation of Confucianism by the New Confucians (this is not to imply that it is bound by the latter). But overnight, what had hitherto been viewed as an obstinate obstacle to Chinese modernity was to be transformed into a dynamic force of modernity for others to emulate. In their origins as well as discursive structure, recent discussions of Confucianism are informed by a new historical situation, which not only helps us understand why a previously marginalized Confucianism has moved to the center of ideological attention, but also justifies the description of these discussions as a “revival.” The origins of the revival coincided with the retreat from revolutionary Communism in China following the death of Mao in 1976, which was to create a crisis in that historical paradigm that had been based implicitly on the teleology of the revolution. Even more important, perhaps, the retreat from revolutionary Communism on the Chinese mainland coincided with the emergence to the forefront of consciousness of the other Eastern Asian economies of the so-called “Sinic” area, led by Japan and followed by the “Four mini-Dragons,” including in addition to South Korea the three Chinese societies of Taiwan, Hong Kong, and Singapore, whose economic success would rapidly be projected upon all the diasporic Chinese populations scattered over the globe (in the United States, “the model minority”). In a literal sense, then, where China was concerned, the peripheries

culture & history in postrevolutionary china | 108 took over from the center, especially as Communist China moved toward the emulation of the economic success of societies on its periphery. The claims in these peripheral societies to Confucian sources for their development were in no small measure responsible for the sudden attention given to Confucianism in the United States, not just among scholars but among the public in general, especially the managerial public in charge of global corporations. But this was not the whole story. The evident crisis of Communist societies in the 1980s helped disguise a simultaneous crisis of capitalism: the emergence of powerful Eastern Asian economies at a time of stagnation in the earlier capitalist core (with visible signs of decline in the United States) was to undermine the Eurocentric teleology of capitalism as well, giving rise by the end of the decade to the idea of globalization. If the economic success of these societies was an enabling factor in a self-confident reassertion of Confucian identity, the self-assertion gained a hearing rapidly in the context of a capitalism that was itself undergoing a transformation, and the sense of crisis that accompanied the transformation. Global Capitalism, in search of an ideology to correspond to its apparently new “de-centered” structure, was to find in the Confucian option one possible alternative to its new and not-so-new needs. While the Confucian revival may have been heir philosophically to earlier discussions of Confucianism, its point of departure was this global situation, and it was located initially not in any Chinese society but in the United States. The question of capitalism, its new situation, and its contradictions, also structured it as a discourse. Proponents of Confucianism readily conceded the origins of the revival in the flourishing of the Eastern Asian economies and texts produced in the United States linking the “miracle economies” to their Confucian heritage. According to Tu Weiming, especially important among the latter were the works of futurologist Herman Kahn and the sociologist Peter Berger.12 Other authors often cited 12. Tu Weiming, “The Confucian Dimension in the East Asian Development Model,” in Chung-hua Institution for Economic Research,

confucius in the borderlands | 109 in connection with these origins were Roderick MacFarquhar (for “post- Confucian societies”), Roy Hof heinz and Kent Calder, Edwin Reischauer (for the “Sinic” area), Michio Morishima, William Ouchi, Ezra Vogel, et al. The works these authors wrote or edited were for the most part published right around the beginning of the decade of the eighties.13 A Korean scholar has written that the “overnight transformation of scholarly opinion [on Confucianism] is unparalleled in the modern evaluation of any traditional society or religion.”14 Perhaps the same could be said of the intensity of organized scholarly activity that accompanied this transformation. Beginning in the early eighties conferences on Confucianism and/or Eastern Asian culture became part of the annual ritual of scholarship on Eastern Asia, often more than one per annum, located mainly in the United States and the Chinese or predominantly Chinese states of the People’s Republic of China, Taiwan, Hong Kong, and Singapore (with the participation of representatives from Japan and Korea). These conferences produced volumes of discussions of Confucianism, the great majority on the question of the relationship between “Confucianism and modernization.” One scholar observed that in the People’s Republic of China alone, over one thousand articles on Confucianism were published in the decade of the eighties.15 It may be no exaggeration to point to the discussions of Confucianism as one of the most prolific intellectual industries of the decade. This activity had global repercussions, arousing the interest of intellectuals, according to Peter Berger, from Jamaica to Senegal.16 Like the Pacific region idea to which it was not unrelated, Conference on Confucianism and Economic Development in East Asia (Taipei, 1989), pp. 63–86, p. 63. 13. The Confucian World Observed, “Preface.” 14. Koh Byong-ik, “Confucianism in Asia’s Modern Transformation,” Korea Journal 32.4 (Winter 1992), pp. 46–64, p. 47. 15. Lin Tongqi in The Confucian World Observed, pp. 126–127. 16. Peter Berger, “An East Asian Development Model?” in Peter Berger and Hsin-huang Michael Hsiao (ed.), In Search of an East Asian Development Model (New Brunswick, NJ: Transaction Books, 1988), pp. 3–11, p. 5.

culture & history in postrevolutionary china | 110 the scholarly activity around Confucianism was a foremost instance during the decade of intellectual discourse creating its object. Proponents of Confucianism readily point to the popularity of the subject, but neglect to elaborate on the debt such popularity owed to the part played by official and semi-official sponsorship, without which the intense activity of the eighties might well have been impossible (it does cost a great deal, after all, to organize international conferences and symposia that draw on scholars from across the Pacific, sometimes the whole globe). Most remarkable may have been the part played by Singapore. In early February 1982 Premier Lee Kwan Yew proclaimed to a Chinese New Year’s gathering the importance of inculcating Confucian values in children.17 Already in the late 1970s the Singapore government had been “considering the injection of more Asian values into the school curriculum as a means of countering the Western ‘cultural onslaught’ on the young.”18 When Goh Keng Swee became minister of education in 1979, The “Goh Report” compiled under his auspices recommended a new “moral education” curriculum for the schools. In February 1982, the same month that Lee Kwan Yew had offered his pronouncement, Minister Goh announced that Confucian education would be offered as an option in moral education. The following summer, after having consulted in person with Tu Weiming of Harvard and Yu Ying-shih of Yale, Goh invited to Singapore eight foreign specialists on Confucianism (all but one from the United States) to advise the Singaporean government on the design of a Confucian curriculum. In the words of Wang Mong Lin, director of the Curriculum Development Institute of Singapore, “as Confucian ethics was a field which we were not familiar with and since we wanted to ensure 17. Shee Poon Kim, “Confucianism in Singapore: Issues of Identity,” in Joseph P. L. Jiang (ed.), Confucianism and Modernization: A Symposium (Taipei: Freedom Council, 1987), pp. 269–281, p. 269. 18. John Wong and Aline Wong, “Confucian Values as a Social Framework for Singapore’s Economic Development,” in Conference on Confucianism and Economic Development in East Asia, pp. 503–533, p. 521.

confucius in the borderlands | 111 that the right approach was used to teach the subject, eight Confucian scholars were invited from abroad in 1982 to help draw up a conceptual framework for the syllabus.”19 As well as being included in moral education, Confucianism appeared “prominently” on the research agenda of the Institute of East Asian Philosophies that was established the following year “to promote and re-interpret Confucianism.” The institute quickly “developed into a centre for Confucian scholars the world over to conduct research on various aspects of Confucianism.” “Singapore Incorporated,” the successful “global city” where before 1979 “Confucianism was not even a topic for public discussion” emerged quickly as a promoter of Confucianism.20 By the mid-eighties, a Confucian formation was visible as Taiwan, Hong Kong, and the People’s Republic of China quickly emerged as sites in an expanding network of conferences on modernization and Confucian and/or Eastern Asian culture. The Republic of China on Taiwan had all along staked its legitimacy as an alternative government of China on its faithfulness to “traditional Chinese culture.” That it should join in the promotion of Confucianism was neither new nor an occasion for much surprise. Hong Kong, still a colony and, like Singapore, devoted above all things to making money, was at first sight an unlikely candidate as a Confucian center until it is remembered that the Chinese University of Hong Kong long had been a major center of New Confucianism (New Asia College had been established in 1963 by the conservative scholar Qian Mu). Hong Kong also commanded a strategic position as a location in which intellectuals from the People’s Republic of China and the Republic 19. Ibid., pp. 521–523. For Wang’s statement, see, Tu Weiming (ed.), Confucian Ethics Today: The Singapore Challenge (Singapore: Curriculum Development Institute, 1984), pp. ix–x. This volume contains speeches, accounts of meetings, and interviews from the 1982 visit of the specialists, as well as a curriculum design by Tu Weiming. 20. Wong and Wong, “Confucian Values as a Social Framework for Singapore’s Economic Development,” pp. 523 and 517, respectively, for the quotations. For “Singapore Incorporated,” see, Thomas J. Bellows, “Bridging Tradition and Modernization: The Singapore Bureaucracy,” in Tai, Confucianism and Economic Development, pp. 195–223, p. 214.

culture & history in postrevolutionary china | 112 of China could get together so long as formal political restrictions precluded other locations. Given the popularity of Confucianism in contemporary China, it is easy to forget that the People’s Republic of China had for three decades been the bastion of anti-Confucianism. The first Confucianism conference was held there in 1978, coinciding to the year with the beginning of the retreat from revolution. In subsequent years, conferences on Confucianism were held annually. In 1984, a “Confucian Foundation” was established on the occasion of the “2,535th birthday” of Confucius. In 1985, Beijing University sponsored, with the blessings of the secretariat of the Communist Party, the establishment of the International Academy of Chinese Culture. The sixth conference on Confucianism to be held in the People’s Republic in 1987 was organized jointly by the Confucian Foundation and the Singapore Institute of Eastern Asian Philosophies. In 1989, the 2,540th birthday of Confucius was celebrated by a conference organized jointly by UNESCO and the Chinese Confucian Association (Zhonghua Kongzi xuehui). In 1991, the Chinese Association for the Study of the History of Sino-Japanese Relations (Zhongguo ZhongRi guanxi shi xuehui), jointly with the Japanese embassy in Beijing, held a conference on “Eastern Culture and Modernization,” planning for which had started in 1989. A Sino-Korean conference on Confucianism was held in August 1994, and another conference jointly organized by the Association for the Promotion of Chinese Culture and UNESCO in fall 1994. In the meantime, publications (including journals) on Confucianism and Eastern Asian culture proliferated.21 It is in the Chinese societies of Eastern Asia that this activity was the most visible. As far as I am aware, there was no comparable activity in Japan and South Korea, the latter by common acknowledgment (and the self-identification of its population), “the most 21. Song Zhongfu, Zhao Qihui, and Pei Dayang, Ruxue zai xiandai Zhongguo (Confucianism in Modern China), 2nd ed. (Zhengzhou: Zhongzhou gujie chubanshe, 1993), pp. 352–361.

confucius in the borderlands | 113 Confucian society” in Eastern Asia.22 It is worth noting, however, that coinciding with the promotion of Confucianism in the Chinese states, the South Korean government too began to promote Confucianism, though there, self-aggrandizement on the part of dictatorial politicians seems to have been a prominent reason. One reason Confucianism retained formal power in South Korean society is the support given to formal organized Confucian institutions by the former aristocratic classes (the yangban). According to Kim Kwang-ok, President Pak Chung-hee, who had earlier ridiculed Confucianism for its inconsistency with his modernization plans, decided to give it his support when he realized during his election campaign the political power of the former aristocrats.23 A discussion of official/semi-official sponsorship would be woefully incomplete without reference to the part United States academics and institutions played in the revival. Not only were United States scholars responsible for drawing attention to possible links between modernization and Eastern Asian culture, but their statements in this regard set the agenda for the new discourse on Confucianism. ChineseAmerican scholars, led by Tu Weiming, were to play a crucial part in 22. Koh Byong-ik, “Confucianism in Contemporary Korea,” in Tu, The Triadic Chord, pp. 184–196. 23. The Confucian World Observed, pp. 96–98. In 1990, the prestigious journal Shisō in Japan published a special issue on “Confucianism and Asian Societies.” One contributor noted caustically that “recently, the value of Confucianism has rebounded in the stock market of explanatory paradigms.” See, Kurozumi Makoto, “The Nature of Early Tokugawa Confucianism,” tr. with an introduction by Herman Ooms, Journal of Japanese Studies 20.2 (Summer 1994), pp. 331–375, p. 337. (I am grateful to my colleague Andy Gordon for bringing this article to my attention.) Meanwhile in Korea, one scholar suggests, “Confucianists are increasing and their voices are gaining in popularity.” A major conference organized by the Academy of Korean Studies in June 1994 was well-attended and addressed similar issues, but with emphasis on Korea (e.g., Confucianism and “Korean-style management”). See Cho HaeJoang, “Constructing and Deconstructing ‘Koreanness’ in 1990s South Korea,” paper presented at the conference, “Configuring Minority/Majority Discourse: Problematizing Multiculturalism,” East-West Center, Honolulu, HI, Aug. 11–13, 1994 (cited with the author’s permission).

culture & history in postrevolutionary china | 114 the promotion of Confucianism. As a visiting professor at Beijing University in 1985, Tu Weiming played an important part in stimulating interest in Confucianism, with his talks published in several compilations. Tu and others (mostly from Harvard) were also involved with the American Academy of Arts and Sciences project, “The Rise of East Asia.” The United States connection has been important also in extending discussions of Confucianism into international organizations, as far away as the Vatican.24 There was good reason to think, as one commentator suggested, that the Confucianism of the most recent Confucian revival was an “American” Confucianism. Official sponsorship does not necessarily imply official control of views expressed in these conferences. Indeed, official motivations in sponsoring this activity differed according to context, and government leaders, as in the case of Pak Chung-hee, often displayed a skeptical if not cynical attitude toward the Confucian enterprise.25 On the other hand, participants in the conferences were anxious not to toe any official line. Scholars from Taiwan, Singapore, and South Korea in particular stood out in the discussions for their skepticism on any connection between Confucianism and modernization and, where they acknowledged such a relationship, were usually critical of its consequences. Nevertheless, the activity represented a particularly egregious instance of collaboration between state and intellectual discourses, and if the desired effect was to assert an Eastern Asian/ Chinese ideological presence in contemporary capitalism, it was successful in achieving this goal. The content of the Confucian revival may help us better understand the implications of this activity, which, in its very contradictions, stands as a signpost in the formulation of an ideology appropriate to an emergent Global Capitalism.

24. The Confucian World Observed, “Preface.” 25. The same has been observed of Singapore. See Wong and Wong, “Confucian Values as a Social Framework for Singapore’s Economic Development,” p. 517.

confucius in the borderlands | 115

Eastern Asia, Capitalism, and Confucianism The voluminous literature produced by the Confucian revival rehearses basically the same question: the relationship between Confucianism and the successful “modernization” of non-Communist Eastern Asian societies over the last three decades. In spite of the acknowledgment of most participants that the question is capitalism rather than modernization, insistence on the use of the latter term is revealing of the attitude toward the question of development that pervades the discussions, which is rooted in the identification of modernity with capitalism that long has been a premise of modernization discourse. The question of the relationship between Confucianism and capitalism usually has taken one of two forms that need to be distinguished, even if in their underlying thrust both questions seek to affirm a function for Confucianism within capitalism: (1) Is Confucianism functional to the development of capitalism? and, (2) Does Confucianism have a part to play in alleviating the dysfunctions of capitalism? I will discuss these questions separately. Also deserving of separate treatment are efforts to inject into the discussions a philosophical note that contrasts with the positivism of the above questions. Tu Weiming was the most prominent representative of this effort. Given Tu’s role in the whole Confucian revival, a special comment is necessary on his views on Confucianism, which are also revealing of how earlier interpretations of Confucianism (in particular that of the New Confucianism) have been restructured in their interpellation into a new discourse on Confucianism and capitalism.

Confucianism as an Alternative Capitalism The turn of the decade of the eighties witnessed a proliferation of publications on Eastern Asian modernization, which almost uniformly postulated some connection between the flourishing of Eastern Asian economies and their common cultural legacy, identified more often than not with Confucianism. Discussions of Confucianism in

culture & history in postrevolutionary china | 116 the eighties single out one work above all the others as having played a seminal role in raising the question of the relationship between Confucianism and the Eastern Asian “challenge”: Herman Kahn’s World Economic Development: 1979 and Beyond. Along with another book of Kahn’s published the same year, The Japanese Challenge, his World Economic Development would play a significant part in bringing Eastern Asian development to center stage in considerations of the future of capitalism. The influence of the book was not merely, or primarily, academic. Already in 1978, a special edition of World Economic Development had been rushed into print for discussion at the 1978 Congress of the International Chamber of Commerce and was of great help, according to the president of that organization, “in dealing with the real world.”26 Kahn’s book was significant above all for confronting directly the crisis of development. Against the “pessimists” who sought to slow down growth or “stop the world” in order to solve the problems of capitalism, the book offered an argument in favor of continued growth. As Kahn put it in his introduction: This book argues for rapid worldwide economic growth, for Third World industrialization, and for the use of advanced (or at least appropriate) technology. It suggests tactics and strategies to facilitate all of these objectives. However, the desirability of increasing economic affluence and technological advancement is under such broad and intense attack today that some defense seems necessary. Indeed, so much smoke has been generated that many observers incorrectly believe there must be a raging fire.27

Against the “malaise” of the advanced industrial and the stagnation of the socialist worlds, Kahn gave prominence to Taiwan and South Korea as examples of “heroic” development ( Japan, too, was included, but with a qualification that the Japanese economy already faced serious institutional problems). These societies exemplified 26. Herman Kahn, World Economic Development: 1979 and Beyond (New York: Morrow Quill, 1979), “Preface,” p. xvii. 27. Ibid., p. 3.

confucius in the borderlands | 117 “the special relationship between the neo-Confucian cultures and the rapid emergence of a super-industrial world economy”: The current relatively high morale, commitment and managerial and economic competence of the first two [Taiwan and South Korea] also provide a stark and useful contrast with what is going on in almost all of the Advanced Capitalist nations— including Japan. One of the most impressive achievements in all three countries is that their rapid growth has been accompanied by an increasingly egalitarian income distribution, a feat many economists previously considered impossible for a non-Communist developing nation. Almost all their populations have contributed to the national achievement and have shared in the gains. All three have unquestionably been “heroes” of development.28

Kahn described himself, and his approach, as “culturist” or “neoculturist” (“neo-” because “we believe in the basic adaptability of cultures as well as their tendency to resist basic changes”).29 In the case of Eastern Asian societies, this meant that, “when the old molds of the different subcultures of the Sinic area were sufficiently modified (but not destroyed), each could begin to choose its own path to industrialization.” This is what had happened since World War II, which had “turned inside out” the conventional wisdom that Chinese could not industrialize to read, “The Chinese can industrialize under any and all circumstances.”30 “Neo-Confucian societies,” according to Kahn, registered “higher growth rates than other cultures,” because of two related sets of characteristics imbedded in the “Confucian ethic”: “the creation of dedicated, motivated, responsible, and educated individuals and the enhanced sense of commitment, organizational identity, and loyalty to various institutions [be it “the family, the business firm, or a bureau in the government”].”31 “Neo-Confucian cultures” had great advantages over the “Puritan 28. 29. 30. 31.

Ibid., p. 329. Ibid., p. 123. Ibid., p. 119. Ibid., p. 122.

culture & history in postrevolutionary china | 118 ethic” in a modern society that faced problems of equity and organizational efficiency. Kahn’s reference to the “puritan ethic” is revealing of the broader theoretical implications of his diagnosis of the relationship between “Neo-Confucian cultures” and development. He stated this explicitly when he wrote that most readers of this book are familiar with the argument of Max Weber that the Protestant ethic was extremely useful in promoting the rise and spread of modernization. Most readers, however, will be less familiar with the notion that has gradually emerged in the last two decades that societies based upon the Confucian ethic may in many ways be superior to the West in the pursuit of industrialization, affluence, and modernization.32

In his Escape from Predicament: Neo-Confucianism and China’s Evolving Political Culture, published in 1977, Thomas Metzger had offered a critique of Weber’s ideas on Chinese development by a new reading of tensions within Confucian thought. In the discussions of the eighties, the reconciliation of Eastern Asian development to Weber’s theoretical formulations were to emerge as a central concern, with results that were in accordance with the times but nevertheless with profound implications: a challenge to Eurocentrism in the development of capitalism. While almost every discussion of Confucianism had some reference to Weber, the anti-Weber challenge came to be associated most closely with another “Western” authority, the sociologist Peter Berger. In his “An East Asian Development Model?” Berger stated, on the evidence of Eastern Asian development, that “a Western-centered perspective [on modernity] is no longer adequate.”33 Eastern Asian development “reopens the questions, in an astonishingly fresh way, about the relation of modern capitalism and culture that preoccupied Max Weber. . . . Weber wrote extensively on Asia, notably China and India, concluding that Asian cultures and religious 32. Ibid., p. 121. 33. Berger, “An East Asian Development Model?” p. 4.

confucius in the borderlands | 119 traditions were deeply uncongenial to modernization. I think one may say today, quite simply, that Weber was wrong.”34 Berger’s views on Eastern Asian development did not differ significantly from those of Kahn. Like Kahn, he used as the basis of comparison advanced capitalist societies, advanced socialist societies, and Eastern Asian societies as the “three test tubes” in the laboratory of modernization, helpful in understanding not just Eastern Asia but the whole problem of modernity. Eastern Asian societies were distinct in that they had created rapid development “with diminishing income inequality.” Government had taken an important leadership role, but development had involved and benefited the entire population. “East Asia,” even in its most advanced sectors, continued to adhere to “values of collective solidarity and discipline” that were in striking contrast to the “West.” These achievements were best explained by the “post-Confucian hypothesis,” the prevalence in societies of the “Sinic civilization” of “Confucian” or “post-Confucian ethics”: It is inconceivable to me that at least some of the Confucian-derived values intended by the hypothesis—a positive attitude to the affairs of this world, a sustained lifestyle of discipline and self-cultivation, respect for authority, frugality, an overriding concern for stable family life—should not be relevant to the work ethic and the overall social attitudes of the region.35

Berger went further than Kahn, however, in historicizing “Western” capitalism: “Could it be that East Asia has successfully generated a non-individualistic version of capitalist modernity? If so, the linkage between modernity, capitalism and individualism has not been inevitable or intrinsic; rather, it would have to be reinterpreted as the outcome of contingent historical circumstances.”36 The question seems to have been somewhat rhetorical, as Berger was prepared to “contend” that “these countries are sufficiently distinct, as compared 34. Ibid., pp. 6–7. 35. Ibid., pp. 7–8. 36. Ibid., p. 6.

culture & history in postrevolutionary china | 120 with the West, that one is entitled to speak of them as a ‘second case’ of capitalist modernity.”37 The chief characteristics of “post-Confucian” societies functional to capitalism, according to Kahn and Berger then, may be summarized as: (1) a high evaluation of education and dedication to hard work, (2) the priority given to group over individual interests, beginning with the family but extended to social life in general, (3) an emphasis on “harmonious human relations” in organization “partly because of a sense of hierarchy but even more because of a sense of complementarity of relations.”38 In an article published in The Economist in 1980, the China specialist Roderick MacFarquhar (who may have been responsible for coining the term “post-Confucian” in this article), added to the list the virtue of “practicality” (from the “unity of knowledge and action” in Confucian philosophy), which allegedly saved Eastern Asians “the spiritual angst” that afflicted other spiritual traditions such as Christianity, Islam, and Hinduism in their confrontation of the conflict between spiritual and material life. “Like a happy and secure childhood,” wrote MacFarquhar, “the evident excellence of Confucian civilization bestowed upon its various practitioners a superb self-confidence with which to meet the challenge of the west.”39 These “foundational” texts, in the questions they raised, were to set the agenda for the many discussions of Confucianism and modernization over the next decade. Whether or not Eastern Asian 37. Ibid., p. 4. 38. Kahn, World Economic Development, p. 121. 39. The Economist (Feb. 9, 1980), pp. 67–72, p. 69. The Economist prefaced MacFarquhar’s article with the lines: “For the 200 years since the onset of the industrial revolution, the west has dominated the world. Today that dominance is threatened, not just by the Russians, who are anyway heirs, at least in part, to the western tradition; nor by the Arabs whose stranglehold will relax as the sands run dry; but more fundamentally by the East Asian heirs to Confucianism, who have so far provided the only real economic, political and military challenges to the Euro/American culture. Roderick MacFarquhar. . . . explains.” (p. 67). The Yellow Faces are coming—again; ignoring that it is capital that has been flowing “their” way!

confucius in the borderlands | 121 societies were dynamized by these values, what if anything these values had to do with Confucianism, in what sense could Confucianism be said to be a modernizing dynamic were the prominent questions that these discussions revolved around; “revolved” in an almost literal sense, because the same questions reappeared prominently from one conference on Confucianism to another, in an involuting spiral of proliferating qualifications which, rather than resolve those questions, exposed the contradictions of the so-called “post-Confucian hypothesis.” What is most remarkable about these discussions is their contribution to keeping alive the “Confucian fever,” which was at odds with the serious questions raised by even the most fervent proponents of Confucianism that it had anything to do with modernity, that it was desirable in modernity, or even that it existed presently as a coherent value system in Eastern Asian societies. There is little space, or need, here to go in detail into the various arguments in these discussions for or against Confucianism. Suffice it to say that, broadly speaking, there were three identifiable positions in these discussions on the question of the relationship between Confucianism and modernization. Most rarely encountered, and most prominently ideological, was the reaffirmation of a direct link between Confucianism and modernity. An example was Chen Li-fu, a longtime right-wing Guomindang ideologue and senior advisor to the president of the Republic of China, to whom Confucian modernity as embodied in Taiwan provided an alternative to Communism and capitalism: The Chinese people have always called Confucius the “Sage of All Times,” because his thought is tied to the human being’s symbiosis, coexistence and co-evolution and, hence, is not affected by time and spatial factors. In short, the heart of Confucianism lies in “the emphasis on the people and virtue” which is different from capitalism that “lays emphasis on wealth or money and belittles morality.” It is also different from Communism which stresses “material and shortchanges the people”. . . . Only the Chinese culture is indeed able to work for the well-being and peace of the

culture & history in postrevolutionary china | 122 people and promote the world to a state where harmony, equality and justice prevail. “The purposes of our nation’s education are, according to The Three Principles of the People [of Sun Yat-sen], to enrich the people’s livelihood, foster the society’s vitality, to develop the national economy, in order to ensure the nation’s independence, continue to protect the people’s rights and promote universal brotherhood.” Surely the philosophy of our nation’s education is rooted in Confucian educational thought!40

For reasons that should become clearer below, the nationalistic tone of Chen’s assessment might have proven embarrassing to more liberal and cosmopolitan proponents of Confucianism. Closer to the liberal, and social scientistic, position is the affirmation of Confucianism by Hung-chao Tai, editor of a volume sponsored by the Washington Institute for Values in Public Policy. This volume was intended to examine the characteristics of “Oriental economies” so that “policymakers and industrialists” could “see how to make best use of these characteristics.”41 For Tai, the “Oriental or affective model of economic development” is characterized by an emphasis on “human emotional bonds, group orientation, and harmony,” which contrasts with “the rational model” of “Western” development propounded by Weber. This model, for the first time since the industrial revolution, provides “a meaningful alternative to the rational model of the West.”42 A second position, the opposite of this one, rejected any significant connection between Confucianism and modernization, and even perceived in the persistence of Confucian values a hindrance to full modernity. Thus, John Wong and Aline Wong wrote of that 40. Li-fu Chen and Chi-ming Hou, “Confucianism, Education and Economic Development in Taiwan,” paper presented in the Chung-hua Institute “Conference on Confucianism and Economic Development in East Asia” (May 29–31, 1989), p. 18. This collection of papers differs slightly from the published volume, Hung-chao Tai (ed.), Confucianism and Economic Development: An Oriental Alternative?. 41. Tai, Confucianism and Economic Development, “Preface,” p. ix. 42. Tai, “The Oriental Alternative.”

confucius in the borderlands | 123 bastion of Confucianism in the eighties, Singapore, that “even after 1982, when the government started to promote Confucian ethics in schools . . . there are still preciously few official remarks specifically referring to the role of Confucianism in economic development.”43 Indeed, when the Singaporean government decided to promote Confucianism, Singaporean businessmen especially were concerned that it might undermine the development of that city-state.44 Similarly, a Korean scholar wrote that “very few Koreans genuinely believe that Confucianism has been a significant contributory factor in the effort to accomplish rapid economic growth, and there exists little persuasive evidence to that effect.”45 Empirical studies conducted in Hong Kong and Taiwan likewise raised questions about the relevance of Confucianism to understanding the modernization of these societies, some of them even calling into question such staples of the Confucian argument as commitment to education and the primacy of family/group values.46 It may not be surprising that scholars who resided and worked in these societies were prominent among those who were skeptical about the “post-Confucian hypothesis,” because they were concerned with what Tu Weiming repeatedly has described as “the dark side” of Confucianism, referring especially to questions of social and political oppression.47 Also important for those who lived in 43. Wong and Wong, “Confucian Values as a Social Framework for Singapore’s Economic Development,” p. 517. 44. Tu, Confucian Ethics Today, pp. 65–99. 45. Kyong-dong Kim, “The Distinctive Features of South Korea’s Development,” in Berger and Hsiao, In Search of an East Asian Development Model, pp. 197–219, pp. 215–216. 46. See the contributions by Rong-I Wu and Pang Eng Fong, in Berger and Hsiao, In Search of an East Asian Development Model, pp. 179–196 and pp. 220– 238, respectively. See also Siu-lun Wong, “Modernization and Chinese Cultural Traditions in Hong Kong,” in Tai, Confucianism and Economic Development, pp. 166–194. See also Chun-chieh Huang and Cheng-hung Liao, “Between Tradition and Modernity: Value Orientations of Farmers in Taiwan,” in Jiang, Confucianism and Modernization, pp. 233–254. 47. For one instance, see Tu, Confucian Ethics Today, p. 11.

culture & history in postrevolutionary china | 124 the region was evidence of radical changes in attitudes that had accompanied economic success, which by the mid-eighties was plainly evident in the erosion of “traditional values.” Even as conferences on Confucianism celebrated the “egalitarianism” of the Eastern Asian Model, moreover, the increasing gap in economic wealth was becoming a visible characteristic of these societies, ushering in the unprecedented concentration of wealth under neoliberal globalization.48 The third position, and possibly the most common one, stressed the circumstantial function of Confucian values: “Confucianism as a factor that can be a positive force for development when the right set of structural conditions and economic policies are also present.”49 Kahn and Berger had also placed emphasis on circumstances, Kahn underlining “under current conditions” in describing the positive role of Confucianism, and both authors stressing the need to take cognizance of “institutional” factors in evaluating the role of Confucianism.50 This position was in some ways the most persuasive because of its sensitivity to the historical and social context of culture. It is theoretically in keeping with the Weberian position, for it enables an argument that while Confucianism may not have been conducive to the emergence of capitalism, it might play a positive role once capitalism had been introduced from the outside.51 It also enables distinctions temporally, spatially, and socially. Thomas Metzger and 48. For one discussion of these problems, see Leung Yuen-sang, “The Uncertain Phoenix: Confucianism and Its Modern Fate,” in Jiang, Confucianism and Modernization, pp. 255–268. 49. Pang Eng Fong, “The Distinctive Feature of Two ‘City-States’’ Development: Hong Kong and Singapore,” in Berger and Hsiao, In Search of an East Asian Development Model, p. 235. See also the methodological observations by Joesph P. L. Jiang in his concluding essay to Jiang, Confucianism and Modernization, pp. 325–336. 50. Kahn, for one, also notes the importance of government policies, as well as “the ‘industrial park strategy’ for economic development.” Kahn, World Economic Development, pp. 345–360. 51. Ambrose Y. C. King, “The Transformation of Confucianism in the Post-Confucian Era: The Emergence of Rationalistic Traditionalism in Hong Kong,” in Tu, The Triadic Chord, pp. 203–220.

confucius in the borderlands | 125 Ramon Myers suggested reasons why Confucianism might have been at odds with capitalism in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries while contributing to its development after World War II.52 Other scholars argued for differences between the societies of the so-called “Sinic world,” where Confucianism assumed different emphases and led to different results depending on institutional context and historical differences. Still others raised questions about differences in values within the same society, pointing to occupational, class, and state appropriations of Confucian values, as well as the differential impact of Confucian values on different genders.53 Finally, this position, in its very assumptions, called forth a recognition that it is meaningless to speak of Confucianism as an unchanging abstraction; rather, Confucianism as it exists today is itself a transformed, “modernized” Confucianism. I will say more on this last point. The immediate result of historicizing and socializing Confucianism was a proliferation of Confucianisms. Thus, in addition to nationally defined Chinese, Japanese, Taiwanese, and Singaporean Confucianisms, scholars sought to overcome the anomalies of Confucianism and development by generating a wide variety of Confucianisms: “social Confucianism,” “vulgar Confucianism,” “low Confucianism,” “high Confucianism,” “folk Confucianism,” “bourgeois Confucianism,” “imperial Confucianism,” “reform Confucianism,” “social-elites-not-holding-high-government-post Confucianism,” “mass Confucianism,” and “merchanthouse Confucianism,” among others that I may have missed.54 This localization of Confucianism in different spatial locations or social constituencies, and the principles of classification which guided its reorganization as a cultural system, articulate eloquently the intellectual 52. See their contributions in Conference on Confucianism and Economic Development in East Asia, pp. 141–195 and pp. 281–304, respectively. 53. The Confucian World Observed, pp. 96–97. 54. For references to these various Confucianisms, see Berger, “An East Asian Development Model?” and King, “The Transformation of Confucianism in the Post-Confucian Era.” The last five are from Gilbert Rozman. See The Confucian World Observed, pp. 40–41.

culture & history in postrevolutionary china | 126 distance between Confucianism as a modernizing ideology and the cultural tradition which it draws upon and seeks to preserve. It also gives intimations of how the Confucian revival has been shaped by the very circumstances it seeks to explain.

Confucianism as a Cure for Capitalism From the beginning, implicit in the “post-Confucian hypothesis” was an assumption that, for the time being at least, “post-Confucian” societies had discovered in their cultural legacy a cure for the ailments that seemed to plague advanced capitalist societies. Citing the ethnocentric formulations of Nihonjinron ( Japaneseness, with implications of uniqueness) advocated by anthropologist Chie Nakane, Herman Kahn wrote that “in Western societies there is a great tendency for ‘like to join like’ in unions, student federations, women’s groups, men’s clubs, youth movements, economic classes, and so on [in other words, what others have described as “civil society,” essential to democracy]. This tends to set one group in society against another; students against teachers, employees against employers, youths against parents, and so on.”55 While this kind of society worked fairly well so long as there was “enough hierarchy, discipline, control, or motivation,” increasing affluence and declining discipline brought forth its potential for “anarchy,” leading to a situation of “intergroup warfare” between “the old versus the young, insiders versus outsiders, men versus women, students versus teachers, and—most important of all—employees against employers.”56 Kahn did not identify the latter society, noting only that the absence in “neo-Confucian” societies of those traits determined by “like to like identification” gave them an edge in the future. Ironically, it was those elements of Confucian culture once thought to be hindrances to capitalist development, such as hierarchy, familism, and the absence of individualism, which now promised to spare Eastern Asian 55. Kahn, World Economic Development, p. 121. 56. Ibid., p. 122.

confucius in the borderlands | 127 societies the problems that ailed their “Western” counterparts. It is important to distinguish the advocacy of Confucianism as a cure to capitalism because it sheds light on a different aspect of the circumstances that favored the promotion of Confucianism in the eighties. Kahn’s remarks implicitly spoke to a crisis of American capitalism. There is some indication that beneath all the celebration of the developmental success of “post-Confucian societies” in these years, it was a perception of crisis in these societies that contributed significantly to the official sponsorship of Confucianism. This is quite apparent in the case of Singapore where, from the late seventies on, there were signs of a concern to redirect culture policy. Singapore’s society had been shaped by the British colonial legacy legally and linguistically. In spite of a majority Chinese population, the autocratic Singaporean leadership under Lee Kwan Yew, influenced by Fabian socialism, had been content earlier not to assert Chinese cultural characteristics out of concern for creating unnecessary friction in a multiethnic society. Impressed by Japanese success, the leadership from the late seventies increasingly perceived in the Japanese model of development, with its “Confucian” premises, an alternative to the West. It was also at this time that the government decided to promote the teaching of Chinese language, apparently because of the reopening of China in the late 1970s, which offered new business opportunities and perhaps also promised to transform Eastern Asia.57 It was signs of ethical “degeneration” in Singaporean society that seems to have decided Lee Kwan Yew to reassert “Eastern” values officially. In an interview with a Japanese journalist in the late eighties, Lee stated: I think we will face a serious problem because of the constant assault on our core values, like attitudes between men and women, husband and wife, father and children, attitudes between citizens 57. Wong and Wong, “Confucian Values as a Social Framework for Singapore’s Economic Development,” p. 519. The language insight I owe to a Singapore scholar who must remain nameless here, as the statement was not for attribution.

culture & history in postrevolutionary china | 128 and the government. Singaporeans watch so much of Western, especially American television, that they may begin to feel that is the norm, that is the standard. And we may move into that standard unconsciously.58

On several occasions during the eighties, Lee would also express a “regret that they had not followed the Japanese example and kept the well-educated women at home,” also adding on one occasion that “in the long run, the most important problems are eugenics and providing good training for the children in order to build a strong society.”59 Such sentiments were already visible in the late seventies when the “Goh Report” was compiled in 1979. A deepening concern that “with a stronger economy and greater prosperity, the people would not work towards national economic development with the same social purpose,” seemed to be confirmed by “increasing reports of ‘job-hopping’ or declining work ethic among younger Singaporean workers.”60 Singapore, it was decided, needed a moral ideology to counter such trends. The discussions with the foreign Confucian experts in 1982 reveal that one such ideology that was considered was “Lee Kwan Yew’ism.”61 Why it was dropped in favor of Confucianism is not clear. What is clear is that, in spite of its potential divisiveness socially and politically, Confucianism was picked for moral education as a cure for the social ills that had become apparent with Singapore’s development. A similar sense of crisis may have played a part in the promotion of Confucianism in other Eastern Asian societies. It may not be a coincidence that just about the same time, South Korean president Pak Chung-hee, another autocratic leader, wrote, 58. Quoted in Wong and Wong, “Confucian Values as a Social Framework for Singapore’s Economic Development,” p. 520. 59. Cited by Ezra Vogel in The Confucian World Observed, pp. 54–55. 60. Wong and Wong, “Confucian Values as a Social Framework for Singapore’s Economic Development,” p. 519. 61. Tu, Confucian Ethics Today, p. 148

confucius in the borderlands | 129 Just as a home is a small collective body, so the state is a larger community. . . . One who does not maintain a wholesome family order cannot be expected to show strong devotion to his state. . . . A society that puts the national interest above the interests of the individual develops faster than one which does not.62

Michael Hsiao and Alvin So have argued that other Eastern Asian societies such as Taiwan and Hong Kong showed signs of structural crisis around the turn of the decade that would lead to significant changes in policy.63 According to Leung Yuen-sang, then of the National University of Singapore, signs of economic decline in the Eastern Asian NICs (Newly Industrialized Countries) in the mid-eighties led to “a rising skepticism towards the Confucian work ethic.”64 To that we may add the increasingly visible signs in all Eastern Asian societies of the emergence of individualism and a consumer culture that has gathered even greater momentum with the participation of the PRC since the 1990s. There is some irony in the fact that the celebration of Confucianism as a modernizing force got under way at a point when, whatever role the “Confucian ethic” may have played in development earlier, clear signs were appearing that Confucian values were increasingly irrelevant in the societies concerned. The irony underlines the remedial function of Confucianism: stated differently, its function in “social engineering” and control against the “degenerative” tendencies created by capitalist development.65 62. Quoted in MacFarquhar, The Economist (Feb. 9, 1980), p. 70. 63. Hsin-huang Michael Hsiao and Alvin Y. So, “Ascent through National Integration: The Chinese Triangle of Mainland–Taiwan–Hong Kong,” in Ravi Palat (ed.), Pacific-Asia and the Future of the World-system (Westport, CT: Greenwood, 1993). Kahn himself noted a similar crisis in Japan, especially in The Japanese Challenge: The Success and Failure of Economic Success (New York: Crowell, 1979). 64. Leung, “The Uncertain Phoenix,” p. 267. See also Tu Weiming, “Confucian Humanism and Democracy,” paper presented at the Chung-hua Institute “Conference on Confucianism and Economic Development in East Asia,” p. 19, for the disappearance of public consciousness in Taiwan. 65. On “social engineering,” see Wong and Wong, “Confucian Values as a Social Framework for Singapore’s Economic Development,” for Singapore,

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“American Confucius”: Tu Weiming and the Confucian Revival Tu Weiming deserves special commentary here not only because he has emerged over the years as the most fervent proponent of Confucianism, but also because of the intriguing part he has played in the discussions intellectually. A prominent scholar of Confucian philosophy, Tu describes himself also as an “activist,” which may be an understatement as he often sounds more like a fundamentalist missionary in his advocacy of Confucianism.66 Tu’s commitment to Confucianism preceded the revival of the eighties, and he is quite justified in describing himself as an heir to the older generation of “new Confucians.” On the other hand, he came into his own during the 1980s revival, and his adjustments to the circumstances of the eighties are revealing of the ideological distance between earlier Confucianisms and Confucianism in the age of Global Capital. His affinity with the latter also marks him as a kind of postcolonial intellectual. Tu was the foremost among a number of Chinese intellectuals (philosophers by training) who sought to inject a humanist philosophical note into the discussions of the eighties, which were dominated by social scientists of various disciplines.67 He achieved prominence in the discussion with the crucial part he played in the Singaporean promotion of Confucianism, both as the most enthusiastic of the and Chen and Hou, “Confucianism, Education and Economic Development in Taiwan,” for Taiwan. The issue arose in Singapore from the beginning. See Tu, Confucian Ethics Today, p. 182. Singaporeans have responded to such “social engineering” with indifference and humor. For an example, see the stories in Catherine Lim, O Singapore (Singapore: Times Books International, 1989). 66. The Confucian World Observed, p. 17. 67. Others were Chung-ying Cheng, Liu Shu-hsien, and Charles Wei-hsun Fu. The last named author made an important contribution to the discussion in elaborating the problem of Confucianism as a hermeneutic problem which is more sophisticated than anything offered by someone like Tu, but which, not surprisingly, has not received much attention. See “On the Ideological Revitalization of Confucianism in Relation to East Asian Economic Development: From Methodological Reflection to Creative Dialogue,” in Conference on Confucianism and Economic Development in East Asia, pp. 105–134.

confucius in the borderlands | 131 foreign experts in the consultations of 1982, and subsequently in his contribution to the new Confucian curriculum.68 The interpretation of Confucianism he promoted in Singapore was to become the basis in subsequent years for his advocacy of Confucianism as a visiting professor in China and as a regular participant in many forums on Confucianism in the United States and in Eastern Asian societies. Like the “New Confucians,” Tu views Confucianism as an “ethicospiritual” system of values, comparable to other great religions such as Christianity, Islam, Buddhism, etc. (In Singapore, he described his “choice of political belief ” as “humanistic socialism; his choice of religion, Confucianism.”)69 What renders Confucianism unique among all the other religions, according to Tu, is its relentlessly secular humanism. As he put it on one occasion: Unlike many other spiritual traditions, the Confucian focus is the multi-dimensional concerns of the person, the person as a centre of relationships. Indeed, the focus is on humanity here and now as a point of departure. One way of looking at this particular system is to pay special attention to the human-relatedness of the self, so that the continuous development of the self is seen as a series of concentric circles. The person has to be related to a larger network of human relationships like the family, the neighbourhood, the state, the world at large, even going beyond the anthropological world. This whole project—the point of departure, the continuous effort of selfimprovement—is humanistic to the core in a holistic rather than in a limited anthropocentric sense. Actually it does not slight or ignore the importance of the transcendent. So in terms of its particular emphasis and in terms of its comprehensive vision of learning to be human, Confucian ethics is unique. Of course, its concern for ethics is shared by many other spiritual traditions as well.70

In spite of its secularism, Confucianism had a transcendental dimension in its establishment of a relationship between the human world and the cosmos, embodied in the “sagely ideal.” Like Metzger 68. Confucian Ethics Today is a tribute to Tu’s activities in Singapore. 69. Ibid., p. 3. 70. Ibid., pp. 198–199.

culture & history in postrevolutionary china | 132 before him, Tu argued against Max Weber’s reading of Confucianism that in spite of its this-worldliness, the Confucian was filled with a dynamic (and creative) tension between actual existence and the demands of sagehood. While the individual in Confucianism was the beginning and the end of learning and cultivation, however, Confucianism was not individualistic because of its conception of the individual in a series of human relationships, ranging from the family, to the community, the state, and the world of nature; hence the emphasis on the collectivity against selfish desire, as well as the concern for harmony with nature (in other words, an “ecological” consciousness, that includes something akin to animal rights).71 Tu’s interpretation of Confucianism has a lineage going back to the reformulations of Confucianism by such thinkers as Kang Youwei and Tan Sitong around the turn of the century. In this case, the interpretation was articulated to contemporary concerns. He provided a philosophical explanation for the characteristics of Eastern Asian capitalism (striving for individual excellence while remaining mindful of the needs of the collectivity), but also showing why Confucianism could be consistent with capitalist development while also showing the way to overcoming the deficiencies of capitalism in the “West” (overcoming social divisiveness as well as the destruction of nature). This observation is not intended to portray Tu as a simple ideologue of Chinese tradition or Eastern Asian capitalism, for he is not, which is what makes his Confucianism intriguing. His speeches and writings in the eighties are replete with references to “the dark side” of Confucianism, by which he means its authoritarian and repressive aspects. Indeed, he is careful to distance himself from what he describes as “political Confucianism,” in other words Confucianism as it appeared historically, which made Confucianism into an instrument of autocracy. He has also been critical of the actuality of kinship relations in Chinese society, especially in the treatment of women. The social and political practice of Confucianism historically, in his view, is contrary to the spirit of Confucianism. He portrays himself as 71. Ibid., pp. 50–51.

confucius in the borderlands | 133 heir to the May Fourth tradition, with its repudiation of Confucianism, and argues for a critical reception of Confucianism to recapture the original moral intent of Confucianism against its historical distortion. A speech he gave in Taiwan in 1988, “Confucian Humanism and Democracy,” offered a devastating critique of hierarchy and the absence of democracy in the Confucian tradition.72 Tu is not a simple spokesman for Eastern Asian capitalism either. He recalled that when a visiting professor in China, he taught Confucianism to Chinese students as a “foreign” religion. But the question to him was not merely that of a China where, due to official anti-Confucianism at the time of the Communist government, Chinese had been cut off from their Confucian roots. He stated on a more recent occasion that “the worldview of contemporary Chinese intellectuals has been so altered by Western ideas and the disjunctures of the past century that the Confucian world order is as alien to them as it is to non-Chinese.” He told his Singaporean audience in 1982 that “we find more continuity in America in the short run than in East Asia. . . . The Confucian ethic has to be understood in this context.” He repeated in Taiwan several years later that “the relevance of Confucian humanism to the Sinic world notwithstanding, Japan and the Four Mini-Dragons are no longer Confucian. In fact, they have been . . . Westernized or, more appropriately, Americanized.” To his recalcitrant audiences in China, who were not readily responsive to his message, he suggested that maybe Confucianism will once again take root in China after it has achieved acceptance in Europe and the United States.73 Such statements, to say the least, call 72. For these points, see Tu, Confucian Ethics Today, passim, especially pp. 4–10, 27–29. See also Tu Weiming, Ruxue disan shiqi fazhande qianjingwenti (On the Question of the Prospect of Development of a Third Stage of Confucianism) (Taipei: Lianjing chuban shiye gongsi, 1989), pp. 6–16. This volume collects Tu’s speeches and interviews he gave in China. Hereafter, Disan shiqi. 73. For “foreignness,” see The Confucian World Observed, pp. 123, 10–11, respectively; for the Singapore statement, see Confucian Ethics Today, p. 170; for the Taiwan statement, see “The Confucian Dimension in the East Asian Development Model,” p. 67. He also told his audiences in China that Euro/

culture & history in postrevolutionary china | 134 into question the whole “post-Confucian hypothesis,” if only tacitly. Tu Weiming has never been hesitant to assert the newness of his “new Confucianism.” He has called for a “third stage” in the development of Confucianism (the others being early and Song-Ming Confucianisms), where Confucianism is to be articulated to the global values of the contemporary age. One of the characteristics of this “new Confucianism” is its disassociation from Chinese history. In Singapore Tu, along with Yu Ying-shih and Hsu Cho-yun, declared that it was wrong to construe Confucianism as a specifically Chinese cultural endowment. While sensitivity to the multiethnic demands of Singapore may have played a part in this disassociation, for Tu at least the reasons may go deeper.74 He has stated on numerous occasions that Confucianism historically was as much (if not more) Korean and Japanese. He has also stressed it as a universalistic humanism that could be reconciled (like Christianity) with different cultural and religious traditions; there is no reason, he told a Chinese interviewer, why there could not be, say, an African Confucian.75 He is also an advocate, as part of a new Confucian formation, of “interreligious dialogues” (Christianity, Buddhism, Islam, Hinduism, Jainism, Shintoism, and primordial traditions such as American Indian tribalism, Hawaiian nativism, and shamanist spirituality).76 Tu recalls the sense of kinship he felt with the “life-boat philosophers” he encountered in Berkeley, California, who upheld the necessity of a global consciousness and global interrelationships as a condition of survival in the contemporary world. The Confucianism he advocates is one that is to be an integral component of such a global consciousness even as it is transformed by the latter. Hence his fundamentalism in repudiating historical Confucianism to go Americans may be more receptive to Confucianism than Chinese, giving as one example the celebration of Confucius’ birthday in Atlanta, with participation from big companies such as Coca-Cola. Disan shiqi, pp. 137–138. 74. Tu, Confucian Ethics Today, pp. 132–147 passim. 75. Disan shiqi, p. 136. 76. The Triadic Chord, “Foreword,” p. xv.

confucius in the borderlands | 135 back to a rereading of the foundational texts of Confucianism (and the example of Confucius himself ) in accordance with the demands of the age. There is indeed a strong “New Age” flavor to his interpretation of Confucianism. When his Chinese interlocutor told him about a friend who had remarked that “Mr. Tu is totally an American Confucian” (Meiguo de ruzhe), he greeted it with “laughter,” responding that he was only a “modern Confucian thinker.”77 I raise the New Age analogy not only because Tu’s approach to Confucianism bears some resemblance to New Age spirituality but also because it has the elusiveness (and the contradictoriness) of the latter. The spirituality he advocates is a desocialized and dehistoricized spirituality available to anyone regardless of background, much like a commodity for consumption. His Confucianism is a disembodied Confucianism that willfully disassociates Confucianism from its political associations and implications, not only in the sense that it was political patronage over the centuries that kept Confucianism alive, but also in the sense that Confucianism might have something to do with the political and social oppression that he regrets. In spite of his advocacy of democracy, he obviously has been willing to lend his services to undemocratic regimes. In spite of his criticism of Confucianism (though not of “true Confucianism”) for its neglect of women’s rights, he has not been critical of Lee Kwan Yew’s regrets concerning the occupational freedom of women. He has been largely silent on the use of Confucianism for purposes of “social engineering,” compensating for it by visions of “sages and worthies in the streets of Singapore twenty years from now.”78 Likewise, while Tu holds up this spirituality as an antidote to the spiritual and ecological crisis of capitalism, his work has been mostly 77. For the “life-boat philosophers, see Tu, Confucian Ethics Today, pp. 114–115, 139–140. For “American Confucianism,” see Disan shiqi, pp. 134–136. 78. Confucian Ethics Today, p. 214. Tu has raised an objection to “social engineering” understood “narrowly” as a technocratic problem. See ibid., p. 182. On the other hand, he has been quick to defend “true Confucianism” against charges of inequality and hierarchical authoritarianism, arguing that the basic spirit of Confucianism is “mutuality.” Ibid., pp. 9, 23–25, 61–62.

culture & history in postrevolutionary china | 136 devoid of any serious critique of capitalism, as if the material crisis of capitalism could be alleviated by resort to some abstract spirituality. True, he has on occasion referred to humanity committing suicide if “Darwinist strong-eat-weak” capitalism went unchecked, but on other occasions he has been quick to laud the intentional or unintentional positive contributions of Confucian values to capitalist development in Eastern Asia, referring to the utility of the “Confucian ethic” as “an alternative way of capital formation.” He has, needless to say, also benefited in his activism from the prestige that has accrued to Confucianism from its alleged relevance to capitalist development. Not only has he refrained from any critique of the discourse of the eighties that functionalized Confucianism within the structure of capitalism, but he has repeatedly pointed to this discourse as evidence of the increasing appeals of Confucianism in the “West.” Especially peculiar, in light of his advocacy of a universalistic spiritual Confucianism, is his acquiescence in the Orientalist formulations of this discourse, as exemplified in the statements of his Harvard colleague Roderick MacFarquhar.79 Tu’s universalism is not without serious qualifications. As he advocated a universalistic Confucianism in Singapore, he was quick to add that what he had in mind was not something like an “ethical Esperanto” without cultural associations. While in China, he stressed the necessity of reviving Confucianism as an essential part of Chinese “cultural identity.” Most recently, he has emerged as an advocate of a concept of “cultural China,” which encompasses in his formulation Chinese in Eastern Asia, diasporic Chinese, and foreign scholars engaged in sinological studies who contribute to the spread of Chinese culture (much like, in reverse, I may add, Westernized Chinese upon whom Euro/Americans have banked their hopes in the “Westernization” of China).80 79. Ibid., p. 164, for “capital formation.” For his statements on the destructiveness of capitalism, see Disan shiqi, pp. 80–81. 80. For “cultural identity,” see Disan shiqi, p. 6. For “ethical Esperanto,” see Confucian Ethics Today, pp. 109, 211. For “Cultural China,” see “Cultural

confucius in the borderlands | 137 Given his commitment to Confucianism, it is readily understandable that Tu should strive to endow Confucianism with a presence and a voice in a global culture, but it is necessary to recall that the global culture to which he seeks to articulate Confucianism is one that is infused throughout with Euro/American cultural hegemony and the relations of domination rooted in Global Capitalism. Tu is critical of Eurocentrism. He has also pointed to the present age as one in which Eurocentrism is giving way to multilinear conceptions of development. In his view, it is this new openness, rather than the crisis of capitalism, that is responsible for the new “Western” interest in Confucianism.81 It makes the reader of his works wonder why, in spite of his statements on the necessity of articulating Confucianism to Indian tribalism and Hawaiian nativism, he has devoted all his effort to articulating Confucianism to the “modern” values of capitalism, with little to say in practice about the ecological and survival value of indigenous cultures threatened with extinction under capitalism! In light of all he has said and written about the functionality of Confucianism to capitalism, and his visions of Singapore, it is curious, to say the least, to read his description of the ideal Confucian state: The ideal state is, first of all, extremely small. (Take the Taoist vision: the ideal state was thought to be a neighborhood community.) It is not authoritarian. Instead, it is participatory and communal. Mencius’ ideal state is very much an agricultural community, resembling what Marx called a primitive commune. Given the complexity of modern or post-modern political development, that is not necessarily an outdated notion.82 China: The Periphery as the Center,” Daedalus (Spring 1991): 1–32. (This was a special issue, edited by Tu, entitled, “The Living Tree: The Changing Meaning of Being Chinese Today.”) Tu may not be the only one thinking of “Sinified Westerners.” The role played by foreign Orientalists in keeping alive Chinese culture is the theme of the volume published in Taiwan, When West Meets East— International Sinology and Sinologists (Taipei: Sinorama Magazine, 1991), with a preface by Yuming Shaw. 81. Disan shiqi, p. 18. 82. Confucian Ethics Today, p. 64.

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“Manufacturing Confucianism” Confucianism as it has appeared in the discussions of the eighties has been subjected to sharp criticism.83 Most basic in such criticism has been the very concept of Confucianism itself. Frederic Wakeman and Peter Bol have pointed out that the term “Confucianism” is a modern invention, without an equivalent in premodern Chinese. Lionel Jensen has traced the invention to the Jesuits in China. These authors, among others (including Tu Weiming), have pointed out that so long as Confucianism was philosophically and politically alive, Confucians did not feel a need to label themselves as such. The Western invention was adopted by Chinese intellectuals with the passing of Confucianism, as an identification for the Chinese elite, which was extended by some to an identification of traditional Chinese culture as a whole.84 The question is not one of terminology alone. The label has had a homogenizing effect, which has clouded over the complexities of Chinese thought and culture, especially when utilized as an identification for China. Chinese philosophy was not restricted to Confucianism. Chinese culture fed on many different local and outside (e.g., Buddhism) sources. What is called Confucianism, Wm. Theodore deBary insists, contained enormous complexity historically, which disappears in the process of labeling and the reductionism implicit in selecting out elements of past thought in the definition of the label.85 It is possible to speak of a “Confucian discourse” that for a limited group in Chinese society provided a way of speaking about philosophical and 83. I borrow the heading of this section from Lionel Jensen, Manufacturing ‘Confucianism’: Chinese Traditions and Universal Civilization (Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 1997). 84. For Wakeman, see the Roundtable Discussion on Wm. Theodore de Bary’s The Trouble With Confucianism, China Review International 1.1 (Spring 1994): 9–47, pp. 18–19. For Bol, see, The Confucian World Observed, p. 5. 85. See his comments in the Roundtable, China Review International, and in his “Neo-Confucianism in Modern East Asia,” in Tu, The Triadic Chord, pp. 129–164.

confucius in the borderlands | 139 political issues, but even that is subject to historical temporality. Chang Hao has raised questions about the possibility of speaking about Confucianism in the twentieth century in the same terms as earlier, when the problems that dynamized Confucian discourse in the past have given way to an entirely different set of problems.86 What is remarkable about the discussions of the eighties is the cavalierness with which the term Confucianism has been bandied about, without regard to social and historical problems, yielding a frustrating impression that Confucianism means whatever an author wants it to mean. It may be a tribute to the power of discourse that someone like Tu Weiming, himself an expert on the history of Confucian philosophy, may be complicit in such arbitrariness. Tu has remarked on several occasions that Confucianism is “a coherent system of ideas with its own logic.”87 Yet his own fundamentalist reduction of this “internal logic” to a few principles, without regard for the historical context in which those principles were enunciated, opens the way to exactly this kind of arbitrariness. According to John Berthrong, when the World Council of Churches was looking for Confucians to participate in a “Confucian-Christian dialogue,” the organizers consulted with Tu Weiming, Liu Shu-hsien, and Cheng Chung-ying as experts on Confucianism to decide “who was a Confucian?” It was decided that “a Confucian is a person who says he or she is a Confucian and is so recognized as such by his or her community. . . . The people chosen were those who both described Confucianism as accurately as possible and commended it as having values appropriate to the modern age, not only to East Asian cultures, but also to the emerging global village.”88 86. Chang Hao, “Intellectual Crisis of Modern China in Historical Perspective.” 87. Confucian Ethics Today, p. 172. 88. The Confucian World Observed, p. 100. Tu’s discussions in Singapore prompted his interviewer (Chan Heng Chee), to observe that “Confucianism is in the eye of the beholder.” See Confucian Ethics Today, pp. 200–201, for the statement and Tu’s response.

culture & history in postrevolutionary china | 140 The identification of Confucianism with “East Asian cultures” (or the reverse), needless to say, compounds the problem. Thus Hungchao Tai writes cavalierly, as if it were the most obvious thing in the world, that the contributors to his Confucianism and Economic Development “recognize that Confucianism has undergone transformations both in China and in other East Asian societies and even may have lost its institutional and symbolic presence in some of these societies. But they consider Confucian values to have become indelibly marked upon the ethos of all these societies. And, as Confucianism remains as [sic] the dominant feature of Chinese culture throughout the ages, the authors use the term Confucianism loosely, treating it as synonymous with Chinese culture.”89 Internal inconsistencies aside (Chinese, Eastern Asian), this from someone who cites Edward Said to criticize Euro/American Orientalism! But the problem does not stop here; the identification of Confucianism with Eastern Asian culture even produces temporalities where Confucianism may have predated Confucius. In spite of his insistence elsewhere on the complexity of Confucianism, Gilbert Rozman in his introduction to Confucian Heritage and Its Modern Adaptation, which he edited, writes: “We use the concept of Confucian values broadly to refer to a complex of attitudes and guides to behavior that spread from China . . . Core values of the East Asian heritage emerged in the 2nd millennium BC in northern China. . . . [and] were systematized by Confucius and his disciples.”90 Having homogenized Eastern Asia and Confucianism, it is little wonder that Rozman has to turn around and reorganize Confucianism in an elaborate scheme of classification (see previous). The question here is not merely a homogenization of ideas. “Established” as an expression of basic social values, a homogenized Confucianism also homogenizes the societies whose values it allegedly articulates. As Wang Gungwu observes, “when one identifies 89. Tai, Confucianism and Economic Development, p. 3. 90. Gilbert Rozman (ed.), Confucian Heritage and Its Modern Adaptation (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1991), pp. 7–8.

confucius in the borderlands | 141 Confucianism with Chinese culture as a whole, one also identifies Chinese culture with Confucianism.”91 Thomas Gold writes that “from the outside, we see commonalities in East Asia; but when we scratch beneath the surface, we become aware of the great diversity of cultural identity given the rubric of Confucianism. This diversity within East Asia exists not just between the political units, but within them, as well, particularly within China.” James Watson notes the conflict-ridden realities of Chinese kinship organization, which hardly correspond to the harmonious and complementary units of Tu or Kahn. Kim Kwang-ok points to the class nature of Confucianism in Korea, while Peter Bol observes that the generalization of Confucian values to basic social attributes is “to privilege the elite and its culture.”92 Historically speaking, clichés about harmony and complementarity erase the whole history of labor conflict, women’s struggles, ethnic oppression, and environmental destruction in a 91. The Confucian World Observed, p. 48. 92. Ibid. Gold on p. 41; Watson on pp. 91–95; Kim on pp. 96–97; and Bol on p. 18. A noteworthy problem which I am unable to go into here is that while the “neo-Confucian” homogenization of Eastern Asian societies was under way in the 1980s, intellectuals, business organizations, and states in these societies were at work affirming the “uniqueness” of their various societies. Thus, in China, there has been increasingly audible talk of “the children of the Yellow Emperor”; in Japan the decade of the eighties witnessed increased attention to “Japaneseness” (Nihonjinron); while Koreans have been busy asserting the uniqueness of “Koreanness.” In the sense that they are products of the same structural conditions, these ideological developments are parallels to the Confucian revival in different national contexts. For discussions of these trends, see Harumi Befu (ed.), Cultural Nationalism in East Asia (Berkeley, CA: Institute of East Asian Studies, University of California, 1993), and Kosaku Yoshino, Cultural Nationalism in Contemporary Japan: A Sociological Inquiry (London: Routledge, 1992). It is remarkable that discussions of Confucianism ignore these contemporary trends, or that someone like Herman Kahn should draw for his “neo-Confucian” thesis on the work of Chie Nakane, a theorist of Nihonjinron. Even those who concede the universality of “Confucianism” in Eastern Asia have been careful to qualify it by pointing to the unique configuration Confucianism assumed in different social and political environments. See, for example, Michio Morishima, Why Has Japan “Succeeded”? Western Technology and the Japanese Ethos (New York: Cambridge University Press, 1982).

culture & history in postrevolutionary china | 142 Chinese society that went through one of the greatest and most painful revolutions in modern history, and in other Eastern Asian societies where such struggles continue. Yet for all their formal acknowledgment of the historicity of culture, Peter Berger has no difficulty speaking of “the Chinese mind,” while Tu Weiming refers to a lasting “Chinese psycho-cultural construct” or an “East Asian form of life.” Tu Weiming has also suggested that Confucianism is closely tied in with agricultural society, but that does not seem to deter him from asserting the pervasiveness of Confucian values in “industrial Asia.” As far as I am aware, only one scholar, James Watson, has explicitly raised the question of hegemony: that, if there are common social values, it may be due not to a simple osmosis of Confucian values, but the inculcation of those values through “ideological state apparatuses.”93 (the latter, my term, borrowed from Louis Althusser). No discussion that I am aware of has bothered to raise the question that, especially as a common discourse, Confucianism must be subject to different appropriations and interpretations by different social groups and interests, in which case it must express not just unity but also conflict. Apparently, thanks to Confucianism, such differences were absent from “Sinic” societies. As Eastern Asian societies are homogenized, so is the “West,” which is used in the discussion as a base for comparison. Thus, the West is individualistic against the communalism of Eastern Asia, as if individualism does not have a history or communalism were absent from Euro/American histories as practice or ideology. Chinese are distinguished by their familism, as if “Westerners” never heard of the idea; it is hardly ever acknowledged that this may be a privileging of a patriarchal family structure. Chinese society is hierarchical, as if “Westerners” have reached the pinnacles of equality. Chinese are intellectually elitist, as if the whole Confucian undertaking was an expression of popular desires in the United States, where a 93. In The Confucian World Observed, p. 71. For Confucianism and agricultural society, see ibid., p. 8. Tu’s talks in Singapore were replete with references to “Oriental approach, “Oriental culture,” “Oriental context,” etc.

confucius in the borderlands | 143 working population daily feels the negative effects of “the rise of industrial Asia,” so welcome to the hearts of corporate managers in its promises of a “docile” labor force.94 Hardworking Asian model minority students may be hardworking not because of a Confucian tradition of education but because they are committed to “making it,” with education as the means to that end. These questions do not imply that there are no differences between Eastern Asian and Euro/American societies, only that there may be differences within each “set” of societies that exceed differences between the sets that need to be explained. What we have otherwise is a kind of reverse “Orientalism” or, as some have called it, “Occidentalism.” Criticisms of the Confucian revival on academic grounds may in the end be irrelevant, because it was not academic interest that empowered the revival, even if academics were to benefit from it. Nor is there any need to belabor what the proponents of Confucianism such as Tu Weiming readily concede: that the goal of the discussions is to reinvent Confucianism. The history of Confucianism may be viewed as a series of “reinventions” of the ideas imbedded in the foundational texts, and “in the modern era, there has been an increasing appropriation of Confucian ethical discourse for nonConfucian issues.”94 The more significant question is: What is this most recent reinvention about, or, to what end is Confucianism being appropriated presently? I would like to suggest here that the Confucian revival of the eighties is best understood as the articulation of two discourses: a discourse on Confucianism as a functional component of an emergent Global Capitalism, and a discourse on Confucianism (predating the former) as a problem in Chinese intellectuals’ identity. It was the former that provided the intellectual space (and the empowerment) for the latter, and has redirected its course (if not absorbed it). The discussion began with questions raised about Eastern Asian 94. See Tu, “Confucian Humanism and Democracy,” for some of these reductionist contrasts.

culture & history in postrevolutionary china | 144 capitalism, and was to remain wedded to those questions. Tu Weiming wrote in 1989 that since the question [of the East Asian model] was first raised by futurologists, such as Herman Kahn, and comparativists, such as Peter Berger, who observed East Asia as concerned intellectuals rather than as informed researchers, the scholars specializing in East Asian studies addressed the question primarily as a response to the demands outside their expertise. As a result, the discourse on the East Asian development model functions at several distinct levels: as an explanation for the general public, as a way of assessing international trade competitiveness, and as input for formulating government policies.95

Leaving aside for the moment the social and political context of the discussion, the culturalism that was the initial self-acknowledged premise of the initiators of the discourse has persisted over the years. There is an irony to culturalism. Berger has worried that if the “East Asian model” is indeed culturally based, it is not much of a model because it cannot be transferred to other cultural situations.96 The same could be observed along a temporal axis: if a culture is a product of one period of history, it may not serve well as explanation for social situations in different periods of history. Culturalist explanations unfailingly run into the difficulty that what is a cultural legacy is indistinguishable from what is constructed as a cultural legacy in the projection upon the past of perceptions of the present. Confucianism, such as it is, may or may not be a dynamic force in the creation of an alternative capitalism (it has also been used, we need to remember, as an explanation in the creation of an alternative Communism); what is less uncertain is that Confucianism has been reconstructed, beyond recognition to any hypothetical Confucian of the past, in accordance with the demands of a contemporary Eastern Asian capitalism. It is this articulation of Confucianism to 95. Tu, “The Confucian Dimension in the East Asian Development Model,” p. 63. 96. Berger, “An East Asian Development Model?” pp. 9–10.

confucius in the borderlands | 145 modernization, in this case, capitalist modernization, that is the characteristic of the new discourse on Confucianism. And, as Tu’s statement makes clear, this articulation is guided not by theoretical or scholarly considerations, but by the needs of international trade and politics.97 The references to Max Weber in the discussion are instructive in this regard. Inquiry into Weber’s theory on capitalist modernization, needless to say, is an important theoretical undertaking. But one should think that sophisticated social scientists would be aware in the course of such inquiry of the difference between proving Weber wrong by demonstrating the falseness of his formulations and proving him wrong by confirming his diagnoses but evaluating them differently. For all their claims to an alternative capitalism, participants in this discussion have in fact failed to challenge Weber in any serious theoretical sense; what has been challenged instead are Weber’s statements on China. This challenge, however, consists of little more than Weberizing Confucianism—in other words, finding in Confucianism traits similar to those that Weber had identified in Protestantism, and thereby “demonstrating” that what Weber had diagnosed as obstacles to capitalism are in fact dynamic forces of a different kind of capitalism. It is not Weber’s diagnosis, but what he made of the diagnosis that seems to be in question. What has been untouched by, and in fact benefited from, the Confucian “challenge” is capitalism itself. In its theoretical premises, the discussion has been faithful to a modernization theory that is Weberian in 97. The issue of culture in development has continued unabated since the 1980s. See Lawrence E. Harrison and Samuel P. Huntington (ed.), Culture Matters: How Values Shape Human Progress (New York: Basic Books, 2000). For a Chinese counterpart, subscribing more or less to the same conviction that some cultures are more amenable to progress and development than others, see He Chuanqi, “China Modernization Report,” released by the China Center for Modernization Research, the Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS) (2009). For a report summary: http://en.chinagate.cn/dateorder/2009-02/24/content_17327414.htm. Consistent with the goals of Confucian capitalism, He seeks also to market his ideas through the “Tone Modernization Club in Beijing” (TONE), www.modernization.com. cn/what.htm.

culture & history in postrevolutionary china | 146 its basic premises and, indeed, has bolstered modernization theory at a moment when its inability to explain the world was becoming daily more evident in its birthplace. Rather than “traditionalize” modernity, as a number of these authors claim, they have modernized tradition. Theoretically and politically, both claims, contrary to pretensions of radical departures into multilinearity, consist of little more than a confirmation of capitalist modernity as it is, now open to previously rejected candidates. It may not be surprising, given the global situation in the eighties, especially in Eastern Asia, that Marxism or Marxism-inspired explanations of Eastern Asian development should not have appeared in these discussions. On the contrary, there is some evidence that “Confucian modernization,” with its claims to development and equality and social harmony, against all the evidence, provided a means to browbeat Communists and Marxists.98 This only underlines the ideological thrust of the discussions. Modernization theory in general, while drawing upon Weberian culturalism, has ignored that Max Weber himself formulated his ideas within a discourse of which Marxism was an integral component: Weber was critical of Marxism not because it was wrong but because it was insufficient; because the materialist argument, while necessary, was not sufficient to explain the development of capitalism. In his Religion of China, he was careful to sort through available information on Chinese social structure and organization before turning to the problem of values.99 A number of participants in the discussions of the eighties sought to pursue a similar methodological strategy in their analyses of Eastern Asian development (not out of Marxist inclination), but they have received little attention, crushed by the weight of a 98. In the late 1980s, then Party Secretary Zhao Ziyang was highly impressed with the “new authoritarianism” that had led to success in Taiwan, Singapore, South Korea, etc. Subsequently, Deng Xiaoping would hold up Singapore as a model for China. 99. For Weber’s relationship to Marx, see H. H. Gerth and C. Wright Mills, From Max Weber: Essays in Sociology (New York: Oxford University Press, 1958), “Introduction,” especially pp. 46–51.

confucius in the borderlands | 147 culturalist discourse. That Eastern Asian development might have had little to do with Confucianism or any other cultural system, but instead owed its success to particular structures created by a capitalist world-economy, which certain political formations were able to exploit successfully, however persuasive theoretically and in terms of historical evidence, remained marginal to the discourse, if not actively marginalized by it—even when it is argued by those with impeccable conservative credentials.100 This, too, is not surprising. The culturalism of the Confucian revival was from the beginning addressed to certain questions, among which finding cures to the problems of capitalist economy were paramount. While academics intrigued by the challenge to Weberian assumptions might have been concerned with theoretical questions, it is always interesting to ask what those operating in the “real world” (remember the president of the International Chamber of Commerce) made of such worries. Returning to the question of power raised by Tu Weiming’s statement, and remembering what Michel Foucault had to say about discourse, the discourse on Confucianism was a discourse on power within a Global Capitalism beleaguered by the decline and uncertainties of the “Advanced Industrial Societies,” which found in “post-Confucian societies” a new space for renewal and expansion. It may not be coincidental that Eastern Asia emerged as a “model” almost simultaneously with the appearance of a discourse on the “Pacific Rim,” and with a new awareness 100. Thomas Metzger argues for such a complex approach in his “Confucian Culture and Economic Modernization: An Historical Approach,” at the conference Confucianism and Economic Development in East Asia, pp. 141– 195, especially pp. 147–151. In his contribution to the Chung-hua Conference, “Confucianism and Modernization,” Marion Levy put forward the interesting (and highly revealing) thesis that Confucian values may have become functional to development only with the establishment after World War II of corporatist states in East Asia. While some of the East Asian participants in the conferences have utilized something akin to “world-system analysis” in explaining East Asian development, there has been no reference that I am aware of to such seminal analyses as Bruce Cumings’ “The Origins and Development of the Northeast Asian Political Economy,” International Organization (Winter 1984), pp. 1–40.

culture & history in postrevolutionary china | 148 of a Global Capitalism. And it has been a model, if not for a new kind of social paradise then at least for new models of social control and management of the exploitation of labor. And it has been successful, judging by the popularity in the United States, at least, of “Oriental” texts that promote at one and the same time a New Age philosophy of social humility and management. The “social control” aspects of the Confucian revival may explain why Singaporean, Taiwanese, and South Korean scholars were foremost in expressing doubts about any relationship between Confucianism and development, against U.S. scholars (of whatever origin) promoting the idea. The latter seemed to have no qualms in quoting dictators such as Pak Chung-hee as examples of Confucianism, without bothering to ask whether there is anything Confucian about the promotion of the family in furthering the goals of “strong nationhood,” rendering Pak into a latter-day Zhu Xi. Quoting Pak (from MacFarquhar), Hung-chao Tai asserts, on behalf of a whole subcontinent,” that “East Asians would wholeheartedly approve of Pak’s idealization of the collective interest, even though they can be—in reality—as self-seeking as people anywhere else.”101 Only a rare participant in the discussions raised explicitly the question of the concrete meaning for laborers, women, and other groups in Eastern Asian societies of the “familistic” organization of business, totally ignoring struggles against power in these societies, past and present. References to “social engineering” in Singapore, or Chen Li-fu’s description of Confucius as an “engineer of human cultivation,” are passed by, without any questions raised about their meaning for the alleged “complementarity” in Eastern Asian societies, or for Confucianism.102 In support of his “affective model” of development, Tai wrote, somewhat guilelessly, that “the Oriental company influences employee behavior by economic and social means, through a twotract control.” He further quoted Liu Shu-hsien to the effect that 101. Tai, “An Oriental Alternative,” p. 17. 102. Chen and Hou, “Confucianism, Education and Economic Development in Taiwan,” p. 3.

confucius in the borderlands | 149 “the relation between the employer and the employee is likened to that between king and subject, or between father and son. Thus, once you become my employee, you are my subordinate not only inside the company but also outside of it.”103 No wonder “Confucian” practices warmed the hearts of corporate leaders with visions of “communitarian capitalism.” James Watson has observed that “intellectual historians have been duped by the self-serving rhetoric of Chinese scholar-bureaucrats who perpetuate the myth that such popular practices [among peasants] reflect Confucian ideals.”104 Likewise, Peter Bol has described the Confucian revival as an expression of elitist intellectuals’ efforts to reassert themselves by identifying popular values with their own, which also enables them to speak for whole societies. These statements may be open to reductionist readings, but they point nevertheless into an important social and political dimension of the Confucian revival. There is pain involved in the effort, to be sure. The question of cultural identity has been a burning question for Chinese intellectuals since the turn of the century. Tu Weiming stated the problem eloquently when he observed that “without being able to continue the Confucian rhetoric, with all its manifestations, the meaning of being Chinese is so fundamentally challenged that there is no way for the Chinese to connect themselves up with the traditional concept of being Chinese. In other words, there is a fundamental disintegration of the Chinese identity itself.”105 It may be ironic that the very economic success of Chinese societies such as Taiwan, Hong Kong, and Singapore, as well as other Chinese communities overseas, brought back to the surface questions of Chinese identity by underlining the differences among Chinese. The question of the Chinese “diaspora” was also to emerge as an important question in the eighties. Add to it the appearance of similar questions in post103. Tai, “An Oriental Alternative,” pp. 21 and 19, respectively. 104. The Confucian World Observed, p. 9. 105. Ibid., p. 113.

culture & history in postrevolutionary china | 150 socialist China, and it is obvious why the question of Chinese identity should once again have become urgent. By the end of the decade of the eighties, questions of “Greater China” (primarily economic and political) and “cultural China” would become enmeshed with questions of Eastern Asian capitalism. The Confucian revival, instigated by issues of Eastern Asian capitalism, would provide an intellectual space for the airing of questions of identity as well. Wang Gungwu, who as an expert on Chinese overseas is aware of “the complexity of being Chinese,” has observed nevertheless that “the agonizing and suffering over Confucianism really comes from the shidafu (literati) class.”106 In this case, we might add, literati who have become part of a global intellectual elite, which may explain the redirection in the most recent discursive context of earlier questions of identity: the articulation of Confucianism to a global ideology. The question of Chinese identity is no longer merely one of reaffirming Confucianism, as Tu Weiming has said repeatedly, but rather transforming Confucianism in order to guarantee it a voice in this new culture. Tu has indeed expressed regrets over the loss of power by Chinese intellectuals in the twentieth century. And his goal, above all, is to regenerate Chinese intellectuals to capture ideological power once again. But the new shidafu are to be a global shidafu, cultural brokers between “East” and “West.” Hence his contention that the cultural regeneration of Chinese intellectuals must now move from the periphery (of Chinese societies, but, he neglects to add, centers of global hegemony) to the center (of Chinese societies but margins of global hegemony).107 There is much irony to this project. The reassertion of “central” Confucian values in the process of recapturing cultural identity constitutes at the same time a denial, if not the suppression, of living Chinese cultures—those localized cultures that have been the products of a Chinese diaspora, where Chinese populations have 106. Ibid., pp. 45–46. 107. Ibid., p. 128. This idea is elaborated in his “Among Non-Chinese,” Daedalus (Spring 1991), pp. 135–157.

confucius in the borderlands | 151 negotiated new cultural identities in their various local environments. This became fully evident in Singapore in qualms about the suppression of the local Peranakan culture, a product of ChineseMalay interactions, with its own language and religious practices but still recognizably “Chinese,” by abstract Confucian values to be taught in English! The phenomenon is not new. Wang Gungwu observes how political centers in China, from the Qing government to the Guomindang, in the past sought to “re-Sinify” overseas Chinese who, in the eyes of the government, were insufficiently “Chinese.”108 The bureaucratic construction of Chineseness is replaced now, it would seem, by a construction of Chineseness by global intellectuals. Articulated to the ideology of a Global Capitalism, the reassertion of Confucian “core values” in a global “cultural China” appears as another instance of reworking the local by global political, economic, and ideological goals.109

“Borderlands Confucianism” The Confucian revival enables us to view Third World intellectuals’ participation in contemporary global culture from a vantage point that has been missing from recent discussions of postcolonialism and Orientalism. Unlike most Third World intellectuals involved in cultural criticism, the Chinese intellectuals participating in the Confucian discussions have been closely involved with, and spoken for, centers of global economic and political power. Third World intellectuals are not all literary critics alienated from power, as they sometimes pretend. Many of them are at the centers of power. Technically speaking, the description of intellectuals from Eastern Asian societies as “postcolonial” may seem problematic. Singapore, Taiwan, Hong Kong, and South Korea have all been shaped 108. The Confucian World Observed, p. 45. 109. See the elaboration of this problem by Wang Gungwu, “Among Non-Chinese,” Daedalus (Spring 1991), pp. 135–157, and David Yen-ho Wu, “The Construction of Chinese and Non-Chinese Identities,” ibid., pp. 159–179.

culture & history in postrevolutionary china | 152 by colonial experiences, but Japan has been a colonizing power itself and China proper was never colonized and is best described as postsocialist rather than postcolonial. Nevertheless, in spite of their recent success in the world economy, these societies have all experienced the agonies and problems of Euro/American cultural hegemony. Tu Weiming has suggested that the problem of identity may be sharper in Chinese societies than in a colonized society such as India.110 Hung-chao Tai finds in Edward Said’s depiction of Orientalism a description of the Chinese experience with Euro/American culture. The question of a suppressed cultural identity was very much in evidence throughout the discussions of the eighties. These intellectuals also partook of the language of postcolonial discourse in their critique (more often than not, implied) of Eurocentrism, in their affirmation of multilinear development and multiculturalism, and in their self-perceptions of cultural hybridity. An intellectual such as Tu Weiming is certainly as hybrid culturally as any “borderlands” intellectual from the Third World. He also views his promotion of Confucianism as a “post-modern” undertaking. And yet, these intellectuals also speak for societies with newfound power and confidence, and their “postcolonial” agonies are refracted through their relationship to power, both in the United States and in their societies of origin. What the Confucian discussions produced was not a critique of capitalism, or of Orientalism, but their affirmations. For all his visions of a Daoist agricultural utopia, Tu Weiming has been most prominent for articulating Confucianism to a global ideology of modernization, enhancing the hegemony of the latter. Confucianism could indeed contribute to a critique of modernity, but in defining the “core values” of Confucianism, Tu and others have refrained from any thoroughgoing critique of capitalism, portraying Confucianism instead as a “remedy” for the ailments of capitalism, which translates into a rendering of Confucianism into an instrument of “social engineering” to guarantee more cooperative (and docile) 110. “Cultural China,” p. 2.

confucius in the borderlands | 153 citizens for corporations and patriarchal families. The discourse on Confucianism in the eighties unfolded with Third World intellectuals acting as cultural technicians and informants for ideologues of Global Capitalism such as Herman Kahn. It may not be surprising from the perspective of the 1980s (but obviously not of our present) that Tu ran into the greatest resistance to his ideas in China where, in their newfound fetishism of development, post-socialist intellectuals remained suspicious of a “feudal” Confucianism. That situation was to change with the total opening of China to capitalism in the 1990s. Following the “culture fever” of the 1980s, and the flirtation with postmodernism in the 1990s, Chinese intellectuals in postsocialist China, too, have turned in large numbers to past legacies as sources of contemporary identity. In mid-September 1994, the People’s Daily “called . . . for a renewal of Confucian values in an effort to fill a moral vacuum which, since the birth of economic reforms 15 years ago, is being replaced by ‘money worship.’”111 A “Confucius fever” has become visible since then, ironically, hand in hand with the emergence of a consumer society. What is in question here is not whether Confucianism should serve as a source of Chinese identity nor the legitimacy of Confucian scholarship. It is, rather, the hitching of Confucianism to an 111. “Chinese Communist Party Espouses ‘Confucian Renaissance,’” Japan Economic Newswire (Sept. 19, 1994), Electronic News [email protected]. See also “Kongzi weixiaozhe zouxiang weilai” (Confucius Moves toward the Future with a Smile on His Lips), Renmin ribao (People’s Daily), overseas edition, Sept. 8, 1994. This is a report on the Sino-Korean conference (to which I referred above), entitled “Confucian Thought and the Twenty-first Century.” Another conference to commemorate Confucius’ 2,545th birthday, at which Li Ruihuan gave the opening speech, was held in October. Li Ruihuan, who earlier in the year had opened a new temple to the “Yellow Emperor,” reminded the international gathering that “the children and grandchildren of Shen Nong and the Yellow Emperor” (legendary culture heroes both) had an obligation to “serve the present by scientifically evaluating Confucianism and recognize its significance for its times.” See “Jinian Kongzi guoji yantaohui zai jing juxing” (International Research Conference to Commemorate Confucius Gets Under Way in the Capital), Renmin ribao (People’s Daily), overseas edition, Oct. 6, 1994, front page.

culture & history in postrevolutionary china | 154 ideology of capitalist development, or a totalizing condition of national identity, ruling out different ways of being “Chinese.” The result is not beneficial to Confucianism or to Confucian scholarship, for in rendering Confucianism into a generalized cultural trait of Eastern Asian societies, its promoters have in some ways completed the process of Orientalizing Confucianism. These entanglements in the workings of capital and the state unavoidably cast a shadow on Confucianism as a philosophical tradition or national legacy. The transformation of Confucianism into a social/ideological characteristic of widely diverse societies reduced it to a few functional traits deprived of all history and complexity so as to accommodate such diversity. (Not incidentally, such a generalized and abstract Confucianism also accommodates the cultural hybridity and complexity of intellectuals in search of identity.) For all the inspiration he finds in Edward Said, and his affirmation of Third World modernity, a Hung-chao Tai can engage in an essentialization of Confucianism that would shock any self-respecting Orientalist. Meanwhile, Tu Weiming discovers in “Sinified” China scholars (the Orientalists) the outer circle of his “cultural China.” He has little to say about the Orientalist formulations of a Roderick MacFarquhar with his references to the “childlike confidence” of Eastern Asians (with its Hegelian overtones), but rather cites him approvingly as the coiner of the term “post-Confucian.” The admission of Eastern Asia to Global Capitalism has been accompanied not by the repudiation but—in the self-Orientalization of the “Orientals” themselves—by the apotheosis of Orientalism. That could be a reason why the “Orientals” may be admired for their accomplishments, but in their “Orientalness” they are also a potential threat. It may not be very distant from MacFarquhar’s “East Asia challenge” to Samuel Huntington’s warnings about an impending war between cultures. Both are informed by the same essentialist view of culture, oblivious to their own culturalist constructions. The pitfalls of multiculturalism! In the People’s Republic of China, side by side with the burgeoning intellectual interest in Confucianism, Confucius would

confucius in the borderlands | 155 be moved in the early 1990s from the museum to the theme park, the most recent location for history under Global Capitalism. The discourse on Confucianism in the eighties made Confucius into an Oriental “money-bag.” One article lauding the functionality of Confucianism to moneymaking was entitled, appropriately enough, “The Cash Value of Confucian Values.”112 The title suggests that the most recent revival of Confucianism also signals its transfiguration into a cultural commodity. Its crass vulgarization of a philosophical tradition may be deplorable, but we may also note that it is but a short step from Confucianism as business fantasy to its deployment as cultural commodity in the so-called Confucius Institutes. What is certain is that Confucianism no longer defines the cultural space it inhabits. On the contrary, whether as business ideology, academic discipline, or a source of national identity, its fate depends on its marketability in a global cultural commodity market. It is a fate it shares with other resurgent traditionalisms of Global Modernity.

112. Michael Harris Bond and Geert Hofstede, “The Cash Value of Confucian Values,” in Stewart R. Clegg and S. Gordon Redding (ed.), assisted by Monica Cartner, Capitalism in Contrasting Cultures (Berlin: Walter de Gruyter, 1990), pp. 383–390.

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Timespace, Social Space, and the Question of Chinese Culture I take up in the following discussion the general theme of the dimensions of diversity in Chinese society, more specifically: How to analyze difference in that society located in the southeastern corner of the Eurasian continent, which long has spilled over the boundaries suggested by that location? I find it difficult to think of the dimensions of Chinese diversity before I can settle in my mind questions pertaining to diversity, culture, and, above all, China. What I undertake is a reflection on the relationship between these terms. The difference that is the most relevant here is cultural difference. Over the last two decades, global transformations have set in motion both cultures and how we conceive them. They have given rise to novel cultural configurations, endowed with new meanings long-standing cultural formations, and forced upon our consciousness recognition of previously ignored or marginalized dimensions of cultural difference, to the point where the more culture impinges upon our consciousness as a constituent of economic, social, and political identity and behavior—the so-called “cultural turn”—the less certain we seem to be of what we mean when we refer to culture as an identifying mark of societies. What we call Chinese culture is no exception. At one level, there has been little change from the past. To say that what we call Chinese culture is complicated, that it is subject to immense variation over time and space, and that it is inflected differently depending on 157

culture & history in postrevolutionary china | 158 social location is to state the obvious. And yet that has not, and does not, seem to deter anyone in China or abroad from speaking as if there were only one Chinese culture. Chinese and non-Chinese alike continue to speak about a Chinese culture of long duration which marks all the people we describe as Chinese who in turn participate in the propagation of that culture. Contemporary scholarship in China and abroad has revealed much that we did not know before, of course, but the difference between the present and the past may lie not so much in the level of knowledge but rather in a willingness to recognize what we have known all along. A sharpening awareness not only of temporal and spatial but also of social difference, combined with a suspicion of claims to cultural essentialism and uniformity, which have provoked calls in recent years for the deconstruction of Chinese culture, which at its logical extreme leaves us with nothing but a conglomeration of individuals who are difficult to name because we do not know quite what to call the collectivity that once was identifiable by a common culture. The dilemma presents us with a challenge to reconcile the deconstruction of Chinese culture with continued claims to or attributions of collective cultural identity that refuse to go away for all the evidence to the contrary in theory, or in the practice of everyday life. The analysis of difference, I will suggest, needs also to account for commonality, without which difference itself is meaningless. I will address this issue by way of conclusion. From a contemporary vantage point, any discussion of culture needs to begin with questioning modernity’s ways of mapping human societies in terms of civilizations, nations, or, simply, cultures which appear in history and historical geography in their location in or relationship to some physical entity, ranging from trans- to subcontinental regions to national and sub-national territories. The nation, or the nation-state, has been the privileged unit of modernity, but has never ruled out entirely other units of mapping cultures— from the “tribal” units of anthropology to the civilizational units of so-called high cultures. These mappings establish boundaries that

timespace, social space | 159 are thought to express something about what they contain—more often than not a political unit that derives its identity from particular social and cultural practices, the one not clearly distinguished from the other. These practices are usually taken to radiate from a center somewhere within the boundaries, fading to near invisibility by the time they have reached the boundaries, or are checked in their progress either by the obstacles of physical geography or encounter with another unit in search of its limits. The encounter produces a boundary, but also a “contact zone,” which Mary Louise Pratt has used to conceptualize “the space of colonial encounters, the space in which peoples geographically and historically separated come into contact with each other and establish ongoing relations, usually involving conditions of coercion, radical inequality, and intractable conflict.”1 We might add that the “colonial encounter” is only one among a multiplicity of possible encounters that shape the contact zone. In contemporary postcolonial criticism, which has stressed the interaction rather than the hierarchy aspects of the encounter, the interactions in the contact zones have been credited with the production of hybridities that point to the possibility of new social and cultural departures and formations. Modernity’s ways of mapping the world in terms of nations, cultures, and civilizations have served to provide with a historical geography forms of power created by modernity, but in the process have erased alternative ways of conceiving space as well as complexities in the dynamics of “the production of space,” as Henri Lefevbre put it, that might point to alternative ways of organizing society and culture.2 In many ways, it is arguable that modernity’s ways of conceiving historical spaces put the cart before the horse in establishing 1. Mary Louise Pratt, Imperial Eyes: Travel Writing and Transculturation (London: Routledge, 1992), p. 6. Pratt borrows the term from linguistics, with reference to “contact languages.” She notes also that a similar conceptualization has been deployed in literature, in the reference to “contact literatures.” 2. Henri Lefevbre, The Production of Space, tr. from the French by Donald Nicholson-Smith (Oxford: Blackwell, 1991).

culture & history in postrevolutionary china | 160 that it was the whole that was the point of departure in reading the parts rather than the other way around: a historical process of countless encounters between different spaces out of which wholes have been constituted. Cultural constitution has been a product not of the diffusion of social and cultural practices from some center but of dialectical encounters in many contact zones. In this perspective, the priority given to the whole represents as much a “strategy of containment,” as Fredric Jameson has termed it,3 as it does the identification of some unit of coherence (not to be confused with homogeneity or some identifiable essence). Historical units thus conceived are subject for the same reason to forces of destabilization produced by the very same encounters as they assume new historical guises. There is little reason, in rethinking global formations, why our notions of space should be limited by nations and civilizations, which then also shape the ways in which we conceive of cultural spaces. Contact zones historically precede national and civilizational formations, or the formations of political economy, in the many and multifaceted encounters among humans that were crucial in generating new social and cultural practices, including, ultimately, nations and civilization. These encounters are not just between politically identifiable units, but involve the encounters of many social and cultural spaces. They are, therefore, overdetermined and subject to the dialectics of the parts of which they are constituted. They need not be atomized to the level of the individual, because individual encounters take place within contexts that seek to reproduce themselves, creating the possibility of continuity, but also of disruption, depending on the circumstances. It is not simply nations, civilizations, and other social/political units identifiable as groups (including places) that have cultures. Social spaces represented by concepts with which we think the world—from ethnicity to gender to class to institutions of various kinds and scope, to name a few 3. Fredric Jameson, The Political Unconscious: Narrative as Socially Symbolic Act (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1981).

timespace, social space | 161 prominent ones—also compel us to think of cultural coherence as a crucial aspect in the constitution of social groups encompassed by the concept, from which the concept derives its plausibility. Culture needs to be conceived, in other words, not just in terms of physical, political, and economic spaces, but also through the many encounters between social spaces. Such a complicated notion of contact zones would suggest also that localized encounters take historical if not logical priority in the formation of larger political and cultural units, and it is “hybridity” (or many “hybridities”) that generates notions of civilizational or national conceptions of cultural purity, rather than the other way around, as is often assumed even in postcolonial critiques of essentialism. The localization of processes of cultural formations derives further justification from materially grounded conceptions of culture articulated most forcefully in the post-Stalinist Marxisms of Antonio Gramsci, Henri Lefevbre, and the British new left, from Raymond Williams to Eric Hobsbawm to E. P. Thompson. Against textual notions of culture, which equate cultures with civilizations, or the abstraction of essences from folklore or everyday practices in order to invent national cultures, a materially grounded notion of culture leads inevitably to “places,” and the practices of everyday life, with a consequent proliferation of the spaces of culture.4 In this perspective, efforts to realize the promise of civilization or nation appear also as colonizing activities seeking to erase or replace the many cultures of everyday life with abstractly conceived cultural uniformities and difference with homogeneity. And as it is with physical spaces, so it is with social spaces. The social spaces indicated by categories of class, gender, or ethnicity refer also to the cultural differences that mark the relationships between social groups, which are also the objects of the homogenizing urges of modernization. 4. Arturo Escobar, “Culture Sits in Places: Reflections on Globalism and Subaltern Strategies of Localization,” Political Geography 20 (2001), pp. 139–174. See also the essays in Roxann Prazniak and Arif Dirlik (ed.), Places and Politics in an Age of Globalization (Boulder, CO: Rowman & Littlefield, 2001).

culture & history in postrevolutionary china | 162 Colonial modernity finds its ultimate expression in globalization. Ironically, the reassertion of local difference against forces of global cultural homogenization also indicates that the colonialism of capital, the nation-state, or civilization was never complete. The dispersal of culture into many localized encounters renders it elusive both as phenomenon and as a principle of mapping and historical explanation. Rendered into a weapon of struggles over identity and difference, culture becomes more questionable than ever as a principle of social and historical explanation. This perspective underlines the constructedness of culture and draws attention to agency from lasting structural significance—even if the structure is conceived as ongoing reproduction. It is the perspective of what I have described elsewhere as Global Modernity, which is conceived at once as a negation and fulfillment of a colonial modernity, in which cultural identity is inextricably entangled in the political economy of a globalizing capitalism, and the world is divided, so to speak, by a commonality of interests. As an anthropologist of media writes, “difference can no longer be understood as a function of culture. Difference is no longer so much a measure of the distance between two or more bounded cultural worlds; rather, we may now understand it as a potentiality, a space of indeterminacy inherent to all processes of mediation, and therefore inherent to the social process per se.”5 This, too, calls for new ways of conceiving space, especially social and cultural space.

Cultural Formations in China: The Present and Its Pasts The “traditional” account of the formation of Chinese civilization provides a textbook case of civilization radiating from a center toward peripheries where barbarism gradually takes over, defining the limits of the world worth knowing. The “Tribute of Yu” (Yugong) section of the Shangshu (Book of History) describes a society with 5. William Mazzarella, “Culture, Globalization, Mediation,” Annual Review of Anthropology 33 (2004), pp. 345–367, p. 360.

timespace, social space | 163 the monarch at its center, where the distance from the monarch indicates both social status and level of civilization, disappearing at its margins into a shadowy realm in which there is no clear-cut distinction between criminal and barbarian and, by implication, Han and others. In the political realities of the late Zhou of which this idealized version of civilization is a product, the Central Kingdoms (Zhongguo) of the Yellow River plains were already giving way to a Central Kingdom (also Zhongguo), giving rise to more sharply demarcated ideological boundaries between the inside and the outside. It then becomes the “civilizing mission” of the center to fill out the area that is to become China which, we may note, is to take a good part of what we habitually describe as imperial Chinese history. One recent work points to the Yuan dynasty (1275–1368) as the period when China took its modern form.6 It is not until the Ming dynasty that the Great Wall defines the contours of “China,” and it is not until the Qing, with its own expansionism to the west and the southwest, that China comes to occupy the area that it does today.7 Throughout, the inside and the outside interact in producing the cultural formations that then come to demarcate the inside and the outside. These complexities disappear in nationalist historiography, which puts its own spin on imperial mythology. It is no longer the monarch that is at the center of civilization but the nation of China. And Chinese civilization now appears as a radiation in time and space from a Yellow River core, fulfilling its destiny in the occupation and transformation of the area that the nation claims as 6. Cai Fenglin, Zhongguo nongmu wenhua jiehe yu Zhonghua minzude xingcheng (The synthesis of agriculture and nomadism in the formation of the Chinese nation) (Beijing: Zhongguo caizheng jingji chubanshe, 2000). See especially, chap. 5 7. See recent studies of Qing imperialism in the Southwest and the Northwest by Laura Hostetler, Qing Colonial Enterprise: Ethnography and Cartography in Early Modern China (Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press, 2001); James A. Millward, Economy, Ethnicity, and Empire in Qing Central Asia, 1759– 1864 (Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 1998); and, most recently, Peter Perdue, China Marches West: The Qing Conquest of Central Eurasia (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2005).

culture & history in postrevolutionary china | 164 its own. This civilization is not so much a product of history as it is an articulation in space and time of a civilization fully formed in its “essence” by the late Zhou, or even earlier—as in the popular cliché of five thousand years of Chinese civilization. This account of a China that is culturally changing and yet timeless is noteworthy not only for what it says but also for what it silences. The differences it recognizes pertain mostly to differences between the Han and other nationalities, an ethnic diversity in which the Han constitute the culturally dominant (and superior) position in the formation of China; it is the Han civilizing mission that ultimately unifies China culturally and endows it with its fundamental characteristics. Regional differences are recognized, but without a clear accounting for what brought them about, except as local adjustments of a Han culture spreading out of the Yellow River plains. Likewise, with the waning of Marxist influence in the historiography of China, issues in the social production of cultural difference—from urban-rural differences to differences produced by class and gender—have receded from the forefront of the account and no longer serve to call into question its assumptions about cultural homogeneity socially and spatially. The “idea” of China has acquired considerable complexity in recent years, presenting unprecedented challenges in the writing and teaching of Chinese history. The complexity itself is not novel; I derive the term “idea of China” from the title of a book by Andrew March published three decades ago.8 China as an imagined entity that has assumed different characteristics over time has been the subject of many a splendid study, from Raymond Dawson’s The Chinese Chameleon to Harold Isaacs’ Scratches on Our Minds.9 The fact that 8. Andrew L. March, The Idea of China: Myth and Theory in Geographic Thought (New York: Praeger, 1974). 9. Raymond S. Dawson, The Chinese Chameleon: An Analysis of European Conceptions of Chinese Civilization (London: Oxford University Press, 1967), and Harold Isaacs, Scratches on Our Minds: American Views of China and India (White Plains, NY: M.E. Sharpe, 1980).

timespace, social space | 165 such studies are still called for, and produced, may also alert us to continued resistance among the general public (here, or in China), as well as in scholarship, to viewing China historically. The present presents its own challenges. The knowledge of changing images of China was not accompanied in the past by any radical questioning of the realities of China or of being Chinese. Until only a generation ago, the dominant historical paradigm identified China with the boundaries of so-called “mainland China,” saw in the unfolding of the past the formation—in more culturalist guises, articulation—of an identifiable “Chineseness,” and viewed regions and regionalism as legacies to be overcome in the process of nation-building.10 China in this paradigm was not just a nation, it was a civilization, with a “great tradition” continuous from earliest times to the present. It is fair to say that for all their differences otherwise, Chinese and non-Chinese historians shared in this common paradigm. The culturalism—and the clichés—persist, but they face new challenges, not by phenomena that are necessarily novel in themselves, but by older phenomena that have been given a new kind of recognition. Most important in this regard is the reopening of China from the 1980s, which has led not only to a valorization of contacts with the outside in the formation of a Chinese culture, but also a greater willingness to recognize difference internally.11 This by no means signals the end of Han cultural colonialism—as is evident most readily in the strenuous efforts to assimilate Tibet. But it has led to greater willingness among Chinese scholars to confront issues of cultural 10. I use “mainland China” here in a historical sense. For the last fifty years, “mainland China” represented for many Communist deviation from true Chinese culture, which was supposedly preserved in Taiwan and, to a much smaller extent, in isolated pockets in Hong Kong such as the Chinese University of Hong Kong, home to the “New Confucians.” 11. The celebrations in 2005 of the six hundredth anniversary of the Zheng He voyages to the west not only underlined Chinese contributions to the peaceful growth of global trade, but also acknowledged the cultural transformations of coastal China, namely Fujian and Guangdong, by cultural flows from the outside.

culture & history in postrevolutionary china | 166 complexity. A recent study of “traditional Chinese culture,” available for use as a school textbook, observes that “the characteristics of traditional Chinese culture become visible only in comparison with other cultures; without such comparison, there is no way to determine those characteristics. Most modern Chinese scholars who have discussed the characteristics of traditional Chinese culture have done so in comparison with Western culture.”12 The acknowledgment of the inventedness of tradition in the confrontation with the “West” (itself important as a limitation on comparison) does not stop the authors from reaffirming characteristics of Chinese culture, but it does make for a more complicated account of the culture in their recognition that most of what is taken to be tradition is in fact the tradition of the elite.13 It is revealing, nevertheless, that of the 400 pages of the book, only 40 are devoted to folk culture. I will not dwell here on the obvious cultural differences marking the fifty-six officially recognized nationalities, which have been the subjects of extensive scholarship in Europe and North America. Since the 1950s, so-called minority nationalities (shaoshu minzu) have provided the basis for claims to a Chinese kind of multiculturalism. These differences do not seem to present much of a problem so long as issues of culture are isolated from issues of political identity and sovereignty. As with liberal multiculturalism in the United States, official multiculturalism in the People’s Republic of China represents an effort at cultural management that is driven ultimately by the goal of depoliticizing ethnicity. Prominent presently is the issue of ethnicity (or nationality) in relationship to globalization, with special attention to issues of development and education. In the case of Tibet, as well as in the northwestern provinces, the state seems to have discovered in capitalist development the most efficient means

12. Wang Xinting, Jin Mingjuan, and Yao Wanxia, Zhongguo chuantong wenhua gailun (A General Discussion of Traditional Chinese Culture) (Beijing: Zhongguo linye chubanshe, 2004) (2nd printing), p. 347. 13. Ibid., p. 307.

timespace, social space | 167 to assimilate recalcitrant nationalities.14 Less obvious are issues of regional differences in culture, which also seem to be attracting considerable attention, most importantly in the writing of regional, provincial, and even place-based histories, but also in more abstract speculation over the question of culture. An eloquent example is provided by an article by Tan Qirang of Fudan University published in 1987, entitled “Temporal and Spatial Differences in Chinese Culture.”15 Tan minimized the differences between Chinese and Western societies, arguing that the exaggeration of differences between the two societies was due to the fact that most discussions simply proceeded as if they were comparing two societies, rather than two societies at different stages of development (feudal China and capitalist Europe, and only part of capitalist Europe, at that); if the comparisons focused on the same phases of historical development, the differences would seem much smaller. Chinese culture had undergone constant transformation over time, and, given the country’s size, exhibited significant regional differences. So-called Chinese civilization was the product of many nationalities. When most people spoke of Chinese culture, they really meant Han culture. He added that “Han culture itself had undergone ceaseless transformation; it was different from one period to another, and, within the same period, differed from place to place and region to region; there is no such thing as a common culture across time, and covering the whole of feudal society.”16 Tan’s analysis is important, 14. A recent article by Thomas Heberer suggests that this may not be working very well, as economic success also seems to foster a heightened sense of ethnic identity. See Thomas Heberer, “Ethnic Entrepreneurship and Ethnic Identity: A Case Study among the Liangshan Yi (Nuosu) in China,” China Quarterly 182 ( June 2005), pp. 407–427. 15. Tan Qirang, “Zhongguo wenhuade shidai chayi he diqu chayi” (“Temporal and Regional Differences in Chinese Culture,”) in Department of History, Fudan University (ed.), Zhongguo chuantong wenhua zai jiantao (A Reexamination of Traditional Chinese Culture) (Shanghai: Shangwu yinshuguan, 1987), vol.1, pp. 27–55. 16. Ibid., p. 30.

culture & history in postrevolutionary china | 168 among other reasons, for drawing attention to the fact that what is routinely labeled Sinocentrism in China and abroad is better understood as Han-centrism. A more recent work enumerates the Northwest, the Southwest, Jiangnan, the Southeast, Central China, North China, and the Northeast as cultural regions that have preserved their particularities in spite of repeated attempts to merge all regions into one cultural whole.17 Regional differences in culture, where they are not products of different ethnicities, are attributed in a work such as this one to differences of physical environment that characterize a subcontinental society. More interesting are those works that perceive such differences as historical products of interaction between different ways of life. Rather than pointing to the form that an expanding Han culture took in different environments, in other words, such interpretations look at interactions that went into the making of Han culture itself. Most of us are familiar with the classic works of Owen Lattimore and Wolfram Eberhard, among others, who have argued the importance of nomadic societies of the North in the formation of China.18 A similar argument (with specific reference to Mongol nomads) has been put forth recently in a work I cited previously, The Synthesis of Agriculture and Nomadism in the Formation of the Chinese Nation, by Cai Fenglin, who writes that “to research the historical formation of present-day China, it is necessary to adopt two standpoints; one is that of the agricultural region with its north-south axis lying in the Central Plains, the other is the nomadic region of the northern grasslands. To understand this history, it is necessary to plant one foot in the Central Plains, the other in the grasslands, with a trans-Great Wall perspective. It will not do to look south with 17. Wu Cunhao and Yu Yunhan, Zhongguo wenhua shilüe (Brief History of Chinese Culture) (Zhengzhou: Henan wenyi chubanshe, 2004), p. 14. We might remember here that Lee Denghui, the former president of Taiwan, angered the leadership in Beijing when he asserted that there were at least seven Chinas. 18. Wolfram Eberhard, Conquerors and Rulers: Social Forces in Medieval China (Leiden: E.J. Brill, 1952), and Owen Lattimore, Inner Asian Frontiers of China (New York: American Geographical Society, 1940).

timespace, social space | 169 one’s back to the Great Wall, and see only the agricultural regions of the Yellow River, the Yangtze, and the Pearl.”19 The territorial frontier, and the maritime frontiers of Guangdong and Fujian, provide obvious “contact zones” in the production of regional cultures.20 One recent work goes much further in representing Chinese culture (and the Han themselves) as products of multiple contact zones of a people in constant motion. Entitled Roots within the Four Seas, this work argues that not a sedentary society but migration was the most important element in the formation of Chinese culture, as migrants encountered one another to form not just regional but also place-based cultures.21 The Han people themselves were constituted of all the ethnic groups from the original Hua and Xia (Huaxia) to the Xiongnu and Xianbi to Mongols and Manchus, so that the roots of the Han people reached all over the Eurasian continent. The reason that Han ethnicity provided the dominant strain in the Chinese nation, and constituted one of the most populous and powerful ethnicities globally, was its ability to ceaselessly absorb other groups of people.22 The remarkable reversal here is that of a Chinese people who are global in reach because they have been formed from the outside, not just culturally but also biologically. 19. Cai, Zhongguo nongmu wenhua jiehe, pp. 1–2. 20. For recent examples of cultural diversification in maritime regions, see Huang Shuping, Guangdong zuqun yu quyu wenhua yanjiu (Researches in Ethnic and Regional Cultural Differences in Guangdong) (Guangzhou: Guangdong gaodeng jiaoyuchuban she, 1999), and, Lin Yinshui and Xie Bizhen, Fujian dui wai wenhua jiaoliu shi (History of Cultural Exchanges Between Fujian and the Outside World) (Fuzhou: Fujian jiaoyu chuban she, 1997). 21. Ge Jianxiong and An Jiesheng, Sihai tonggen: Yimin yu Zhongguo chuantong wenhua (Identical Roots within the Four Seas: Migration and Traditional Chinese Culture) (Taiyuan: Shanxi renmin chubanshe, 2004). The huaxia, who would come to be claimed as the origins of the Chinese people, and constitute the Central States (Zhongguo) of the late Zhou, were possibly of western Eurasian origin. For a discussion, see Tze-ki Hon, “From a Hierarchy in Time to a Hierarchy in Space: The Meaning of Sino-Babylonianism in Early Twentieth Century China,” Modern China 36.2 (Oct. 2009), pp. 139–169. 22. Ge and An, Sihai tonggen, p. 321.

culture & history in postrevolutionary china | 170 The inside and the outside become inextricably entangled in one another and, with the attenuation of difference between self and other, localized differences within become more visible than ever.23 On the other hand, the author offers a justification of Han-centrism, which here qualifies for the place it holds in Chinese history not because it assimilates others, but because it absorbs them, gathering in cultural and political strength through the very absorption of difference.24 It is difficult to say how much such an argument owes to the increased visibility of Chinese overseas and the role they have played in the rapid economic development of the PRC over the last two decades.25 Chinese migrants abroad provide only one part of the 23. Han absorption of others, and the part it played in the production of cultural differences, also provides the point of departure for a recently published five-volume study of Han customs. See Xu Jiewu, Hanzu fengsu shi (History of Han Customs), 5 vols. (Shanghai: Xuelin chubanshe, 2004). One of the first works in U.S. China scholarship to point to intra-Han differences as ethnic differences was Emily Honig, Creating Chinese Ethnicity: Subei People in Shanghai, 1850–1980 (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1992). Honig’s work is important because it does not dwell on obvious differences among Han populations (such as those of language and custom, as, for example, with the Punti/Hakka differences of South China), but on the economic and social production of difference among seemingly the same people. A similar argument, which insists that regional differences should be viewed as ethnic differences, has been offered more recently in Melissa J. Brown, Is Taiwan Chinese? The Impact of Culture, Power and Migration on Changing Identities (Berkeley, CA: University of California Press, 2004). The virtue of Brown’s approach is in bringing collective social and political experience into the analysis of cultural formation. For another recent work, approaching the problem of local difference through political institution-building, see Elizabeth Remick, Building Local States: China during the Republican and Post-Mao Eras (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2004). 24. It is noteworthy that this was the view on progress of an American anthropologist who was quite influential in the late nineteenth century. See W. J. McGee, “The Trend of Human Progress,” American Anthropologist 1.3 ( July 1899): 401–447. McGee’s views were popularized through the 1904 St. Louis Fair, where he was in charge of the anthropological exhibit, the largest of its kind in preWorld War II world’s fairs. 25. The distinguished Chinese intellectual Li Shizeng, who himself was quite nomadic, similarly privileged migration, and proposed a new field of study, “qiaologie” (or qiaoxue), which is best rendered as “diasporalogy.” See Li Shizeng, “Qiaoxue fafan” (Introduction to Diasporalogy), in Li Shizeng

timespace, social space | 171 argument, and not the dominant part. But it is undeniable that the issues of culture raised by Chinese migrations also have played a significant part in the recognition of Chinese differences. Terms such as “Greater” or “Cultural” China that have become commonplaces of contemporary geopolitics implicitly repudiate the identification of the physical boundaries of “China” or “Chineseness” with the mainland. Greater China brings in Taiwan, Hong Kong, and the populations of Chinese origin in Southeast Asia, while Cultural China is global in scope and in its reference to a so-called Chinese diaspora that somehow retains a fundamental cultural Chineseness against the very forces of history.26 Such a notion of Chineseness carries with it strong racial presuppositions. The new visions of China and Chineseness are at once imperial in spatial pretensions and deconstructive in their consequences. Spatial expansion of notions of Chineseness brings historical differences into the very interior of the idea of China, calling into question the idea of China as the articulation of a national or civilizational space marked either by a common destiny or a homogeneous culture. The “China Reconstructs” of an earlier day has been transformed in the title of a more recent study into “China Deconstructs,” foregrounding the emergent importance of regional differences against pretensions to national unity.27 And this is not just the doing of non-Chinese scholars of China, as the most important challenges to the idea of national or civilizational unity and homogeneity come from Taiwan and Hong Kong, bent on asserting their local identities against Beijing’s imperial ambitions over territories deemed to be “historically” Chinese. Ideologically xiansheng wenji (Collection of Mr. Li Shizeng’s Writings) (Taipei: Zhongguo Guomindang dangshi weiyuanhui, 1980), pp. 291–341. Originally published in New York in Ziyou shijie (Free World), 1942. 26. Work of this kind has proliferated in recent years. For outstanding examples, see Tu Weiming (ed.), The Living Tree: The Changing Meaning of Being Chinese Today (Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 1991), and Wang Gungwu, China and the Chinese Overseas (Singapore: Times Academic Press, 1992). 27. David S. G. Goodman and Gerald Segal, China Deconstructs: Politics, Trade, and Regionalism (London: Routledge, 1994).

culture & history in postrevolutionary china | 172 speaking, however, it seems to me that the more important effect of these new conceptualization of Chinese spaces is in fact the questioning of those historical claims—that the history of China may be grasped in terms of an expansion from the Central Plains outward when it may be exactly the reverse: that looking from the borderlands in is crucial to understanding the formation of so-called Chinese culture, which may be understood as a unified culture only in the sense of variations on common themes.28 There is an important recognition here that earlier notions of Chinese culture—textbook as well as popular notions—identified it with a textual culture, and textual culture with a national identity as Chinese, meaning mostly the culture of the elite. Such identification has done much to disguise the complexity of Eastern Asian cultural formations that has persisted despite political colonization from imperial centers, which also would suggest that the cultural formations of this region are best grasped in ecumenical terms, rather than by the extension to the past of claims of recent origin, most importantly nationalism. 28. This perspective, too, is not entirely novel. It is a tribute to the power of the idea of a “middle kingdom,” possibly even more powerful among Euro/ Americans than among Chinese themselves, that persuasive evidence of cultural formation through interactions stretching across Asia has not succeeded in dislodging it from historical or political analysis. Wolfram Eberhard, Owen Lattimore, and Edward H. Schafer stand out as three of the foremost scholars drawing attention to this perspective. For important examples of their works, see Eberhard, Conquerors and Rulers; Lattimore, Inner Asian Frontiers of China; and, Schafer, The Golden Peaches of Samarkand: A Study of T’ang Exotics (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1963). For more recent noteworthy examples, see Liu Xinru, Silk and Religion: An Exploration of Material Life and the Thought of People (Delhi: Oxford University Press, 1998); Tansen Sen, Buddhism, Diplomacy and Trade: The Realignment of Sino-Indian Relations, 600–1400 (Honolulu, HI: University of Hawai‘i Press, 2003); and Charles Holcombe, The Genesis of East Asia, 221 B.C.–A.D. 907 (Honolulu, HI: University of Hawai‘i Press, 2001). It is interesting that the last two works, devoted to demonstrating the importance of commercial and religious interactions in producing the societies and regions in question, nevertheless continue to project upon the past the modern vocabulary of nations and regions (such as India and China) which attests, I think, to the power of modern ways of mapping history, as well as to the dilemmas presented by the very vocabulary of historical and cultural analysis.

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China/Zhongguo: Naming the Nameless Country A Qing official in Paris in 1871 complained of the namings of China by Euro/Americans, “who, after decades of East and West diplomatic and commercial interactions, know very well that Zhongguo is called Da Qing Guo [literally, the Great Qing State] or Zhonghua [the Central Efflorescent States] but insist on calling it Zhaina (China), Qina (China), Shiyin (La Chine), Zhina (Shina), Qita (Cathay), etc. Zhongguo has not been called by such a name over four thousand years of history. I do not know on what basis Westerners call it by these names.”29 The official, Zhang Deyi, was right on the mark concerning the discrepancy between the appellations used to describe the country between foreigners and subjects of the Qing dynasty. Even more striking is his juxtaposition of “Qing” and “Zhongguo.” While Zhongguo served as the referent for Qing, it had no referent of its own despite its antiquity (“over four thousand years”). Only a few years after Zhang had composed his complaint, the distinguished Hakka scholar-diplomat Huang Zunxian would write that “if we examine the countries (or states, guo) of the globe, such as England or France, we find that they all have names for the whole country. Only Zhongguo does not.”30 Liang Qichao added two decades later (in 1900) that “hundreds of millions of people have maintained this country in the world for several thousand years, and yet to this day they have not got a name for their country.”31 Zhongguo was not a 29. Zhang Deyi, Suishi Faguo ji (Random Notes on France) (Changsha: Hunan renmin chubanshe she, 1982), p. 182. 30. Quoted in Wang Ermin, “‘Zhongguo’ mingcheng suyuan ji qi jindai quanshi” (The Origins of the name “Zhongguo” and Its Modern Interpretations), in Wang Ermin, Zhongguo jindao sixiang shi lun (Essays on Modern Chinese Thought) (Taipei: Hushi Publishers, 1982, first published 1977), pp. 441–480, p. 451. 31. Liang Qichao, “Zhongguo jiruo suyuan lun” (On the Sources of China’s Weakness), in Liang, Yinbing shi wenji (Ice-Drinker’s Studio Collection), pp. 12–42. Quoted in John Fitzgerald, Awakening China: Politics, Culture, and Class in the Nationalist Revolution (Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 1996), p. 117.

culture & history in postrevolutionary china | 174 name of the country; it waited itself to be named. What then was Zhongguo, and how would it come to be the name of the country only a decade after Liang wrote of the nameless country where the people’s preference for dynastic affiliation over identification with the country was a fatal weakness that followed from an inability to name where they lived? The idea of a Zhongguo/China with a history of five thousand years is so firmly entrenched in contemporary consciousness that it is difficult to imagine the agony that its namelessness caused to intellectuals like Liang, Zhang Taiyan, Yang Du, and many others of the generation that may be described as the last generation of imperial Chinese thinkers and the first generation of Chinese nationalists. It is also one that has confounded analysis by even sensitive scholars. In her recent study of translingual encounters in nineteenth-century China, where she explores “the invention of China in modern worldmaking,” Lydia Liu translates the same passage from Zhang Deyi above, rendering Zhongguo in both cases into “my country,” which, while not incorrect, is also misleading in its suggestion that the term in Zhang’s usage referred to the land and its people, as the word “country” implies.32 The tendency to read from twentieth-century to earlier usage is such that a distinguished philologist, Victor Mair, in a recent essay refuses to use the name “China” at all with reference to the past, instead using the phrase “East Asian Heartland,” which in many ways is closer to the sense of “zhongguo” before it became a name for the nation and the country after the establishment of the Republic in 1911.33 The difference between Liang and his nationalist contemporaries and a Zhang Deyi was not merely that the latter was an official of the Qing dynasty while the former were in opposition to it. It was, 32. Lydia Liu, The Clash of Empires: The Invention of China in Modern World Making (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2004), p. 80. 33. Victor Mair, “The North(west)ern Peoples and the Recurrent Origins of the ‘Chinese’ State,” in Joshua A. Fogel (ed.), The Teleology of the Nation-State: Japan and China (Philadelphia, PA: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2005), pp. 46–84.

timespace, social space | 175 with some slight exaggeration, a difference between one world of historical consciousness and another. It was not out of compulsion that the subjects of Qing viewed themselves as such. That was the name of the state, and that was the country, not just to officialdom but to the people at large. Chinese overseas marked time by dynastic calculations; many a plaque in Southeast Asian Chinese temples going back to the late nineteenth century is dated by dynasty (Da Qing Guo) and imperial reign (usually, Guangxu). The history of the term Zhongguo during the next few decades, culminating in its ascendancy as the name of the country and the state both, is also a history of the transformation of political consciousness during this period in which the national idea replaced the imperial, dynastic, one, and the term Zhongguo came to represent a nation whose history covered the entire period that once had been viewed in terms of a succession of dynastic units. When nationalists like Liang looked back upon past usage with “the new teleology of the nation,” what they saw was not a consciousness that belonged to a different world but a lack on the part of preceding generations, a failure of historical and political consciousness. In the same essay cited earlier, Liang pointed to what he thought were the three failures on the part of the people that accounted for the weakness of the country: not knowing the difference between the nation-[state] (guojia) and world-empire (tianxia), not knowing the difference between the nation-[state] and the dynasty (chaoting), and not knowing the relationship between the nation-[state] and citizens (guomin).34 The shift from Qing to China/Zhongguo accompanied the invention of China as a nation. The name change was part of a broader project that would mobilize the new disciplines of history, geography, archeology, and ethnology in the construction of the nation.35 The term Zhongguo would acquire different associations 34. Liang Qichao, “Zhongguo jiruo suyuan lun” (On the Sources of China’s Weakness), in Liang, Yinbing shi wenji (Ice-Drinker’s Studio Collection), 16 vols (Taipei: Zhonghua shuju, 1960), vol. 2, pp. 12–42. 35. By project here, I do not mean conscious design, at least during

culture & history in postrevolutionary china | 176 in ensuing years in a revolutionary process where the antagonists conceived it differently. The project is in some ways still in process, though under circumstances vastly different from a century earlier. Over the course of the twentieth century, Chinese historians and philologists have devoted a great deal of effort to tracing the origins and meaning of the term Zhongguo. On the basis of a comprehensive survey that includes a twenty-page list of the incidence of the term before imperial unification under the Qin dynasty, Wang Ermin identified five meanings attached to Zhongguo before the nineteenth century: (1) state capital, (2) areas within state boundaries, as in guonei, (3) region occupied by the Xia, (4) middling states (as in the kingdoms of the lesser nobility during the Zhou, where the Zhou realm was identified as “world-empire” [tianxia]), (5) realm of central states.36 None of these associations implied anything like the modern nation-state.37 In subsequent years, with the two thousand years after the beginning of the imperial period, Zhongguo had ceased to be a term of significance, used most commonly with reference to the dynastic center, or to distinguish the realm of the Hua or Xia the initial phase of nationalism in China, but rather that the discourse on nationalism, in its various dimensions, pointed in the direction of the necessity of these disciplines to construct a nation. However, it is possible to speak of a conscious design in later years, especially under the Guomindang and subsequently in post-1949 China. It is important to bear in mind what I mean by invention here, a term that has become popular since the publication of The Invention of Tradition (Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 1992) by Eric Hobsbawm and Terence Ranger. The term is open to some misunderstanding if it is taken to suggest creation out of a vacuum. It also implies, in the sense used here, the rereading and resignification of past legacies in accordance with a new consciousness, and the introduction possibly of new elements. This was the case with the term Zhongguo, which had ancient origins, but was now endowed with a radically new significance and content. The resignification of the term in turn called for a new conceptualization of the history, scope, and composition of the society to which it referred. 36. Wang, “‘Zhongguo’ mingcheng,” p. 458. 37. See chapter 3 for Fan Wenlan’s analysis of Zhongguo. Fan attributed a national consciousness to the common people as against the elite, but stopped short of claiming that Zhongguo referred to a nation-state.

timespace, social space | 177 (a legacy of the tribal confederations of the North and Northwest, of non-Han origin, that ironically would give the people of the Central Plains their name, as in Zhonghua or Zhongxia) from the land of the assorted nomadic tribal configurations that inhabited the steppes.38 In the study to which I referred, Lydia Liu undertakes to explore the linguistic encounter between the Qing dynasty and the Euro/American powers, which was to result in radical changes in the meaning of terms with long histories, producing “China/Zhongguo” as we know it today both in English (or other European) languages, and in the Chinese equivalents of that designation, especially the name by which the country is known today to its inhabitants, Zhongguo. By implication, the inhabitants, “Chinese people,” have their equivalent in Zhongguo ren. Liu demonstrates these changes by tracing transformations in the meaning of a term that initially referred to the “outside” (yi), but came to mean “barbarian” from the 1830s. The changes were products of the fixing of meanings for terms by treaty obligation, in this 38. Mair, “The North(west)ern Peoples.” Indeed, in these years, many intellectuals associated with the National Essence (guocui) group, including Zhang Taiyan, subscribed to the view propagated in Europe by Terrien de Lacouperie that the Hua or Xia people had originally arrived in the lands that were to become Zhongguo, to distinguish themselves from the outer peoples, possibly of the same origin. In other words, it acquired an ethnic and cultural significance. As late as the late seventeenth century, a Choson Korea map of the world, supposedly based on a Qing original, placed Zhongguo at the bend of the Yellow River, in the Wei River Valley, that traditionally has been viewed as the birthplace of “Chinese” civilization (the placement there, instead of the capital in Beijing, may have been an underhanded slur on the Qing whom the Koreans initially resented). A recent study suggests that the term Zhongguo was applied to the whole imperial realm under the Qianlong emperor in the eighteenth century, but this does not change the perception of the realm as territories of the imperial center rather than a bounded realm corresponding to a national entity (or even entities) in a national sense. The title suggests that national identity did not emerge as a problem till the twentieth century. See Gang Zhao, “Reinventing China: Imperial Ideology and the Rise of Modern Chinese National Identity in the Early Twentieth Century,” Modern China 32.1 ( Jan. 2006), pp. 3–30.

culture & history in postrevolutionary china | 178 case with the British. The “fixing” of the outside also bounded what was on the inside, creating a Chinese-barbarian distinction that not only would have serious diplomatic consequences, but also endowed China with civilizational centrality, as implied by the term Zhongguo, literally meaning “the central state.” Joseph Levenson described the nineteenth-century transformation as one “from tianxia to guojia,” implying a contraction of the Chinese spatial self-image from the “world” to that of a nation-state among others.39 But the new usage also had an expansive aspect: from a highly localized spatiality corresponding to the imperial center, or the “primitive” space of civilizational origins, Zhongguo would come to refer to a national surface that, by the eighteenth century, covered the territory that the People’s Republic of China covers today. Liu’s analysis is a reminder that like the term yi, the term Zhongguo was rendered singular, and into a Chinese equivalent of China, only in the course of the nineteenth century, resisted by many a Qing official or intellectual, but acquiring its reality from foreign linguistic usages. In its initial emergence in the late Zhou dynasty (roughly late first millennium bc), Zhongguo referred to a multiplicity of states and is best rendered in the plural, “Central States.” Liu provides evidence that this is the sense in which many nineteenth-century Chinese intellectuals and officials still understood it. But in the course of the century, in the midst of an emergent international order and under pressure from it, Zhongguo would become singular, referring to a country with a definite territory but also a Chinese nation on the emergence.40 The meaning it acquired was a product, to cite Liu, of a “translingual encounter,” adding an entirely new meaning to an antique term. 39. Joseph R. Levenson, Confucian China and Its Modern Fate, vol. 1, Culture and Nationalism (Berkeley, CA: University of California Press, 1968), pp. 98–100. 40. In this sense, the Qing case is a classical example of the GiddensRobertson thesis that the international order preceded, and is a condition for, the formation of the nation-state, especially but not exclusively in non-Euro/ American societies. Roland Robertson, Globalization: Social Theory and Global Culture (Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage, 1994).

timespace, social space | 179 By the 1860s, these usages had entered the language of Qing diplomacy. What is observable during this period is the conjoining of the two terms China/Zhongguo in international treaties in translation, establishing an equivalence between the two terms, which now refer both to a territory and the state established over that territory.41 Zhongguo appeared in official documents with increasing frequency, almost interchangeably with Da Qing Guo, and most probably in response to references in foreign documents to China. It no longer referred to “Central States”; the historical referents for the term were displaced (and eventually forgotten) as it came to denote a single sovereign entity, China. It is not far-fetched to suggest, as Liu does, that it was translation that ultimately rendered Zhongguo into the name of the nation that internationally had come to be known by one or another variant of China. A few illustrations will suffice here. The world map printed in the first Chinese edition of Henry Wheaton’s Elements of International Law in 1864, used the Chinese characters for Zhongguo to identify the region we know as China.42 Da Qing Guo remained in use as the official appellation for the Qing. For instance, the nineteenth article of the Chinese-Peruvian Trade Agreement (ZhongBi tongshang tiaoyue) in 1869 referred to the signatories as “Da Qing Guo” and “Da Bi Guo.”43 Without more thorough and systematic analysis, it is 41. It may be worth mentioning here that in spite of this equivalence, the English term is much more reductionist, and, therefore, abstract. Chinese has a multiplicity of terms for “China”: Zhongguo, Zhonghua, Xia, Huaxia, Han, Tang, etc. The term “Chinese” is even more confusing, as it refers at once to a people, to a “race,” to members of a state that goes by the name of China as well as the majority Han people who claim real Chineseness, creating a contradiction with the multiethnic state. Once again, Chinese offers a greater variety, from huaren, huamin, huayi, Tangren, Hanzu, to Zhongguo ren, etc. 42. Liu, Clash of Empires, p. 126. This contrasts with the world map of Matteo Ricci from the sixteenth century, where “China” was named Da Ming Guo, “the Great Ming State.” 43. Chen Hansheng (ed.), Huagong chuguo shiliao huibian (Collection of Historical Materials on Hua Workers Abroad) (Beijing: Zhonghua shuju, 1984), 10 volumes, vol. 3, p. 1015.

culture & history in postrevolutionary china | 180 difficult to say what determined the choice. It seems perhaps that where reference was to agency, Da Qing Guo was the preferred usage, but this is only an impressionistic observation. More significant for purposes here may be the use of Da Qing Guo and Zhongguo in the very same location and, even more interestingly, the reference further down in the article to Zhongguo ren, or Chinese people. Also worth underlining is the Chinese practice of using the first character of the name metonymically to stand for the whole (as in Zhong for Zhongguo or Bi for Bilu guo), which in its very abbreviation introduces another level of abstraction, where the country is in effect denoted by the first syllable of the name, and all concrete references are now incorporated within the sound, which is now assumed to refer to an entity, China, without ambiguity. But the abstraction renders Zhongguo into an empty signifier that may be filled with new content as is necessary. Hence Zhongguo may overflow the boundaries of the country so designated as in Da Zhongguo (Greater China) or Wenhua Zhongguo (Cultural China), and even go global as in the reference to Chinese around the world as Zhongguo ren, which in many ways racializes the term by bringing under one collective umbrella people with different national belongings and historical/ cultural trajectories. Even more revealing than the proliferating use of Zhongguo in official documents and memoranda may be the references to Chinese. In the documents of the 1860s, huaren and huamin are still the most common ways of referring to Chinese abroad and at home (as in Guangdong huamin).44 However, the documents are also replete with references to Zhongguo ren (Chinese), Zhongguo gongren (Chinese workers), and, on at least one occasion, to Biluzhi Zhongguo ren, 44. “Zongli yamen fu zhuHua Meishi qing dui Bilu Huagong yu yi yuanshou han” (Zongli yamen Letter to the American Ambassador’s Request for Help to Chinese Workers in Peru) (April 18, 1869). In ibid., p. 966. The Zongli Yamen (literally the general office for managing relations with other countries), established as part of the Tongzhi Reforms of the 1860s, served as the Qing foreign office until the governmental reorganization after 1908.

timespace, social space | 181 literally, “the Chinese of Peru,” which indicates, at the very least, a deterritorialized notion of Chineseness on the emergence that demands recognition and responsibility from the “Chinese” state beyond its territorial boundaries.45 By the time late Qing intellectuals took up the issue around the turn of the twentieth-century, diplomatic practices already had established modern notions of China and Chineseness, with Chineselanguage equivalences of Zhongguo and Zhongguo ren. More research is necessary before it is possible to say why Zhongguo had come to be used as the equivalent of “China” in these practices, but if we can take Liang Qichao’s solution as typical of the times, it was out of pragmatic reasons that in the end this terminology was established in naming the nation. In the passage already cited, Liang stated that neither the inherited practice of dynastic organization nor the foreign understanding (China, Cathay, etc.) offered appropriate alternatives in naming “our history. We might just as well use ‘Zhongguo history,’” he continued, since the terms “are already familiar by custom.” Nearly three decades later the historian Liu Yizheng would offer a similar argument for the use of Zhongguo.46 One historian recently has described the change in the meaning of Zhongguo as both a break with the past and continuous with it.47 The contradiction captures the ambivalent relationship of modern China to its past. Naming the nation was only the first step in “the invention of China.” The next, even more challenging, step was to sinicize, or more 45. “Zongli yamen wei wuyue guo buxu zai Hua sheju zhaogong bing bujun Huaren qianwang Aomen gei Ying, Fa, E, Mei, Ri guo zhaohui” (Zongli yamen on the Prohibition of Labor Recruitment by Non-Treaty Countries and on Chinese Subjects Communicating with England, France, Russia, United States, and Japan in Macao”), in Chen, Huagong chuguo shiliao huibian, pp. 968–969, p. 968. 46. Wang, “‘Zhongguo’ mingcheng,” pp. 452, 456. 47. Chen Yuzheng, Zhonghua minzu ningjuli de lishi tansuo (Historical Exploration of the Chinese Nation’s Power to Come Together) (Kunming: Yunnan renmin chubanshe, 1994). See chap. 4, “Zhongguo—cong diyu he wenhua gainian dao guojia” mingcheng” (Zhongguo: From Region and Culture Concept to National Name), pp. 96–97.

culture & history in postrevolutionary china | 182 appropriately, make Chinese (Zhongguohua), the land, the people, and the past. Liang Qichao’s 1902 essay, “The New History” appears in this perspective as a program to accomplish this end. As the new idea of “China/Zhongguo” was a product of the encounter with Euromodernity, the latter also provided the tools for achieving this goal. The new discipline of history was one such tool. Others were geography, ethnology, and archeology. History education in the making of “new citizens” was already under way before the Qing was replaced by the Republic, and it has retained its significance to this day. So has geography, intended to bring about a new consciousness of “Chinese” spaces. Archeology, meanwhile, has taken “Chinese” origins ever farther into the past. And ethnology has occupied a special place in the new disciplines of sociology and anthropology because of its relevance to the task of national construction out of ethnic diversity.48 Still, the ambivalence has continued over the years to drive inquiry into the past. Especially important has been the question of ethnic composition, which emerged as a problem with the conversion of 48. For history, geography, and archeology in the late Qing and early Republic, see the essays by Peter Zarrow, Tze-ki Hon, and James Leibold in Brian Moloughney and Peter Zarrow (ed.), Transforming History: The Making of a Modern Academic Discipline in Twentieth-Century China (Hong Kong: Chinese University of Hong Kong Press, forthcoming). See also Chen Baoyun, Xueshu yu guojia: “Shidi xuebao” ji qi xue renqun yanjiu (Scholarship and the State: The History and Geography Journal and Its Studies of Social Groupings) (Hefei: Anhui jiaoyu chubanshe, 2008). For ethnology, see Wang Jianmin, Zhongguo minzuxue shi (History of Chinese Ethnology), vol. I (Kunming: Yunnan jiaoyu chubanshe, 1997). See also Q. Edward Wang, Inventing China Through History: The May Fourth Approach to Historiography (Albany, NY: State University of New York Press, 2001); James Leibold, “Competing Narratives of National Unity in Republican China: From the Yellow Emperor to Peking Man,” Modern China 32.2 (April 2006), pp. 181–220; and, Tze-ki Hon, “Educating the Citizens: Visions of China in Late Qing History Textbooks,” in Tze-ki Hon and Robert Culp (ed.), The Politics of Historical Production in Late Qing and Republican China (Leiden: Brill, 2007), pp. 79–105. A recent study provides a comprehensive account of the transformation of historical consciousness, practice, and education during this period through the growth of journalism. See Liu Lanxiao, Wan Qing baokan yu jindai shixue (Late Qing Newspapers and Journals and Modern Historiography) (Beijing: Renmin daxue chubanshe, 2007).

timespace, social space | 183 “world-empire” to a supposedly homogeneous nation. The new consciousness of Zhongguo as an entity unified by biology and culture was at odds with the evidence of the legacy of multiethnic world-empire. Ethnic consciousness, rather than confirm national homogeneity, also ethnicized the national space. Since the 1980s, the question of the Chinese nation (Zhonghua minzu) has once again appeared as an object of inquiry, this time around provoked by Fei Xiaotong’s assertion of Chinese “multi culturalism” (duoyuan yiti). Fei drew a distinction between “nation-in-itself ” (zizai) and “nationfor-itself ” (or, literally, “aware of itself,” zijue), reminiscent of Karl Marx’s distinction on class consciousness.49 To the extent that consciousness is crucial in bringing coherence to an inchoate existence, the distinction once again points not only to links with the past but also to the differences that mark the present from it.

The Burdens of History: Culture and Overdetermination My rehearsal of the historicity, boundary instabilities, and internal differences—if not fragmentations—of nations, civilizations, and continents is intended to underline the historiographically problematic nature of cultural histories organized around such units. These entities are products of efforts to bring political or conceptual order to the world, and represent political and conceptual strategies of containment. This order is achieved only at the cost of suppressing alternative spatialities and temporalities, however, as well as covering over processes that went into their making. It may not be very surprising that as global forces, including forces of empire, produce economic and cultural processes, and human motions, that undermine modernity’s strategies of containment, 49. Huang Xingtao, “Xiandai ‘Zhonghua minzu’ gainian xingchengde lishi kaocha—jian lun xinhai geming yu Zhongguo rentongde guanxi” (Historical Investigation of the Formation of the Modern Concept of ‘Chinese Nation’—and a Discussion of the 1911 Revolution and National Identity”), Zhejiang shehui kexue 1 (2002), pp. 128–140, p. 128.

culture & history in postrevolutionary china | 184 we have witnessed a proliferation of spaces as well as of claims to different temporalities. Perhaps it is living in a state of flux that predisposes intellectual life presently to stress motion and process over stable containers; traveling theorists are given to traveling theories, as cultural critics from Edward Said to James Clifford have suggested by word or example.50 What is important is that we are called upon to face an obligation to view the past differently, to open up an awareness of what was suppressed in a historiography of order, and take note of the importance of human activity, including intellectual and cultural activity, in creating the world. At the same time, in a world that seems to be caught up in a maelstrom created by forces that are productive at once of homogenization and heterogenization, history seems to be receding rapidly into the past, even as the past returns to make claims on the present— “resurgence of history,” as the French writer Jean-Marie Guehenno puts it in his study of the decline of the authority of the nationstate under the assault of forces of globalization and the resurgence in response of a consciousness of the local.51 The world of Global Modernity witnesses a return of civilizational and cultural claims, bolstered, ironically, by the same destabilizing forces of transborder ethnicities and diasporas and calling for alternative epistemologies and alternative claims to historical consciousness. This is the case not just with different civilizations, such as they are. Different epistemological claims mark cultural struggles over the future of the same civilization, as in the resurgence of biblical attacks in the United States on science and history—as in the Bible-inspired history of the world written by James Ussher, Annals of the World,52 popular among 50. Edward Said, “Traveling Theory,” in Edward W. Said, The World, The Text and the Critic (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1983), pp. 226–247; James Clifford and Vivek Dhareshwar (ed.), Traveling Theories, Traveling Theorists, special issue of Inscriptions 5 (1989). 51. Jean-Marie Guehenno, The End of the Nation-State, tr. from the French by Victoria Elliott (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1995). 52. James Ussher, Larry Pierce, and Marion Pierce, Annals of the World (Green Forest, AR: New Leaf Press and Master Books, 2003).

timespace, social space | 185 evangelicals and, apparently, an inspiration behind the proliferating Creation museums and theme parks across the United States. Socalled “culture wars” in the United States since the 1980s point to the cultural contradictions that need to be suppressed in order to keep alive the myths of cultural homogeneity in civilizational or national units of social organization. These contradictions mark encounters not only between different nations, nationalities, or ethnic units, but also between classes, genders, and races, with the different social, political, and cultural spaces they imply. One historian of China has written cogently if somewhat simplistically of “rescuing history from the nation.”53 Cogent because the “nationalization” of history has indeed been of primary significance in shaping understanding of the spaces of history, if not the denial of history as such. A political idea to which the legitimation of history is crucial, the nation has sought to disguise its historicity by projecting itself across the knowable past—a kind of colonization of history that corresponds to nation-formation itself as a colonizing process. From a historiographical perspective, a national perspective on the past, including the national past, is woefully inadequate as some of the most important forces in shaping the past transcend national boundaries. The same may be said of a world history that is conceived in terms of nations and civilizations. The denial of the nation is also simplistic, however, because it does not recognize that while the nation itself is historical, which may make the national space into an “artifice of history,” it nevertheless carries all the force of a historical reality. We may dismiss nations, civilizations, and continents, and much else besides, as constructs in one way or another, but there is no denying that despite all the criticism, they refuse to go away, partly because of their continued importance in the realities of culture and politics. Besides, the space of the nation is not the only space that history needs to be rescued 53. Prasenjit Duara, Rescuing History from the Nation (Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press, 1995).

culture & history in postrevolutionary china | 186 from, and not all phenomena lend themselves easily to understanding outside the context of the nation. Some may even suffer a distortion when forced into transnational or translocal frameworks; issues of democracy, citizenship, and civil society readily come to mind.54 This qualification may be especially important when we consider the public pedagogical functions of history. The issue here is not merely national against transnational or world history, but the proliferation of space that attends the de-privileging of conventional modes of conceiving of historical spaces. The very deconstruction of national or civilizational spaces, in other words, raises the question of how to reconstruct history spatially and temporally, if that is indeed a desirable goal. Culture understood in its materiality leads inevitably to the privileging of difference as a condition of cultural existence. But does that mean that localized appreciations of culture can dispense with larger civilizational and national formations of culture, and erase their historical and political importance, as nationalist and civilizationist ideologies have sought to erase place-based cultural phenomena and orientations? I think not. There may be no objective standard to decide what weight to give to the claims of difference, be they temporal/spatial or social, against claims to unity, be they national or civilizational, but there is no denying their co-presence, if only as ideological convictions, and the part they play in shaping social and political behavior and, therefore, the outcomes of history. It seems worthwhile, therefore, to briefly sort out the challenges they present in the formulation of a non-reductionist analysis of culture. The association of culture with civilization is mediated through textual traditions, and is obviously tied in historically with elites whose allegiances transcend political boundaries. In the instance 54. For an in-depth discussion of citizenship with reference to the culture of Confucianism, see Arif Dirlik, “Colonialism, Revolution, Development: A Historical Perspective on Citizenship in Political Struggles in Eastern Asia,” in Bryan Turner and Chang Kyung-sup (ed.), Contested Citizenship in East Asia (London: Routledge, forthcoming).

timespace, social space | 187 at hand, most discussions of traditional Chinese culture, including those that I have cited already, identify Chinese culture with philosophical and religious traditions (most importantly Confucianism, Daoism, Buddhism). These traditions bridged the gap between classes and genders differently, and to different degrees, but they did make for commonalities without abolishing difference. To this extent, they may be viewed as constituents of a national culture. On the other hand, it would be misleading to reduce them to a national culture, or to contain them within any particular national boundary. In their appeal and historical diffusion across “national” spaces, they are indeed viewed more properly as common East, Southeast, and Central Asian than as Chinese traditions. Against the preoccupation of civilization with texts, nationalism has created an urge to identify essences.55 If modern nationalism appropriates the texts of civilization as characteristics of a Chinese (or even a Han) nationality, it can do so only by anachronistically projecting a modern national consciousness upon the past—which is not irrelevant for being anachronistic, as such appropriation is historically consequential in serving significant political purposes. But the national cultural project faces a predicament of its own. In identifying national culture with the textual traditions of the elite, which it seeks to impose upon the nation as a whole in order to achieve national cultural homogeneity, nationalism reveals itself as a colonizing project. On the other hand, to be plausible (and distinguishable from the civilizational project), the national cultural project also must open up to the culture of the population, which brings into its interior the differences that are built into the social constitution of the nation—the differences that I have discussed above, from spatial to social differences and differences in the practice of everyday life. We might ponder, in this regard, efforts in Eastern Asia in the course of the twentieth century to articulate textual traditions to the demands of imagined national characteristics in the 55. It is not coincidental that one of the first radical journals to appear at the end of the Qing, one that was published by highly accomplished classical scholars, bore the title Studies of National Essence (Guocui xuebao).

culture & history in postrevolutionary china | 188 production of nationalized versions of those traditions. I have referred throughout these discussions to the distinction Joseph Levenson drew between value and history, arguing that following the encounter with Euro/America, Chinese intellectuals increasingly (and almost inexorably) came to associate value with new ideas from the West, while native values—most importantly, Confucianism—receded into the past. Levenson was wrong in his suggestion that Chinese intellectuals could find no value in the past except as nostalgia, for which he has been criticized. But he did point to a highly significant problem if we give it a slight twist: that intellectuals’ struggles with the past were mediated increasingly by concepts and methods that had been imported from the outside. This gave their struggles an entirely new meaning. The “West,” to use that clichéd term, was brought into the interior of Chinese consciousness. Even the values identified in the past were now set against their foreign equivalents, or justified in terms the latter demanded. This is possibly what Chinese intellectuals are struggling against in our day. But even then, the frame of reference is inescapably there—not very surprisingly as, to repeat what I said above, “the West” is not a frame of reference that is outside of Chinese consciousness but in its very interior. This is a fundamental reason I stress the importance of history over culture or, more accurately, of historicizing culture rather than the other way around, culturalizing history, as favored by those who insist on the persistence of a seemingly timeless “Chineseness.” “Chineseness,” like other significant concepts and ideas, is historical itself. To deny that is to fall in with long-standing notions of a China “vegetating in the teeth of time,” though in contemporary valorization the timelessness appears more often than not as a virtue rather than a source of embarrassment, as it appeared to Chinese intellectuals only a century ago. Levenson also raised the fundamental question of the consequences for intellectual and legacies of the reconceptualization of “the world-empire” as a nation. Neither the thought nor the nation

timespace, social space | 189 is comprehensible without grasping the dialectic between the two, within the context of a new international space. How the ruling ideology came to define national intellectual and cultural identity at the hands of intellectuals who were its products may seem straightforward, but its implications were far-reaching. Confucianism had been instrumentalized all along in service to the state, but this had been only one possibility among others, and in late imperial China there had been many local Confucianisms that differed from state Confucianism. As Confucianism as imperial ideology was rendered into national ideology, these alternative Confucianisms were deprived of the political space in which they had flourished. The result was a homogenization of Confucianism as its new function as national ideology demanded. The invention of the nation in late nineteenth-century China was part of the same process of remaking the world-empire as nationstate. Levenson stressed the conversion of tianxia to guojia, which in the immediate context was the Qing empire. From the world to the nation-state suggested a shrinking of the world. But the new nation, now Zhongguo, laid claim to the territory and peoples of the world-empire. For Zhongguo, the idea, this was a major expansion, as it had originally been centered not on a nation but on the person of the ruler. As the space of the ruler became the space of the nation, so the ruling ideology—Confucianism—was remade as the culture and intellectual resource of the nation, albeit undergoing in the process the instrumentalization to which I referred. What would recede to the background were the transcendental aspirations of the Confucian past which now seemed to have no weight against the needs of the nation.56 Its fortunes would henceforth be bound to the fortunes of the nation, held responsible for its failings as well as for its successes. Its values would be evaluated accordingly. It was not the “West” but the new idea of the nation that would lead ultimately 56. Liang Qichao, “Baojiao fei suoyi zunKong lun” (Preserving the Learning Is Not Respecting Kong), in Yinbing shi wenji, vol. 4, pp. 50–59 (originally published in 1902).

culture & history in postrevolutionary china | 190 to the historicization of Confucianism and determine the criteria for judging the values it represented. Euro/American modernity served as the midwife in giving birth to the national idea. Finally, the effort to create national traditions through the articulation of textual traditions to the demands of everyday life—culture in its materiality—has been only partially successful, as spatial and social difference in cultural practices once again assert themselves as globalization and transnationalism de-privilege the nation, providing new spaces of self-expression for cultural practices marginalized by claims of nation and civilization.

Cultures in Motion: Transnationalism and Cultural Ecumenes What all this implies is that a non-reductionist approach to cultural analysis calls for an appreciation of cultural practices in their multiple determinations by textual traditions as they have been integrated into everyday life differentially among classes and genders, ideological self-identifications in which national self-identification still plays a powerful part, and the experiences and practices of everyday life which define the particularity of political and social space. The question is how to re-conceive spatialities in order to accommodate culture in its overdetermination, as a marker of commonality and difference, as well as fixity and fluidity. By way of conclusion, I would like to put forth three considerations. First is the necessity of avoiding the tendency, visible most prominently with nationalism, of attaching culture to homogenizing conceptions of people and territory. A concomitant of this tendency is the urge to find an essence that serves to fulfill this relationship by defining a common identity for the people and territory thus conceived. It is not coincidental that one of the most important publications that appeared with the awakening of nationalism in the late Qing was entitled National Essence Journal (Guocui xuebao), or that in more complicated form, the revival of “national studies”

timespace, social space | 191 (guoxue) has accompanied a revival of cultural nationalism in the 1990s. As noted previously, it is almost habitual with most writing on culture in the PRC to recognize difference as a fundamental feature of subcontinental China and then to proceed nevertheless to define a Chinese culture that unifies all (usually through a few highly generalized characterizations), as if those differences mattered little in cultural self-identification. An eloquent example of this attitude is offered by the 1958 “Declaration on Behalf of Chinese Culture Respectfully Announced to the People of the World” (Wei Zhongguo wenhua jinggao shijie renshi xuanyan), signed by prominent Confucian scholars, which declared that in referring to Chinese culture, we are referring to its “single stemmed-ness” (yiben xing). This “single stemmed-ness is what is referred to as “Chinese culture.” In its origins, it is a single system. This single system does not deny its many roots. This is analogous to the situation in ancient China where there were different cultural areas. This did not, however, impede the main thread of its single line of transmission. . . . Moreover, the periods of political division and unity never adversely affected the general convergent thread of China’s culture and thought. This is what is referred to as the “successive transmission of the interconnecting thread of the way” (daotong).57

Not surprisingly, not only is Chinese culture identified here with Confucian culture, Confucian culture itself is represented by a single line of orthodox transmission that erases the complexities of Confucianism itself. Contemporary discussions of Chinese tradition, some of which I have cited, often follow a similar model where the recognition of difference is overruled by the assertion of cultural characteristics that define the nation. In all these cases, textual culture, the culture of the elite, provides these characterizations of cultural legacy, as it is at that level that it is possible to make a plausible case 57. Quoted in John Makeham, “The New Daotong,” in John Makeham (ed.), New Confucianism: A Critical Examination (New York: Macmillan Palgrave, 2003), pp. 55–78, p. 63.

culture & history in postrevolutionary china | 192 for national cultural homogeneity. But such views, however important they may be for political purposes, not only cover up important differences within Chinese society, but also serve a cultural exclusionism that on occasion takes the form of the active suppression of cultural difference. How to speak about cultural commonalities of China and Chinese without complicity in the political suppression of cultural difference is a major challenge in formulating a notion of Chinese culture that is both deconstructive and reconstructive. Second, therefore, is the challenge presented by transnationality in conceptualizing historical processes. A distinction is necessary here between worldwide or global and transnational, as the two point to different spatialities.58 The transnational is not the same as worldwide. Worldwide as concept can still accommodate such units as nations, cultures, and civilizations as principles of organization. What makes “transnational” radical in its implications is its emphasis on processes over settled units. More importantly, perhaps, the other side of challenging national history from supranational perspectives is to bring to the surface subnational histories of various kinds. The radical challenge of transnational history itself lies in its conjoining of the supra- and the sub(or intra)national—which calls forth an understanding of transnational as translocal, with all its subversive implications historiographically and politically. If national history serves as an ideological “strategy of containment,” the containment of the translocal—as process or structure—is of immediate and strategic importance as it bears directly on the determination and 58. For examples of transnationality, by no means bound to projects of “world history,” see Rebecca Karl, Staging the World: Chinese Nationalism at the Turn of the Twentieth Century (Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 2002); Juergen Osterhammel, Colonialism (Princeton, NJ: Markus Wiener, 1997); John F. Richards, The Unending Frontier: An Environmental History of the Early Modern World (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2003); and John C. Weaver, The Great Land Rush and the Making of the Modern World, 1650–1900 (Montreal: McGill-Queen’s University Press, 2003). Most works viewed as world history should, less misleadingly, be described as transnational or translocal histories. That they are not points to the hold on the imagination of “world history” of past legacies.

timespace, social space | 193 consolidation of national boundaries. The translocal presents challenges that are quite distinct from the multicultural, which has been attached to world history as one of its political and cultural goals. The difference may be the difference between placing national history in the perspective of the world versus abolishing it (or at least cutting it down to size among other histories). Translocal also draws attention to “contact zones,” in the sense suggested, which serve as crucial locations for the production of cultures and cultural spaces. For these reasons, thirdly, it is important to reconceive nations and civilizations not as homogeneous units but as historical ecumenes.59 This is readily evident in the case of civilizations conceived in terms of religions, which is the usual association for the term. The volume edited by Michael Adas, Islamic and European Expansion: The Forging of a Global Order, provides a good example.60 The historian Jerry Bentley has suggested that an ecumenical approach is necessary to overcoming the Eurocentrism of world history. His intention is 59. “Ecumene” understood as “areas of intense and sustained cultural interaction.” This definition is offered by John and Jean Comaroff on the basis of works by Ulf Hannerz and Igor Kopytoff. See Jean Comaroff and John L. Comaroff, “Millennial Capitalism: First Thoughts on a Second Coming,” special issue of Public Culture 12.2 (2000), pp. 291–343, p. 294. The term “ecumene” has been used by anthropologists going back to Alfred Kroeber. See the discussion by Sidney W. Mintz, “Enduring Substances, Trying Theories: The Caribbean Region as Oikoumene,” Journal of the Royal Anthropological Institute 2.2 ( June, 1996), pp. 289–311. Among historians, it has been used by Arnold Toynbee and Marshall Hodgson in a more conventional sense, as in the original usage with reference to religious communities. For Hodgson’s idea of the “Afro-Eurasian” ecumene, see Edmund Burke, III, “Islamic History as World History: Marshall Hodgson, ‘The Venture of Islam,’” International Journal of Middle East Studies 10.2 (May 1979), pp. 241–264. The concept of ecumene in a similar sense was first applied to China in a 1968 habilitation. See Peter Weber-Schafer, Oikumene und Imperium; Studien zur Ziviltheologie des chinesichen Kaiserreichs (Ecumene and Imperium: Studies in Chinese Imperial Civil Theology) (Munich: Scriftenreiche zur Politik und Geschichte, 1968). I am grateful to Roman Malek for bringing this work to my attention. 60. Michael Adas (ed.), Islamic and European Expansion: The Forging of a Global Order (Philadelphia, PA: Temple University Press, 1993).

culture & history in postrevolutionary china | 194 most importantly ethical.61 The concept of “ecumene,” however, may also be translated into a way to grasp spatialities. The idea of the ecumenical may be applied productively to regions, civilizations, and continents, among other large entities, as well as to nations, the important issue being the foregrounding of commonalities as well as differences and recognizing a multiplicity of spatialities within a common space marked not by firm boundaries but by the intensity and concentration of interactions, which themselves are subject to historical fluctuations. Such an understanding of ecumene accords with the term’s etymological origins, meaning the inhabited or inhabitable world, which is how peoples from the Greeks to the medieval Europeans to the Chinese conceived of the world, which did not encompass the world as we understand it, but referred only to the world that mattered. It was modernity that invented one world out of the many worlds of earlier peoples, and even that has been thrown into doubt by so-called globalization that unifies the known globe, but also fragments it along fractures old and new. If I may illustrate by an example, there has been much talk in recent years of a Confucian or neo-Confucian Eastern Asia, and, of course, Confucianism long has been held to be a hallmark of a Chinese civilization that holds the central place of hegemony in Eastern Asia. It is interesting to contemplate when Confucius became Chinese; when he was rendered from a Zhou dynasty sage into one of the points of departure for a civilization conceived in national terms. When the Japanese, Koreans, and Vietnamese adopted Confucianism for their own purposes, all the time claiming their own separate identity, did they do so to become part of the Song or Yuan or Ming, whom they resisted strenuously, or because they perceived in Confucianism values of statecraft and social organization that were lodged in the texts of a tradition that was more a classical than a Chinese tradition, and which unfolded differently in these different 61. Jerry Bentley, “Myths, Wagers and Some Moral Implications of World History,” Journal of World History 16.1 (2005), pp. 51–82.

timespace, social space | 195 states?62 This is what I have in mind when I refer to commonality as well as difference, even radical difference. It could be complicated further by the extension of the argument to the entanglement of societies in a multiplicity of ecumenes. What we call China itself did not simply grow from the inside out, radiating out from a Yellow River plains core, but was equally a product in the end of forces that poured in from the outside, from different directions, producing translocal spaces. These interactions of the inside and the outside produced the China we have come to know, which once formed, would contain them and push their memories to the margins. Their recovery toward the center of historical inquiry recasts the history of China in more ways than one, as I have noted. Underlining the overdetermination of parts that resist dissolution into homogenized wholes is not intended to do away with history by rendering it into a conglomeration of micro-histories. I merely wish to illustrate what a radical and thoroughgoing historicism might lead to. As Charles Holcombe has argued, what we call Eastern Asia, no less than the nations it contains, is a product of historical interactions that produced the region as we have come to know it. And if it has a beginning, sometime around the turn of the first millennium ad, there is no reason to think that the region as we have come to know it should be invested with the longevity of eternity. The region is in the midst of radical transformations once again in our day as its “global connections” create new kinds of differences 62. For the most up-to-date, comprehensive, and illuminating discussions of these issues, see Benjamin A. Elman, John B. Duncan, and Herman Ooms (ed.), Rethinking Confucianism: Past and Present in China, Japan, Korea, and Vietnam (Los Angeles, CA: UCLA Asian Pacific Monograph Series, 2002). Noting the anachronism of using the term “China” with reference to the past, a recent work notes that “in traditional times, the people who participated in this core civilization did not think of it as ‘Chinese’ civilization—in contrast to the other alternative, non-Chinese civilizations—so much as simply the universal standard of civilization.” Holcombe, The Genesis of East Asia, 221 B.C.–A.D. 907, p. 10. The habit and the limitations of vocabulary are so powerful, however, that Holcombe himself cannot resist referring to the civilization in question repeatedly as “Chinese civilization”!

culture & history in postrevolutionary china | 196 to disturb the variety of commonalities that have given it shape in recent centuries.63 The paradigm, or metaphor, of ecumene is one that may be used productively in many cases. One of its advantages is that it also allows for different parts of the ecumene to react differently—and autonomously—with parts of different ecumenes. Regions may in some instances serve similar functions, but an ecumene conceived not in terms of physical proximity but social and cultural constructions may also be deployed across vast distances as, for example, with the crucial interconnections between the Sinic and the Indic ecumenes that played such an important part in the formation of the areas we have been discussing. The socialist and revolutionary movements of the twentieth century provided similar interconnections. Incorporation of the region within a capitalist economy and colonialism created new relationships within the region and in its relationships to what is “outside.” What long-term legacies they may have left remains to be seen. In our day, the connections that crisscross the region and beyond extend globally once again, as migrant populations from the region spread across the globe.

63. Holcombe, The Genesis of East Asia, 221 B.C.–A.D. 907, chap. 4.

Zhongguohua Worlding China: The Case of Sociology and Anthropology in Twentieth-century China Sociology and anthropology, along with the other social sciences, were foreign imports in the organization of knowledge in China. While some Chinese scholars trace social thought in China as far back as the late Zhou dynasty (roughly eleventh to third centuries bc), this is misleading as the “social” as a category was very much a product of the encounter with Euro/America, and what “social” thought there had been earlier was indistinguishable from the cultural, the political, and even the religious. The new disciplines would also have a checkered career after their introduction, entangled as they were in the vagaries of revolution. Introduced into Chinese thinking beginning in the late nineteenth century, teaching and research in these new fields were initially dominated by scholars from North America and came into their own as disciplines in the 1920s and 1930s. As in their origins in Europe, the social sciences in twentieth-century China developed along conflicting trajectories, motivated by needs of order and governance, on the one hand, and reform and revolution, on the other, both shaped by the problems thrown up by a modernizing society. Their development was further complicated in the Chinese case by their foreign origins, which has made the question of “nationalization” central in both their evaluation as disciplines and the tasks expected of them. The infant disciplines suffered a serious setback following the victory of the Communist Party in 1949 with the establishment of a 197

culture & history in postrevolutionary china | 198 state-sponsored Marxism, which for three decades suppressed not only the so-called bourgeois social sciences but also Marxist social sciences that did not conform to the demands of official Marxism. The disciplines were revived following the “reform and opening” after 1978, and have developed rapidly over the last three decades. This discussion offers a brief sketch of the development of sociology and anthropology as disciplines, the concerns that guided the work of Chinese sociologists and anthropologists as the disciplines came into their own as professional undertakings, and debates over the years on the nationalization of the disciplines. The historical sketch covers the period before 1949, with brief mention of subsequent developments. My main goal here is to provide a broad historical context for the more detailed discussions offered by a range of scholars, some of whom continue to play important parts in shaping the present-day trajectories of these disciplines in the People’s Republic of China and Taiwan.1 1. This historical account has been culled from available secondary literature in English and Chinese. Especially pertinent are R. David Arkush, Fei Xiaotong and Sociology in Revolutionary China (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1981); Chang Hao, Liang Ch’i-ch’ao and Intellectual Transition in China, 1890–1907 (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1971); Yung-chen Chiang, Social Engineering and the Social Sciences in China, 1919–1949 (Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 2001); Arif Dirlik, Revolution and History: The Origins of Marxist Historiography in China, 1919–1937 (Berkeley, CA: University of California Press, 1989); Gregory Eliyu Guldin, The Saga of Anthropology in China: From Malinowski to Moscow to Mao (Armonk, NY: M.E. Sharpe, 1994); Nick Knight, Li Da and Marxist Philosophy in China (Oxford: Perseus, 1998); Nick Knight, Marxist Philosophy in China: From Qu Qiubai to Mao Zedong, 1923–1945 (Dordrecht: Springer, 2005); James R. Pusey, China and Charles Darwin (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1983); Benjamin I. Schwartz, In Search of Wealth and Power: Yen Fu and the West (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1964); Y. C. Wang, Chinese Intellectuals and the West, 1872–1949 (Chapel Hill, NC: University of North Carolina Press, 1966); Philip West, Yenching University and Sino-Western Relations, 1910–1952 (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1976); Siulun Wong, Sociology and Socialism in Contemporary China (London: Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1979); Zheng Hang Sheng, et al., A History of Chinese Sociology (Newly Compiled) (Beijing: China Renmin University Press, 2003) [English version of Zhongguo shehuixue shi xinbian (Beijing: Gaodeng jiaoyu chubanshe, 2000)];

zhongguohua | 199

Sociology and Anthropology: Origins and Domestication Sociology The social sciences were entangled in questions of politics from their very origins. The first translations of works of sociology and anthropology into Chinese were undertaken not with disciplinary concerns but through late Qing (1644–1911) efforts to understand the sources of strength of the Euro/American powers that threatened the dynasty’s survival. According to his student Liang Qichao (1873–1929), the celebrated Confucian reformer Kang Youwei (1858–1927) included a section on sociology in his curriculum in the private academy that he had established in Guangzhou as early as the early 1890s, most probably based on materials made available in missionary publications. The first major work of sociology to appear in Chinese (in 1904) was Herbert Spencer’s The Study of Sociology. It was one of a series of translations from English undertaken by the reform-minded intellectual Yan Fu (1854–1921), one of the first Qing intellectuals sent abroad to study naval matters as part of the government’s Self-strengthening reforms. His translations—which included Adam Smith’s An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations, John Stuart Mill’s On Liberty, and Thomas Huxley’s Evolution and Ethics—had considerable influence on early twentiethcentury Chinese thought, especially in the spread of Social Darwinian ideas among intellectuals already preoccupied with the question of China’s survival in a world of national competition. Yan Fu himself “prescribed sociology as an antidote to political radicalism . . . With his idea of sociology intertwined with elitism and political gradualism, [he] set the tone for later Chinese sociology, particularly of Han Minghan, Zhongguo shehuixue shi (History of Chinese Sociology) (Tianjin: Tianjin renmin chubanshe, 1987); Wang Jianmin, Zhongguo minzuxue shi (History of Chinese Ethnology), 2 vols. (Kunming: Yunnan jiaoyu chubanshe, 1997); Yang Yabin, Zhongguo shehuixue shi (History of Chinese Sociology), 2 vols. (Beijing: Zhongguo shehui kexue chubanshe, 2001). The discussion in this section will not be footnoted unless direct reference is made to any one of these works.

culture & history in postrevolutionary china | 200 the Anglo-American variety.”2 In his translation of Spencer, Yan Fu had used the term qunxue (“collectivities” or “masses”) to render sociology into Chinese (this was also the term used by Kang Youwei and Liang Qichao). The term shehuixue, which would eventually come to stand for “sociology,” was first used in translations of works on sociology from Japanese, first by Han Tanshou in 1898, and subsequently by the distinguished radical intellectual Zhang Taiyan (1868–1936) in a 1902 translation of Sociology by the Japanese author Kishimoto Nomuta.3 The term had a long lineage in Chinese thought, where it had meant something along the lines of “gathering of she (or communities).” The Japanese neologism shehui brought with it a new understanding of the term which would take hold of Chinese thinking as social and political developments drove late Qing intellectuals to reconceive shehui as society, in the Euromodern sense of a structured or organic entity with its own internal logic and dynamics. “American missionary sociology,” as Wong Siu-lun has described it, was to play a central part in the formation of sociology as a discipline.4 The very first department of sociology in China was established in 1915 in Hujiang University in Shanghai, an undertaking of American Methodist Episcopalians. With the exception of Xiamen University, founded by an overseas Chinese entrepreneur from Singapore, which established a Department of History and Sociology in 1922, until the mid-1920s practically all departments of sociology were in private American missionary institutions, nourished by support from universities in the United States. Scholars from the United States were prominent in both teaching and research in sociology. A Japan-educated professor at Beijing University, Kang Baozheng (1884–1919), offered courses in sociology beginning in 1916, but otherwise the teaching of sociology was limited in these early years to professors from the United States teaching in missionary institutions. 2. Wong, Sociology and Socialism, p. 10. 3. Zheng et al., A History of Chinese Sociology, p. 95. 4. Wong, Sociology and Socialism, p. 11.

zhongguohua | 201 Not surprisingly, the activities of these scholars in both teaching and research were guided by the practical missionary interests that had brought them to China in the first place: altruistic goals of reforming China, which were often indistinguishable from the more fundamental goal of spreading the Gospel, both of which required a close understanding of Chinese society. Exemplary among them was John Stewart Burgess (1883–1949), graduate of Oberlin, Princeton, and Columbia, who was to found the sociology department at Yenching University, and make it into one of the leading departments in the country. Burgess was also a pioneer of the social survey method, which in the hands of American sociologists produced the first major analyses of social problems, a major concern that they would pass on to their Chinese students. The significance of missionary institutions in shaping sociology in China went beyond the mere presence of these institutions, as they also provided intellectual and ideological context in the nourishing of the first generation of Chinese sociologists, who would come of professional age in the late 1920s and 1930s and establish sociology firmly as a discipline. Not all Chinese sociologists were trained in American institutions. Important figures in Chinese sociology such as Tao Menghe (1888–1960) and Fei Xiaotong (1910–2005), not to mention Marxist sociologists, received some or all of their training in England or Europe. Textbooks translated from Japanese also provided Chinese students with their first introduction to sociology. But as sociology was established as an academic discipline from the late twenties, U.S.trained students played a leading and dominant part in organization and research. Prominent among the first generation of U.S.-trained sociologists who received their schooling in the late 1910s and early 1920s were Sun Benwen (1891–1979), widely recognized as the dean of sociological studies in the 1930s (Beijing University, Illinois, New York University, Columbia); Pan Guangdan (1899–1967), the biological determinist (Tsinghua, Columbia); Wu Wenzao (1901–1985), outstanding in community studies (Tsinghua, Columbia); Chen Da (1892–1976), foremost scholar of Chinese overseas, labor issues, and population

culture & history in postrevolutionary china | 202 (Tsinghua, Columbia); Wu Zelin (1898–1990), sociologist and ethnologist (Tsinghua, Wisconsin, Ohio); Wu Jingchao (1901–1968), economic and urban sociologist (Minnesota, Chicago); Huang Wenshan (1895–1982), founder of the field of “culturology” (Beijing University, Columbia); and Lei Jie-qiong (1905–1993), sociologist of women and the family (University of Southern California). Upon returning to China, these individuals played important roles in the establishment of the departments of sociology that proliferated from the mid-twenties. Fudan University in Shanghai established a Department of Sociology in 1925, followed by Guang-hua, Daxia, and Tsinghua Universities (1926), Central and Ji’nan Universities (1927), Northeast University (1928), Labor University in Shanghai (1929), and Zhongshan University in Guangdong (1931). By 1930, there were sixteen departments of sociology—eleven independent departments, two each jointly with history and politics, and one department combined with anthropology. Other universities offered courses on sociology through various arrangements. After several abortive efforts, in 1928 Chinese sociologists in Shanghai established the first professional organization, the Southeast Association of Sociology, which was combined with a similar association in Beijing in 1930 to form the first national association, The Chinese Society of Sociology (Zhongguo shehuixue hui). The executive committee included the most prominent sociologists of the day: Sun Benwen, who had played a major part in the organization and served as director, Xu Shilian (1896–?), Wu Jingchao, Wu Zelin, Chen Da, Tao Menghe, You Jiade, and Quan Zhenya. The association made its own journal, Sociology (Shehuixue), which had been inaugurated by the Southeast Association, with Sun Benwen as its chief editor. In the meantime, the Yenching Department of Sociology had established in 1927 its own publication, Sociological World (Shehuixue jie), which would last for eleven years. Together, the association and these journals announced the coming of age of professional sociology in China.5 5.

Zheng et al., A History of Chinese Sociology, pp. 125–130.

zhongguohua | 203 Nevertheless, between 1930 and 1940, there was a hiatus in the development of sociology in Chinese universities which, according to Sun Benwen, was due to the “misunderstanding” of sociology, presumably on the part both of the general public and the Guomindang government in power after 1927.6 The “misunderstanding” he referred to was the confusion of sociology and socialism, which may have made sociology suspect in the eyes of the authorities. The development of sociology did not regain its momentum until the war years, when the Guomindang government with its newly established Social Affairs Department began to show serious interest in social work and welfare. By 1947, twenty-two universities had departments of sociology—nineteen of them independent departments—with 144 working sociologists (including anthropologists), only ten of them foreigners.7 The confusion of sociology with socialism may have been due to the preoccupation of professional sociologists with social problems, community studies, and rural research, but it was as old as the history of sociology in China. Reformers and revolutionaries of the late Qing had observed a close connection in contemporary European political discourses between social problems, the study of sociology, and socialism (often confused—as in the case of Sun Yat-sen, for instance—with the institution of social policies to resolve social problems). By the late 1920s, the “confusion” was due primarily to the influence on Chinese social thinking of Marxism and, to a lesser extent (as in the case of the anarchist-inspired Labor University), anarchism. The hiatus in the institutional development of sociology in the decade of the 1930s (the “Nanjing Decade”) did not mean that sociology (or anthropology) experienced stagnation. Rather, the ongoing transformation of departments during these years with the addition of new research groups, new courses, and research proj6. Ibid., p. 205; Han, Zhongguo shehuixue shi, p. 101. 7. Yang, Jindai Zhongguo shehuixue, vol. 2, p. 959.

culture & history in postrevolutionary china | 204 ects gives the impression of ongoing experimentation with the best ways to accommodate faculty interests. Institutional innovations were accompanied by proliferating signs of intellectual vitality and professional maturation. The decade witnessed extensive research activities organized by Chinese sociologists themselves, which also went into the training of a new generation of social scientists. Intellectual debates born of the conflicting affiliations of Chinese social scientists with various schools in the social sciences clarified significant theoretical and methodological questions concerning different approaches to social analysis, the relationship between the various social sciences, and their domestication within the Chinese context. I will say more on these debates below. The debates were enlivened by the visits to China of distinguished sociologists and anthropologists such as Robert Park (1864–1944) from the United States and Alfred Radcliffe-Brown (1881–1955) from England. Finally, a great deal of social science literature was introduced into the professional scene in these years both through translation and through the significant scholarly output of Chinese scholars. Sociological work in the two decades before 1949 was guided as much by the training sociologists had received abroad as it was dictated by the circumstances of Chinese society. In his survey of Chinese sociology, Zheng Hangsheng identifies four schools in Chinese sociology: Rural reconstruction (xiangcun jianshe), Comprehensive, or Syncretic (zonghe), Community (shequ), and Marxist. Rural reconstruction, while it influenced the work of sociologists, was led by non-sociologist activist intellectuals such as the Confucian-inspired philosopher Liang Shuming (1893–1988) and YMCA-related James Yen (1890–1990), both of whom engaged in rural experiments with village reform and local governance, with particular emphasis on education. Their examples stimulated numerous efforts at rural reconstruction in the 1930s that involved sociologists such as Chen Xujing (1903–1967), Li Jinghan (1894–1986), Wu Jingchao, Xu Shilian (1896–?), Yang Kaidao (1899–1981), and many others, who received their practical training in sociology in the course of these efforts.

zhongguohua | 205 While these sociologists did not necessarily agree with Yan’s Christianity or Liang’s Confucianism, they brought their own sociological interests to the practical goal of reforming rural China. The syncretic school was the “orthodox” counterpart to Marxist sociology in its insistence on bringing together various aspects of society in sociological study and integrating sociology with other disciplines. Its foremost representative was Sun Benwen, who had studied with Robert Park at the University of Chicago, as well as with William F. Ogburn (1886–1959) and Franklin H. Giddings (1855– 1931) in Columbia. What distinguished the syncretic school from the equally comprehensive claims of Marxism was its emphasis on culture and social psychology in the shaping of society. Sun Benwen emphasized social problems, but the syncretic school in general was longer on theory than on practical research. Sun himself would exert enormous influence on sociological thinking through his organizational activities and his impressive output of texts and theoretical work. He was a foremost voice in the call for the sinicization of sociology by the production of sociological work by Chinese social scientists based on Chinese realities. The third school was the school of community studies, which was responsible for much of the research in these years on rural and urban China. Its leading figure was Wu Wenzao, who had studied with Franz Boas (1858–1942) and Ruth Benedict (1887–1948) at Columbia. Upon his return to China, he assumed a position in the Yenching University Department of Sociology, and quickly made the department into a vanguard in social surveys. Most prominent among the talent he nurtured were Fei Xiaotong, Lin Yaohua (1910–?), Li Anzhai (1900–1985), and Zhang Zhiyi (1919–1987), who all authored extensive and seminal works on social life and values, village and town structures, industrial life, the family, fertility, etc. Theoretically, members of this school were distinguished by their emphasis on anthropological work. The most famous of them all, Fei Xiaotong, had studied with Bronislaw Malinowski (1884–1942) at the London School of Economics. Li Anzhai had been a student of Alfred Kroeber (1876–1960) at the

culture & history in postrevolutionary china | 206 University of California, Berkeley, while Lin Yaohua was a graduate of the Department of Anthropology at Harvard. Finally, Marxism. Following the establishment of the Communist Party of China in 1921, and the influx of Marxism into Chinese thinking, Marxists played an important part in the teaching and diffusion of sociology. Communist Party leaders in general—such as Li Dazhao (1889–1927) and Mao Zedong (1893–1976)—were interested in social issues and social research. Not all, however, explicitly addressed issues of sociology and the social sciences. Among those who did so were Qu Qiubai (1899–1935), with brief experience in the Soviet Union, who served for a while as head of the Sociology Department in the left-dominated Shanghai University, and authored several books on sociology; Li Da (1890–1966), who was educated in Japan, was a prolific theorist, and taught in a number of universities, including Beijing University and Zhongshan University in Guangdong; and Xu Deheng (1890–1990), educated in France and Germany, who translated E. Durkheim into Chinese and himself wrote several works of his own. Critical of the Comtean sociology of order, Marxist authors brought into Chinese sociology issues in the materialist conception of history, with particular emphasis on class, labor, and women. Possibly most important in terms of social investigation was Chen Hansheng (1897–2004), educated in Germany, who was invited by Cai Yuanpei (1868–1940) to head the Institute of Social Sciences of the newly founded Academia Sinica in 1928. His rural surveys across the breadth of the country in the 1930s were important in informing Communist approaches to land revolution. Marxism was especially influential in the promotion of historical sociology. Marxist debates over the nature of Chinese society and its historical development played a major part in turning attention to the writing of social history and in nurturing an interdisciplinarity that cut across not only academic but also political boundaries. Marxism was important not just for the Communist intellectuals, but for Guomindang intellectuals such as Tao Xisheng (1899–1988), whose institute at Beijing University was a major source of studies

zhongguohua | 207 on Chinese economic and social history. Needless to say, while professional sociologists such as Sun Benwen were critical of Marxist sociology for its political agenda, the sociology that they practiced was infused with concerns and premises that was the contribution of the materialist conception of history to European sociology at its very origins. Not all Chinese sociologists are easily classified into these categories. An example is Chen Da, who had studied with Giddings and Ogburn in Columbia (Giddings was his Ph.D. advisor, Ogburn his classmate from Reed College in Oregon). Chen Da stressed culture and social psychology materialist orientations of his own. While in the United States, Chen Da authored a study of Chinese overseas, focusing on their laboring conditions. He followed this interest up in the 1930s in his studies of overseas Chinese communities (qiaoxiang) in China. He also was recognized as a foremost sociologist of labor and population. His work with the Institute of Pacific Relations (founded by the Rockefeller Foundation) also gave him a leftist slant on the problems of China (which did not prevent him from getting into trouble during the Hundred Flowers Movement in 1957 for his advocacy of resurrecting sociology, which by then had been taken out of university curricula).8 Similarly with Lei Jieqiong (1905–?), the lone woman to receive significant attention in some surveys of sociology. Lei studied sociology at the University of Southern California, achieved the highest honors for her scholarship, and upon her return to China, acquired a post at Yenching University 1931–1937. She served in numerous prestigious university positions in subsequent years, and was active in democratic circles. Lei’s primary interest was in issues of women and the family. But she also produced critiques of women under fascism and brought a historical materialist perspective on gender, with particular interest in the relationship between women’s conditions and the unfolding women’s movement in China.9 8. Ibid., pp. 511–577 and pp. 742–774. 9. Ibid., pp. 816–853, for Lei Jieqiong.

culture & history in postrevolutionary china | 208 Marxists such as Qu Qiubai and Li Da would probably have had little difficulty agreeing with a statement Sun Benwen made in the conclusion to his Principles of Sociology that “sociology is a science, socialism is a kind of advocacy; the two should not be confounded.”10 Marxists believed that a fundamental goal of sociology was to serve as a guide to social transformation. On the other hand, they also believed that sociology of the kind practiced by “bourgeois” sociologists was no less political in its service to capitalism. Whether or not sociology in China served capitalism is a moot point. What is less doubtful is that already in the 1930s professional sociologists were closely associated with the Guomindang government and shared in its goals of social reform and engineering.11 Professional sociology in the 1930s, moreover, bore upon it the imprint of its missionary origins as well as the social reformism that Chinese sociologists internalized in their education in the United States. The particular circumstances of Chinese society reinforced the practical goals that drove Chinese sociology from its beginnings. It is interesting, moreover, that a sociologist such as Sun Benwen, writing of sociology’s mission to resolve social problems, could stipulate that “the interest of the country and nation should be at the core of the solution,” as if subjecting sociology to national goals was politically innocent.12

Anthropology The first anthropology departments in China were not established until the late 1940s, just before the victory of the Communist Party in 1949. In 1947, Ji’nan University, Zhejiang University, and Tsinghua University established anthropology departments, followed the next year by Zhongshan University in Guangzhou. The time lag in the establishment of anthropology departments was neither surprising nor significant. Anthropology was a relatively 10. Zheng et al., Zhongguo shehuixue shi xinbian, p. 130. 11. Chiang, Social Engineering and the Social Sciences in China, “Introduction.” 12. Zheng et al., A History of Chinese Sociology, p. 197.

zhongguohua | 209 new discipline. Few universities in the United States and Europe had anthropology departments until after World War II. In many cases, moreover, anthropology was part of sociology departments. It is more than likely that a Chinese student who studied anthropology in the United States would have been enrolled in a sociology department.13 This situation was replicated in Chinese universities. Scholars with degrees in anthropology, such as Wu Wenzao, Huang Wenshan, or Fei Xiaotong, found disciplinary homes in departments of sociology. Courses in anthropology, too, were more often than not offered through those very same departments. On the other hand, given the significance of rural reconstruction and community studies in guiding research, sociologists themselves were drawn to ethnographic methods, which further blurred the distinction between the two disciplines. The founding of departments of anthropology in the late 1940s signaled not the beginnings of anthropology as a discipline but rather the separation of anthropology from sociology, which merely established the autonomous disciplinary identity of the two fields—not necessarily to the advantage of either except in an institutional sense. An additional dimension in the case of China was a difference in the scope of research. One Chinese scholar in the forties (Cen Jiawu), writing with reference to ethnology (minzuxue), observed that ethnographic work in China faced problems quite different than those in Europe and North America. Being a product of colonialism, ethnography in the case of the latter was devoted to the discovery and delineation of differences in cultural identity. Chinese society, too, was constituted of different nationalities and cultural difference was an important issue, but being part of the same nation, China, 13. This was the case, for example, at Duke University, when this author joined the faculty in 1971. It was only in the mid-seventies that the Department of Anthropology was established as a separate department. The first anthropology department in the United States was established by Franz Boas in Columbia University in 1896. A department was established in UC Berkeley in 1901. The University of Chicago Department of Anthropology was not established until 1930, when anthropologists separated from the Department of Sociology.

culture & history in postrevolutionary china | 210 these nationalities were also united by cultural commonalities that were the products of a long history of interactions. Discovering this commonality in difference was a major challenge that distinguished Chinese ethnography.14 The distinction Cen drew between ethnographies in the two contexts may provide us with insights into another reason for the blurring of boundaries between sociology and anthropology in the Chinese context. In their origins in Europe— and subsequently in North America—the division between sociology and anthropology also a marked a distinction between objects of study; the one devoted to the study of contemporary industrial societies, by definition Euro/American (and white), the other to the study of pre-Euromodern, especially colored and “primitive.” Cen no doubt exaggerated the commonalities between the nationalities in China (especially Han and others), as well as the differences in attitude between Chinese scholars and the Euro/American anthropologists who had trained them. In the discussions over ethnology and sociology in the 1930s, influential anthropologists such as Wu Wenzao, Huang Wenshan, and even Cai Yuanpei argued, very much in the vein of colonial social science, that sociology had as its domain contemporary civilized societies whereas ethnology (and, by implication, anthropology) applied to primitive peoples and the past. In China, this corresponded to the distinction between the Han and minority nationalities.15 Whether or not the commonalities between the nationalities in China outweighed their differences, as Cen claimed, however, it is nevertheless the case that the inside/ outside distinction that marked the division of labor between sociology and anthropology in Euro/America was much less applicable 14. Discussed in Wang Jianmin, Zhongguo minzuxue shi, vol. 1, pp. 286–287. 15. Ibid., pp. 132–137. For a recent discussion of the relationship between sociology and ethnology, see Wang Mingming, “The War between Ethnology and Sociology and Its End: Notes and Remarks from a Chinese Anthropologist,” paper presented at the conference “Rethinking Ethnology: A Working Conference Sponsored by the Journal of Material Culture,” University College London, June 2009. I am grateful to Professor Wang for sharing this paper with me.

zhongguohua | 211 to social research in China where both were contained within the same political, if not necessarily the economic, social, or cultural space. The objects of study may not have been identical, but they did overlap, and there were good reasons for disciplinary crossings from the one over to the other. If we think of anthropology in terms of its constituent fields of biology, archeology, linguistics, and ethnology, or culture (the “four fields” of U.S. anthropology), anthropological work, and concerns too, go back to the early twentieth century, and were entangled in issues of nationalism even more inextricably than in the case of sociology. China’s multinationality, a challenge to nationalists, may account for the prominence of ethnology in particular. On the other hand, archeological discoveries from the late nineteenth century were to raise questions about Chinese origins, which also stimulated early advances in archeology. No less important was the discovery in nationalist politics of the “people,” further endowing with political significance culture at the ground level. Beijing University had established a Department of Archeology by 1922. The following year, an association was established for the study of folklore. In 1927, Zhongshan University in Guangdong established a Department of History and Philology, which was followed by a similar department at the Academia Sinica when it was established in 1928. One foreign figure, in addition to American “missionary” sociologists, was to play an important part in the development of these various aspects of anthropological work. This was Sergei M. Shirokogoff (1887–1954), an ethnologist of China and Central Asia of Russian origin, who spent most of his life teaching and researching in China. His many books, translated into Chinese, were widely influential. So was his teaching. Shirokogoff taught a wide variety of subjects first at Zhongshan University in Southern China and subsequently at the Institute of History and Philology at the Academia Sinica. In 1929, he moved to Tsinghua University, where he helped establish the Department of Sociology. Under his influence, anthropology was

culture & history in postrevolutionary china | 212 added to the title of the department (if only briefly) and courses on anthropology were added to the departmental curriculum. Among the students who came under his strong influence was Fei Xiaotong.16 The development of ethnology in China would be given a powerful impetus by Cai Yuanpei, former chancellor of Beijing University, minister of education under the Guomindang, and head of the Academia Sinica when it was established in 1928 by the new Guomindang government. Cai was educated in Germany where he had come under the influence of evolutionary ethnology, with a particular interest in esthetics, both of which may have had something to do with his intellectual attraction to anarchism. While chancellor at Beijing University, he had promoted the study of archeology and anthropology. An article he wrote in late 1926, “On Ethnology” (Shuo minzuxue), was followed by his establishment at the Academia Sinica of the Institute of History and Philology, as well as a section on anthropology in the Institute of Social Sciences, have given him the status of being one of the founders of ethnology in China. While Cai’s essay was relatively brief, it was significant in its clarification of differences between ethnology and ethnography as well as between anthropology and ethnology. The essay referred to the importance of historical work in grasping the formation of nationality, but gave equal stress to on-the-ground investigation.17 With his interest in esthetics, Cai was also inclined to admit into the scope of ethnology all societies which, as I have noted, would be challenged by social scientists in the 1930s who were advocating for the restriction of ethnology to the study of “primitive” societies. Ethnology would advance rapidly in the 1930s, although here it is necessary to make note of some confusion similar to the confusion over sociology. As historians of sociology such as Zheng Hangsheng assimilate anthropology and ethnology to sociology, historians of 16. Guldin, The Saga of Anthropology in China, pp. 44–45. 17. Cai Yuanpei, “Shuo minzuxue” (On Ethnology), Yiban (In General) 1.12 (1926).

zhongguohua | 213 ethnology such as Wang Jianmin return the favor, including within ethnology all work with ethnographic implications. The confusion is a confusion not of historians, but of the absence of a clear distinction between the fields in the composition of departments and research institutions, in research projects, as well as in method and theory. There were, nevertheless, significant signs of autonomous development. The Chinese Society of Ethnology (Zhongguo minzuxue hui) was established in Nanjing in late 1934. While there were sociologists among the founders (the ubiquitous Sun Benwen), the society’s agenda was clearly directed at ethnological work: “to research Chinese nationalit(ies) and their cultures.”18 While the planned journal did not materialize due to financial reasons, a collection of research work (Minzuxue yanjiu jikan) was published in 1936 through the Sun Yat-sen Cultural Institute in Shanghai. By 1948, six such collections would be published. Publications connected with the society included Monumenta Serica, published by the Catholic Furen University (the society seemed to have strong German connections, as some of its meetings were also held in the German/Austrian/Swiss Alumni Society in Nanjing). At the first annual meeting in December 1935, the guest speaker was Radcliffe-Brown, who gave a lecture on “Recent Developments in Social Anthropology.” The society served to bring some coherence to ethnological work. It developed quickly with branches in a number of locations around China. In his history of ethnology in China, Wang Jianmin suggests that in general, ethnologists (which would include sociologists) in North China, under the influence of Radcliffe-Brown and Malinowski, were inclined to functionalism, while those in South China were more historical in approach.19 He further divides ethnological practice into three regional groupings in terms of research interests. Prominent scholars in eastern China included Sun Benwen, Huang Wenshan, Wei Huilin, Wu Zelin, Wu Dingliang, et al., 18. Wang, Zhongguo minzuxue shi, vol. 1, p. 186. 19. Ibid., pp. 139–144 and 162–166.

culture & history in postrevolutionary china | 214 who were grouped around the Academia Sinica, Central University (later Nanjing University), Jinling University in Nanjing (then the national capital), and Daxia, Hujiang, and Ji’nan universities, as well as the Department of Social Sciences of the Academia Sinica and Sun Yat-sen Cultural Institute. Eastern China scholars were mostly interested in the collection of historical materials with emphasis on national culture, folk literature, and language. In the south, Zhongshan University in Guangzhou and Xiamen University in Amoy served as the central institutions, with prominent ethnologists and historians such as Luo Xianglin, Chen Shujing, Yang Chengzhi, Li Huixiang, and others. They, too, were historical in approach, with particular interest in archeology, language, and physical anthropology. They also conducted research among minority nationalities in Southwest China. Northern ethnologists, perhaps the most influential of all, were grouped around Yenching, Beijing, Tsinghua, and Furen universities, as well as the archeology department of the Institute of History and Philology of the Academia Sinica, with Yenching University playing a leading role. The members of this group of scholars were the best connected to scholars abroad. Among the prominent scholars were China’s most famous social scientists, including Wu Wenzao, Pan Guangdan, Li Anzhai, Fei Xiaotong, Lin Yaohua, et al. Dominated by functionalists, these scholars were most interested in research in contemporary society. With the Japanese invasion after 1937, many Chinese scholars followed the Guomindang government to Western China. Tragic as it was, the invasion proved to be a boon for ethnologists as they found themselves in areas of China populated by national minorities. During the war years from 1937 to 1945, ethnologists conducted extensive research among minority nationalities, which also had the result of equating ethnology firmly with the study of such groups. One institutional product of the move to the west was the establishment in 1941 of the Western Frontier Research Institution, headed by Li Anzhai, which also published its own newsletter on frontier

zhongguohua | 215 anthropology. A graduate of Yenching University, Li had gone to the United States to study with Alfred Kroeber and Robert Lowie at UC Berkeley and subsequently with Edward Sapir at Yale University. One of the few Chinese scholars to have worked with indigenous people (the Zuni) abroad, Li would emerge over the years as a pioneer of Tibetology in China. The work done by Li and his wife/collaborator, Yu Shiyu, would also form the basis for the Communist Party’s Tibet policy in later years.20 Following World War II, ethnology and anthropology, along with sociology, showed important signs of development in the proliferation of research. The development was to be cut short with the victory of the Communist Party, and the educational reorganization of 1952, which abolished departments of sociology and anthropology and placed restrictions even on Marxist work. Ethnology would survive because of its political importance, as the management of minority nationalities was, and has been, a major concern of the government. But ethnology, too, would be brought within much narrower theoretical boundaries with the establishment of Stalinist orthodoxy. Since 1978, the social sciences have been resurrected, and they are presently more integrated with Euro/American social sciences than ever before, not just within the PRC but with the many scholars of Chinese origin living and working abroad. These contemporary developments are too broad in scope and complexity to be included here. Some aspects will be taken up in this chapter, and I will begin by focusing on one aspect of the politics of sociology and anthropology as expressed in the question of “making the social sciences Chinese” (shehui kexuede Zhongguohua), which first appeared in the 1930s, but has acquired even greater urgency at a time of cultural and educational globalization. Now, as then, the question divides social scientists. Its persistence, however, allows glimpses into the relationship between the social sciences and nationalist anxieties that are as old as the histories of these disciplines. 20. Owen Lattimore, Inner Asian Frontiers of China (Boston, MA: Beacon, 1951), pp. xxiv–xxv.

culture & history in postrevolutionary china | 216

Indigenizing Sociology and Anthropology: The Politics of the Social Sciences Calls for the indigenization of the social sciences are as old as the introduction of modern Euro/American social science in China from the late 1920s. These calls have been driven by concerns that have changed over time as have the contexts to which they were responses. While there has been a remarkable consistency over the years in the formal definition of indigenization or, alternatively, of “making the social sciences Chinese” (Zhongguohua), these terms are by no means transparent in their implications. “Indigenization” (bentuhua) and Zhongguohua are used interchangeably in the literature on the social sciences. Their translation into a conventional idea of “sinicization” has further burdened the terms with culturalist readings that are the legacies of imperial Chinese historiography. Such readings are misleading unless we understand “sinicization” in materialist and concretely historical cultural terms, which may also be the most accurate way of understanding them with reference to the imperial past as well. In his detailed two-volume study of the history of Chinese sociology before 1949, Yang Yabin writes that “how to integrate sociological theory with the realities of Chinese society, and make sociology Chinese, was a central task of sociology in the 1930s and 1940s.”21 This commonplace description of the process of making sociology Chinese—or, for that matter, of indigenizing it—will be recognized readily as an academic version of “making Marxism Chinese,” referring to the ideological appropriation of Marxism for the Chinese Communist Party in the early 1940s that was to be hailed thereafter as the greatest achievement and outstanding characteristic of Mao Zedong Thought. The first calls for “making sociology Chinese” in the 1930s preceded Mao’s pronouncements of the 1940s, and were products, as was Mao’s own ideological work, of giving a national face to modernity in general that was a widespread concern of the 1930s, especially 21. Yang, Jindai Zhongguo shehuixue, vol. 2, p. 665.

zhongguohua | 217 in the second half of the decade. Still, it is arguable that Mao’s appropriation of Marxism provides a paradigm—not the least of it in its ideological tensions—for grasping the nativization of all theoretical imports from abroad. There would be a slight shift in terminology following the “opening and reform” of the late seventies under the Deng Xiaoping leadership that succeeded revolutionary Maoism. But the problems of modernity made Chinese continues to bear upon it tensions and contradictions that have refused to disappear with the change in course in Chinese politics—or the academic disciplines. The ambiguities built into the Chinese appropriation of Marxism are also visible in the uses of the paradigm with reference to the social sciences. It has not always been clear if making Marxism Chinese simply meant attentiveness to the realities of Chinese society without further implications for theory, as Mao’s own usage sometimes suggested, a need to revise theory itself in accordance with native social and cultural demands to produce a “Chinese” theory, or an ongoing dialectic between Marxism as universal theory and particular Chinese understandings of it. I have suggested elsewhere that the difficulties presented by making Marxism Chinese may account for Mao’s preoccupation with contradictions and the primacy he gave to practice in the resolution of questions that did not lend themselves to resolution at the level of theory.22 These ambiguities are also important to grasping the conflicting interpretations of Marxism over the years in accordance with changing political goals. Recognition of such contradictions may also be necessary to grasp difficulties that attend efforts to nativize the social sciences as well. While integrating social theory with the realities of Chinese society has remained as the goal of making the social sciences Chinese, what this may entail remains problematic to this day. It has also assumed different dimensions at different times. 22. Arif Dirlik, “Theory, History, Culture: Cultural Identity and the Politics of Theory in Twentieth-Century China,” Development and Society 29.2 (Dec. 2000), pp. 73–104.

culture & history in postrevolutionary china | 218 Historians of the social sciences have applied the paradigm to the social sciences from their origins in the twentieth century. It seems, however, that it was only in the 1940s, following the Maoist interpretation of Marxism, that social scientists began to rephrase concerns with domesticating the social sciences in terms of this new paradigm. The question of how to reconcile the demands of imported theory with the empirical evidence of Chinese society was a problem for Marxist social scientists from the late 1920s as they sought in social analysis solutions to the difficulties of socialist revolution in a society that theoretically was lacking in the preconditions for such a revolution. Political loyalties precluded the questioning of the claims of Marxist theory to universal validity. The result was the tailoring of evidence to fit in with the demands of theory, which was less than successful as it merely issued in fruitless conflicts between competing universalisms. While Marxist debates over the nature of Chinese society and its past produced the first social histories of China, they failed to reconcile the contradiction between history and theory, which in the end would be resolved not theoretically but by political fiat.23 For liberal social scientists, the question of the indigenization of sociology appeared first in the 1930s and 1940s, coinciding with the professionalization of the social sciences as the first generation of social scientists returned from abroad (mostly the United States) to lead newly established departments in Chinese universities. The primary concern for this generation was the domestication of the new social sciences by providing them with a Chinese content. This involved research into Chinese society to explore how issues in the social sciences appeared within China’s particular circumstances as well as the production of Chinese materials for research and teaching that would replace the foreign texts, drawn from research in Europe and North America, that initially had provided the material for the social sciences, taught for the most part by foreign scholars. 23. For these debates, see Dirlik, Revolution and History.

zhongguohua | 219 In its sixth annual meeting in January 1937, the Chinese Sociological Association (Zhongguo shehuixue she) called for the “establishment of a Chinese sociology” (Zhongguo shehuixue zhi jianshe) through a program of community studies. Such studies already had been under way in the 1930s as they had been part of the education of this generation of sociologists as a major concern of contemporary sociology in the United States. This meeting attached them to the development of “Chinese” sociology. Based on the concrete realities of everyday life, community studies were deemed to be the ideal vehicle for grounding sociology in Chinese soil. What this implied for sociological theory is not very clear as may be gleaned from the writings of contemporary sociologists such as Sun Benwen, whose views on the domestication of sociology are often cited by historians. In his own work as well as in more programmatic writings, Sun was a foremost exponent of bringing Chinese materials into sociological work and teaching. This entailed compilation of material on Chinese social theory and ideals, detailed research in urban and rural China, and the production of texts and reference works with Chinese content. While Sun endowed sociology with an important political and cultural function in serving national needs, he was careful to distinguish socialism and sociology, and to reject the latter for its “subjectivity.” Socialism and sociology, introduced into Chinese thought about the same time in the early twentieth century, had been confounded since then, and Marxists (as well as anarchists) had made important contributions to the development of social research. Sun’s distinction may be read as an effort by a professional sociologist to rescue sociology from its subjection to politics. The function he assigned to sociology in serving national needs was hardly free of politics, however, and subjectivity was also at work in bringing into sociology Chinese social ideals. How these ideals were to be articulated to sociology as a “science” remained an open question in his work as well as the works of other contemporaries.24 24. For a discussion of Sun’s ideas, with a critique, see Zheng et al., A History of Chinese Sociology, pp. 203–207.

culture & history in postrevolutionary china | 220 The professional development of the social sciences, still in their infancy, suffered a setback for the three decades after the founding of the People’s Republic in 1949. Sociology, initially brought under the domination of state Marxism, disappeared from university curricula after sociology departments were abolished in 1952. Cultural anthropology suffered a similar fate, although physical anthropology survived. Ethnology was the one field to flourish (if in an intellectually restricted way) with the new regime’s emphasis on nationalities. When the question of the social sciences reemerged in the late 1970s and early 1980s, it was social scientists from Taiwan, Hong Kong, and the United States who played leading roles, even though the “reopening” of China provided the immediate context. Initiated by intellectuals in Taiwan around 1980, this new round in efforts to make sociology Chinese brought together sociologists from Hong Kong, Singapore, the People’s Republic of China, and the United States. Rather than establish a “Chinese” sociology, the participants sought for the most part to bring a Chinese voice into sociological theory.25 25. According to the accounts of this movement, “sinicization” was already in the air in Taiwan in the late seventies, but the movement got under way with a conference in 1980 organized by the Institute of Ethnology of the Academia Sinica, “Shehui yu xingwei kexuede Zhongguohua” (The Sinicization of Social and Behavioral Sciences). It was followed up by a conference at the Chinese University of Hong Kong in 1983, “Xiandaihua yu Zhongguo wenhua” (Modernization and Chinese Culture), which included Chinese scholars from Hong Kong, Taiwan, Singapore, and the People’s Republic. While the conference was broader in scope, “sinicization” apparently became a hot topic of discussion. The concern reached the United States the same year, when at the Western Conference of the Association for Asian Studies in Tempe, Arizona, a roundtable discussion was held on the subject of “Sinicization of Sociology: A Collective Portrait of Some American Trained Chinese Sociologists.” The Institute of Ethnology Conference resulted in a volume, Shehui ji xingwei kexue yanjiu de Zhongguohua (Sinicization of Research in Social and Behavioral Sciences), ed. by Yang Guoshu and Wen Chonggyi (Taipei: Zhongyanyuan minzu suo, 1982). American sociologists published their own volume, Shehui zhuyi Zhongguohua (the Zhongguohua of Sociology) (Taipei: Juliu tushi gongsi, 1985), which offered Chinese American sociologists’ take on the issues involved.

zhongguohua | 221 The circumstances under which the discussions were conducted were vastly different from the circumstances of the 1930s and 1940s. By the late 1970s, sociology and anthropology in the United States and Europe had undergone significant transformations in the encounter with questions of colonialism. The critique of the complicity of professional sociology and anthropology in colonial and neocolonial ventures was informed by a new interest in postStalinist Marxism that issued in a turn to political economy in new theoretical departures. These included, most importantly, worldsystem analysis, dependency theory (itself a product of Latin American social scientists), and attention to questions of social oppression ranging from class relations to issues of gender, race, ethnicity, and indigenous peoples. At the same time, important changes had taken place in the immediate circumstances of Chinese sociologists. The discussions coincided with increased attention globally to the success of East Asian societies in the global capitalist economy, which was reflected in the appearance of the Asia Pacific idea as well as recognition that these societies might be empowered by social dynamics and cultural characteristics that gave them an edge over the earlier centers of capital. The result was a renewed interest among Chinese and non-Chinese analysts alike in the social practices of these societies ranging from kinship practices to guanxi networks, and the values that informed those practices that were captured in the idea of Confucianism, which turned almost overnight from an explanation of Chinese backwardness to the source of Chinese success. At the same time, however, the existence of multiple Chinese societies in Taiwan, Singapore, Hong Kong, and the People’s Republic of China, not to speak of overseas Chinese around the world, presented new challenges Cai Yongmei’s introduction to the latter volume gives a personal account of these conferences and publications. For similar concerns for “indigenizing” sociology in Korea, see Park Myoung-Kyu and Chang Kyung-Sup, “Sociology between Western Theory and Korean Reality: Accommodation, Tension and a Search for Alternatives,” International Sociology 14.2 ( June 1999), pp. 139–156.

culture & history in postrevolutionary china | 222 to what it might mean to make sociology Chinese, as these societies had developed along different trajectories for the past three decades if not longer. Rather than revolutionary politics, the new discussions were driven by a new identity politics that also complicated efforts to indigenize the social sciences. Under the circumstances, the relationship between history, culture, and theory assumed even greater complexity than before. The sociologists who were involved in the discussions themselves hailed from a multiplicity of locations. They were involved in theoretical discussions not only in the periphery, as the Taiwan sociologist Xiao Xinhuang described sociology in Taiwan, but also at the center. Moreover, they also differed in the demands of their immediate context. This was especially the case with sociologists in Taiwan, who already faced pressures from the democratization of Taiwanese society and the emergence of political and social movements in the cause of Taiwanization. They were intensely aware as professionals of the universal demands of theory and equally sensitive to the problems of encompassing diverse social and cultural realities in one grand theory.26 26. Bringing a Chinese voice into scholarship has been a concern in recent years in many disciplines, most prominently in history. The concern in the latter case, however, has been almost exclusively with “historiographical traditions” of high culture, which follows civilizational divides reminiscent of Orientalist mappings of the world. Orientalism may be a misnomer here or, conversely, be particularly pertinent, because Chinese historians do the same. See, for example, a report on a conference on the crisis of history, “Shixue wang nali zou?” (Whither History?), in Jindai Zhongguo (April 30, 1989): 1–14, in which the distinguished historian from Hong Kong, Du Weiyun, was the keynote speaker. The speech is devoted exclusively to the accomplishments of historical high culture in China and how its ideals might be reconciled to “Western” historiography. This question has dominated historiographical discussions in conferences in which I have been a participant. It avoids, needless to say, the changes experienced by Chinese populations everywhere. Sociologists, on the other hand, like anthropologists, draw attention to everyday experience in their dealings with the confrontation between theory and culture—which incidentally may have something to say about the classification of disciplines into nomothetic and idiographic categories. The intrusion of disciplines into the discussion of the relationship between culture and history is also an indication of how much things have changed since the 1930s.

zhongguohua | 223 According to Lin Nan, whose essay led the volume of U.S. sociologists’ contributions to the discussion, the “sinicization of sociology” was intended “to blend (rongna) Chinese social and cultural characteristics and national character into sociology.”27 It was different from the creation of a “Chinese sociology,” with scholarly and professional goals, or the application of sociology to Chinese society. The level of sinicization was to be determined “by the extent to which sociology acquired Chinese social and cultural characteristics and a Chinese national character.” But “sinicization was an undertaking that transcended regional and national boundaries; social and cultural characteristics and national character entailed structures, relations between the group and individual, and different layers in society, which could all be blended into theory and method.”28 As examples of Chinese social and cultural characteristics that sinicization might entail, Lin specified family and kinship relations; centralized power, which affected relations of hierarchy at all levels; the value systems and practices that bolstered the system; the consequences for society of a unified script; factors involved in China’s development in an Eastern Asian context that might offer different views on development than, say, world-system analysis. Bringing forth new kinds of evidence in these areas, and the reformulation on that basis of theory could, according to Lin, effect a theoretical revolution that might resolve the “paradigm crisis” in sociology. This required, he suggested, following Thomas Kuhn, a community of scholars working to this end—which was an opportunity for Chinese scholars. While Lin’s discussion stressed structural factors, other contributors to the volume, especially those working in specific areas such as social psychology, alienation, women’s sociology, etc., placed greater emphasis on everyday values that needed to be brought into the process of “sinicization.” Taiwanese sociologists in particular, according to Xiao who conducted surveys among them, thought it 27. Lin Nan, Shehui zhuyi Zhongguohua, p. 32. This essay was delivered initially at the Tempe meeting. 28. Ibid., pp. 32–33.

culture & history in postrevolutionary china | 224 was necessary to bring into consideration Chinese ethical values as well as the concepts in which those values were imbedded, such as the “transmission of the Dao” (daotong), humaneness (ren), Heaven (tian), propriety (li), yinyang, etc.29 In either case, however, whether dealing with structures or cultural values, scholars involved in the discussion for the most part agreed that the goal of “sinicization” was not to divide Chinese sociology from the world, but to enrich sociology worldwide. According to Xiao’s survey, scholars in Taiwan were divided almost evenly on the question of whether or not it was desirable to create a national sociology.30 Hong Kong and Singapore sociologists for the most part were not interested at all in the question of “sinicization.” U.S. scholars, on the other hand, viewed “sinicization” as a form of “indigenization” (bentuhua), which was little more than a means in the long run to “globalization” (quanqiuhua). The most adamant about “sinicization” were scholars from the People’s Republic, who displayed a chauvinistic (shawen zhuyi) attitude even toward their Chinese compatriots in their affirmation of Chinese characteristics.31 In this case, too, “sinicization” covered a broad ground: from the transformation of Chinese society through theory, to the outright rejection of national differences in theory (which perceived difference only as a matter of the circumstances to which theory was applied), to the opportunistic uses of theory for national ends (yang wei zhong yong, making the foreign serve the Chinese) at the hand of mainland scholars, who saw no further cultural significance in theory, to the conviction especially of U.S. sociologists that theoretical formulations to emerge from “sinicization” would produce a paradigm revolution in sociology. With the possible exception of mainland scholars, “sinicization” meant to Chinese sociologists not 29. “Shehuixue zai Taiwan” pp. 271–310. 30. Ibid., p. 301. 31. Xiao Xinhuang and Li Zhefu, “Youshi sanshi nianlai haixia lianggan shehuixue de fazhan” (Looking at the Development of Sociology on Two Sides of the Straits in the Last Thirty Years), SHXZGH, pp. 311–328, pp. 315–316.

zhongguohua | 225 the capturing of sociology in a Chinese national space, but bringing into sociology Chinese voices, sentiments, and the social and cultural characteristics of Chinese society in order to create a more cosmopolitan and globalized sociology—to use a word that has become popular since then, a multicultural and multiculturalist sociology. They were anti-Eurocentric in a sense since they knew that sociology bore upon it the stamp of its origins in nineteenth-century industrial Europe, but their specific focus was on the contemporary hegemony of U.S. sociology, which provoked national claims on sociology in Europe as well. Even in the case of PRC sociologists with their “chauvinism,” we need to recall that the national characteristics they claimed also included as a formative moment the legacy of the “sinicization of Marxism.” There were other Chinese sociologists, referred to by Xiao, who may have perceived a possible contradiction between “sinicization” and the universal claims of sociology, but this was largely muted—especially for U.S. sociologists who referred to themselves as border sociologists and outsiders as such to the workings of sociology in the PRC and Taiwan, and whose identification was primarily with their professional bases in the United States. The contradictions presented by “sinicization” ironically arose less from a conflict between concretely Chinese and broadly universalist theory than from the problems Chinese societies presented to the project of “indigenization.” The differences in historical context between this discussion and the discussions of the 1930s and 1940s are nowhere more evident than in the meaning of “Chineseness.” The different implications of indigenization (in addition to Zhongguohua, quyuhua or regionalization, and difanghua or localization, all of which are encountered in the discussions) could hardly be contained in one conception of a Chinese nation or culture shared by all the participants.32 Strangely enough, a general discussion of 32. In the course of the eighties, as attention turned to Taiwanization, Zhongguohua was downplayed whereas bentuhua became more prominent in the thinking of Taiwan social scientists, with a specific focus on Taiwan. I am grateful to Chuang Ya-chung for pointing this out to me. Chuang was a

culture & history in postrevolutionary china | 226 the problems of “sinicization,” such as that offered by Lin Nan, did not even refer to the question, possibly because his self-image as an “outsider” made him reluctant to take up an issue of great sensitivity. It was brought up by Xiao Xinhuang, who referred in his concluding essay to the volume to “four Chinas,” differences among which needed to be respected.33 The question came up also in Xiao’s discussion of sociology in Taiwan, a discussion of national minorities in China addressing issues of assimilation, and the discussion of women’s sociology, referred to previously, where the author suggested that differences between the PRC, Hong Kong, and Taiwan provided an opportunity for comparing women’s status in Chinese societies with different economic systems.34 The only discussion to meet it head on was by Ma Liqin, on alienation. What he had to say is worth quoting at some length: In determining the objectives of research, we must use a definition of “China” that is open-minded and broad. What is the “China” in the term Zhongguohua? The China here needs to be taken in a broad sense, including Taiwan, the People’s Republic of China, Hong Kong, Singapore, and all the societies of Chinese overseas. This broad understanding of China has great significance for research into alienation. First, [the idea of] China must take as its main assumption Chinese and Chinese cultural life, so that wherever there are Chinese and Chinese culture there is Chinese society, and wherever there is Chinese society there is China. This way, we are not limited by politics and its territorialities . . . Second, giving priority to Chinese society over the state in defining China, we have [an idea of graduate student in Taiwan in the late eighties. 33. Xiao Xinhuang, “LuMei Zhongguo shehuixuezhe tan shehuixue Zhongguohua” (Chinese Sociologists in the U.S. Discuss the Sinicization of Sociology), appendix, SHXZGH, pp. 329–345, p. 339. 34. Xiao, “Shehuixue zai Taiwan”; Guo Wenxiong, “Cong shehuixue Zhongguohua guandian kan Zhongguo shaoshu minzu zhengce yu yanjiu” (Viewing Chinese Policy and Research on Minority Nationalities from the Standpoint of Sinicization), SHXZGH, pp. 151–164; and Zhou Yanling, “Shehuixue Zhongguohua yu funü shehuixue,”(Making Sociology Chinese and the Sociology of Women), pp. 122–123.

zhongguohua | 227 China] that is richer in its dynamism, transformations, and variety.35

Ma concluded his essay by observing that to make China more dynamic and democratic it might be better to help Chinese understand the workings of society, in other words to emphasize “the sociologization of China” (Zhongguo shehuixuehua).36 This could be read, at a political level, as a call for the recognition of equal status in “Chineseness” of a variety of Chinese societies. Its conceptual and methodological implications were equally significant, as indigenization now implied indigenization in different locations of Chinese socities. To the juxtaposition between a Euro/American sociology with its universalist claims and Chinese particularities was now added still another layer that juxtaposed a Chinese universalism to the particularities of different Chinese societies. In the case of Taiwan, this would turn within the decade to the substitution of Taiwanization for sinicization.37 This discussion was inconclusive where issues of theory are concerned. The participants were much more explicit about bringing Chinese voices into theory than about challenging the possibility of a universal theory. If there is any conclusion to be drawn from the discussions with respect to theory, it is that theory could achieve greater universality by incorporating different voices.38 Ultimately, the issue was to bring Chinese differences into theory to enrich theory, rather than to create a Chinese theory that would lead a separate existence and result in fragmentation that would preclude the possibility of theory except at the most limited local level. Efforts to make social science Chinese continue to be a major pre35. Ma Liqin, “Lun shuli yanjiude Zhongguohua” (Sinicization of Research in Alienation), SHXZGH, pp. 191–212, p. 206. 36. Ibid., p. 209. 37. For discussions of Taiwanization, see John Makeham and A-Chin Hsiau, Cultural, Ethnic and Political Nationalism in Contemporary China (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2005). 38. For an undertaking to this end, see Nan Lin, Social Capital: A Theory of Social Structure and Action (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2001).

culture & history in postrevolutionary china | 228 occupation of Chinese social scientists. Since the 1990s, these efforts have taken another turn due to the circumstances of the social sciences in China and abroad. Changes in China are marked by greater openness and pluralism. Interestingly, much the same may be said for the social sciences in Europe and North America, where questioning the global hegemony of Eurocentric social science has acquired the status of new fashion.39 Most interesting, however, may be the global situation. As Global Modernity has led to conflicting claims on modernity, modernity’s ways of knowing have come under increased questioning. The present witnesses ethnic, national, and civilizational as well as class and gender claims on knowledge. On occasion, challenges to epistemological hegemony extend beyond the social to the natural sciences.40 Epistemological universalism, ironically, has become a casualty of the globalization of modernity. The social sciences as they have developed over the last century and a half from their European origins are clearly at risk. It does not follow, however, that the indigenization of the social sciences has become any easier. In the case of China, the discussions have become more prolific and self-conscious than ever before. It is impossible here to discuss the many turns the discussions have taken, nor am I qualified to do so. But continued difficulties presented by efforts to make the social sciences Chinese may be illustrated by a discussion of the problem in a recent text on the history of Chinese sociology that is worth quoting at length because of the many issues it touches upon. Authored by a team under the leadership of the distinguished sociologist Zheng Hangsheng of People’s University, the text was published in English as well as Chinese. It introduces a further layer of difficulty into the 39. The most important challenge was the Gulbenkian Commission Report composed by Immanuel Wallerstein, Open the Social Sciences (Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 1996). While the report stressed the Eurocentrism of the social sciences, it had little to say on challenges to them from outside of Europe. For an example of the latter, see the special issue on the globalization of sociology of the Canadian Journal of Sociology/Cahiers Canadiens de Sociologie 33.3 (2008). 40. See chapter 2, note 6.

zhongguohua | 229 discourse by equating “sociology with Chinese characteristics” (you Zhongguo tesede shehuixue) and “making sociology Chinese” (shehuixue Zhongguohua), especially in the English version, which substitutes “sociology with Chinese characteristics” for “making sociology Chinese” in the Chinese text, which, interestingly, places that phrase in quotation marks. I quote from the English version, which corresponds closely to the Chinese text, with slight amendments for stylistic reasons: Essentially speaking, indigenization of Chinese sociology requires sociologists to describe and explain the social realities in China in a correct way and anticipate the prospect of social development in order to guide social development. The sign of indigenization is the development of sociological theories and methods with Chinese characteristics . . . What is most important is to answer two questions. What is our guiding ideology and what do Chinese characteristics mean? The answer to the first question is that Chinese sociology must stick to the guidance of Marxism, Leninism, Mao Zedong Thought, and Deng Xiaoping Theory, apprehending their standpoint, outlook, and methods in the observation of social life on the one hand, and having a good command of their theories about certain basic matters of Chinese society on the other. Any neglect of this will lead to the loss of our bearings in indigenizing sociology and to failure in solving the problem. What do Chinese characteristics mean then? It means that Chinese sociology must first have a foothold in Chinese social practice so as to investigate, study, and conclude. At the same time, Chinese sociology should engage in deep study of the history of Chinese social ideology to derive nourishment from the wealth of social ideological data and centuries-old valuable tradition. . . . Indigenization is not antiforeign . . . It includes using foreign, particularly Western, sociology for reference, developing what is healthy and discarding what is not.41

The authors go on to stress that internationalization of Chinese sociology is of equal importance to indigenization. Internationalization includes, First, Chinese sociology is one of the branches of world sociology, with the ability and position that are required in the dialogue with 41. Zheng et al., A History of Chinese Sociology, p. 446. In the Chinese text, the term used for indigenization in this context is bentuhua.

culture & history in postrevolutionary china | 230 international sociological academia so that Chinese sociology can be recognized. Secondly, Chinese sociologists should be able to expound Chinese society and construct the theory of Chinese sociology from the high plane of the world as well as the whole of humanity. . . . In the 21st century, both indigenization and internationalization will speed up, which will be an inevitable consequence of world trends toward integration and of China’s integration with the world.42

The explicitly political understanding of “indigenization” in this statement may not be to the liking of many social scientists in China who for the last three decades have struggled to escape from politics in response to earlier political domination of intellectual life. The statement here clearly places indigenization within a socialist political program as defined by Deng Xiaoping. Were it to be updated to the present, it would presumably add “harmonious society” to its program as that now constitutes the national vision as defined by still a new generation of leadership.43 If changing visions may create a predicament for social scientists, that is not a problem in and of itself; after all, changing social forces and their political demands have been responsible for transformations in social science practice, more often than not with beneficial results, and it would be silly to pretend that the needs of the state and of governance does not play a part in the social sciences elsewhere. The statement is an important reminder that politics remains an issue in the practice of the social sciences as well as in the problematic of indigenization. Professionalization of the social sciences does not necessarily take politics out of their practice, as many Chinese social scientists seem to pretend these days, following their counterparts in the United States and Europe. The question is not whether or not there is a 42. Ibid., p. 447. 43. Indeed, Zheng Hangsheng has undertaken this task in a later work, Jiansuo daijia yu zengcu jinbu: Shehuixue ji qi shengceng linian (Cut the Cost and Speed up Progress: Toward a Layered Reading of Sociology) (Beijing: Beijing shifan daxue chubanshe, 2007). This work also includes detailed discussions of problems in sociology, including the transformation of theory by bringing into it legacies of the past, experiences of the present, and social ideals for the future.

zhongguohua | 231 relationship between politics and the social sciences, but what manner of relationship and whether such a relationship allows room for professional autonomy. The statement above clearly does, which represents a radical change from the immediate past. What is immediately relevant here is what the statement may have to tell us about the indigenization of the social sciences, its temporal and spatial, historical and cultural dimensions. One of the most remarkable things about the statement (by no means uncommon in Chinese writings) is the status of Marxism as an integral part of the guiding ideology, already an integral part of a “Chineseness” to which the social sciences are to be indigenized.44 The implication here is that “Chineseness” itself is a historical category, formed out of the accretion of characteristics of a variety of origins. For the same reason, indigenization means incorporation in a historically changing cultural space with open boundaries, rather than capture in a bounded Chinese cultural space, as is often implied in culturalist uses of the term “sinicization”: China and Chineseness themselves are subject to change as they indigenize cultural elements from abroad. In this case, the statement does not stop at the importation of cultural elements, but also includes going out into the world (in the sense of the term that has become popular in recent years, zuoxiang shijie). Hence the use of the metaphor of “dialogue” as part of a process that involves in equal measure both indigenization and internationalization. This is not to accept uncritically the optimism that guides this statement, which ignores power relationships involved in such exchanges, says little on how Marxist ideals (already included in the native legacy) might be reconciled to “centuries-old traditions” that they were intended to overthrow and transform, ignores divisions among Chinese social scientists, who are by no means a homoge44. Some histories of sociology in China, anxious to stress professional sociology, downplay the importance of Marxism in the origins of Chinese sociology. It is noteworthy that whether or not it is so named, Marxism also has been an integral part of the development of sociology in Europe and North America.

culture & history in postrevolutionary china | 232 neous group culturally and professionally, is silent on internal inequalities, which are of special concern to anthropologists dealing with Han/Minority issues,45 and is quite Euro/Sinocentric in its obliviousness to knowledge systems except those of China and the West, which is a problem of Chinese thought in general. The statement also ignores serious differences between “nationalization” (as in Zhongguohua) and indigenization (bentuhua), which, taken concretely, refers not just to the national level but layers of local levels as well as internal differences of various kinds. Nevertheless, at least at the level it takes up, the statement points to an important characteristic in the understanding of indigenization and nationalization in all the occasions previously discussed: that these terms have pointed to an insistence that the material and cultural realities of Chinese society be understood for what they are, as realities of their own rather than as poor copies of models imported from elsewhere. In all cases, there have also been demands for the recognition of Chinese voices as well as an accounting for Chinese realities in any social science with universal claims (including Marxism). Zheng and his colleagues use the metaphor of “dialogue” in the interactions they envisage. Indigenization or nationalization of the social sciences since the 1930s has indeed been conceived above all as a “dialogic” relationship: not merely applying social science to China, or assimilating social science to an enclosed Chinese cultural space, but as an ongoing dialogue—maybe even a dialectic. 45. On this important question, which involves nations within nations, see Wang Mingming, “Xixue [Zhongguohua] de lishu kunjing—yi renleixue wei zhongxinde sikao (Challenges of [Sinicizing] Western Learning—the Perspective of Anthropology), in Qiao Jian et al. (ed.), Ershi shijide Zhongguo shehuixue yu renleixue (Sociology and Anthropology in China in the Twentieth Century), (Gaoxiong, Taiwan: Li Wen wenhua shiye gufen youxian gongsi, 2001), and Wang Jianmin, “Xueke shijiexing yu bentuxing: cong Zhongguo minzuxueshi shuoqi” (Cosmopolitanism and Indigeneity in the Disciplines: In the Perspective of the History of Ethnology in China), unpublished conference paper, “Formation and Development of Academic Disciplines in Twentiethcentury China: Second Workshop,” Central Nationalities University, Beijing, October 29–November 1, 2008 (cited with the author’s permission).

zhongguohua | 233

Zhongguohua: A Critical Appraisal A critical appraisal is necessary of two dimensions of the problematic of nationalization (Zhongguohua) and indigenization and the questions they raise. The one pertains to theoretical questions, the other to the question of difference, which motivates the effort in the first place. While the themes have varied over the years, there is a remarkable persistence of the issues involved. This itself may suggest prima facie the difficulties involved in resolving the problems thrown up by nationalization/indigenization. The first sense of Zhongguohua, which appeared most urgently in the 1930s and 1940s but is by no means restricted to that period, has been the necessity of bringing the social realities and problems of Chinese society into social science work. There could hardly be any question about the necessity of such effort, nor is there anything particularly “Chinese” or national about it, as it should be a prerequisite of any social science with pretensions to universalism. This does not mean that such demands are superfluous or trivial, because they point to a real problem that is a major cause of theoretical and methodological ferment in the social sciences in our day. There is hardly any question that social scientists have failed to live up to their professions of ideological and cultural openness more often than we might wish. It is arguable that not only the theoretical derivations but the very premises of the social sciences have been constituted by the hegemonic assumptions about the world of Euro/American centered–social scientists who have not hesitated to couch in universal terms parochial generalizations drawn from Euro/American experience and ideals.46 On the other hand, they have been able to 46. For a recent discussion, see David Paul Haney, The Americanization of Social Science: Intellectuals and Public Responsibility in the Postwar United States (Philadelphia, PA: Temple University Press, 2008). This very illuminating account of the emergence of an “American” version of social science nevertheless leaves unclear, perhaps intentionally, whether “Americanization” refers to the preoccupation with science or the more recent concern with the public responsibility of the social sciences. See also the reference to the work of Michael Burawoy.

culture & history in postrevolutionary china | 234 sustain this hegemony because social scientists from other societies, products of imported systems of knowledge, and mostly trained in Euro/American institutions, more often than not have internalized these very same assumptions. Marxist historians in China in the 1920s and 1930s did not hesitate to read Chinese society in terms of supposedly universal schema of development. The very social scientists who advocated Chinese content and voices in the social sciences nevertheless failed to question the social and cultural premises of the social sciences or their claims to scientific validity and their promise of universal truth. It remains unclear to this day whether the incorporation of “Chinese characteristics” into the social sciences is intended to enrich or to transform the disciplinary configurations and the theoretical structures of the social sciences. The continued insistence on the importance of “Marxism with Chinese characteristics” as a guiding principle in the indigenization of sociology elides the question that Marxist sociology in China and elsewhere has been at odds with mainstream (formerly “bourgeois”) sociology and is silent on the question of how a reconciliation is to be effected under contemporary circumstances, when basic Marxist concepts such as class have disappeared from sociological analysis almost everywhere, including China. Even when Chinese social scientists have voiced demands about bringing Chinese social and political ideals into the social sciences, they have failed more often than not to face the question of whether or not the social sciences as they have been constituted since the nineteenth century can survive reconstitution by the values of a preindustrial society. What is not clear in either case is whether indigenization is to issue merely in a local version of a global sociology or whether global sociology is to be transformed in the process. If it is the latter that is the goal, it is necessary for Chinese social scientists to cultivate a more global vision that transcends national concerns and articulate Chinese concerns not just to Euro/American social sciences but also to the concerns of other societies marginalized by modern Euro/American hegemony. The East/West or Chinese/

zhongguohua | 235 Western binarisms that infuse discussions of the problem of indigenization obstruct such a global vision and in many ways perpetuate the Eurocentric biases of the social sciences. Such discussions seem to be guided more by considerations of power than by confrontation of basic problems in the so-called globalization of the social sciences. This leads me to the second dimension of the problem, the question of difference and the many layers of difference that call for attention. This question was raised most directly in the discussions of the 1980s, possibly because they are most readily evident from the peripheries not just of Euro/American but also of Chinese societies. But they are also pertinent to the discussions in our day. What was most evident in these discussions was the problematic nature of the whole idea of indigenization and nationalization because they clearly refer to different processes; it is only a hegemonic subordination of the indigenous to the national that justifies their equation. “Indigenization” (bentuhua) is a term that refers to concrete grounding in place in both social and cultural terms, whereas “nationalization” (in this case, Zhongguohua) refers to a more abstractly conceived space defined by the state, which contains within its commonalities many significant differences.47 The concept of Zhongguo is complicated further by the existence of a multiplicity of Chinese societies as well as of overseas Chinese populations. These societies may share certain characteristics depending on their places of origin, but they also differ significantly due to the different historical trajectories they have traveled over the years.48 Differences among these various Chinese societies also underline local differences within them (in the case of the Chinese mainland, not just differences between nationalities, but regional and local differences as well). Indigenization, properly speaking, should be distinguished from Zhongguohua because it refers to a different level of difference 47. For further discussion, see Arif Dirlik, “Globalization, Indigenism, and the Politics of Place,” Ariel 34.1 ( Jan. 2003) [actually published in 2005], pp. 15–29. 48. See Tan Chee-Beng, Chinese Overseas: Comparative Cultural Issues (Hong Kong: Hong Kong University Press, 2004).

culture & history in postrevolutionary china | 236 than the nation, which may be “local” vis-à-vis the global but is itself an abstraction vis-à-vis the concretely place-based. This also suggests that the relationship between indigenization/nationalization is a contradictory relationship, if only in the sense of “the unity of opposites.” So is the relationship of the national to a larger global space of Chineseness marked by many differences, which is a vague amalgam of social, cultural, and phenotypical characteristics, possibly owing its existence more than anything to discursive constructions of Chineseness? If Chineseness is a historical construct, then making anything Chinese is an unstable idea and may depend above all on practices that differ from one location to another. This is also indicated by the second difference I will take up here, which pertains to the sociology of intellectuals and academic institutions. Chinese intellectuals, including professional academics, belong in a multiplicity of discursive communities and participate differently in professional activities. From the origins of professional social science in the 1920s to the present (except for the hiatus of the Cultural Revolution years), Chinese social scientists have also been parts of communities of social sciences that are international in scope. So have the institutions of social science, including universities. This situation was complicated with the appearance of different Chinese societies since the 1950s, and has acquired further complexity with the large-scale migration of Chinese scholars abroad since the 1980s. If these scholars all believe in the necessity of “indigenizing” the social sciences, which is very doubtful, it is almost certain that they understand its desirability, processes, and outcomes differently. Differences between Chinese and Euro/American social science are not just differences between an inside and an outside, but differences that are increasingly internal to Chinese academia itself. These internal differences are likely to become sharper as Chinese society becomes ever more deeply involved in global capitalism and displaced onto another plane than the national. It is important for us to remember that the social sciences are not just products of Euro/American social and cultural circumstances, but intellectual

zhongguohua | 237 products of industrial capitalism and its subsequent unfolding. They derive their relevance at least in part from their function in capitalist society. Their increased relevance in contemporary China, too, must be seen in terms of the development of Chinese society. Whether we speak of the problems of Chinese society, its cultural characteristics, or tendencies in professional work, it is less and less productive to draw sharp boundaries between Chinese society and the world at large. If this is indeed the case, as many Chinese scholars also suggest, then the question of indigenization may be a distraction from the more important political questions raised by structural transformations in Chinese society—whether they refer to regional, ethnic, or social transformations. Making the social sciences Chinese has carried different meanings to different social scientists over the years: ranging from bringing Chinese voices into the social sciences to responding to the particularities of Chinese society into the social sciences, to the shaping of the social sciences by Chinese values. The question of values, which may have the greatest significance for the theoretical structure and the ultimate goals of the social sciences, itself is complicated, as it refers at once to inherited values from a remote or imperial past as well as the values of contemporary Chinese society that is a product at once of past legacies and modern struggles against internal and external injustices and inequalities. Whether Chinese social scientists look to the past, the present, or the future in the determination of Chinese values has significant consequences in the theory and practice of the social sciences. Indeed, contemporary calls for the nationalization of the social sciences, which made sense in the 1930s and 1940s, presently seem unduly defensive and retrogressive. Present-day China is no longer an object of imperialist hegemony, but a major player on the global scene. As Chinese society becomes ever more deeply entangled in contemporary global capitalism, it also experiences the contradictions of capitalism not as an external force but as the very constituents of its social and political structure. Conversely, Chinese political

culture & history in postrevolutionary china | 238 and economic power, with all its contradictions, is global in its reach and effects. It is possible to fall back upon past legacies in the definition of Chinese values and identities against external hegemonies, which has been a driving force in arguments for a Chinese social science. It is important to remember, however, that these hegemonies appear differently as China itself becomes part of a global structure of power. Under contemporary circumstances, indigenization or internationalization of the social sciences requires more than just an affirmation of a Chinese identity in the search for a Chinese voice or presence in the social sciences. It goes without saying that social scientists in China (and elsewhere) must be attentive to the particularities of their societies. But those particularities increasingly call for close attention to their global context and effects. Nationalizing the social sciences may soothe nationalistic anxieties, but unless China is to be viewed as a closed system, which is less feasible than ever before, efforts to make the social sciences Chinese make sense only if they are accompanied by simultaneous efforts at their globalization—not just with reference to “the West,” but with reference to societies globally. Any such effort needs to confront most urgently choices between compliance in the hegemonic legacies of the social sciences with their roots in the capitalist reorganization of society, albeit with “Chinese characteristics,” or drawing upon past legacies and the modern revolutionary experience in a global search for remaking the social sciences that are driven by commitment to social justice and democracy—at home and abroad.49 49. The social sciences have been driven since their origins in the nineteenth century by conflicting impulses of order and radical change, which also imply different relationships to the state and structures of power in society. The social sciences, moreover, are internally differentiated. The U.S. sociologist Michael Burawoy in a recent presidential address to the American Sociological Association, divides sociological practice into policy, public, professional, and critical work. The first two areas, Burawoy notes, all along have been shaped by national circumstances. The discussion suffers from a fetishization of professional work, unfortunately, and says little about the interactions of these various practices and their impact on theoretical development and division. He also has little to say about sociological work in tricontinental societies that

zhongguohua | 239 This search, too, has been a legacy of the modern social sciences. While the particular dynamics of Chinese societies within an Eastern Asian context played an important part in calls for indigenization, the phenomenon itself is not just Chinese or Eastern Asian. The cultural commonality produced by the globalization of capital ironically has been accompanied by cultural fragmentation as populations around the world have seemingly discovered in cultural nationalism a means for the preservation and assertion of ethnic, national, or civilizational identities that are threatened by forces of economic and political globalization. The contradictory forces of hegemonic universalism and counter-hegemonic particularism are fundamental to the dynamics of what I have described elsewhere as Global Modernity, or modernity globalized. The cultural nationalist efforts to revitalize traditions as markers of identity, moreover, are no longer simply defensive responses to a Euro-centered hegemonic universalism, but are empowered by success in modernity—capitalist modernity—which finds expression in claims to “alternative modernities.” While Global Modernity represents a negation of an earlier period of Euro-centered modernity, however, it is still haunted by the cultural legacies of Eurocentrism, which continue to claim universal validity as integral constituents of the political economy of capitalism. The redistribution of power that marks Global Modernity plays out on a terrain that has been shaped by capitalism, producing the contradictions that are crucial to grasping pervasive cultural fragmentation in the midst of economic and political globalization. This contradiction extends to epistemological questions as well, as our ways of knowing are very much entangled in the have been subjected to Euro/American domination or about the implications for sociological work of different ways of knowing—disciplinary or cultural. The discussion is revealing, nevertheless, for pointing to internal complexities of the social sciences and their entanglement in politics within and without the discipline, which should be a point of departure for any consideration of indigenization. See Michael Burawoy, “For Public Sociology,” American Sociological Review 70 (Feb. 2005), pp. 4–28.

culture & history in postrevolutionary china | 240 cultural contradictions of the age.50 The problem, therefore, is not just a Chinese problem, but a general problem in the relationship of the social sciences to political power. The question has been raised once again in U.S. anthropology in government efforts to deploy anthropology in the service of state policy—as in Afghanistan. What may be most crucial presently is greater attention to the legacy of the entanglement of the social sciences in political power, albeit with greater attentiveness to forms of knowledge, Chinese and otherwise, that have been marginalized and erased by a hegemonic social science.

50. The necessity of “globalizing” the social sciences is increasingly recognized by social scientists in North America and Europe, although how to reconcile cultural difference with universal “scientific” goals remains a problem. For examples, see Immanuel Wallerstein, Open the Social Sciences: Report of the Gulbenkian Commission on the Restructuring of the Social Sciences (Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 1996); Michael Burawoy, “Third-Wave Sociology and the End of Pure Science,” American Sociologist (Fall–Winter 2005), pp. 152–165, “A Sociology for the Second Great Transformation?” Annual Review of Sociology 26 (2000), pp. 693–695, “What is to be Done? Theses on the Degradation of Social Existence in a Globalizing World,” Current Sociology 56.3 (2008), pp. 351–359, and “Rejoinder: For a Subaltern Global Sociology?” Current Sociology 56.3 (2008), pp. 435–444; and Dimitri Della Faille and Neil McLaughlin, “Sociology’s Global Challenge,” a special issue of Canadian Journal of Sociology/Cahiers Canadiens de Sociologie 33.3 (2008), pp. 485–495. Anthropologists, closer to the people they study and less nomothetically inclined, have been discussing similar problems since the 1960s. See the seminal volume edited by Talal Asad, Anthropology and the Colonial Encounter (New York: Humanities Press, 1973).

Guoxue National Learning in the Age of Global Modernity This discussion will undertake two tasks. The first is to place guoxue within a contemporary global perspective, to suggest that while guoxue may be unique in the nationally defined epistemological territory (a “Chinese” way of knowing) it claims, its claims to epistemological particularism are anything but unique. Epistemological nativism, or a general valorization of ethnoepistemology, is a pervasive (if not defining) characteristic of contemporary Global Modernity. The second task follows from this first: What are the implications for guoxue as subject and method of its contemporary global context? While epistemological nativism may be a necessary step in the recovery of epistemologies erased by the universalistic claims of Euromodern ways of knowing, it needs to resist reduction to a parochial marker of national identity in a narrow, ahistorical nationalism. The articulation to other knowledges is necessary if guoxue is to be of epistemological significance beyond national boundaries, to contribute to broader human causes, and, ironically, to enable a more comprehensive understanding of the national past than in a narrow nationalism. Throughout the discussion, I will use guoxue rather than “national learning,” as I think the Chinese term guo suggests both more and less than the English term “national,” a distinction that may be necessary to grasping different understandings of guoxue even among its practitioners.

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culture & history in postrevolutionary china | 242

Global Modernity and the Proliferation of Knowledges Simply put, Global Modernity is modernity globalized. The consequences, however, are anything but global unification or global homogenization. The political and economic integration of the globe, which is usually what is understood by globalization, has been accompanied by new fragmentations as well as the intensification of earlier ones. If I may cite a passage from a recent work of mine, The globalization of modernity needs to be comprehended not just in the trivial sense of an originary modernity reaching out and touching all, even those who are left out of its benefits . . . but more importantly as the proliferation of claims on modernity. So-called traditions no longer imply a contrast with modernity, as they did in modernization discourse. Nor are they the domain of backwardlooking conservatism, except in exceptional circumstances—such as the Taliban. They are invoked increasingly to establish claims to alternative modenities (but only rarely to alternatives to modernity). They point not to the past but, taking a detour through the past, to an alternative future. They have even taken over from socialism the task of speaking for those oppressed or cast aside by capitalist modernity and pointing to different possibilities for the future.1

At its paradigmatic simplest, modernization discourse rendered the modernity/tradition binary into a zero-sum relationship: the more modernity, the less tradition; the more tradition, the less modernity. Modernity was understood in its Euro/American manifestations (or what I think is best described as Euromodernity): scientific/technological development, a sense of history driven by its commitment to progress, the political institutions associated with parliamentary democracy, and the social primacy of the individual. Except for the last item, socialist modernity shared in these basic assumptions of capitalist modernity. Modernization, understood as development towards these characteristics, would relegate traditions to the past and, ultimately, oblivion. Indeed, its logical conclusion was that 1. Arif Dirlik, Global Modernity: Modernity in the Age of Global Capitalism (Boulder, CO: Paradigm, 2007), pp. 90–91. Slightly modified from original.

guoxue | 243 traditions themselves were inventions of modernity, not false but primarily ideological in substance. Euromodernity, universalized as Modernity as such, was all there was.2 Nevertheless, invented or not, the traditions refused to disappear. Those who spoke for traditions were labeled conservatives, which in these cases referred not just to a political (as in nineteenthcentury Europe) but to a cultural phenomenon; indeed, there was some puzzlement that so-called “cultural conservatives” (defenders of some native tradition or other and, therefore, obstacles to urgent tasks of “Westernization,” confounded more often than not with modernization) could on occasion espouse revolutionary politics. The questionable assumptions of these labels aside, there were fundamental reasons why the traditions refused to disappear that went beyond conservative persistence. Traditions, no less the invented than the inherited, were crucial to the formulation of a national identity in the process of nation-building, which was a cornerstone of modernization. How to deploy traditions in the definition of national identity was a problem that faced all nation-building efforts regardless of political inclination. The idea of tradition was burdened with a deep contradiction in a modernity premised on nationalism. This aspect of the problem became evident in the 1960s, the decade of national liberation movements, when notes of nativism began to pervade voices from the political left. It is interesting, if not ironic, that the radical left challenge should transform the terrain of discourse, which in the long run would be of benefit to conservative causes as well in its questioning of the hegemonic dismissal of value systems other than those of Euromodernity. In this case, the problem explicitly was stated as the necessity of challenging the 2. For classic critiques of modernization discourse, see Dean Tipps, “Modernization Theory and the Comparative Study of Societies: A Critical Perspective,” Comparative Studies in Society and History 15 (Mar. 1973), pp. 199– 226, and Carl Pletsch, “The Three Worlds, or the Division of Social Scientific Labor, circa 1950–1975,” Comparative Studies in Society and History 23 (Oct. 1981), pp. 565–590. See also Eric Hobsbawm and Terence Ranger (ed.), The Invention of Tradition (Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 1992).

culture & history in postrevolutionary china | 244 ideologies of Eurocentrism as part of the struggle against imperialism. These voices sometimes found legitimation in “alternative traditions”—traditions of the people rather than the elite, as with the conservatives. They sometimes invested the process of struggle itself with the task of creating the traditions necessary to overcoming imperialist hegemony and establishing a national identity.3 But even where they had no intention of promoting the traditions espoused by conservatives, radical struggles against hegemony opened up intellectual spaces to legitimation and revival of ideologies, traditions, and knowledges that had been erased or marginalized in Euromodern discourse. This development is plainly visible in the critiques of modernity, the questionings of the European Enlightenment, the controversies over “Orientalism” that gave rise to postcolonial criticism, the challenges to the disciplinary organization of knowledge, and the valorization of new kinds of knowledges that challenge the domination of science.4 It is easily forgotten these days, because of the turn they took after the 1980s, that these critiques of Euromodernity were products of the 1960s, when Euro/American modernity appeared as the incubator of imperialism and Third World liberation movements offered alternatives beyond the existing Cold War capitalism/socialism binary. The failure (or defeat) of these political movements in the course of the 1970s did not extinguish their cultural promise, but rephrased them increasingly as if they were issues in cultural debate rather than in the practice of revolution, erasing important class issues in the shaping of cultural relationships and blurring the boundaries between elite culture and national culture in general. At the same time, 3. For a discussion of revolutionary theorists ranging from Mao Zedong to Frantz Fanon, see Arif Dirlik, “Culturalism as Hegemonic Ideology and Liberating Practice,” in Arif Dirlik, The Postcolonial Aura: Third World Criticism in the Age of Global Capitalism (Boulder, CO: Westview, 1997), pp. 23–51. 4. Arif Dirlik, “Our Ways of Knowing: Globalization—the End of Universalism?” in Petra Rethmann, Imre Szeman, and William D. Coleman (ed.), Cultural Autonomy: Frictions and Connections (Vancouver: University of British Columbia Press, 2009).

guoxue | 245 more conventional “conservatisms” acquired renewed prestige due to the parts they played in the political and/or economic success of several societies. Of particular importance were the Islamic revival that attended the success of the Iranian Revolution of 1979 and the Confucian revival during the very same period that benefited from the developmental success of authoritarian Eastern Asian societies that claimed cultural legacies for their success. It seems in hindsight that over the decade of the 1970s, cultural nationalism came to replace the idea of national liberation, which was not just cultural, or most importantly so. Further impetus to the so-called “cultural turn” came from the resurgence of religious politics in the homelands of Euromodernity, namely in the United States. At the same time, the global left was transformed in the process of accommodating new social voices, especially ethnic and national voices, which increased the possibilities of a left accommodation of what earlier had been conservative positions. As biologically inflected identity markers (such as race, ethnicity, gender, and even culture understood with reference to them) have moved to the foreground of discourse, social categories such as class have nearly disappeared from the language of politics. Multiculturalism makes it very difficult to repudiate any cultural claim on political grounds. Left positionings have been confounded by the languages of postmodernity and, subsequently, postcolonialism, which acquired currency in the 1990s, at the same time as globalization. While intensely sensitive to issues of hegemony, postcolonial criticism relegates those issues to the cultural realm, replacing the conquest of imperialism with the conquest of Eurocentrism or Orientalism. As culture increasingly became a force that shaped political alignments in the 1980s, it also contributed to an increasing blurring of the categories of an earlier political language, especially its classification of political positions around a progressive conservative-liberal-radical continuum, which had been premised on earlier assumptions of cultural progress and modernization. Indeed, as the Enlightenment vision which underlay Euromodernity came under questioning from

culture & history in postrevolutionary china | 246 the inside (neoliberal critics of secular humanism) and the outside (postcolonial societies that had experienced the Enlightenment as colonization), the result was the confounding of the very temporalities that had endowed these terms with meaning. If “global multiculturalism” has been one product of these changes, its antinomy has been the “clash of civilizations.” Samuel Huntington’s 1993 essay was informed by a sense of the disintegration of modernity (what I am calling Euromodernity). The “civilizations” that now challenged “Western” dominance were products of distant pasts, but they were not therefore remnants of a bygone past. They were modern, and it was their success in modernity that now empowered their claims on tradition (or cultural identity). The clash was between modern societies, each with its own vision of modernity defined in terms of civilizational pasts. The question this situation presents is how to explain the dynamics and significance of the simultaneous globalization of modernity (capitalist modernity) and the proliferating claims to uniqueness and “difference” it generates. It may be the ultimate question of what we have come to describe as postmodernity, which I think has been one aspect of a broader Global Modernity.

Legacies The global context is indispensable to grasping the revival of guoxue since the 1990s as well as the new challenges it faces as an intellectual undertaking. It is interesting that the first formal calls for the revival of guoxue in 1993 coincided to the year with the publication of Samuel Huntington’s notorious “Clash of Civilizations” article. These calls were preceded, however, by the Confucian revival among Chinese societies overseas, which already had an impact on the PRC in the mid-1980s and possibly was one of the inspirations behind Huntington’s article. Questions concerning guoxue cannot be understood simply in terms of the structural conditions of Global Modernity. While

guoxue | 247 China’s placement in global development provides an indispensable perspective for contemporary readings of guoxue, equally indispensable is the perspective of the century-long development of guoxue, with all its ups and downs, that continues to condition both its intellectual substance and the ideological expectations invested in it. In a cogent analysis of guoxue written in the late 1990s, Cheng Gang and Cao Li draw on the work of scholars such as Chen Lai and Chen Pingyuan to suggest that the trajectory of guoxue as a field of learning has been shaped by the dynamic interplay of two paradigms which are still visible in differences among contemporary scholars in the understanding of guoxue, and the intellectual, cultural, and political functions associated with it. One paradigm, which may be described as “nativist,” is traceable to late Qing/early Republican scholarship, of which the foremost representative was Zhang Taiyan. This paradigm renders guoxue into a means of identifying, and even representing, a Chinese essence, or the national character; guoxue provides at once the locus of national identity and a method for its analysis. The other, “cosmopolitan,” paradigm, was a product of the May Fourth New Culture Movement, which in its basic assumptions negated the nativist paradigm. It was enunciated most explicitly by Hu Shi, who sought to establish guoxue as the critical study of the national past through the investigative technologies of Euromodernity; guoxue is understood in this case as national studies, informed by modern methods, with the past as its object.5 The 5. Cheng Gang and Cao Li, “Wenhua minzu zhuyi yu wenhua shijie zhuyi” (Cultural Nationalism and Cultural Cosmopolitanism), in Wang Ning and Xie Xiaoyuan (ed.), Quanqiuhua yu houzhimin piping (Globalization and Postcolonial Criticism) (Beijing: Zhongyang bianyi chubanshe, 1998), pp. 300–321, pp. 304–305. “Nativism” here is my word, borrowed from studies of kokugaku (guoxue) in Tokugawa Japan, and is useful because it is more specific than “nationalism,” which covered a wide variety of political and cultural positions including those that opposed efforts to render the past relevant to the present. For summary discussions of guoxue by Zhang Taiyan and Hu Shi, see the selections “Zhi guoxuede fangfa” (Method of Guoxue) and “Yanjiu guogude fangfa” (Method of Researching the National Past), respectively, in Hu Daojing (ed.), Guoxue dashi lun guoxue (Masters Discuss Guoxue) (Shanghai: Dongfang

culture & history in postrevolutionary china | 248 past as subject, speaking to the present, versus the past as the suspect (yigu) object of present interrogation may be the most important distinguishing feature of the two paradigms. It is probably safe to say that no reputable guoxue advocate believed that the past should or could be restored, or placed it beyond question; after all, questioning the past long had been a driving force of imperial scholarship, of which Zhang Taiyan was a foremost representative. But adherents of the two paradigms held radically different views on whether or not the past had anything positive to contribute to the present. The recognition of two such paradigms at odds with one another is revealing of a broad understanding of guoxue that ranges from a belief in its significance for perpetuating a national essence that is crucial to national existence and well-being, to one that seeks to supply it with Euromodern tools to eradicate and rewrite the past that had produced that essence because it had become an obstacle to national progress. And over its century-long existence, guoxue has gone through phases that were produced by the interplay of these two paradigms. It was indeed the nativism that attended an emergent national consciousness that gave rise to guoxue in the first place, and guoxue has experienced a revival every time there has been a surge in nativism. The cosmopolitan paradigm enjoyed its greatest appeal in the 1920s, following the New Culture Movement, itself an attack on inherited culture and a call to its transformation. Guoxue in the 1920s appeared in a number of guises that reflected the tensions created by the conflict of paradigms, but clearly with cosmopolitanism setting the agenda. The 1930s under the Guomindang government (conservative but with revolutionary claims) were intellectually an even more complicated period when guoxue themes appeared within the context of sophisticated questions of modernity and culture.6 Nevertheless, Guomindang support helped the foregrounding chubanshe, 1998), pp. 3–16. 6. For a discussion of these debates, in particular the historicization of questions of modernity and culture, see Yu Keping, “Culture and Modernity in Chinese Thought in the 1930s: Comments on Two Approaches to Modernization

guoxue | 249 of guoxue themes in a renewed emphasis on native culture. With the Confucian revival of these years (“New Confucianism”), guoxue possibly became more closely identified with Confucianism, which once again underlined the nativist impetus that animated guoxue. During World War II, the Communist Party itself shaped its priorities to the national liberation, and to that end proclaimed the necessity of “making Marxism Chinese.” Marxist historiography emphasizes the social dimension of history, and any discussion of the national past had to be placed within the categories of social history. This shifted the grounds in the discussion of the national past, but it would be wrong to think that concern for guoxue questions disappeared altogether. In the late 1950s, PRC historians once again undertook the discussion of how to assimilate past legacies critically. Interrupted by the Cultural Revolution, guoxue has once again become a matter of concern.7 Despite guoxue’s close ideological association with nativism, however, its practitioners have been open to other kinds of learning, notably, the “Western,” which has appeared to be a source of secrets of success in the modern world, just as native learning has been essential to a recognizable Chinese identity in that very same world. Maybe not all practitioners could live up to Wang Guowei’s dictum that “in learning, there is no new or old, Chinese or Western, useless or useful.”8 Even the “nativists” were cosmopolitan scholars by standards of their various times, supported the importation of in China,” Working Paper in Asian/Pacific Studies (Durham, NC: Duke University, 1994), pp. 1–31. 7. It is important to underline here that for the post-1949 period, my references are strictly to the People’s Republic of China. These studies continued in Taiwan, Hong Kong, and even in the United States and Europe, under the guise of “sinology.” 8. Wang Guowei, “Guoxue congkan xu” (Preface to Series on Guoxue), in Hu, Guoxue dashi lun guoxue, pp. 41–44. While most prominent guoxue scholars were adepts at both kinds of learning, guoxue in its emergence was partly a response to an increasingly widespread feeling after the abolition of the examination system in 1905 that the old Chinese learning was useless.

culture & history in postrevolutionary china | 250 “Western” learning as a necessity of national survival, and combined the two kinds of learning in their scholarship. It may have been Zhang Zhidong’s exhortation in the late 1890s of “Chinese learning for the substance, Western learning for the function,” that initially informed the first generation of guoxue advocates, but the rapidly advancing crisis of the Qing gave it additional impetus in the fears it created of the total loss of Chinese learning. This fear has been a driving force of guoxue, reinforcing its ties to “nativism” despite the cosmopolitanism in the practice of guoxue scholars. In a fundamental sense, guoxue has been a captive of its origins. It was in nativist guise that guoxue discourse first appeared in Chinese cultural and political discussion in the early twentieth century, one strand in an intensifying national consciousness. As with the kindred terms guocui (national essence) and guohun (national soul), guoxue was one of the many terms of Chinese origin that were imported into Chinese in the early twentieth century after having been recomposed and endowed with a contemporary meaning in Japanese.9 According to Martin Bernal, one of the earliest references to guoxue was in a proposal by Liang Qichao in 1902 for the establishment of a National Studies Journal (Guoxue bao) “to preserve the national essence” in order “to nourish citizens (guomin).”10 The term gained currency with the establishment in 1905 of a Society for the Preservation of National Essence (Guocui baocun hui) by a group of prominent intellectuals that included Zhang Taiyan, Liu Shipei, Huang Jie, Deng Shi, and the journal the society published from 1905 to 1911, the Guocui xuebao ( Journal of National Essence). By the time of the Republican Revolution of 1911, guoxue discourse was firmly established in political consciousness. 9. Zheng Shiqu, Wan Qing guocui pai; wenhua sixiang yanjiu (The National Essence Group of the Late Qing: A Study of Culture and Thought) (Beijing: Beijing shifan daxue chubanshe, 1997), pp. 109–117. 10. Martin Bernal, “Liu Shih-p’ei and National Essence,” in Charlotte Furth (ed.), The Limits of Change: Essays on Conservative Alternatives in Republican China (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1976), pp. 90–112, p. 103.

guoxue | 251 By the time it entered Chinese political discussion, the term “guoxue” in its Japanese rendering, kokugaku, already had a history of over two centuries in political and historical discussion. Kokugaku had been born from critiques of the Tokugawa crisis of the late seventeenth century, reaching its height in the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries, and supplying the Meiji Restoration of 1868 with some of its slogans if not aspects of its ideology. Its target, ironically, was neo-Confucianism, which was compromised in the eyes of its critics in its service as the legitimating basis of the Bakufu, and appeared now as a foreign intrusion that long had distorted the Japanese polity as it had existed before the arrival of the foreign ideology around a thousand years ago. Kokugaku scholars sought in preConfucian Japanese texts the nature of this polity, and discovered it in the special nature of the imperial institution that distinguished Japan from China. Their answer was to return power to the emperor and cultivate among the population the pristine values of this pure Japan of the past so as to recreate an imperial community. This was one of the fundamental goals of the Meiji Restoration. In its unfolding over a period of nearly two centuries, the politics of kokugaku changed from reform of the existing order (expressed in the Confucian concept of zhongxing, literally middle revival through moral regeneration), to its repudiation in the name of an order that had existed in a textual and imagined past (expressed once again with a term of Zhou dynasty origins, fugu [restoring antiquity, taken very literally in the Japanese context]). The shift had significant consequences. As the distinguished historian of Tokugawa thought, Harry Harootunian, has written, The intellectual history of this period is a transition between these two metaphors of restoration. In calling for a regeneration of the human order, chuko [zhongxing] reminded men of the lessons of history; but a summons (fukko [fugu]) to restore antiquity liberated men from history into the undemanding and flexible world of myth. A restoration of the latter kind could only mean a completely new political order, free from all those historical associations which

culture & history in postrevolutionary china | 252 chuko required as a condition of its success.11

Harootunian’s statement points to the implicit radicalism of kokugaku discourse which, in its desire to restore an ancient order, had to repudiate the history that intervened between that order and the present. The liberation of history also enabled the reimagining and reinvention of the past to be restored. Like the idea of revolution in later years, kokugaku restorationism demanded release from history. Unlike the idea of revolution, which justified this demand in the name of an imagined future, kokugaku discourse rested its case on an imagined past. During the Tokugawa period, these arguments served to assert a native Japanese identity against the Confucianization of Japan and politically strengthened the case for restoring power to the emperor, who had been relegated to the background of the Tokugawa order as a “principle” of politics. Following the Meiji Restoration, when the symbolic restoration of power to the emperor was accompanied by the reconceptualization of Japan as a nation, kokugaku discourse turned to the articulation of Japanese uniqueness and autonomy in the creation of a modern civilization embodied by the nation. While competing visions of Japan led to differences among kokugaku writers, 11. Harry Harootunian, Toward Restoration: The Growth of Political Consciousness in Tokugawa Japan (Berkeley, CA: University of California Press, 1970), p. 11. The shift that Harootunian describes also took place during the Qing, between the Tongzhi Restoration of the 1860s to save the dynasty, which its protagonists conceptualized as zhongxing, and the radical nativist departures of the last years of the Qing, which found expression in fugu, signifying the repudiation of the dynasty in the name of a more transcendent political entity, now envisioned as “China/Zhongguo.” The shift is crucial, because it necessitated a new basis to endow the new political construct with reality. In Japan, the shift in conception justified the transfer of legitimacy from the shogun to the emperor, as the imperial lineage came to stand for Japan. In the case of the Qing, the problem was more complicated as the shift was to a new conceptual entity brought from the outside, the nation. What became essential then was a “national essence” to account for the nation. This was the Euromodern guoxue project. The persistence of this questioning may also account for the refusal of guoxue to go away despite a century of criticism and even suppression.

guoxue | 253 the discourse presupposed a unique Japanese cultural identity, more often than not discovered in literature—especially language—religion (Shinto), and even an intangible and invisible Japanese emotional make-up, which also accounted for the unique emperor-centered political system.12 It was also burdened with the task of elucidating a Japanese national essence (kokusai [guocui]) that went back to the beginnings of time and was essential to fostering national consciousness and patriotism. Despite its new departures within a context of nationalism that drew much of its grammar from the inspiration of Euromodernity, Meiji kokugaku discourse drew upon its Tokugawa antecedent to demonstrate that “the rise of the Meiji state was. . . . the result of nationalism, rather than nationalism . . . the product of the nation-state.”13 Kokugaku “central to discussions of Japan” from the 1890s, was conjoined in these years to kokusai, which also gained currency from the 1880s in reaction to the seeming flooding of Japan by “Western” values and commodities.14 The timing was quite fortuitous where guoxue discourse is concerned. These were years when the crisis of the Qing dynasty intensified an emergent national consciousness, and fears of national/cultural/racial extinction gripped a transitional generation of intellectuals, mostly products of the imperial examination system but living in a post-examination (1905) world.15 They were also years when Qing intellectuals became familiar with Meiji Japan and came to see it as a model of modernization despite 12. For a comprehensive discussion of kokugaku, see Harry Harootunian, Things Seen and Unseen: Discourse and Ideology in Tokugawa Nativism (Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press, 1988). 13. Susan L. Burns, Before the Nation: Kokugaku and the Imagining of Community (Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 2003), p. 225. See Chapter 7 in Burns for her discussion of kokugaku following the Meiji Restoration of 1868. 14. Ibid., p. 189. See also Bernal, “Liu Shih-p’ei and National Essence,” pp. 101–104. 15. Chang Hao, Chinese Intellectuals in Crisis: Search for Order and Meaning (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1987), and Rebecca A. Karl, Staging the World: Chinese Nationalism at the Turn of the Twentieth Century (Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 2002).

culture & history in postrevolutionary china | 254 its imperialism in East Asia. The idea of a Japan that had modernized without giving up its essence no doubt impressed some of those intellectuals. One contributor to Guocui xuebao wrote that “as a country’s spirit lies in its national essence,” whether or not guocui existed determined a country’s existence. And guocui itself was nourished through its study. Through the slogan of “revere the emperor and oppose the foreigner” (zunwang rangyi, or sonn j i), the Japanese had been able to summon the Yamato spirit (or soul, hun) to mobilize the people and now enjoyed its rewards.16 There was much in common in the basic assumptions of kokugaku discourse and discussions of guoxue in the decade before 1911. Most important was the advocacy of returning to a past that had embodied the national essence. Japanese thinkers had located it in the pre-Confucian origin of the imperial line. Chinese thinkers of the late Qing located the national essence in the late Zhou period, which had witnessed the flourishing of Chinese learning (at least it was becoming Chinese, rather than Zhou, by this period). Indeed, as Kang Youwei had done with reference to Confucianism in the 1890s, Guocui writers viewed post-Qin thought to be a distortion of Zhou learning because of its service to imperial rule, which itself had been contaminated by repeated foreign conquest of China. The latter was “ruler-learning” (junxue), not “national learning” (guoxue).17 The proper model for social and political organization was to be found in pre-imperial texts of the Zhou dynasty. This accorded well with the politics of Guocui writers, who were 16. Xu Shouwei, “Lun guocui wuzu yu Ouhua” (National Essence Is Not an Obstacle to Europeanization), in Zhang Nan and Wang Zhiren (ed.), Xinhai geming qian shi nianjian shilun xuanji (Selections from Contemporary Essays of the Decade before the 1911 Revolution) (Beijing: Sanlian shudian, 1963), vol. 2, part 1, pp. 52–56, p. 52. Original in Guocui xuebao 7 (Aug. 1905). 17. Deng Shi, “Guoxue wuyong bian” (Refuting the Uselessness of Guoxue), in ibid., vol. 2, part 2, pp. 632–635, originally published in Guocui xuebao 30 (June 1907). Deng argues that what is useless is not guoxue, which had been suppressed during the imperial period, but “ruler’s learning.” Guoxue, on the other hand, has many contemporary uses.

guoxue | 255 involved in the anti-Qing revolutionary movement. It also reaffirmed the importance of intellectuals in society as the guardians of texts and, by implication, of the national essence. As in the case of the kokugaku writers in Japan, arguments for reviving antiquity had radical consequences in allowing for the imagination of political order free from the constraints of lived history. If this was conservatism, it was a conservatism that reaffirmed the necessity of radical change even as it argued for the fundamental importance of the distant past to contemporary action, “revolution as restoration” (or the reverse), as a recent study has put it.18 Guocui xuebao writers were not particularly averse even to changing the “national learning” of which they were guardians, as they believed that a “renaissance” much like the European Renaissance was necessary in order for the ancient learning to serve the needs of the present. Indeed, writers for Guocui xuebao were themselves heavily influenced by intellectual currents from Europe. Their interpretations of the Chinese past drew heavily on the inspiration of contemporary theories of progress and social evolution, social (especially gender) egalitarianism, and Jean-Jacques Rousseau’s ideas of social contract.19 It may not be too surprising that one of them, Liu Shipei, would be the guiding light of Chinese anarchists in Tokyo after 1907. There was some resonance between the Guocui group’s rejection of “ruler-knowledge” and Liu’s discovery of anarchism in the Chinese past.20 Guoxue in the late Qing context had two tasks. First was to rescue true learning (and hence the “national essence”) from its distortion 18. Tze-ki Hon, “Revolution as Restoration: Meanings of ‘National Essence’ and ‘National Learning’ in Guocui xuebao,” unpublished paper presented at the conference, “The Writing of History in 20th Century East Asia: Between Linear Time and the Reproduction of National Consciousness,” Leiden University, June 4–7, 2007. I am grateful to Professor Hon for sharing his paper with me. 19. Zheng, Wan Qing guocui pai, chaps. 3 and 6. 20. Arif Dirlik, Anarchism in the Chinese Revolution (Berkeley, CA: University of California Press, 1991), especially chap. 3, and Peter Zarrow, Anarchism and Chinese Political Culture (New York: Columbia University Press, 1990).

culture & history in postrevolutionary china | 256 under imperial rule, especially foreign imperial despotism, which was directed against the ruling dynasty. Second was to make sure that as new learning was introduced to China from the “West,” it remained subservient to the ethical demands of “national learning,” which guaranteed the preservation of a Chinese essence. The introductory essay to the journal by Huang Jie stated that the preservation of guoxue was essential to national independence; just as it was possible for a nation to be enslaved by another, it was also possible to become a slave-in-learning (xuenu), which would also doom the possibility of national independence.21 Another author, Xu Shouwei, slightly modifying Zhang Zhidong’s famous dictum of “Chinese learning for the substance (ti), Western learning for the function (yong),” stated that “guocui was the study of spirit (jingshen), Europeanization (Ouhua) was the study of form.”22 The same author stated in another essay that each nation had its own “national spirit” (or soul, hun), and the ultimate task of guoxue in China was the preservation of this soul, the establishment of which went back to the Yellow Emperor. Though Guocui xuebao authors were ambivalent toward Confucianism because of its entanglement in “ruler’s learning,” this author also described Confucius as the model practitioner of guoxue.23 In my references in this discussion to Guocui xuebao authors, I do not mean to suggest that these authors were all of one mind or that the discussions of guoxue constituted a unified, homogeneous discourse. Rather, my goal is to identify certain common assumptions that these authors shared that gave them something of a common intellectual and political identity. It is also important to note that while Chinese authors were familiar with kokugaku discourse, and 21. Huang Jie, “‘Guocui xuebao’ shu” (On the Journal of National Essence), in Zhang and Wang, Xinhai geming qian, vol. 2, part 1, pp. 42–45, pp. 44–45. Originally published in Guocui xuebao 1 (Feb. 1905). 22. Xu, “Lun guocui wuzu yu Ouhua,” p. 55. 23. Xu Shouwei, “Du ‘Guocui xuebao’ ganyan” (Feelings on Reading the Journal of National Essence), in Zhang and Wang, Xinhai geming qian, vol. 2, part 2, pp. 45–51, p. 49.

guoxue | 257 shared with it a common language, that was by no means the only discourse they drew upon for inspiration, as the discussions freely referred to other instances of national discourse and national well-being from ancient Rome to contemporary Italy, from the Renaissance in Europe to the Monroe Doctrine in the United States (as its “soul”).24 It should be evident from this summarization that guoxue discourse was not only or primarily about learning. Guoxue as an intellectual field was the product of an emergent national consciousness of the late Qing, and the learning it advocated was one that was intended to define and preserve a Chinese national identity. Since guoxue writers repudiated the actual, living Chinese identity that was the legacy of history, they assumed the responsibility to construct such an identity: the identity “discovered” in the ancient texts was inevitably an identity invented in the present, since those texts lent themselves to different readings and were to undergo a further transformation in a “renaissance” to render them relevant to the present. In other words, guoxue in its emergence was shaped by the nativist paradigm that demanded that native learning as imbedded in the texts and individual exemplars of antiquity serve as the foundation for, and a guardian over, the learning that was necessary to establishing a modern nation. It was also nativist in its identification of China with the Han nationality. Guoxue from its origins meant something along the lines of “Han national studies,” putting the emphasis on the ethnonational rather than the state sense of the word “guo.” Whatever purpose it may have served in the cause of Han nationalism, the identification was not necessarily positive in its consequences for native learning. What earlier had been the learning was now transformed into one learning among others, which needed to be defended and preserved because of its function in defining national identity, but for the same reason was restricted in appeal and relevance by its national belonging. Guoxue may be viewed from a global perspective as one response 24. Ibid.

culture & history in postrevolutionary china | 258 among others to the contradictions created by nationalism under the hegemonic circumstances of Euromodernity. Establishing a nation and avoiding extinction (as late Qing intellectuals saw it) required wholesale importation of Euro/American learning and the transformation of native institutions to respond to the demands of nationalism. But this very requirement immediately raised the question of what the nation itself might be if society was to be remade in the image of models from the outside. The society as it existed offered no answers as it was viewed widely as the problem that needed the solution. It made some sense, at least from certain perspectives, to find the answer in some imagined antiquity, which of necessity rejected the history that had brought about the present, but still provided some connection with the past. It is tempting to observe, indeed, that the contradiction was resolved in this case through the “sinicization” (Zhongguohua) of the ancient past. The solution obviously had parallels in Japanese kokugaku, which played a direct part in the Chinese formulation by providing a neighborly example as well as a new political language. But parallels may be found further afield in the Slavophile responses to nation-building in nineteenth-century Russia, the rewriting of history in twentieth-century Turkey, the return to a pre-Ottoman past in Arab nationalist historiography, and the search in Indian historiography for an authentic native past in pre-Mughal times. Others could be added to the list. Suffice it to say that in all these instances, the search for a modern national identity in the textual traditions of remote antiquity has been driven by an urge to overcome entrapment between “the West” and the immediate past held accountable for the predicament of the nation.25 25. Rather than “cultural conservatism,” guoxue and similar undertakings in other societies may be described more accurately as instances of “cultural nationalism,” as they were anything but conservative in their demands for change. For interpretations that stress the conservatism of guoxue, see Bernal, “Liu Shih-p’ei and National Essence,” and Laurence A. Schneider, “National Essence and the New Intelligentsia,” in Furth, The Limits of Change, pp. 57–89. Most of the essays in the volume edited by Furth used the term “conservative” with reference to culture, as “cultural conservatism,” in order to overcome the

guoxue | 259 While the content of guoxue has undergone significant transformation over the past century, initial identification with a national essence or a hallmark of national identity has remained as its defining feature. New Culture radicals rejected important aspects of the past that National Essentialists had sanctified, but their own version of guoxue underlined the importance of the past to the contemporary project of modernity. A “scientific” understanding of the past was necessary as the foundation for a nation of intelligent citizens. Their cosmopolitanism was intended not to negate the nation but to establish it on firmer modern grounds. The “Reorganization of the nation’s past” (zhengli guogu), identified with the names of Hu Shi and Gu Jiegang, did not just negate the inherited legacy. More importantly, the very historiographical issues raised in the questioning of the past opened up new horizons in the understanding of the nation and what, therefore, should be the proper content of guoxue. In his pursuit of conflicting representations of the past, imbedded in different versions of past legends, a historian such as Gu achieved a new understanding of China’s ethnic and cultural complexity, and the need, therefore, to question the very idea of “China” (Zhongguo) inherited from the past.26 Gu was not a Marxist, but he shared with difficulty that most individuals and groups described as conservative were also political radicals. A good discussion of cultural nationalism, with reference to Japan, is to be found in Kosaku Yoshino, Cultural Nationalism in Contemporary Japan: A Sociological Enquiry (London: Routledge, 1992). 26. See Gu’s own account of his intellectual itinerary in his preface to Gushi bian (Symposium on Ancient History), “Autobiography of a Chinese Historian,” tr. by Arthur W. Hummel (Taipei: Cheng-wen, 1966). See also Laurence Schneider, Ku Chieh-kang and China’s New History: Nationalism and the Quest for Alternative Tradition (Berkeley, CA: University of California Press, 1971), and Hon Tze-ki “Ethnic and Cultural Pluralism: Gu Jiegang’s Vision of a New China in his Studies of Ancient History,” Modern China 22.3 ( July 1996), pp. 315–359. In a lecture he gave in Beijing University in June 1924, “The Meaning of Guoxue” (Guoxue dayi), Gu identified five trends in contemporary Guoxue: archeology; Oriental (dongfang) languages and history, including those of Central Asia; geology; history of learning; folklore. Cited in Chen Yinke xiansheng nianpu changpian (Chronological Biography of Chen Yinke) (Beijing: Zhonghua shuju, 2010), p. 87. The inclusion of Central Asia (and foreign scholars such as

culture & history in postrevolutionary china | 260 the Marxists a conviction gathering strength in the 1920s that history proper needed to be grounded in society. Over the next decade, the Marxist turn in Chinese historiography called for research into Chinese society, its social formations, and its ideological productions. Marxist historians suffered from an unquestioning theoretical and conceptual universalism, but there is little question as to the significance of the issues they brought into Chinese history and, therefore, guoxue. The historicization of the past would negate the central idea of a history-less national essence that justified guoxue discourse. But historicization also opened up new locations of culture, or “other possible Chinas,” which challenged the boundaries of guoxue. Individuals whose scholarly career had preceded and in part shaped the May Fourth period, and who would leave a long-lasting influence on guoxue—the “four great tutors,” Liang Qichao, Wang Guowei, Chen Yinque, Zhao Yuanren—were not only adept at ancient texts, but in their scholarly practice addressed issues both of China’s historical formation within a larger world context and of the complexities of Chinese society. Others sought to bring together Chinese ancient civilization and the civilization of ancient Greece, which makes them more appropriately classicists than guoxue scholars. But the overall trend increasingly was to locate Chinese identity in historical and social processes that overflowed the boundaries of historical China rather than textual traditions that were open to conflicting interpretations. This tendency continued into the 1930s, but within the context of a newly established revolutionary government that nevertheless sought legitimation in the revival of native values. Guomindang rule, following the revolutionary upheaval of the 1920s that had brought it into power and against continued Communist challenge, provided fertile grounds for nativist ideas of order. The Guomindang blamed these phenomena (as putative products of liberalism and Marxism) Aurel Stein) suggests that trans-Asian relations could also belong in the scope of guoxue.

guoxue | 261 on cultural degeneration by ideas imported from abroad and sought an antidote to them in native values and traditions. One significant consequence was to establish once again values that pointed to the “essence” of being Chinese. The answer was found in Confucian values as established by Sun Yat-sen. The first two generations of guoxue scholars had both stressed the importance of thinkers of the late Zhou dynasty other than Confucius, who was suspect because of the association of the Confucian tradition with state despotism. And sure enough, when Yuan Shikai had briefly restored the monarchy in 1916, Confucianism had been revived but now as a state religion. The New Culture Movement, of course, made Confucius into the chief culprit for the downfall of Chinese society. The 1930s witnessed the reversal of this trend, when the Guomindang leadership invented its own version of Sunist Confucianism and subsequently made Confucius into a national icon. The Guomindang turnabout encouraged the reading classics (dujing) movement, which had originated in response to declining interest in the classics following the abolition of the state examination system in 1905. More important was the restoration of Confucian celebration and ceremonies, if under the national flag, and supervision of the political ideology established by Sun Yat-sen. Ironically, while deploying Confucianism as legitimation, the state was reluctant to pay for the upkeep of Confucian temples across the country.27 State patronage of Confucianism in the 1930s no doubt contributed significantly to the increasing identification of national essence, and, therefore, guoxue, with Confucianism, especially at the popular, public level. So did the revitalization of Confucian thinking out of the dialogue between Chinese philosophers and “Western” philosophy, or at least the stimulus from the latter, which would come to be labeled “New Confucianism” in subsequent years. Their readings of 27. For a recent discussion, see Guannan Li, “Culture, Revolution and Modernity: The Guomindang’s Ideology and Enterprise of Reviving China, 1927–1937,” Ph.D. dissertation, Department of History, University of Oregon (2009), especially chap. 7, “Managing Confucianism.”

culture & history in postrevolutionary china | 262 Confucianism as philosophy and Chinese cultural endowment animate discussion to this day and have played a major part in the most recent revival of Confucianism since the late 1970s, especially among intellectuals, but the general public as well. A 1958 declaration by this new generation of philosophers made Confucian values into formative constituents of Chinese national identity and the bulwark of Chinese society—cultural genes, so to speak. At the same time, the declaration tacitly acknowledged the retreat of Confucian values into a more restricted ethical/religious realm in its recognition of the necessity of democracy and science and technology as conditions of modern existence. This seeming depoliticization of Confucianism did not preclude, needless to say, state intervention in their propagation.28 The revitalization of Confucianism in the 1930s accompanied (and perhaps benefited from) a general preoccupation of the decade, which cut across political divisions, with making things Chinese (Zhongguohua). The idea is associated most closely with Mao Zedong’s “making Marxism Chinese” (Makesi zhuyide Zhongguohua), which sought to translate Marxism not just into a Chinese but a popular Chinese idiom. But it was also important in academia in the calls for “making Chinese” the disciplines that were only then in the process of introduction into the universities. It was present in the calls for a “third culture” (di san zhong wenhua), which, as with the idea of Zhongguohua in general, presupposed a national character in learning.”29 This, of course, also further deepened the question of what constituted “Chineseness.”30 These issues of the 1930s, much more so than those of the May Fourth period as is often claimed, were to set the stage for discussions of Chineseness, Confucianism, and guoxue since the 1980s. 28. For a sharply analytical and historical discussion, see the introduction and chapter 1, both by Makeham, in John Makeham (ed.), New Confucianism: A Critical Examination (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2003). 29. Ji Wenfu, “Mantan xueshu Zhongguohua wenti” (Broad Discussion of the Question of Making Learning Chinese), in Hu, Guxue dashi, pp. 109–119, p. 111. 30. Ibid.

guoxue | 263 There were discussions earlier in the late 1950s, no doubt, but even more so than the adverse political implications of guoxue that rendered it politically undesirable, the insistent historicization of the past, this time a Marxist historicization, deprived the subject matter of guoxue of all but historical significance. The dehistoricization of the past was arguably a precondition of the reemergence of the ideas associated with guoxue since the 1980s. Indeed, a historical perspective on guoxue suggests that in addition to the two (primarily spatial) paradigms informed by nativism and cosmopolitanism, our understanding would benefit from recognition of historicism and essentialism as two further paradigmatic dimensions. The interplay of these paradigms opens up the possibility of diverse understandings of guoxue, from exclusive understandings that at the extreme restrict it to Confucianism or maybe Daoism and Confucianism, as quintessentially Chinese philosophies and value systems, to open-ended understandings as an account of the historical formation of Chinese society, with its own changing historical characteristics. This breadth of coverage, with all the intellectual and ideological differences it contains, may have been one reason for the difficulties guoxue faced as a realm of critical knowledge, and possibly encouraged its identification with issues of national essence, which are driven more by conviction (and ideological work by the state and intellectual elite) than by evidence of the spatial and temporal homogeneity of Chinese people around the world. Chineseness, the product of history, is rendered in the essentialist perspective into the producer of history. Likewise, guoxue, a product of modern national consciousness, is made into its bedrock to provide an alibi for the antiquity of the nation. But it is possible that guoxue as a realm of learning also suffered from the reorganization of learning in the process of building a higher education system after Euromodern models. For one thing, the appropriation of guoxue for nationalism also made it into merely a “national” form of learning, the property of one nation

culture & history in postrevolutionary china | 264 that is irrelevant to others. As I have noted, what had been the learning in the past was rendered into one learning among others with only marginal claims in an educational system that was presumably founded upon universalist assumptions. In such a context, guoxue itself becomes subject to the disciplinary requirements of modern academia. According to Tze-ki Hon, the prominent intellectual (and later anarchist) Liu Shipei in one of his contributions to Guocui xuebao “examined more than a dozen types of learning that supposedly appeared in Pre-Qin China, including psychology, ethics, logic, sociology, religion, law, mathematics, military education, natural science and fine arts.”31 In ensuing years, with the establishment of the modern disciplines in Chinese universities, guoxue itself, when it was an academic unit, existed as one among others that studied the Chinese past, now with the authority of modern science and the academic division of labor (for example, the short-lived Tsinghua Institute of Chinese Classics, now the model for the humanities at the university).32 A prominent historian educated abroad went so far as to declare that if the past was to be understood, guoxue should be abolished.33 In addition to being ideologically suspect in the eyes of progressives in academia, in other words, guoxue also suffered from a diffuseness of subject matter (or, conversely, insistence on a holistic understanding of it) that clashed with the disciplinary requirements of the Euromodern organization of learning. Guoxue also retreated with advances in the knowledge of the past brought about by new disciplines, including into the very practice of guoxue. Archeology was one discipline with revolutionary implications for rewriting the past. A willful resistance to archeological evidence in the name of the sanctity of the written classics, 31. Tze-ki Hon, “National Essence, National Learning, and Culture: Historical Writings in Guocui xuebao, Xueheng, and Guoxue jikan,” Historiography East and West 1.2 (2003), pp. 244–286, pp. 249–250. 32. I am grateful to John Makeham for pointing out that guoxue was never made into a department. 33. He Bingsong, “Lun suowei ‘guoxue’” (On So-called “Guoxue”), in Hu, Guoxue dashi lun guoxue, pp. 60–70.

guoxue | 265 as in the case of Zhang Taiyan, could not be sustained except as the eccentricity of a brilliant maverick.34 But the diffusion of guoxue concerns across academic disciplines also meant that where guoxue had a disciplinary identity, the identity was conditioned by methodological boundaries of philological and textual research. From an intellectual perspective, this may be similar to the transformation of sinology (or other Orientalisms) in Euro/American universities from the analysis of all aspects of entire civilizations to narrow (and largely marginalized) purveyors of philological and textual research. Indeed, some scholars have described guoxue as a Chinese version of foreign sinology, richer than the latter by virtue of national affinity to the past, but otherwise relegated to a similarly restricted domain. Aside from problems of ideology, intellectual boundary, and method, recognition of the disciplinary predicament of guoxue is important in assessing its possibilities presently, and the challenges it faces in a new context of Global Modernity.

Guoxue/Global Modernity Cheng Gang and Cao Li have observed shrewdly that there has been a shift in recent years in both the advocacy of guoxue and its intellectual environment. They have argued that over the years, guoxue has been nourished by a sense of “lack,” a sense that China lacked the integrated wholeness of Western society, as well as a feeling that Chinese culture lacks a center, or that the center is perpetually receding.35 This sense of lack has been replaced since the 1990s with a newfound sense of success in modernity. It is presently a sense of confidence that drives the guoxue revival. 34. Guo Zhanbo, Jin wushinian Zhongguo sixiang shi (Chinese Thought of the Last Fifty Years) (Hong Kong: Longmen shudian, 1935), p. 69. Zhang was famous for refusing to believe archeological evidence over the evidence of the classics that the Golden Age of sage rulers and emperors should indeed be the “primitive” phase of Chinese history. 35. Cheng and Cao, “Wenhua minzu zhuyi yu wenhua shijie zhuyi,” pp. 308–309.

culture & history in postrevolutionary china | 266 The international environment also has changed. Postmodernism has called into question the temporalities of modernization, so that there is now no clear distinction between what is conservative or progressive. It has also encouraged a relativism that enables the recognition of value to different thought and value systems and rejects the imposition on weaker societies the value standards of the powerful. The importation of these ideas to China has also enabled renewed confidence in the assertion of Chinese difference.36 These are important insights. And yet, we must remember not to confuse intellectuals’ postmodernism with the universal or general acceptance of relativistic arguments. These years have also seen the hardening of cultural boundaries in the upsurge of cultural nationalism that inspired Huntington. The increased recognition of difference has liberated many from unipolar modes of thinking, but it has also brought increased friction as ethnic and cultural boundaries are hardened with the reification of culture and assumptions of homogeneity within national or ethnic boundaries—by liberal multiculturalism on the one side, and an elevated ethnic, racial, and religious consciousness among more conservative populations. The celebration of difference, accompanied by deadly conflict over difference on a daily basis, is a pervasive feature of Global Modernity. Difference is not just an intellectual question, it is also political and, therefore, entangled in questions of power and hegemony. I think this context is of necessity the point of departure for any contemporary consideration of the domain and tasks of guoxue. Before I state my understanding, let me make two observations that underlie my understanding. What is not in question is whether or not guoxue is a legitimate public/intellectual and academic domain. That question already has been answered by the enthusiastic response in both academia and among the public to the call of guoxue. While the advocacy of guoxue raises both cultural and political issues that call for critical attention, there is obviously nothing wrong 36. Ibid., pp. 13–14.

guoxue | 267 or automatically regressive with the appreciation of past legacies in China or elsewhere. Nor is there any self-evident justification for political policing of what legacies may be admissible—unless, of course, we wish to advocate thought control of one kind or another. It does not follow, however, that guoxue is therefore a universal, or the most fundamental, cultural force in contemporary Chinese lives, which are caught up in the material and cultural commodity circulation of global capitalism. Guoxue presently may serve a number of needs, from the political to the cultural, the spiritual and intellectual. But beyond these needs is the very status of guoxue itself in a new context of globalized commodity culture. Indeed, while guoxue is open to use as an antidote to the cultural commodities in global circulation, it is itself caught up in the gravitational field of the latter, not just in public but also in academic life. In other words, guoxue itself is available as a commodity for cultural consumption at many levels. This may make it more difficult to define than ever before.37 At the same time, it my also suggest a point of departure in sorting out the tasks of guoxue as a critical undertaking at this conjuncture: explaining how this situation has come about. 37. Hence a senior Chinese scholar of philosophy and religion complains that it is impossible to say what guoxue should be about, or what culture it is supposed to revive, because everyone seems to have their favorite choice; in the end, everything Chinese is guoxue. See the interview with Yu Dunkang of the Chinese Academy of Social Science, “Guoxue yuantou” (Sources of Guoxue), in Liang Chu, Guoxue fangtan: Guangming ribao guoxue zhuankan jingxuan (Conversation Visits on Guoxue: Selections from Guangming Daily Special Edition on Guoxue) (Beijing: Guangming ribao chubanshe, 2008), pp. 105–112, p. 106. Confucianism and Daoism now also appear in Chinese societies in a self-help New Age guise. See, for example, Fu Peirong, Guoxuede tiankong (The Boundless Space of Guoxue) (Xi’an: Shaanxi shifan daxue chubanshe, 2009), and, most famous of all, the works of the television Confucian star Yu Dan. The attribution of Eastern Asian economic success to the cultural legacies of Chinese, Korean, and Japanese societies, especially Confucianism, is no doubt responsible for the stimulation of interest in guoxue as well. Guoxue, of course, is also conceived by some as a means to promote a more ethical and socially conscious approach to business. See Dong Zizhu, Yu qiyezhe liao guoxue (Guoxue for Entrepreneurs) (Wuhan: Changjiang wenyi chubanshe, 2008).

culture & history in postrevolutionary china | 268 Critical understanding of guoxue demands a critical understanding of its history in relationship to other ways of understanding the past. It is important to understand why guoxue has been controversial over the years. As with other civilizational claims of the contemporary world—from the Christian to the Moslem to the Hindu to proliferating indigenous claims among many others—the resurgence of the learning associated with guoxue represents at one level a release from the hegemony of a Eurocentric modernity. The denial of a center to modernity, however, presents its own predicament: a loss of common standards of what is and is not appropriate knowledge. The loss of a commonly shared critical standard also makes it easier to subject learning to the claims of ideology, whether of nations, classes, or other social groups. Guoxue should be a point of departure for new kinds of investigation: of its own past as well as of emergent practices of national learning globally. The rendering of guoxue into a marker of national identity limits severely its epistemological claims by making them into functions of national identity. Guoxue needs also to explore the supranational possibilities of varieties of national learning. Those who have pushed the frontiers of guoxue in the past have done so by openness to cultural complexity within China and to global perspectives on Chinese society—both in the scope of their investigations and in their methodological assumptions.38 In postrevolutionary China, the history of guoxue includes the history of the revolution and needs to be understood in that context. It also includes national struggles with Eurocentric hegemony, which now has been replaced with the 38. For anthropological perspectives on how comparative and popular culture studies may contribute to guoxue, see “Laizi renleixuede shengyin” (Voices from Anthropology), in Liang, Guoxue fangtan, pp. 236–250. Anthropologists and cultural studies scholars are more in the tradition of Gu Jiegang (the “new tradition,” xin chuantong) in their emphases on popular culture and closer attention to non-Han ethnic groups. According to an anthropologist such as Wang Mingming, guoxue in turn may help anthropology overcome domination by concepts of European cultural origin (and hence help indigenize [bentuhua] anthropology), pp. 241–242.

guoxue | 269 ideological multipolarity of Global Modernity. That, too, is part of its constitution.39 Secondly, after a century of preoccupation with Euro/American hegemony, it makes sense to adopt a more global perspective on cultural comparison than that implied by the Chinese/Western binarism, which also suggests that the only desirable response to Eurocentrism is Sinocentrism. Indeed, if the goal is truly to discover what may be unique to Chinese society in terms of values, comparison with the modern “West” hardly provides a sufficient basis. This preoccupation with Euro/America, in China as in like societies, is a major force in perpetuating Eurocentrism. There is little political or academic incentive in pursuing questions of learning to comparison between societies of the South, as well as indigenous societies, but this in fact would be a major contribution of a guoxue genuinely free of Euro/American intellectual hegemony.40 While it may seem degrading to the more civilization minded to compare Confucian or Daoist ideas to the outlook of indigenous peoples, the holistic ecological outlook implicit in such ideas as tianren heyi (unity of heaven and humans) or tian/di/ren (heaven/earth/human), deemed 39. These concerns have been expressed by Chinese scholars of an earlier generation such as Zhang Dainian and Tang Yijie, who have also stressed the importance of recent history to a postsocialist guoxue. See Zhang Dainian, “Shuo ‘guoxue,’” (On “Guoxue”), in Hu, Guoxue dashi lun guoxue, pp. 161–163, p. 163. See also the discussions by Tang Yijie, Ren Jiyu, et al., “Guoxue yu ershiyi shiji” (Guoxue and the Twenty-first Century), in Liang, Guoxue fangtan, pp. 178–183. Yu Dunkang, whom I cited above for his complaints about the diffuseness of guoxue and what it is expected to revive, writes that “guoxue is culture; culture is not something on a piece of paper, but the way of life of the Chinese people, rooted deep in the traditions that live on in the hearts of the people” (p. 181). 40. The importance of inter-cultural dialogue is recognized by scholars such as Liu Dong, but it has been restricted so far mostly to “Chinese-Western” dialogue. Overcoming this binarism, and the reification of both China and the West, is a precondition for a critical opening up of guoxue. For Liu Dong, see Cheng and Cao, “Wenhua minzu zhuyi yu wenhua shijie zhuyi,” pp. 315–317. Wang Mingming is one scholar who has been critical of the “progressivism” (jinbu zhuyi) that encourages comparison with the advanced and ignores the rest of the world (such as Africa). See his comments in Liang, Guoxue fangtan, p. 250.

culture & history in postrevolutionary china | 270 to be fundamental to a Chinese value system, are ideas that are commonly found in indigenous philosophies. There is much of human significance to be gained from placing post-Euromodern readings of Confucian, Daoist, or Buddhist values within the context of postEnlightenment critical indigenism that shares the goal of revitalizing holistic views of humans, society, and nature to remedy the deficiencies of advanced capitalism and its seemingly inexorable “creative destruction” of social harmony and ecological well-being.41 Finally, a word about academic function. If Chinese learning already has been fragmented into the disciplines, guoxue may perform an important task in formulating projects that cut across disciplinary and area divisions. This may sound like going back to older sinological models but it is not. The role to be assumed here is that not of container but as intermediary; not to dissolve the disciplines into Chinese studies but weave Chinese studies on an ongoing basis out of disciplinary findings. The proper analogy here is with “national studies” elsewhere, which take the nation as a point of departure to inquire critically both into its internal constitution and its place in the world. This too requires a guoxue that is not shrunk into a marginal discipline but is in constant exchange with other disciplines— and not just the humanities.42 41. To my knowledge, Tu Weiming is the only scholar of Confucianism who has pointed to this connection. See, Tu, “Beyond the Enlightenment Mentality,” in Mary Tucker and John Berthrong (ed.), Confucianism and Ecology: The Interrelation of Heaven, Earth and Humans (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Center for the Study of World Religions, 1998), pp. 3–21, p. 8. The philosophical existence of these values does not mean that they necessarily guide behavior, as in the case of the unity of “heaven and humans,” for instance, which is overwhelmed by the developmentalism that guides official thinking and popular sentiment— another challenge for guoxue scholarship! 42. Chinese scholars pointed to this problem of parochialization in the 1930s as a caution against arguments to make learning Chinese. See Ji, “Mantan xueshu Zhongguohua wenti.” There are proliferating examples of efforts to articulate Confucianism and Daoism to contemporary problems, most prominently ecological problems. See N. J. Girardot, James Miller, and Liu Xiaogan (ed.), Daoism and Ecology (Cambridge, MA: Harvard Divinity School Center for the Study of World Religions, 2001), and, Tucker and Berthrong,

guoxue | 271 Guoxue in China faces challenges similar to those of other national/civilizational/indigenous legacies of learning that presently demand a hearing as constituents of Global Modernity. Dialogue with these various legacies, including the Euro/American, is essential to assessing its own particularities among different value and knowledge systems. It is also a necessity for overcoming a parochial incarceration in nationalist ideology in order to move toward a more universalistic appreciation of Chinese contributions to a global storehouse of ideas and values.

Confucianism and Ecology. For a more down-to-earth deployment of guoxue issues in contemporary intellectual discussions, see the discussion of modernity in Wang Hui, “Scientific Worldview, Culture Debates, and the Reclassification of Knowledge in Twentieth Century China,” where Wang discusses Zhang Taiyan with reference to issues of modernism and anti-modernism (boundary 2, 35.2 [Summer 2008], pp. 125–155). Indeed, there long has been a blurring of the inside/outside distinction in the discussion of guoxue issues, and discussions outside of the People’s Republic of China (not just other Chinese societies) may well have played a part in stimulating discussions in the PRC. The case of guoxue is the latest example of the part played by the transnational circulation of ideas (Buddhism to Christian to the Euromodern) in the shaping of imperial scholarship. I am grateful to Samuel Cheung for reminding me of this important point. For interesting discussions of this problem, see Zhu Weizheng, “Han Learning and Western Learning in the Eighteenth Century,” in Zhu Weizheng, Coming out of the Middle Ages: Comparative Reflections on China and the West, tr. and ed. by Ruth Hayhoe (Armonk, NY: M.E. Sharpe, 1990), pp. 113–142, and Lionel M. Jensen, Manufacturing Confucianism: Chinese Traditions and Universal Civilization (Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 1997). Zhu’s article is also noteworthy for stressing the relationship between transnational flows and the regionalizing of imperial scholarship.

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Further Reflections on Global Modernity Modernity in the Age of Global Capitalism There has been a proliferation of conceptual terminology over the last few decades in efforts to grasp the character of what seems to be a rapidly—and radically—transformed world. Distinct in origin and objective, these terms nevertheless have become entangled with one another and share an affiliation as products of and responses to a common historical situation. Terms such as postmodern, postcolonial, globalization, multiple/alternative modernities, multiculturalism, etc., address different aspects of a contemporary reality, but in their mutual articulations constitute a conceptual field that in turn infuses them with its own significations, endowing them with unforeseen commonalities. It is this conceptual field that I seek to capture with the term “Global Modernity.”1 As will be explained further, Global Modernity as concept is offered here as an alternative to the term “globalization.” Globalization is an ideologically loaded term that in the spatial teleology built into its lexical structure disguises the fragmentation that has accompanied the global unification and homogenization that the term suggests. Even more fundamentally, I suggest that the most recent phase of globalization as process that gave the term its currency from the 1990s has come to an end, and Global Modernity is what it produced. 1. The discussion here draws heavily on chapters 3 and 4 of my Global Modernity: Modernity in the Age of Global Capitalism (Boulder, CO: Paradigm, 2007). I have kept references to a minimum. Interested readers may consult the material in that work. 273

culture & history in postrevolutionary china | 274 “Global Modernity” may be viewed as a descriptive term that seeks to grasp a particular moment in the history of modernity: modernity globalized. But it is both less and more than its descriptive implications might suggest. It is less because it is limited by the elusiveness of its object. Modernity globalized is also modernity called into question. Global Modernity refers to a moment of the breakdown of the hegemony of a Eurocentric modernity and the fragmentation into many cultural spheres of the very idea of the modern without any visible promise so far of how modernity might be reconstituted and some coherence restored to its claims. Modernity has been globalized with the globalization of capitalism. What has resulted is not the universalization of the values associated with a Euro/American modernity but the collapse of universalism itself. On the other hand, Global Modernity as concept is also intended to transcend the situation of which it is the product, as this very situation enables the possibility of re-envisioning modernity, rescuing it from its entrapment in a vision of history dominated by Eurocentrism and imagining it differently. The following discussion is devoted to an elaboration of the considerations that underlie my conceptualization of Global Modernity. But first a few words about some of the conceptual terminology that I think has represented efforts over the last few decades to come to terms with the breakdown of Eurocentric modernity which, ironically, has accompanied the global victory of capitalism. Rather than homogenize the world after the image of Europe, the globalization of capital has empowered the resurrection of traditions that a Eurocentric modernity had consigned to a dying past. These resurrections are as crucial to Global Modernity as the breakdown of Eurocentric modernity. What is less clear is their relationship to the past of which they are the products and the futures to which they may point.

further reflections on global modernity | 275

The Conceptual Fields of Globality In contemporary hindsight, much of the conceptual vocabulary that dominated social and cultural analysis from the mid-1970s was to be articulated in one manner or another to the issue of globalization. Despite a marked hostility to the totalistic “metanarrative,” which was enunciated first in postmodernism as its hallmark, was subsequently adopted by postcolonialism, and continues to live on in arguments for multiple or alternative modernities (or local appropriations of the global), it is ironic that by the end of the last century there should be a rush in scholarship and the intellectual world in general to the embrace of globalization, as totalistic a metanarrative as metanarratives can get, which in its more extravagant usages seeks to capture human history in its spatial and temporal totality. It seems that since the turn of the century, most intellectual effort worldwide is devoted to reconciling this metanarrative to the many more or less local narratives that had appeared with the repudiation of Eurocentric modernization narratives, most importantly Marxism. The perspective nevertheless suggests that the concepts that have followed one another in rapid succession in academic allegiance over the last three decades represented efforts to give voice (and shape) to phenomena of a historical conjuncture that has yet to point to a new path into the future, even though “globalization” for a brief moment created the illusion of such a new path. Whether viewed as expressions of the death pangs of a Eurocentric modernity or birth pangs of a new globalized world, postmodernism, postcolonialism, and multiple/alternative modernities point to continued uncertainties created by a new phase of globalization and the new social and cultural forces it has thrown up. Seemingly certain about the immediate phase of Eurocentric modernity to be left behind, these terms (and the questions that inform them) are uniformly marked by deep uncertainty about the future and its relationship to the many pasts that have once again become visible with the repudiation of Eurocentric erasure.

culture & history in postrevolutionary china | 276 With the single exception of “postmodern,” these terms all point to a changed relationship between Euro/America and the tricontinental world of Asia, Africa, and Latin America that is very much a formative moment of contemporary globality.2 “Postcolonial,” rescued from its dissipation into any relationship marked by a boundary of one kind or another, is cognate with “colonial,” “neocolonial,” and “de-colonial.” It points to a world that was shaped by relationships between colonizers and colonized, the persistence of that world in the present if in modified forms, and continued effort to overcome its legacies. The new-found power of the tricontinental world is even more evident in terms such as “multiple” or “alternative” modernities with their explicit repudiation of a Eurocentric teleology of modernity that points to Euro/America as the teleological end of history for all who would be modern. It is nevertheless important to understand these terms historically to grasp both their limitations and why they might have contributed to a condition of globality while their historical antecedents did not. This is most clearly evident in the course that postcolonial criticism has followed in the roughly half century since formal colonialism was brought to an end by anticolonial movements—most colonialism, anyway, since colonialism can hardly be said to have come to an end for many peoples around the world, especially indigenous peoples. The postcolonial was named as such sometime in the 1980s, and spread across academic writing in the 1990s, in tandem with “globalization,” “diasporas,” “multiple modernities,” etc. The preferred term until then was “neo-colonial,” signifying the continuation of colonialism with other than political means, and political struggles against this continued colonial legacy were referred to as “anticolonial” 2. A note of caution is necessary against over-drawing this distinction, the pitfalls of which have become evident in critiques directed at the arguments in Fredric Jameson’s essay “Third World Literature in the Era of Multinational Capitalism, Social Text 15 (1986), pp. 65–88. As I explain further, while it is important to distinguish First and Third World contexts and concerns, those worlds are more entangled in one another than ever before and concepts that articulate their differences are configured by the conceptual field they share in common.

further reflections on global modernity | 277 movements, indicating opposition between the two. One noteworthy aspect of anticolonial thinking—as in the case, for example, of Frantz Fanon—was its focus on the complicity of the “national bourgeoisie” in the persistence of colonial practices. In this perspective, the struggle against colonialism must also be a struggle against capitalism, which explains why national liberation movements had an affinity for socialist alternatives. Revolution against colonialism also required revolution at home, and it was out of such revolutions that autonomous nations and new cultures of liberation were to be forged.3 In the most extreme instances, anticolonialism degenerated into a fundamentalist nationalism that not only demanded political and economic autarky but displayed an obsession with national and class enemies as well as a self-defeating cultural xenophobia—as in the People’s Republic of China (PRC) during the Cultural Revolution of the 1960s and, even more tragically, in the case of Cambodia in the 1970s. Third world national liberation movements of the 1960s sought alternatives to capitalist modernity, without necessarily falling in with the example of existing socialist states such as the USSR and the PRC, which themselves were engaged in a search for alternative modernities. If the latter were viewed as exemplary, it was more than anything in the sense of inspirational example. Postcolonial criticism in the 1990s is best described as postrevolutionary, in the sense both of coming after the revolutionary national liberation movements and of taking an antirevolutionary turn in reaction to their failures.4 Despite the diffuseness of what has come to be described as postcolonial criticism, especially after 3. These points were made mostly cogently (and passionately) in Frantz Fanon, The Wretched of the Earth, tr. by Richard Philcox (New York: Grove, 2005). First published in 1963. For further discussion with reference to a number of Third World revolutionaries, see Arif Dirlik, “Culturalism as Hegemonic Ideology and Liberating Practice,” in Arif Dirlik, The Postcolonial Aura: Third World Criticism in the Age of Global Capitalism (Boulder, CO: Westview, 1997), pp. 23–51. 4. I have argued this at great length in Arif Dirlik, “Postcolonial or Postrevolutionary: The Problem of History in Postcolonial Criticism,” in Dirlik The Postcolonial Aura, pp. 163–185.

culture & history in postrevolutionary china | 278 its appropriation for purposes that had little or nothing to do with colonialism, it is possible to point to some outstanding features that distinguish it from earlier anticolonial critiques. First is the centering of the colonial historically, made possible by the distancing of colonialism from capitalism, more often than not tacitly, which also has made possible the repudiation of colonialism while coming to terms with a capitalist world order. This is implicit in the repudiation in the name of a postmodernist rejection of metanarratives of a systemic, structured understanding of colonialism as a historically necessary product of capitalism. Secondly, while postcolonial criticism has brought the colonizer-colonized relationship to the center of historical inquiry, in its repudiation of structured understanding of colonialism, it has also endowed this relationship with uncertainty and contingency, replacing so-called binary oppositions with hybridities, in-betweenness, localized encounters, etc. This has resulted also in the replacement of the political language of exploitation and oppression by a cultural language of negotiation, mimicry, appropriation, etc., which is heavily inflected by the dialect of the marketplace. Finally, these characteristics are applicable most directly to the class that is the product of the colonial encounter, that provided the native elite under colonialism that occupied the political and cultural borderlands between the colonialists and the natives, and that emerged after liberation as the cultural bridge between the nation and the world at large. It was this elite that was viewed with suspicion by national liberation movements in search of national cultural purity. It is this same elite that now has come to occupy a strategic role in global economy, politics, and culture as the urge to globalize has come to replace an earlier search for cultural autonomy and purity. The shift in the language of postcoloniality points ultimately to a reorientation if not the reconfiguration of the elites in formerly colonized or “semi-colonized” (such as the PRC) societies. Globalization is not just a political, economic, or cultural phenomenon. It is also deeply social and structural. The quest for multiple and alternative modernities is very much

further reflections on global modernity | 279 linked to this reorientation. That the elites now in charge are products of the colonial encounter does not imply therefore that they are willing to follow in the footsteps of Euro/America. Indeed, the very awareness of colonial origins, coupled with a renewed conviction that colonialism never completely erased native cultures, has made for a renewed confidence in the possibility of autonomous paths to modernity. Ironically, while postcolonial arguments for hybridity, especially within First World contexts, seemed to be most appealing for their deconstructive implications, arguments for hybridity, suggesting purities out of which the hybridity was produced, may have contributed indirectly to more conservative insistence on national or civilizational cultural purity, which once again has reared its head on the global political scene, playing a major part in the tendencies to fragmentation against the homogenizing forces of capital and communications. Ironically, however, whether in the postcolonial hybrid or the postcolonial fundamentalist version, arguments for alternative modernities are very much contained within the horizon of capitalism. Unlike earlier revolutionary visions which sought alternatives to capitalist modernity, contemporary discussion of alternative or multiple modernities are empowered by success in global capitalism and take it as their ultimate horizon. Indeed, while often skeptical of what might be viewed as the most positive products of European modernity, arguments for alternative modernity rarely question what may be the most destructive aspect of that modernity: developmentalism, driven by intensified competition for accumulation and control of resources. The difference from an earlier Eurocentric modernity is the revival of native traditions that a Eurocentric modernization discourse (both capitalist and socialist) had consigned to the dustbin of history. These traditions now have made a comeback not as obstacles to but as sources of alternative modernities. Ironically, without questioning purposes or modes of development, traditions are rendered into symbolic representations of difference and evacuated of any substantial content. Like multiculturalism at home, global multiculturalism is most important not

culture & history in postrevolutionary china | 280 for pointing to any serious alternatives to the present reign of global capitalism, but to its demands for new techniques of management and new realms of consumption. A few words here about the postmodern, which, unlike this other terminology, appears more as a phenomenon for the First World. Indeed, it is possible to view the postmodern, subsequent to its articulation to poststructuralism from the 1970s, as an escape back into the First World after the invasion of radicalism in Europe and North America by Third World concerns in the 1960s. Discussions of postmodernity, while self-consciously critical of modernity, have been conspicuously silent on issues of colonialism in Euro/ American modernity. Still, we should not overlook the relationship of postmodernity to a globalizing capitalism or the part it has played in raising questions about Euro/American modernity. Like all “posts,” the post in postmodern is most productive intellectually when it is understood in the periodizing sense of “what comes after,” but with the essential proviso that what comes after bears upon it the stamp of what preceded it. It is in this sense that postmodernism is best understood as modernity become selfconscious and self-critical. It is also in this sense that it is highly appropriate to describing a situation that is different from before, but also is much the same—as in the relationship of globalization to modernization. These contradictions in the attributions of postmodernism would persist into the 1980s, when it acquired a new kind of status as an epistemological critique of the modern, on the one hand, and as a cultural formation in its own right, on the other hand, that was associated with a new phase in the development of capitalism. JeanFrançois Lyotard’s influential manifesto, The Postmodern Condition: A Report on Knowledge,5 was a foremost expression of the articulation of postmodernism to poststructuralism in its uncompromising repudiation of the totalities and metanarratives of modernity, in 5.

(Minneapolis, MN: University of Minnesota Press, 1984).

further reflections on global modernity | 281 particular, Marxism. Against it was the articulation of postmodernism to a narrative of capitalism in the works of Jean Baudrillard in France and Fredric Jameson and David Harvey in the United States.6 These last works are of the greatest interest from the perspective of the discussion here as they sought to bring together postmodernism as cultural phenomenon with postmodernity as a condition of late twentieth-century capitalism. This is especially the case with the work of Harvey. Jameson’s account of political economy drew heavily on Ernest Mandel’s Late Capitalism,7 which stressed new developments in capitalism toward the ever more intense penetration of everyday life (the rise of a consumer society, which also had been a point of departure for Baudrillard, who also did not have much to say about the global dimensions of capitalism). The same could be said of Harvey, who had been a pioneer in the spatial analysis of capitalism in such works as The Limits to Capital,8 but was more interested in this work in changes in the nature of capitalist production, namely, the rise of a post-Fordist economy. Others, however, had already noted from the early 1980s on a correspondence between so-called flexible production (which would characterize a postFordist economy) and a New International Division of Labor, which would ultimately be of great significance in stimulating interest in globalization and, to some extent, making it into a reality.9 The other 6. Baudrillard’s works, such as The Mirror of Production (St. Louis: Telos, 1975) and The Political Economy of the Sign (St. Louis: Telos, 1981) were written in the 1970s, but exerted the greatest influence in the 1980s. Jameson’s seminal article, “Postmodernism, or the Cultural Logic of Late Capitalism,” was published in 1984 (New Left Review 146.5 3–92). Harvey’s magisterial volume, The Condition of Postmodernity: An Enquiry into the Origins of Cultural Change, was published in 1989 (Oxford, UK, and Cambridge, MA: Blackwell). 7. (London: New Left Books, 1978). 8. (London: Verso, 2007). 9. In a later work, Harvey takes up the issue of globalization directly and makes a passing reference to the proliferation of “posts,” including postmodernism, as a sign of the times. See “Contemporary Globalization,” in David Harvey, Spaces of Hope (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2000), chap. 4, p. 68. Harvey has remained skeptical of the idea of “globalization.” He

culture & history in postrevolutionary china | 282 side of the Marxist articulation of postmodernity to a globalizing capitalist economy was the anticipation in postmodernism, at least conceptually, of the social and cultural uncertainties that were to be thrown up by capital in its globalization. Despite important analytical and political differences, Lyotard’s rejection of metanarratives has something fundamental in common with the Marxist assimilation of postmodernism by Jameson and Harvey to a new phase in the development of capitalism. Both point in their different ways to the fragmentation of cultural coherence; the one in its affirmation of the local against structural totalities, the other in its identification of a logic for such fragmentation in the structural totality itself, but with similar results. Jameson has argued that what coherence is to be found in postmodern art and architecture derives not from some inner necessity but from the interplay of surface forms, making the pastiche and the collage into the paradigmatic form of postmodernity—not just in art, we may add, but culture in general. At the risk of pushing the metaphor of collage beyond the realm of esthetics, it is worth observing that a social and political ideology such as multiculturalism, very much bound up with issues of globalization, may be to social forms what the collage is to two-dimensional representation. If the denial of inner coherence renders culture into pastiche, or a collage, it also allows for—at least in theory—the insertion of disparate cultural elements into the same cultural agglomeration, weakening if not undermining notions of inside and outside as well as rendering irrelevant (if not oppressive) judgments of essences and foundations. This is conceded in commonplace social and cultural metaphors of “mosaic,” or even “salad bowl,” over the last two decades. These are by now familiar themes of postmodernity, but also of what goes by the name of globalization. Repudiation of the coherence of totalities and metanarratives has had liberating effects in expresses a preference, on the same page, for “uneven geographical development” over “globalization.”

further reflections on global modernity | 283 giving voice to or rendering visible those who had been suppressed under the regime of modernity. While postmodernity is most importantly a “cultural logic” of advanced capitalist societies, the logic has spread around the world as practices of contemporary capitalism have gone global. Thus, Akbar Ahmed has found in the superseding of Third World regimes of modernity the liberation of those who had been suppressed by these regimes, committed as they had been to modern faiths of reason and secularism, which he views as being tantamount to a “demotic revolution.”10 Traditions and religious beliefs once viewed as backward have made a comeback as modernity itself has come under question, powered by incorporation in new economic practices. These same beliefs have acquired global legitimacy as modernity has come under questioning within the First World itself. This is a modernity, nevertheless, that is conceived primarily in terms of its association with Eurocentrism and Eurocentric assumptions of progress, which are disassociated from issues of the reorganization of global relations with the globalization of capital. What is lost from sight in the process is that underlying it all is a new regime of power. Multiculturalism was sponsored initially by transnational corporations in search of techniques to manage an increasingly international labor force.11 However liberal the intentions may have been, it was inseparable from efforts to forge out of a multiplicity of cultural orientations company cultures for transnational capitalism. It could also be argued that such cultural compromises were a condition for, not a consequence of, the globalization of capital. This, too, may be grasped better in terms of Global Modernity—a product of contradictions created in the first place by modernity—than in terms of a teleology of globalization. The “cultural turn” in its origins was a product, it may be suggested, of efforts to render culture 10. Akbar S. Ahmed, Postmodernism and Islam: Predicament and Promise (New York: Routledge, 1992). 11. Arif Dirlik, “The Postmodernization of Production and Its Organization: Flexible Production, Work and Culture,” in Dirlik, The Postcolonial Aura, pp. 186–219.

culture & history in postrevolutionary china | 284 into a free-floating signifier that could be deployed for contingent ends. This has been the case over issues of Eurocentrism as much as of problems presented by national cultures. Over the last decade, discourses of globalization and postcoloniality have diminished the value of the concept of colonialism not only for our understanding of the present but also of the past. The history of the last five hundred years has been reworked as a march toward globality, and the power relations that shaped global history have disappeared into localized contingencies, deprived of the structural centrality assigned to them in an earlier historiography. The evidence of Global Modernity points to the importance of retaining the centrality of colonialism not only in understanding the globalizing forces of the past, but also the fundamental importance of the colonial past in shaping the present. I disagree with the implications of discourses of multiple or alternative modernities, but it is also important to address the questions they have raised, most importantly with regard to earlier usages of the term “colonialism” that erased the actions and the subjectivities of the colonized in a onesided approach to the construction of the modern world by Euro/ American capitalism and imperialism. Global Modernity presently reveals how important these voices are, and were, if only in forms that were worked over by the colonization of the world by capitalist modernity. Nevertheless, the world of Global Modernity bears upon it the features of the colonial modernity of which it is the product—perhaps even fulfillment. To be sure, colonialism as a formal system is largely gone except in the cases of indigenous peoples and ethnic groups in established nation-states, from Kurds in Turkey to Uighurs and Tibetans in the PRC, who are subjected to colonialist policies. But the present world in its political mapping, its uneven development, its universalization of the nation-state, and even its shared ideals of development, is very much a product of the modernity Euro/ America imposed upon the world, and continues to do so. The Peruvian scholar Anibal Quijano has sought to capture this situation

further reflections on global modernity | 285 through the idea of “the coloniality of power.”12 The term “colonial modernity” carries a similar sense. It is significant most importantly because it recognizes the voices of the colonized without dissipating into globalization or postcolonial blurrings the power relations that have shaped the globe as we encounter it today.

Global Modernity I understand the term “Global Modernity” in the singular, as a “singular modernity,” to use Fredric Jameson’s phrase, that is nevertheless productive of contradictory claims on modernity for which it has come to serve as a site of conflict.13 My insistence on the singularity of Global Modernity arises out of a recognition of some validity to arguments for globalization and the global commonalities it implies. At the same time, Global Modernity as concept is intended to overcome a teleological (and ideological) bias imbedded in the very term “globalization” for global commonality and homogeneity. It recognizes as equally fundamental tendencies to fragmentation and contradiction that are also products of globalization and of past legacies that find exaggerated expression in their projection upon a global scene. Globalization in this perspective implies not just some naive expectation of a utopianized global village or, conversely, an 12. Anibal Quijano, “Coloniality of Power, Eurocentrism and Latin America,” Nepantla 1.3 (2000), pp. 533–580. 13. I stress this point in order to distinguish the argument here from approaches to Global Modernity in the plural, as in the case of the essays included in the collection Global Modernities, ed. by Mike Featherstone, Scott Lash, and Roland Robertson (Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage, 1995), or in the special issue of Daedalus, “Multiple Modernities,” edited by S. N. Eisenstadt (129.1 [Winter, 2000]). The former volume renders “global modernities” into a stand-in for globalization. The Daedalus volume recognizes the singular origins of modernity, but some of the contributions nevertheless stress differences based on culture over the commonalities of modernity. These approaches are problematic, I think, precisely because of their tendency to sweep under the rug issues of the colonial in modernity in the name of globalization. For “singular modernity,” see Fredric Jameson, A Singular Modernity: Essay on the Ontology of the Present (London: Verso, 2002).

culture & history in postrevolutionary china | 286 undesirable global hegemony, depending on perspective, but a proliferation of boundaries globally, adding new boundaries to already existing ones even as modernity is globalized. Notions of multiple or alternative modernities, in rendering into units of modernity traditions that are themselves the very products of modernity, in fact universalize the claims of a modernity shaped by capitalism by appropriating them as endowments of otherwise vastly different and complex pasts.14 These claims often are also oblivious to the historicity of the present and assume that present differences or commonalities may be read into the future, which is quite problematic. The long historical struggle against colonialism and unequal power relations has given way over the last two decades to conflicts over modernity, informed by national or civilizational cultural presence in globality even as nations and civilizations are rendered more tenuous in their existence by the globalizing pressures of an expanding transnational capitalism. This is also what renders the past—colonial modernity—relevant to the understanding of the present, with intensifying struggles to reconfigure the relationships of power that have shaped the world as we confront it today. The globalization of modernity needs to be comprehended not just in the trivial sense of an originary modernity reaching out and touching all, even those who are left out of its benefits, as in the ideological deployments of globalization, but more importantly as a proliferation of claims on modernity. Traditions so called no longer imply a contrast with modernity as they did in modernization discourse. Nor are they the domain of backward-looking conservatism, except in exceptional instances. They are invoked increasingly to 14. I have discussed this in a number of places for the case of China, most notably in “Confucius in the Borderlands: Global Capitalism and the Reinvention of Confucianism,” boundary 2, 22.3 (Nov. 1995), pp. 229–273. For an illuminating discussion of the manner in which assumptions of modernity were internalized in Indian history, see Gyan Prakash, Another Reason: Science and the Imagination of Modern India (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1999). Prakash’s discussion is particularly relevant here for his deployment of “colonial modernity” in addressing this issue.

further reflections on global modernity | 287 establish claims to alternative modernities (but only rarely, to alternatives to modernity). They point not to the past, but taking a detour through the past to an alternative future. They have taken over from a now defunct socialism—even in formally “socialist” societies, such as the People’s Republic of China—the task of speaking for those oppressed or cast aside by a capitalist modernity and pointing to different possibilities for the future. The irony is that these claims to difference in most cases presuppose a commonality where assumptions of progress and development are concerned with a fetishization of development—i.e., developmentalism—for which the sole model is capitalist development, with some local modifications the future of which remains highly uncertain. The contradictions they present are very real and significant culturally and politically. Bolstered by success in development, assertions of cultural difference proliferate, breaking down the universalist presuppositions of Eurocentric models of modernity. But the cultural assumptions of claims to difference are themselves subject to disintegrative forces in their very mobilization in the cause of development, as development produces social and cultural forces, including cosmopolitan classes, that are not easily containable within imagined cultural crucibles. This is what I have in mind when I refer to the universalization of the contradictions of a capitalist modernity, not just between societies but, more importantly, within them. If this indeed is the case, contemporary arguments over universalism versus particularism, homogenization versus heterogenization, and even postcolonial notions of hybridization, Third Spaces, etc., are largely off the mark, and hinder, rather than help, analysis.15 First, because such arguments tend toward an either/or approach to these questions, avoiding the possibility—quite visible globally— that both tendencies may be at work, not in some facile process of 15. I have analyzed this problem at greater length, with reference to the People’s Republic of China, in Arif Dirlik, “Markets, Culture, Power: The Making of a ‘Second Cultural Revolution’ in China,” Asian Studies Review 25.1 (Mar. 2001), pp. 1–34.

culture & history in postrevolutionary china | 288 hybridization or the substitution of hybrid spaces for essentialized spaces of old, but in the proliferation of spaces and the contradictions they present. Secondly, the focus on Eurocentrism in such arguments, where they avoid the question of capitalism, restricts analysis to the level of abstract cultural, national, or civilizational values, ignoring the very significant transformations at work in the globalization of technological values and attendant cultural practices that are very much bound up with the universalization of capitalism, however it may be modified otherwise to suit localized needs. The claims of Eurocentrism to universality may be dead. We can hardly say the same of the capitalist civilization that was the historical creation of Europe and North America, which now rules the world even where its origins may have been forgotten or ignored. We need to take seriously the distinctive claims to different pasts and different futures in what someone like Guehenno perceives the “resurgence of histories” suppressed under the regime of modernity. But neither can we ignore that the cultural endowments which justify such claims have been infused thoroughly with the everyday values of production and consumption that are characteristic of capitalist society, in the invention and propagation of which Europe and North America still play key roles, even when they no longer provide directly the agents who propagate those values. The globalization of production and consumption through transnational agencies, most important among them transnational corporations still based for the most part in Euro/America, is in the process of creating a “transnational capitalist class” that shares not only similar occupations but similar education and lifestyles as well.16 One of the most important developments of recent years is the transnationalization of university education, not just with the increased attendance in First World 16. For the transnational capitalist class, see Leslie Sklair, The Transnational Capitalist Class (Oxford: Basil Blackwell, 2001), and William I. Robinson, A Theory of Global Capitalism: Production, Class, and State in a Transnational World (Baltimore, MD: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2004).

further reflections on global modernity | 289 universities of elites from the Third World, but the export from the First World to the Third of both models of education and actual university campuses.17 The relationship is not itself new; but it is not insignificant that what once was undertaken by missionary activity is now conducted directly by an educational apparatus (educational institutions, educational consultants, publishers) that is not only under the direct sway of corporations, but increasingly models itself after corporate management and plays a strategic part in the technologization and marketization of education itself.18 Multiculturalism, 17. This development needs much closer attention. For an illuminating discussion, see Kris Olds, “Articulating Agendas and Traveling Principles in the Layering of New Strands of Academic Freedom in Contemporary Singapore,” in Barbara Czarniawska and Guje Savon (ed.), Global Ideas: How Ideas, Objects and Practices Travel in the Global Economy (Copenhagen: Liber and Copenhagen Business School Press, 2005). In 2003, the leadership of Beijing University (one of the premier educational institutions in the People’s Republic of China) created a furor with plans to transform the university, including changing instruction to English. For a collection of the debates that ensued, see Qian Liqun and Gao Yuandong (ed.), Zhongguo daxuede wenti yu gaige (Problems and Reform of University Education in China) (Tianjin: Tianjin renmin chubanshe, 2003). See also Dai Xiaoxia, Mo Jiahao, and Xie Anna (ed.), Gaodeng jiaoyu shichanghua (Marketization of Higher Education) (Beijing: Beijing daxue chubanshe, 2004), and Wang Xiao, Quanqiuhua yu Zhongguo jiaoyu (Globalization and Chinese Education) (Chengdu: Sichuan renmin chubanshe, 2002). 18. The University of Liverpool in the UK announced at the end of October 2005 that it was establishing a campus in the PRC jointly with Xi’an Jiaotong University that would concentrate on technological subjects. According to a report, interestingly, the campus is to be located in Suzhou Industrial Park in Eastern China, which is quite a distance not only from Liverpool, but also from Xi’an. The attraction of the location is that it is home to foreign enterprises in the PRC, including fifty-three Fortune 500 Companies. The founding of the university, in other words, is one more example of higher education as enterprise, this time as “joint enterprise,” that has been the standard form of Sino-foreign business collaboration. The deal, moreover, is being backed up by Laureate Educational Limited, an on-line education transnational. See Polly Curtis, “Liverpool to Establish Chinese University,” Guardian Unlimited, Oct. 27, 2005. Equally, if not more, revealing is the plan to “glocalize” New York University by cloning it in Abu Dhabi, which one faculty member (Craig Calhoun) likens to “an academic chain restaurant.” We cannot but wonder if “glocalization” in this case also will entail assimilating to the demands of an

culture & history in postrevolutionary china | 290 invented by transnational corporations, appears in this perspective as a way of managing difference within a context of commonality (without which difference would be meaningless). Thirdly, therefore, debates over issues of culture are increasingly meaningless to the extent that they take as their units nations, civilizations, or so-called “cultures.” The increasing visibility of a transnational capitalist class would suggest different locations for culture. This class may partake of local characteristics, but it is unified also by participation in a common organization of the political economy, a common education, and common lifestyles that not only provide them with a “thirdspace” of their own, but also distance them from their immediate environment—sometimes behind locked gates in emulation of American lifestyles.19 The same may be said of other social groupings. Notions of gender are increasingly globalized as women, depending on class, engage in similar cultural practices globally or gather together to struggle against the ravages of globalization. Migrant tradespeople and migrant workers, at the other end of the social scale, come to partake of a common culture as they move back and forth across boundaries of nation and continent, contributing to the appearance of globalization, but also profoundly transforming societies both of departure and origin. The point in all of this is not global homogenization or assimilation to global roles, but a question of material and cultural contexts that are at once products of these processes and launch societies in new directions, creating new kinds of unities as well as new kinds of fractures. Any exploration of contemporary global processes needs to be attentive to this question of the “location of culture,” to borrow authoritarian state that provides the capital. See New York Magazine, April 13, 2008, http://nymag.com/news/features/46000/. 19. For an example of many such reports on these developments, mostly celebratory, see “Looks Like American Suburbia, But It’s Home in India,” Register-Guard, Sunday, Oct. 9, 2005, p. A19. Many a housing development in the People’s Republic of China advertises itself with names derived from locations in the United States, especially California.

further reflections on global modernity | 291 Homi Bhabha’s felicitous term (against his intentions),20 that is no longer associated with nations or civilizations, in spite of all the apparent evidence presently of conflicts between so-called Christian, Islamic, Confucian, etc., civilizations or nations, which serve more as mobilizing ideas than as descriptions of life at the everyday level in the societies so depicted. Such conflicts need to be taken seriously since mobilizing ideas do come into play as important historical forces, but they should not blind us to the complexities presented by smultaneous forces making for global commonality, on the one hand, and the many other dimensions of global fractures, on the other. I might add that globalization appears here as only one dimension of a historical process that has many other dimensions—an add-on to existing forces of the many dimensions of localization that has the power to reconfigure those forces, but gets reconfigured itself in the process. Such are the contradictions of Global Modernity. If I may summarize here what I take to be the outstanding features of Global Modernity, there are four aspects to it that distinguish it as a concept both from an earlier period of modernity and from globalization. First, Global Modernity is in many ways the contemporary resting place of globalization. Stated differently, globalization as we have known it—driven by capitalism—is not something that is happening that has yet to fulfill its promise, or something that is about to happen. It already has happened. And the result is Global Modernity. True, “Empire” as Hardt and Negri have identified it is very much a fact of Global Modernity, with the United States as a supreme military power claiming global sovereignty for itself while on occasion denying to others even their claims to national sovereignty.21 But this is an Empire ridden with contradictions, which open up the spaces for alternatives to its rule. Within these spaces there are appearing challengers to Empire, legitimized not only by modern ideals of democracy, justice, and popular sovereignty, but also by the 20. Homi Bhabha, The Location of Culture (London: Routledge, 2004). 21. Michael Hardt and Antonio Negri, Empire (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2000).

culture & history in postrevolutionary china | 292 revival of past legacies, which are not merely residues from the past, but represent legacies that already have been worked over by modernity; in other words, they are postmodern. The conflicts between these legacies are over alternative claims to modernity; and as they are divided by such claims, and conflicting interests, they are also grounded in a common terrain defined by a globalized capitalism. Despite enormous differences in power, levels of material development, and incorporation within a global capitalist economy, secondly, Global Modernity is characterized by temporal contemporaneity, which distinguishes it from an earlier Eurocentric modernity. It was only about two decades ago that Johannes Fabian published his classic critique of anthropology, Time and the Other, where he argued that the denial of “coevalness” to the Other was fundamental to the Eurocentric teleology of modernity.22 Already in the early 1980s, Europe’s Eastern Asian “Others” were claiming possible superiority in the development of capitalism. Modernization discourse had drawn a clear line between tradition and modernity and rendered this into a zero-sum relationship: the more modern, the less traditional. Eastern Asian “tigers,” so called, already felt empowered by their success in the capitalist economy to claim that the “Confucian” tradition they drew upon was a force not of backwardness (as it had been earlier) but of success, a claim that was backed by their cheerleaders in Europe and North America. At about the same time, the Iranian revolution of 1979 brought forth claims about the modernity of Islam. One by one, societies globally have revived or proclaimed the compatibility of their traditions (or cultural legacies) with modernity and made it the basis for their claims to alternative modernities. The advanced-backward distinction has not disappeared from mutual perceptions between nations, “cultures,” and “civilizations,” but is overdetermined increasingly by differences within the same population, including the fundamental structural differentiation of 22. Johannes Fabian, Time and the Other: How Anthropology Makes Its Object (New York: Columbia University Press, 1983).

further reflections on global modernity | 293 those who are on the pathways of global capitalism and those who are not. Global Modernity by no means represents the “death” of the nation-state or of nationalism. On the contrary, the last few years have witnessed both a proliferation of nationalisms and a strengthening of the power of the state vis-à-vis the population. The transformations associated with globalization have been of a different kind, in the abandonment by states of their responsibilities to large sectors of their populations and a shift of attention from national surfaces to global nodes in the pursuit of development (not to be confused with obliviousness to national borders). The globalization of capitalism, thirdly, has reconfigured global relations. The tripartite spatialization of the world produced during the Cold War years was internalized in modernization discourse. The fall of the Second World of socialism and the appearance of new centers of capital from the 1960s has ended up scrambling this neat geographical spatialization, also raising questions in the process about nations as viable units of the economy, politics, or culture. What is called globalization is in reality a conglomeration of phenomena that occur at different scales, from the global to the regional to the national to the intranational and the local. This spatialization is complicated further by the persistence of earlier spatializations, such as the colonial spaces to which I have referred, as well as spaces of indigeneity. There are presently First Worlds in the Third (e.g., Shanghai) and Third Worlds in the First (e.g., New Orleans). Global Capitalism moves along networks, with global cities at its nodes. This has also meant the shift of economic activity from surfaces to networks. Suffice it to say that as capital (and associated) organizations move along the networks, those who are not on the networks, or are outside of the network economy, fall through the cracks and feel the effects of the global economy only by its inductive influence on their livelihood. The majority of the world’s population is now in a process of marginalization or, as some anthropologists have put it even more strongly, “abjection—being thrown down and thrown

culture & history in postrevolutionary china | 294 out of the global.”23 Fourthly, it is not just entire spaces that are being left out of the global economy (which exposes eloquently the ideological basis of globalization), but also entire groups of people across national boundaries. Class structuration, in other words, has gone global with the appearance of a “transnational capitalist class” and comparable class, gender, and ethnic formations at different scales. This renders misleading those arguments that continue to take nations and civilizations as their units. Such arguments ignore the transnationalization and translocalization (to be distinguished from globalization) of economic, social, and cultural formations. Differences that are taken to be differences between nations and civilizations are, more often than not, also differences within the same society that are hidden from sight when the focus is on the inside/outside of national and civilizational boundaries. Classes, genders, and ethnicities, as well as organizational formations of one kind or another—from NGOs to transnational corporations to professional organizations—are as much the “locations of culture” as are nations and civilizations, complicating both social formations and cultural configurations. It is these complications that make it difficult to speak of imperialism, or of cultural homogenization or heterogenization. Where all this may end up is hardly predictable at this point as capital itself (not to speak of states) seems to have lost all vision of the future, beyond the manipulation of existing differences for purposes of immediate power and profit. It is for the same reason that it is meaningless to speak of “alternative modernities,” as if cultural revivalisms of the present may be read teleologically into the future. It is this state of affairs, with a surplus of history but deficit of future, that the concept of Global Modernity seeks to capture. It may be for the same reason that most of our contemporary vocabulary of “posts” refer primarily 23. Jack R. Friedman, “Ambivalence, Abjection, and the Outside of the Global: On Statementality,” unpublished paper, 53 pp., p. 5. I am grateful to Professor Friedman for sharing this paper with me.

further reflections on global modernity | 295 to the past, without the courage or the hope to name the future. The contradictions of Global Modernity also make it difficult to speak of colonialism—not just at the present but, by implication, in the histories of which the present is a product in its own complicated and multidirectional transformations. Colonialism as concept also has lost much of its critical power with the abolition of the temporal gap between modernity and tradition, which only a generation ago justified both a progressivist and Eurocentric modernization discourse as well as radical criticism of the colonialist impulses that informed it. This is not to suggest that those impulses have disappeared from global politics, but they appear in a far more complicated guise than they did earlier, which undercuts the ability of colonialism in an earlier sense to serve either as a historical explanation or a mobilizing political idea.

Global Modernity, Its Past and Future (?) Two further implications of Global Modernity are equally significant. One is historical, and primarily of academic interest in the present context. It has not been part of the previous discussions beyond a passing allusion in the introductory chapter. I am referring here to the implications for our understanding of the origins of modernity of the replacement of the Eurocentric by Global Modernity. The Eurocentric account of modernity has all along rendered modernity into the autonomous product of a European history stretching from ancient Greece to the present. Accumulating evidence has revealed this claim to be an invention of modern Europe. Instead, a growing consensus among historians indicates that European modernity (not to speak of “Europe” itself ) was the product of many interactions globally, which included the colonization of the Americas and Australia. Was this modernity, then, one modernity among others to arise from these interactions? Were there “multiple” or “alternative” modernities to emerge from these interactions in different parts of Eurasia, each with its particular characteristics shaped by the

culture & history in postrevolutionary china | 296 interactions between the local and the global? If so, then, is it possible that these alternatives were extinguished by the one modernity that emerged in one part of the Eurasian land mass which, empowered by a capitalism that was its unique product, went on to conquer the rest of the world, giving modernity its name, and, for better or worse, shaping it with its own values? Contemporary Global Modernity may carry echoes of that past that preceded European dominance, but they are only vague echoes, because that world was to be remade subsequently by European dominance and hegemony. The dissipation of the hegemony enables us to see not just the present but also the past—the past both as history and value—outside of the parameters set by a Eurocentric modernity. This is not to deny the uniqueness of European modernity, or the part it has played in the making of the modern world, but only to insist that the perspective of that very same world is indispensable to grasping Europe as a historical formation. Europe itself was invented in this perspective out of the processes, at once material and ideological, that produced the multifaceted transformations across the globe that modernity as concept is intended to comprehend.24 The other concerns the issue of hegemony in a world where a radical de-centering of power and ideology have accompanied the globalization of modernity and appeals to universal values have lost their plausibility. This could be taken as a sign of global democratization, which to some extent it is, except that it is difficult to conceive of democracy without some consensus on common values—a willing compliance in the hegemony of a set of values, in other words, rather than of any one political power or a cabal of powers that claims to represent them—which seem to be foundering presently on the proliferating shoals of cultural particularism. Universals have lost their power to convince not only because of their repeated 24. For elaboration, see Arif Dirlik, “Revisioning Modernity: Modernity in Eurasian Perspectives,” Inter-Asia Cultural Studies 12.2 (2011), pp. 284‒305.

further reflections on global modernity | 297 abuse at the service of power, but also because they are challenged by a resurgent cultural particularism that derives considerable energy from its entanglement in material development, the commitment to which ironically appears to be the only universal value left. It is also eminently apparent, or should be, that uneven development (between and within nations), a fundamental characteristic of the capitalist world economy, has become even more conspicuous under global capitalism. Egalitarianism in the distribution of cultural rights and recognition does not add up to equality either between or within societies, the very idea of which seems to be endangered to an unprecedented degree except in the real or pretend recognition of the equality of cultures. Cultural reassertiveness with the retreat of Euromodernity (including one of its most important products, revolution) may be a universal condition globally, but that does not eliminate significant differences in the dimensions, depth, and meaning of “the resurgence of history,” to recall the phrase that has come up again and again in the previous discussions. Some revivals, to put it mildly, may matter more than others for their potential and/or aspiration to shape the future of modernity—to become a new hegemonic power, in other words, emulated as a model, and a source of values, drawn from native legacy and experience but not bound to them and, therefore, broadly exportable. There is a scattering of candidates for this role, at least as perceived by themselves and their varieties of supporters, but the People’s Republic of China is in many minds and many ways the frontrunner among them. There is a constant outpouring of arguments, most forcefully put forward by Giovanni Arrighi in his last work, about a shift of the core of the capitalist world-system to Eastern Asia, especially the PRC.25 Everyday evidence lends considerable credence to this argument. The vitality of Chinese society contrasts sharply with the moribund stagnation of the advanced economies 25. Giovanni Arrighi, Adam Smith in Beijing: Lineages of the Twenty-First Century (London: Verso, 2007).

culture & history in postrevolutionary china | 298 of Europe and North America, which seem to be staggering under the twin weights of dysfunctional domestic politics and misguided foreign adventures that appear increasingly as desperate efforts to hang on to a lost hegemony. One could easily get the impression that the PRC is already the new center of the world economy (and perhaps much more) from the steady stream of clients pouring into its cities—from corporate and internet executives, tradespeople of diverse origins, and purveyors of fashions to opera companies, entertainers and sportspeople to academics of various stripes to students of language, business, and martial arts. That they may be following the money only confirms the impression. In the meantime, Chinese themselves are busy transnationalizing, importing and exporting cultural commodities. The so-called Confucius Institutes, conceived openly as artifacts of “soft power,” seem to be the rage around the world, and at the extreme—as in the case of the University of Oregon, which scheduled its inauguration on China’s National Day (October 1, 2010)—have been successful in mobilizing their clients in the service of Chinese nationalism. Compelling as these signs may be, they need to be read with circumspection, with due attention to other signs that point to different conclusions. It is probably safe to speak of a restructuring of global hegemony not just with the rise of China and others (India is the next in line, it would seem, with Brazil, Turkey, and South Africa still aspiring) but also the decline of U.S. hegemony. Though it retains its military might, and the instruments of coercion, the days of U.S. dominance of the world may well be numbered, especially after the misadventures of the last decade. On the other hand, despite the widespread attention bestowed upon the PRC, it is questionable whether others could or would be prepared to emulate its developmental example, as is suggested by the idea of a “Chinese model,” unless the PRC itself undergoes further transformation, in which case to refer to its present state as a “model” would be widely off the mark. The PRC’s remarkable developmental success has been achieved through skillful, perhaps

further reflections on global modernity | 299 even ruthless, exploitation of existing paradigms of development, and does not offer an alternative to the present that could be specified as a “Chinese model.” In terms of goals, the development has taken place within the confines of a modernization vision, and a reductionist one at that in its almost naive fetishization of technology. In both political and popular discourse, an obsession with the U.S. as a model to be emulated and surpassed perhaps serves more to validate the American model than an alternative Chinese one, even as the turn to modernization under the sign of the global in the 1990s gave renewed life to a moribund modernization discourse. In terms of strategy, the PRC’s may be viewed as a highly efficient and effective version of export-oriented development under authoritarian controls first perfected in the nearby states of Eastern Asia, which from the 1980s not only served as a model for the PRC, but also through their investments (especially by the huaren from these states) helped jump-start the mainland economy. The “new authoritarianism” idea popular in the late 1980s, under the influence of Samuel P. Huntington’s version of modernization discourse, has been a defining feature of Chinese developmental strategy. The important difference, and by no means a negligible one, is that except in the case of those states that secured development under U.S. supervision and hegemony, the Chinese have been driven by a jealous protection of sovereignty and autonomy, which is one source of its attraction to states of the Global South. Still, U.S. hegemony in this case lay in another area: the importance for the PRC’s development of the U.S. market, and the “market dependency” that is implied. The truly important differences, ones that would be difficult to emulate elsewhere, are the differences that were very much products of the specific circumstances and the achievements of the revolutionary transformation of the three decades before “reform and opening,” whose legacies have remained alive even if China from the late seventies would turn its back on the revolutionary past. There has been much talk in recent years of the importance of “Chinese culture” in the developmental success of the last thirty years, reinforced by

culture & history in postrevolutionary china | 300 long-standing clichés about Chinese culture, but also by the cultural revivals that have been discussed. It should also be evident from these discussions that this link between development and native cultural practices and traditions also evolved out of the developmental success of nearby societies, and became acceptable in the PRC only gradually, as it also presented a challenge to the socialist ideology that continued to define the state, however unconvincingly. It was in the midst of the crisis created by the 1989 Tiananmen tragedy that the gates were opened to the return of the past. Even then, suspicions of the return of the past have never disappeared. The culturalist assumption that Chinese development could be related somehow to something called Chinese culture persists, nevertheless, as it feeds notions of Chinese uniqueness that have gained in popularity as development effort has turned into development success.26 One consequence, for some in China quite deliberate, has been to erase the importance of the more recent past under the weight of a culture of long duration that somehow seems to be resilient to all material, social, and political change. It is very convenient that this culture also justifies the restriction of modernization to technology and science, and the repudiation of other aspects (the political and social values that make modernization worthwhile) as being at odds with native values, or acceptable only after they have been endowed with “Chinese characteristics.” This is the policing aspect of the cultural revivals. It is arguable, on the other hand, that the outstanding features 26. A Chinese writer such as He Chuanqi, whose views seem like a theorization of the prevailing approaches to development, is hardly distinguishable from liberal and conservative advocates of modernization abroad in his view of modernization as a process of leaving the past behind toward a convergence of institutional and cultural technologies. Similarly, culture appears in his writing most importantly as a potentiality for modernization. Once the potential has been realized, societies may differ from one another, but only on a common basis of modernity. See “China Modernization Report 2009: The Study of Cultural Modernization,” China Development Gateway, http://en.chinagate.cn/dateorder/2009-02/24/content_17327414.htm.

further reflections on global modernity | 301 of recent development, and a source of its success, which render China unique, are products of the legacy of revolution: an efficient party-state with deep roots in the population that has successfully converted itself from an instrument of revolution to a manager of development; a coherent nation that is the product of the organizational and to some extent ideological integration of the nation that the revolution created; a national purpose the search for which had been a motivation for political change since the late Qing; an obsession with sovereignty and autonomy, very much modern in their origins, that at the height of revolutionary fervor took the form of closing out the world; a work force, both urban and rural, that had been mobilized and trained to do its utmost in the service of collective goals, national development among them; a highly egalitarian society where encouragement of the pursuit of equality also stimulated civic engagement; and even an entrepreneurial ethic fostered by the pressure to innovation in the cause of collective welfare that always conflicted with the bureaucratic prerogative of stability and routine; and last but not least, the economic foundation and organization that had been established, modeled on socialist premises, that now had to be converted into a functioning machinery of development within the context of global capitalism. These will be recognized readily as features of postrevolutionary development. The legacies of the revolution, some tangible others less so, have done much to shape developments since the 1980s. Their positive as well as negative consequences are still widely visible. China has not just been a revolutionary society. Its revolution has been one of constant experimentation with one method after another in the search for national unity, development, revolutionary justice, and now, supremacy within global capitalism. Holding the world at bay in the name of sovereignty and a “Chinese way” is as much part of the current experiment as opening up to the world and letting it all in.27 27. For a recent consideration of the relationship between the present and the revolutionary past, see Wu Bo, “Zhongguo moshi yu liangge 30 nian” (The Chinese Model and the Two 30 Years), Guangming ribao (Guangming

culture & history in postrevolutionary china | 302 Perhaps it would be possible to emulate some aspects of this developmental experience without necessarily retracing the course of Chinese society through revolution and the legacies of even more remote pasts. What might be emulated would have to be articulated to other local needs. This indeed has been part of Chinese development ideology since the days of the revolution: that the development of each society must be consistent with local characteristics and needs. In this sense, the “Chinese model,” such as it is, becomes more of a source of inspiration than a pattern to be transported from one context to another.28 Then the question rises of inspiration to what end? The Chinese experience is attractive for its impressive developmental record, including poverty reduction and sovereign participation in global capitalism. But those achievements have to be set against problems and contradictions that are also very much part of that experience. Despite having achieved enormous economic power by playing producer to the world, the PRC is a deeply troubled country that owes much to coercion in holding together, is plagued by social division and conflict, and faces enormous ecological problems. That it is the second largest economy in the world may make headlines among those who render development into something of an economic horse race, but it barely disguises the fact that the PRC is still a developing country ridden with poverty the moment one steps out of its glittering “world-cities” such as Shanghai, Beijing, or Guangzhou. The developmental path it has chosen is inspired not by local circumstances or values derived from its historical experience, but an obsessive desire to follow and surpass what the leadership takes to be the most advanced economy in the world, the United States, which, given China’s enormous population and limited land Daily), Nov. 23, 2010. 28. For discussions of whether it is possible to speak of a Chinese model, and if so, if it may be emulated by others, see Yu Keping, et al. (ed.), Zhongguo moshi yu “Beijing gongshi”: chaoyue “Huashengdun gongshi” (The China Model and “Beijing Consensus”: Beyond “the Washington Consensus”) (Beijing: Shehui kexue wenxian chubanshe, 2006).

further reflections on global modernity | 303 resources promises to make the PRC into a supreme example of “maldevelopment.” Cities choked with traffic and suffocating on air does not seem to deter the leadership from plans to gather the population in proliferating “megacities.” At the time of this writing, the deteriorating traffic conditions in Beijing that have inspired talk of moving the capital (!) is accompanied by a popular rush to purchase cars before the government’s incentive program runs out or severe restrictions are placed on car ownership. A corrupt alliance between government at all levels and private interests drives the expropriation of the peasantry, the destruction of agricultural land, and wasteful land speculation. The PRC is rightly held up by the UNDP for its success in poverty eradication. It might also be held up for its success in a matter of three decades in turning one of the most egalitarian societies in the world into one of the most unequal and anti-egalitarian. The search for “wealth and power,” a long-standing dream of Chinese modernizers, has turned into its own justification, regardless of social and ecological consequences. Despite foreign adulation reminiscent of the chinoiserie of the seventeenth century, moreover, China is a culturally conflicted society. This has been the subject of the discussions in this volume. For all its homogenizing dogmatism, Communist ideology in its heyday brought some coherence to the understanding of contemporary China and its past. Cultural consensus has fallen apart in postrevolutionary China, which in some ways has returned to the early twentieth-century search for a culture that is appropriate to a new national and world situation. The difference is in the situation, rather than cultural constitution. Newfound power has brought with it a new kind of pride in the national past that was missing in an earlier day when the past seemed to be the major obstacle to national renovation. But then, the new situation also has brought with it new pressures that render this pride an uneasy one. As in the rest of the contemporary world, culture has assumed the trappings of fashions in consumption as one “fever” has followed another in rapid succession. The obsession with defining a “Chinese” identity that

culture & history in postrevolutionary china | 304 might restore some measure of coherence to an inherently incoherent situation has only exacerbated the vagueness of the very idea of “Chineseness” as it is made to accommodate disparate elements but always with the same refrain, “Chinese characteristics”—which for the same reason makes the idea more exclusive, and oppressive, than it would be if it were to be recognized as a historically fluid marker without a demonstrable essence but nonetheless valuable as a summation of diverse experience of the world. A preoccupation with cultural unity and homogeneity that is shared widely also makes for an intolerance of difference and diversity. The deployment of culture as economic or political commodity, on the other hand, not only dilutes any serious confrontation of the past, but also finds expression in the song-and-dance and martial arts routines that the Confucius Institutes promote as emblems of Chinese culture—along with teaching business Chinese, which seems to be their main business. In the meantime, the authorities keep careful count of those around the world studying Chinese, which, one supposes, serves as measure of the success of Chinese culture, indistinguishable in its designation as “soft power” from the economic and political power of the nation. The exploitation of the past for obvious purposes of political power on occasion ends up degrading those legacies, as with the recent response to Liu Xiaobo’s Nobel Peace Prize by the hasty establishment of a Confucius Prize given to a former supporter from Taiwan. At a more serious level, the quest for cosmopolitanism is not helped by recently proposed revisions in high school history texts that organize the past around European and Chinese civilizations.29 But it reflects accurately the compulsive preoccupation with “China and the West” as the mirror twin 29. See Kecheng jiaocai yanjiu suo and Lishi kecheng jiaocai yanjiu kaifa zhongxin (Course Textbook Research Center and History Teaching Materials Research and Development Center) (ed.), Putong gaozhong kecheng biaozhun shiyanjiaoke shu—lishi 1—bixiu (Vol. 1 [History] of Ordinary High School Teaching Experimental Texts: To be revised), third printing (Beijing: Renmin jiaoyu chubanshe, 2007).

further reflections on global modernity | 305 poles of the world, with nothing in between or around. It is ironic that the authorities would see fit to promote outmoded notions of civilization at a time when the population at large is fascinated with the world at large, though not without preferences, everyday life in China more and more resembles everyday life elsewhere in its orientation to the world, and Chinese youth are avid participants in a global youth culture, which leads one to wonder who is in charge of the culture policy. It also draws attention to an almost willful parochialism and the policing function assigned to culture policy.30 Whether the PRC can turn its developmental success into some hegemonic model for the rest of the world remains to be seen. The experimentation with solutions to the contradictions of development continues with daily news of concern about inequality and corruption, investment in public welfare and green economies, and actual “experimentation” such as the experiments with local democracy and the recent “Chongqing Experiment” aimed at the resolution of urban-rural problems. Nevertheless, the refusal to question development as understood in a reductionist modernization discourse, which has become a key also to the party-state’s claims to legitimacy (not to mention its wealth and power), intensifies the problems that these experiments are intended to resolve. It is, of course, quite plausible that the Chinese example may become hegemonic for these very reasons. There is evidence for that, too, with the emergence of global capitalism and the loss of consensus over the global good. The often-stated Chinese preference to leave political and cultural questions out of the consideration of economic practices and relationships may resonate in a world where the insistence on cultural difference has pushed aside political and 30. No less worthy of attention is the report (confirmed for the author by both faculty and graduate students) that in the aftermath of the announcement of the Nobel Peace Prize, authorities at Beijing University instructed the faculty to report students with smiling faces, which might be indicative of support for Liu Xiaobo. It was immediately dubbed “face crime” by the students. The anxiety the act betrays, almost pathological, is not worthy of a great power that aspires to hegemony or the great tradition it would claim as its own.

culture & history in postrevolutionary china | 306 cultural norms once taken to be universal. The same may be the case with those oppressive practices for which the PRC comes under daily criticism, which nevertheless may increasingly find a congenial hearing in a world where the chase for elusive terrorists has reinforced tendencies to state surveillance of populations and popular acquiescence in the invasion of everyday life by state organs even in so-called democratic societies. The social and topographical inequalities in Chinese society are part of a global trend, as is the use of coercion in keeping in check popular opposition to the loss of economic, social, and political rights (but not the rights to culture). Even the Chinese version of multiculturalism may seem to be an appropriate solution to problems created by liberal multiculturalism as the motions of populations around the globe also stimulates nativist reaction. There is no reason to assume, therefore, that the “Chinese model” as it presently appears should be disqualified for emulation on the basis of its contradictions and less appealing characteristics. The ongoing adulation of China, despite the problems discussed, the embracing of its institutions of “soft-power” for the business opportunities they promise along with cultural tourism, and its attraction to an authoritarian Confucianism that stresses social norms over critical thinking, may offer some evidence to back up claims of China to impending world supremacy culturally as well as economically and politically. The Karate Kid has moved from Japan to China, via Hong Kong. Presently, however, to the extent that it is possible to speak of a “Chinese model,” it is only in the sense of a local version of a modernization paradigm. If Chinese development is paradigmatic, it is in the sense of its paradigmatic articulations of the contradictions of global modernity that are shared widely across the many divisions that mark the contemporary world. Interestingly, to the extent that a hegemonic universalism persists globally, it is still claimed by the older centers of Europe and North America, who first set the rules of the game. For all its claims to autonomy, the developmental model followed by the PRC has followed mostly in

further reflections on global modernity | 307 the footsteps of the United States, which is not promising. Indeed, the analysis by Arrighi that I have taken as my point of departure is much more self-assured about the decline of U.S. hegemony than it is about the rise of a new China-centered hegemonic system. In general, “world-system-determinism,” which anticipates a single core to the world economy, may not be the best way to deal with a world in fragmentation. The present is most reminiscent of that anarchy in the absence of a hegemon that is the nightmare of international relations pundits.

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Annals of the World, 184 “anthropological space,” 7, 16 anthropology, and sociology, 209 and ethnology, 209–211 as university discipline in U.S., 209 at the World’s Fairs, 46–47 disciplinary development in China of, 208–215 Anti-Japanese War, 78 antimodernism, 13, 105 archeology, 211 Arrighi, Giovanni, 43, 297 Asia, 37 Asian values, 37, 59 Asiatic Mode of Production, 76

Index

A “A Manifesto to the World on Chinese Culture,” 105–106 (See also, “Declaration on Behalf of Chinese Nation . . .”) Academia Sinica, 206, 211, 214 Adas, Michael, 193 Afghanistan, 57, 240 “Afro-Eurasian ecumene,” 21, 22, 28 Akbar, Ahmed, 283 Alaska, 44, 46 “alternative modernities,” 17–20, 99, 279–280 Althusser, Louis, 142 American Academy of Arts and Sciences, 97, 114 “American Confucianism,” 114, 130–137 “American Confucius,” 130–137 “American missionary sociology,” 200 American Methodist Episcopalians, 200 “An East Asian Development Model?,” 118 An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations, 199 Ancient Society, 76 “ancients and moderns,” 11 Anderson, Benedict, 66

B Bai Shouyi, 78 Baudrillard, Jean, 281 Bauman, Zygmunt, 42–43 Beijing University, 73, 77, 112, 200 Benedict, Ruth, 205 Benjamin, Walter, 66 Bentley, Jerry, 193 bentuhua (indigenization), 116 Berger, Peter, 109, 118–119, 141, 144 Bering Strait, 44 Bernal, Martin, 250 Berthrong, John, 139 Boas, Franz, 205 Bogdanov, Alexander, 73 Bol, Peter, 138, 149 “borderlands,” 100 British New Left, 161 Buddhism, 37, 105 Burgess, John Stewart, 201 329

culture & history in postrevolutionary china | 330 C Cai Fenglin, 168 Cai Yuanpei, 206, 212 “On Ethnology,” 212 Cao Li, 247, 265 capitalism, 19 and Eastern Asia, 115–129 and Eurocentrism, 51–52 and Global Modernity, 55 in Chinese history, 72–73, 86 “capitalist world system,” 43 “Cash Value of Confucian Values, The,” 155 Cen Jiawu, 210–211 Chakrabarty, Dipesh, 49, 53, 57, 59 Chang Hao, 5, 106, 139 Chen Da, 201–202, 207 Chen Hansheng, 206 Chen Lai, 247 Chen Li-fu, 121–122 Chen Pingyuan, 247 Chen Xujing, 204, 214 Chen Yinque (Yinke), 28, 260 Cheng Chung-ying, 139 Cheng Gang, 247, 265 Chesneaux, Jean, 28 China, idea of, 164–165, 231, 259 invention of, 173–183 China’s Struggle to Modernize, 8 Chinese Academy of Sciences, 74 Chinese Association for the Study of the History of Sino-Japanese Relations (Zhongguo ZhongRi guanxi shi xuehui), 112 Chinese Chameleon, The, 164 “Chinese characteristics,” 300 Chinese civilization, 162–164

Chinese Confucian Association (Zhonghua Kongzi xuehui), 112 Chinese culture, conflicts within, 303–304 diversity of, 167 monarch-centeredness of, 162–163 spatial and temporal differences in, 157–158, 162–172 Chinese diaspora, 150–151, 221–222 and Chinese culture, 170–171 intellectuals in, 237–238 “Chinese learning for the substance, Western learning for the function,” 250, 256 “Chinese model,” problems of, 299–307 legacies of the revolution in, 301 Chinese Peasant and Worker Democratic Party, 79–80 Chinese-Peruvian Trade Agreement (ZhongBi tongshang tiaoyue), 179 Chinese Society of Ethnology (Zhongguo minzuxue hui), 213 Chinese Society of Sociology (Chinese Sociological Association, Zhongguo shehuixue hui), 202, 219 Chinese University of Hong Kong, 111 Chinese-American sociologists, 223–225 “Chineseness,” 171, 188, 225, 231, 236, 303–304 “Chongqing Experiment,” 305 Civilization, 161, 246 “civilizing mission,” 163, 164 “clash of civilizations,” 39, 246 class structuration, 294 class struggle, 84, 89–90 Clifford, James, 184

index | 331 Cohen, Paul, 29 Cold War, the, 42 colonial modernity, 4, 13, 19, 21, 30, 39, 162, 284 colonialism, 276–285 colonizing the past, 185 Columbia University, 205 commercial capitalism, 72 Communism, 108 Communist Party of China, 36, 70, 79 Confucian China and Its Modern Fate, 35 Confucian ethics, 110, 117, 129 “Confucian fever,” 121 Confucian Foundation, 112 Confucian Heritage and its Modern Adaptation, 140 “Confucian Humanism and Democracy,” 133 Confucian revival, 35–37, 97–98 and social control, 148–149 culturalism in, 144–147 historical overview of, 101–114, 116–120 Max Weber in, 145–147 official sponsorship of, 114 Orientalism in, 152–153 U.S. scholars in, 113–114 “Confucian-Christian dialogue,” 139 Confucianism, 97–155 passim ambivalence toward of Guocui xuebao, 256 and capitalism, 115–129 “dark side” of, 132–133 during the Nanjing decade, 261 in Eastern Asia, 115–129 in emergence of Global Modernity, 292 Max Weber on, 103–104 nationalized, 188–190 reversal in evaluations of, 36, 97

Tokugawa repudiation of, 252–253 “Weberizing of,” 145 Confucianism and Economic Development, 140 “Confucianism and Modernization,” 109 Confucius, 36, 97–155 passim becoming Chinese of, 194–195 Confucius Institutes, 97, 298 as instruments of power, 304 Confucius Prize, 304 contact zones, 159, 160–161, 169 Crystal Palace Exhibition, 44 “cultural China,” 154, 180 cultural formations, 162–172 Cultural Revolution, 89–90, 277 cultural spaces, 15, 16, 159–160 “cultural turn,” 245–246, 283–284 culturalism, 17, 61 and history, 188 in the Confucian revival, 141–142, 145–148 culture, and everyday life, 161 and places, 161, 169 confounded with civilization, 184–187 East Asian, 116–120 globalization and, 49–58, 157, 280–282 historicity of, 142 locations of, 290 modernity and, 158–161 (see also, Chinese culture, culturalism) “culture fever,” 153 Curriculum Development Institute (Singapore), 110

culture & history in postrevolutionary china | 332 D Da Qingguo, 173–183 passim daotong (transmission of the way), 66 Dawson, Raymond, 164 de Bary, Wm. Theodore, 138 “Declaration on Behalf of Chinese Culture Respectfully Announced to the People of World,” 191 Deloria, Vine, Jr., 38 “demotic revolution,” 283 Deng Shi, 250 Deng Xiaoping, 217, 230 despotic society, 76 developmentalism, 30, 52 difanghua (localization), 225 Duara, Prasenjit, 27, 185 duoyuan yiti (“multi culturalism”), 183 Durkheim, Emile, 206

Confucianism and China’s Evolving Political Culture, 118 “establishment of a Chinese sociology,” 219 ethnoepistemology, 253 Eurasian modernity, 21 ethnology, 210–213 Euro/America, 21–22 Euro/Sinocentrism, 29 Eurocentrism, 17, 29–30, 49–50, 244, 266 as distraction from capitalism, 288 capitalism and, 51–52 challenges to, 48 of world’s fairs, 46–47 Euromodernity, 21–22, 37, 242, 244, 246 Europe, and modernity, 17–18, 20–23 Evolution and Ethics, 199 “extra-economic exploitation,” 72

E “East Asian model,” 144 Eastern Asia, 98–99, 115–129 Eastern Asian “tigers,” 292 “Eastern Culture and Modernization,” 112 Eberhard, Wolfram, 28, 74, 168 ecumene, 21–22, 193–196 education, transnationalization of, 279–281 Eisenstadt, S. N., 39–40 Empire, 291 “encyclopedias of the world,” 44 Engels, Friedrich, 75 Enlightenment, the, 16 epistemology, nativist, 241 Escape from Predicament: Neo-

F Fabian, Johannes, 292 familism, 142–143 Fan Wenlan, 78, 82–89, 92 Fanon, Frantz, 277 Fei Xiaotong, 182, 201, 205, 214 Feng Youlan, 105 fengjian, 71, 92–93 feudalism, in Chinese history, 71–73, 75, 81, 84–86, 92–93 Five Emperors, 83 five-stage periodization, 80 flexible production, 281 forces of production, 87 Foucault, Michel, 147 “Four Great Tutors,” 260

index | 333 “Four mini-Dragons,” 107–108, 133 four-stage periodization, 76 French Revolution, 34 Fudan University, 167 Fugu (fukkoo, restoration), 251 Furen University, 214 G Gandhi, M., 105 gentry class, 85 Geronimo, 46 Giddens, Anthony, 41 Giddings, Franklin H., 205 Global Capitalism, 42, 51, 57, 100, 143–147 and the Confucian revival, 108–109, 114, 137 Global Modernity, 5, 15–16, 50–51, 53–56, 273–274 and breakdown of Euro/ American hegemony, 46, 47, 274 and colonialism, 59 and culture, 184–185 and hegemonic transition, 297–298 and proliferation of modernities, 286–287 characteristics of, 291–295 consequences of for the history of modernity, 295–296 defined, 285–286 dialectics of, 23 proliferation of knowledge under, 242–246 traces of colonial modernity in, 284 Global multiculturalism, 49–58, 246, 277–279 “global village,” 47, 54, 139 Globalization, 4, 10–13, 14

and breakdown of metanarratives, 275–285 and culture, 162 and fragmentation, 34–35 and Eurocentrism, 30, 33 and history, 27–28 and modernity, 17–23 and multiculturalism, 48–58 and postcolonialism, 277–280 and postmodernism, 280–283 and scrambling of spaces, 293–294 and the human sciences, 43–48 and universalism, 33, 52 as paradigm, 50 consciousness of, 45 in the nineteenth century, 43–44 “take-off phase” of, 43 Goh Keng Swee, 110 “Goh Report,” 110, 128 Gold, Thomas, 141 Gramsci, Antonio, 161 Greater China, 150, 180 Gu Jiegang, 259–260 Guehenno, Jean-Marie, 16, 33–34, 42, 184, 288 Guo Moruo, 60, 70, 74–75, 82, 88, 92 Guocui (national essence), 250 Guocui xuebao ( Journal of National Essence), 250, 255 ambivalence toward Confucianism of, 256 Guohun (national soul), 250 guojia (nation-[state]), 178 guomin (citizens), 250 Guomindang, 70, 79, 203, 248–249, 261 guoxue, 26, 37–38, 98 and anarchism, 255 and Global Modernity, 266 and kokugaku, 250–258 and renaissance, 255

culture & history in postrevolutionary china | 334 and search for national identity, 257 and social contract, 255 as discipline, 264–265 as Han national studies, 257 context of in Global Modernity, 246 cosmopolitan paradigm of, 247–248, 259 during the Nanjing decade, 261–262 functions in late Qing thought, 255–256 historical development of, 246–269 in New Culture thinking, 259–260 national consciousness and, 257 nativist paradigm of, 247–248 relationship of to national learning, 241 “guoxue fever,” 98 H Habermas, Jurgen, 9, 12, 13 Han-centrism, 170 Han dynasty, 85 Han people, 163, 164 cultural colonialism of, 165 merger with others of, 169 Han Tanshou, 200 Hardt, Michael, 291 Harootunian, Harry, 251–252 Harriman, Edward, 44, 46 Harvard University, 110, 206 Harvey, David, 281, 282 hegemony, 21, 54 breakdown of, 274 Euro/American, 21, 243–244, 269 in theory, 239 history and, 23 Heidegger, Martin, 53, 60 Heller, Agnes, 58

Hirst, Paul, 43 “historical time,” 24 historicism, 49, 59–62, 89 “historicism vs. class viewpoint,” 89–90 “historicization of history,” 24, 188 history, 23–32 and theory (see, theory) Chinese, 29 Confucian, 83 modernity and, 23–32 nationalist, 23, 26–27, 163–164, 185–190 resurgence of, 33–34 translocal, 192 transnational, 186, 192–193 world, 28, 185 (see also, “new history”) History of Chinese Society, Liao (907–1135), 77 Hodgson, Marshall, 22, 28 Holcombe, Charles, 195 Hon Tze-ki, 264 Hong Kong, 107, 109, 111, 123 Hou Wailu, 78, 82 Hsiao, Hsin-huang Michael, 129, 222, 226 Hsu Cho-yun, 134 Hu Shi, 247 Hua people, 169, 176 Huamin, 180 Huang, Philip, 5–6 Huang Jie, 250, 256 Huang Wenshan, 202, 213 Huang Zunxian, 173 Huaren, 180, 299 Huijiang University, 200 Huntington, Samuel, 39, 154, 246, 266, 299 Huxley, Thomas, 199

index | 335 I Idea of China, The, 164 “identity crisis,” 102, 150 “ideological state apparatus,” 142 India, 59, 105 indigenization (see, bentuhua, Zhongguohua) indigenous knowledge, 37 Institute of East Asian Philosophies, 111, 112 Institute of Pacific Relations, 207 International Chamber of Commerce, 116, 147 “invention of China,” 181, 188–189 “invention of tradition,” 15 Iranian Revolution, 57, 292 Isaacs, Harold, 164 Islamic revival, 37 Islamic and European Expansion: The Forging of a Global Order, 193 Islamicization of sociology, 37, 57 J Jameson, Fredric, 53, 160, 281–282, 285 Japan, 109, 112, 116 Japanese Challenge, The, 116 Jian Bozan, 78, 82, 90 Ji’nan University, 208 junxue (“ruler-learning”), 254 K Kahn, Herman, 116–118, 124, 125, 126, 153 Kang Baozheng, 200 Kang Youwei, 132, 199, 200, 254 Karate Kid, 306 Kim Kwang-ok, 113, 141 Kishimoto Nomuta, 200

kokugaku ([Japanese] national studies), 251–258 passim kokusai (guocui, national essence), 252 Korea (South), 109, 112–113, 116, 123 Koselleck, Reinhart, 23–25 Kroeber, Alfred, 205, 215 L Late Capitalism, 281 Lattimore, Owen, 168 Lee Kwan Yew, 110, 127–128 “Lee Kwan Yew’ism,” 128 Lefevbre, Henri, 159, 161 Lei Jieqiong, 202, 207 Lenin, Vladimir Ilyich, 67 Leung, Yuen-sang, 129 Levenson, Joseph, 5, 35, 178, 188–189 Li Anzhai, 205, 214–215 Li Da, 206, 208 Li Dazhao, 206 Li Huixiang, 214 Li Jinghan, 204 Liang Qichao, 4–8, 9, 10, 15, 25, 67, 260 and guoxue, 250–258 passim and naming China, 173–183 passim and sociology, 199–200 Liang Shuming, 105, 204 “life-boat philosophers,” 134 Limits to Capital, The, 281 Lin Nan, 223–224 Lin Yaohua, 205, 214 Liu, Lydia, 174, 176–178 Liu Shipei, 250, 255, 264 Liu Shu-hsien, 139, 148 Liu Xiaobo, 304 Liu Yizheng, 181 London, 44 Lowie, Robert, 215

culture & history in postrevolutionary china | 336 Lu Zhenyu, 78 Luo Xianglin, 214 Lyotard, Jean-François, 280 M Ma Liqun, 226–227 MacFarquhar, Roderick, 120, 154 Maine, Henry, 71 Mair, Victor, 174 Malaysia, 59 Mandel, Ernest, 281 Mao Zedong, 82, 88, 107, 206 “making Marxism Chinese” (Makesi zhuyide Zhongguohua), 216–217 March, Andrew, 164 Marx, Karl, 28, 53, 60, 67, 183 Marxism, 50–51, and Confucianism, 102, 146 indigenization of, 216–217 Marxism-Leninism, 88 Marxist historicism, 36 Marxist historiography, and the national narrative, 65–66 as fulfillment of “new history,” 67 Confucianism in, 103, 104 decline of, 89–90, 164 modernity of, 64–65 social revolutionary origins of, 63, 66–68, 70 May Fourth movement, 102, 247 McLuhan, Marshall, 47 Meiji Restoration, 251, 252 Metzger, Thomas, 118, 123 Ming dynasty, 86, 163 minority nationalities, 166, 210 minzuxue (ethnology), 210 Minzuxue yanjiu jikan (Ethnological Studies), 213

missionaries, 200–201 “model minority,” 107 modernity, 8–18, and colonialism, 39 and Europe, 17–18, 20 and everyday life, 59 and history, 23–32, 34 and ways of knowing, 49–62, 242–243 as paradigm, 27–28 as relationship, 21–22 as substance, 21 discourse of, 23 globalization and, 17–23 heterogeneity of, 40–43 historicization of, 16, 40–41 “invention of tradition” by, 242–243 multi-polar, 22 proliferation of, 17–23 teleology of, 36–37, 50 modernization (discourse), 10, 16, 242–243, 292 and the death of Confucianism, 101–102 modernization (process), 15–16, 17 Mongol invasions, 22, 86 Monroe Doctrine, 257 Monumenta Serica, 213 Morgan, Lewis Henry, 76 Moscow, 72 Mou Zongsan, 105 Muir, John, 46 multiculturalism, 266, 278–279 “multiple modernities,” 17, 35–43, 50–58 Myers, Ramon, 124 N Nakane, Chie, 126

index | 337 Nandy, Ashis, 38 “Nanjing Decade,” 203 “national essence,” 250–258 national liberation, 19, 277–278 National Salvation Movement, 79 National Studies (see, guoxue) National Studies Journal (Guoxue bao), 250 nationalism, 26 historiography, 163–164, 185–190 in Marxist historiography, 89 temporality of, 66 nationalization of history, 185 nation-building, 15 Naxalite movement, 59 Negri, Antonio, 291 Neo-Confucian societies, 117–120, 126–127 New Age, 97, 134–135, 148 New Asia College, 111 New Confucianism, 105–106, 107, 111, 131, 134, 261–262 New Culture Movement, 6, 259–260 New Democracy, 88 “new history,” 3, 4, 15, 27, 67 “New History, The,” 25, 182 “new international division of labor,” 281 New York Times, 44, 45 Newly Industrialized Countries (NICs), 129 Nihonjinron ( Japaneseness), 126 nineteenth century, 43, 45–46 Nobel Prize, 304 nomads, 168 Noor, Farish, 59

O Occidentalism, 140 Ogburn, William F., 205 “On Ethnology,” 212 Orientalism, 99, 100–101, 143, 152, 154, 244 Origins of the Family, the State and Private Property, The, 75–76 P Pak Chung-hee, 113, 114, 148 Pacific region, 109 Pacific Rim, 147 Pan Guangdan, 201, 214 Pan-Turanianism, 37 Panama Canal, 44 Park, Robert, 204, 205 Peking Man, 83 People’s Daily, 153 People’s Republic of China (PRC), and the Confucian revival, 98, 99, 111–112, 113, 154–155 as candidate for a new hegemony, 297–299 cultural management in, 166 cultural xenophobia of, 277 multiculturalism in, 166 obsession with “the West” of, 304–305 People’s (Renmin) University, 228 Peru, 179–180 popular movements, 59 postcolonial criticism, 100, 159, 244 globalization as the context for, 276–278 postcolonial discourse, 99 postcolonial intellectuals, 151–152

culture & history in postrevolutionary china | 338 “post-Confucian hypothesis,” 123 “post-Confucian societies,” 120, 126–127, 147 post-Fordism, 281 Postmodern Condition: A Report on Knowledge, The, 289 postmodernism, 12, 152, 266, globalization as context for, 280–283 postsocialism, 19 Pratt, Mary Louise, 159 primitive society in China, 83 Principles of Sociology, 208 “progress,” 11 “provincializing Europe,” 17, 53 Q Qian Mu, 105, 111 qiaoxiang (emigrant counties), 207 Qin dynasty, 85 Qing dynasty, 10, 25, 86, 173–183 passim, 199 Qu Qiubai, 206, 208 Quan Zhenya, 202 quanqiuhua (“globalization”), 224 qunxue (“collectivities,” “masses”), 200 quyuhua (regionalization), 225 R Radcliffe-Brown, Alfred, 204, 213 Radek, Karl, 70, 72, 73 “Recent Developments in Social Anthropology,” 213 “reform and opening” (gaige kaifang), 98 relations of production, 87 Renaissance, the, 257 “resurgence of history,” 33–34

revolutions, the passing of, 36–37 Robertson, Roland, 43 Rockefeller Foundation, 207 Rousseau, Jean-Jacques, 255 Rozman, Gilbert, 140 ruxue (“Confucianism”), 98 S Said, Edward, 152, 154, 184 Sapir, Edward, 215 Schafer, Edward, 28 Scratches on Our Minds, 164 Search for Modern China, The, 8 “seeking truth from facts,” 88 Shang dynasty, 75, 83 Shanghai University, 206 shawen zhuyi (chauvinism), 224 shehui kexuede Zhongguohua (making social sciences Chinese), 215 shehuixue, 200 Shi Huo (Food and Commodities Monthly), 73, 77 shidafu, 150 Shirokogoff, Sergei M., 211–212 Shiva, Vandana, 38 Singapore, 97, 109, 110–111, 123, 134 “Singapore Incorporated,” 111 “singular modernity,” 53, 285 sinicization (see, Zhongguohua) sinicization of sociology, 37, 57 sinicization of the past, 181–182 Sitting Bull, 46 slave society, 75, 83 Smith, Adam, 199 So, Alvin, 129 Social Darwinism, 15, 199

index | 339 “social engineering,” 148 social formations, 71–95 passim universality of, 71 Social History Controversy, 76–77, 78 social revolution, 68 social sciences, 52–54 Society for the Preservation of National Essence (Guocui baocun hui, 250 Sociological World (Shehuixue jie), 202 sociology, and rural reconstruction, 204–205 and socialism, 203 Chinese schools of, 203–208 community studies in, 205 Comtean, 206 disciplinary development in China of, 200–204 indigenization of, 218–240 introduction to China of, 199–200 Marxist, 206, 208 of Chinese overseas, 207 of women, 207 research themes in, 203–208 syncretic school in, 205 with Chinese characteristics, 229–230 Sociology (Shehuixue), 202 Southeast Asia, 175 Southeast Association of Sociology, 202 Spence, Jonathan, 9 Spencer, Herbert, 199 “sprouts of capitalism,” 86, 92 St. Louis Exposition, 47 Stalinism, 80 Steensgaard, Niels, 28 “strategies of containment,” 160, 192 Study of Sociology, The, 199 Subaltern Studies, 59–60

Suez Canal, 44 Sui dynasty, 85 Sun Benwen, 201, 202, 205, 208, 213 and making sociology Chinese, 219 Sun Yat-sen, 261 Sun Yat-sen Cultural Institute, 213, 214 Sun Yat-sen University, 72 Synthesis of Agriculture and Nomadism in the Formation of the Chinese Nation, 168 systems theory, 93 T Tai Hung-chao, 140, 148, 152, 154 Taiwan, 6, 109, 111, 116 discussions of sociology in, 220–227 Taiwanization, 222, 226–227 Taliban, 57 Tan Qirang, 167 Tan Sitong, 132 Tang dynasty, 85 Tang Junyi, 105 Tang Xiaobing, 7, 16 Tao Menghe, 201, 202 Tao Xisheng, 69–74, 76, 77, 92, 95, 206 teleology, 17, 29, 36, 93, 101–102 “Temporal and Spatial Differences in Chinese Culture,” 167 “temporalization of history,” 24 theory, hegemony of, 239 historicization of, 88–89 particularity in, 233–235 problems in indigenization of, 217, 224–225, 227, 235–236 problems of universality and “third stage (of Confucianism),” 134 Third World, 19

culture & history in postrevolutionary china | 340 Thompson, E. P., 161 Thompson, Grahame, 43 Three Sovereigns, 83 Tiananmen tragedy, 300 tianxia, 178 Tibetology, 215 Time and the Other, 292 tongshi (comprehensive history), 80 traditions, and modernity, 54–58 as sources of alternative modernities, 286–287 Confucian, 99 persistence of, 243 return of, 37–40 “translingual encounter,” 178 translocal, 27 transnational, 27, 31, 192–193 “transnational capitalist class,” 288 transnational corporations, 288 “transmission of the way” (see, daotong) “traveling theories,” 184 “Tribute of Yu” (Yugong), 162–163 Trotsky, Leon, 72 Tsinghua (Qinghua) University, 208 Turkish century, 37 Tu Weiming (Du Weiming, Tu Wei-ming), 107–155 passim, 113–114, 130–137 U UNESCO, 112 United States, 113–114 universalism, 16, 33–35, 52–58 University of California, Berkeley, 206, 215 University of Chicago, 205 University of Oregon, 298

University of Southern California, 207 Ussher, James, 184 V van Leur, J. C., 28 W Wakeman, Frederic, 138 Wang Ermin, 176 Wang Gungwu, 140–141, 150, 151 Wang Guowei, 249, 260 Wang Jianmin, 213 Wang Mong Lin, 110 Watson, James, 141, 142, 149 “wealth and power,” 15 Weber, Max, 103–104, 118–119, 132 Wei Huilin, 213 Wheaton, Henry, 179 Williams, Raymond, 161 Wittfogel, Karl, 74, 76, 77 Wittrock, Bjorn, 40–42, 50 Wong, Aline, 122 Wong, John, 122 Wong Xiulun, 200 World Economic Development: 1979 and Beyond, 116 “worlding,” 29 World’s Fairs, 44, 46–47 “world-system determinism,” 307 Wu Dingliang, 213 Wu Jingchao, 202, 204 Wu Wenzao, 201, 205, 214 Wu Zelin, 202, 213 X Xia dynasty, 83 Xia people, 169, 176 Xiamen University, 200, 214

index | 341 Xianbi, 169 Xiao Xinhuang (see, Hsiao, Hsinhuang Michael) xiangcun jianshe (rural reconstruction), 204 xiaokang (“small welfare”) society, 83 Xiongnu, 169 Xu Deheng, 206 Xu Fuguan, 105 Xu Shilian, 202, 204 Xu Shouwei, 256 Y Yamato spirit, 254 Yan’an, 79 Yan Fu, 199 Yang Chengzhi, 214 Yang Du, 174 Yang Kaidao, 204 Yang Lien-sheng, 77 Yang Yabin, 216 yangban, 113 Yellow Emperor, 256 Yellow River, 163 Yen, James, 204 Yenching (Yanjing) University, 110, 205, 207, 214, 215 You Jiade, 202 yi (“barbarian”), 177–178 YMCA, 204 Yu Shiyu, 215 Yu Ying-shih, 110, 134 Yuan dynasty, 86, 163 Yuan Shikai, 261

Z Zhang Deyi, 173, 174 Zhang Junmai, 105 Zhang Taiyan, 174, 200, 247, 248, 250 Zhang Zhidong, 250, 256 Zhang Zhiyi, 205 Zhao Yuanren, 260 Zhejiang University, 208 Zheng Hangsheng, 204, 212, 228–230 Zhengli guogu (“Reorganization of the nation’s past”), 259–260 Zhongguo, 85, 163 and China, 173–183 Zhongguo gudai shehui yanjiu (Research in Ancient Chinese Society), 74 Zhongguo minzuxue hui (see, Chinese Society of Ethnology) Zhongguo tongshi jianbin (Concise Comprehensive History of China), 82–89 Zhongguohua, 82, 89, 182–183, 216–240 passim (see also, sinicization) Zhonghua minzu (Chinese nation), 183 Zhongshan University, 208 as center for anthropology, 214 Department of History and Philology at, 211 Zhou dynasty, 71, 73, 75, 84, 92, 163 Zhou Gucheng, 78, 79, 95 Zhu Xi, 148 zijue (“nation-for-itself ”), 183 zizai (“nation-in-itself ”), 183 zongfa (kinship) system, 84 zunwang rangyi (sonno joi, “revere the emperor and oppose the foreigner”), 254 Zurcher, Erik, 28

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