Nationalism/Racism in the East Asia

China: Late Qing/Early revolutionary movement – racialized discourse strongly influenced by the Social Darwinism and racism of Europe. Liang Qichao (b. Feb. 23, 1873, Hsinhui, Kwangtung province, China - d. Jan. 19, 1929, Peking) – “superior” and “inferior” races. Idea of China as “Yellow” “race” (also linked to the ancient descent myth of the Yellow Emperor), and strong believe in the superiority of the “White” and “Yellow” “race”, and inferiority of the “reds and blacks”.

Liang Qichao at the time of his visit to Australia in 1900-1901.

• Liang Qichao’s thought in earlier period (the end of the 1890s):

1. Strong emphasis on the statehood, “statism”: ““The world of today is not the world of yesterday. All that our ancestors passed down qualified us to be individuals on our own…, but did not qualify us to be citizens of a state”

2. Overwhelming sense of crisis and urgency – “Our country is about to perish”, “In today’s world, the strong flourish, and the weak are destroyed”

3. Collectivistic Social Darwinism: “only those able to cohere themselves in groups, can survive; individualism leads to defeat”. Only strong states can ensure the survival of nations – thus, absolute emphasis on “state rights”. Generally, for Liang the “rights” (quanli) meant “self-assertion of one’s worth”, both individual and – predominantly – on the group level – what makes human a human. But, by implication, the group unable to assert its “right” was treated by him as “sub-human” – as “losers” doomed to slavery and ruin in the world of Social Darwinist “struggle for survival”. He writes on the fate of the “right-less”:

“In general, that when people are born they are possessed of quanli consciousness is due to innate good knowing and good ability. And why is it that there are great inequalities--some are strong while others are weak, some lie low while others are destroyed? It always follows the history of a nation and the gradual influence of government [in making the nation inferior]. Mencius said it before I: "It is not that there were never sprouts [on the mountainside], but cattle and sheep continuously graze there, so that it becomes barren." If one observes the histories of nations that have been destroyed--whether East or West, ancient or contemporary--one sees that in the beginning, there have always been a few resisting tyrannical rule and seeking quanli. Again and again the government seeks to weed out [those resisting its tyrannical rule], and gradually those resisting get weaker, more despondent, have [their resolve] melt away, until eventually that violent, intoxicating quanli consciousness comes increasingly under control, is ever more diluted and thin, to the point that any possibility of a return to its former strength is forgotten and it is permanently under control. A few decades or centuries of this situation continuing, and quanli consciousness will have completely disappeared” Thus, “tyranny makes people slaves” and subservient objects for conquest – and that was exactly the absence of modern constitutional state that made China so weak. Thus, to make country strong, a Westernized state respectful of citizens’ “quanli”, is needed.

4. China-centred racist “optimism”: “China is no India or Turkey!” China – can survive and humiliate the Whites, but “all black, red, and brown people are in the micro-organisms of their blood and slope of their brain quite inferior to white men. Only the yellows and the whites are not far removed from one another. Hence anything whites can do, yellows can do also”. Chinese – “descendants of the gods”. F.Dikotter: “Liang Qichao rearticulated traditional social hierarchies into a new racial taxonomy of 'noble' (guizhong) and 'low' (jianzhong), 'superior' (youzhong) and 'inferior' (liezhong), 'historical' and 'ahistorical races' (youlishi de zhongzu)”.

5. Universalism – all nations develop along the same road, from tribal organization towards strong and wealthy democratic state. China – somewhere in the middle, the “reds and blacks” are much inferior to it. Way “upwards” for China – through modern European education.

In a word, European evolutionism, racism, and nationalism were appropriated and fitted to Chinese circumstances.

Liang’ visit to the USA in 1903 (while in exile in Japan, through Canada), travel memoirs: Xin dalu youji jielu (“Selected Memoir of Travels in the New World”): Chinese are seen as too “immature” – cliquish, clinging to their clan and provincial loyalties, uninterested in citizenship and statehood: “the Chinese have a village mentality, not a national mentality. . . . Developed to excess, it is a major obstacle to nation building… Chinese have only the character of clansmen, not the character of citizens… When I look at all the societies in the world, none is so chaotic as the Chinese community in San Francisco. Why? The answer is freedom. The character of the Chinese in China is not superior to those in San Francisco, but at home they are governed by officials and restrained by fathers and elder brothers . . . in England, Holland and France [the Chinese] are ruled very harshly and assemblies of more than ten people are broken up, thus losing all freedom. This is even more severe than within China, so they are very passive. It is those who live in America and Australia who enjoy the same degree of freedom under the law as the Westerners. In towns where there are few Chinese, they are not able to gather together and their shortcomings are not so apparent. But where a great many of us live in a city that is free, and San Francisco tops that list, you know what the [chaotic] situation is like” – so, Chinese are “unprepared” to freedom/modern statehood”. This view – based on European “Orientalism” and disregards the realities – Chinese were deprived of citizenship rights in the USA until 1943.

Chinese in California.

At the same time, Liang found some solace in the fact that there were some “others” even “worse” than Chinese: “The Chinese are not the dirtiest – Italians and Jews look more shabby and wretched”. He also was – just as many “ordinary” racist Americans – very “concerned” about the “mongrelization of America” due to the influx of “Latin race”: “In 1800, there were only 5,350,000 people in the United States. In 1900, the population had jumped to 76,350,000; an increase of fifteen-fold in a hundred years. How has this been so? It is solely due to the good graces [of America] in accepting immigrants. In the past, the United States welcomed immigrants into the country, without concern [for their character]. Up to now, this tendency has been the rule. I fear that after a few decades America will no longer be a land of Teutons, but will become a country of Latins and those of other origins. This did not come about solely because of the sudden entry of immigrants, but also stems from the fact that older immigrants [Teutons] marry late and produce fewer children whereas the newcomers tend to marry early and produce more children. If this continues unabated, I am afraid that in less than a hundred years the offspring of the noble people who fought for the independence of this country will be cast aside and come to their end in obscurity. Of my concerns for America, there is none greater of” But even he is outraged with the depth of America’s pervading racism: “The Declaration of Independence says that the people are all born free and equal. Are blacks alone not people?”. He is also worried by the increasing imperialist tendency in the American politics after the victory over Spain and the acquisition of the Philippines: “While in Canada, Liang had the opportunity to read translations of excerpts of Roosevelt's West Coast speeches in the local Chinese newspapers. At one point, Roosevelt had apparently told a crowd in San Francisco, "[B]efore I came to the Pacific slope, I was an expansionist, and after having been here I fail to understand how any man . . . can be anything but an expansionist." Liang was struck by Roosevelt's direct approach to American might, remarking that the president's attitude "should cause my countrymen to awaken and take heed." Liang's new knowledge of American technology and the United States' expansionist spirit signified his growing understanding of world power relations and China's subordinate position therein.” (LIANG QICHAO AND THE CHINESE OF AMERICA: A RE-EVALUATION OF HIS SELECTED MEMOIR OF TRAVELS IN THE NEW WORLD ,  By: Wong, K. Scott, Journal of American Ethnic History, 02785927, Summer92, Vol. 11, Issue 4). Democracy – unsuitable for “undercivilized” Chinese today in the world of imperialistic predators who are increasingly threaten Pacific area – they should be first “ruled by iron and fire for 20-50 years”, and then “given Rousseau to read”. Ideology of “enlightened tutelage” for the sake of “civilization” – then used by Communists as well. “Orientalist” view of Chinese as only “clansmen” not able to become as “modern citizens” as “Europeans” – also can be found in some of Sun Yatsen’s works: “The Chinese people have only family and clan groups; there is no national spirit. Consequently, in spite of four hundred million people gathered together in one China, we are in fact a sheet of loose sand”

Chinese working on Californian plantations. The plantation owners hoped to replace the freed blacks with the Chinese as cheep labour force, but the Chinese began to ascertain their rights from the 1860s by strikes and court proceedings.

“Chinese” are, for the anti-Qing revolutionaries, a different “race” from the “Manchurians” – thus great “racial” hatred of the “Tartar scums”. Typical: Zou Rong (鄒勇) and his anti-Manchu racist Social-Darwinist treatise, stressing the “competition for survival” and “extermination of the enemy race”, along with the “struggle against the white race for leadership” and some incipient (USA-inspired) democratic principles : Zou Rong , The Revolutionary Army. Born in Sichuan province in West China in 1885 to a merchant family, Zou received a classical education but refused to sit for the civil service exams, preferring instead to work as a seal carver while pursuing his idiosyncratic classical studies. He gradually became interested in Western ideas, and went to Japan to study in 1901, where he was exposed to radical revolutionary and anti-Manchu ideas. This tract, published in Shanghai in 1903, is his most important work and one of the most important radial tracts published in China before the 1911 Revolution. Zou was arrested for publishing the tract, and died in prison in 1905.

“1.Introduction
Sweep away millennia of despotism in all its forms, throw off millennia of slavishness, annihilate the five million and more of the furry and horned Manchu race, cleanse ourselves of 260 years of harsh and unremitting pain, so that the soil of the Chinese subcontinent is made immaculate, and the descendants of the Yellow Emperor will all become Washingtons. Then they will return from the dead to life again, they will emerge from the Eighteen Levels of Hell and rise to the Thirty Three mansions of Heaven, in all their magnificence and richness to arrive at their zenith, the unique and incomparable of goals - revolution. How sublime is revolution, how majestic!

I follow thereupon the line of the Great Wall, scale the Kunlun Mountains, travel the length of the Yangzi, follow to its source the Yellow River. I plant the standard of independence, ring the bell of freedom. My voice re-echos from heaven to earth, I crack my temples and split my throat in crying out to my fellow-countrymen: revolution is inevitable for China today. It is inevitable if the Manchu yoke is to be thrown off; it is inevitable if China is to be independent; it is inevitable is to take its place as a powerful nation on the globe; it is inevitable if China is to survive for long in the new world of the 20th century; it is inevitable if China is to be a great country in the world and play the leading role. Stand up for Revolution! Fellow-countrymen, are there any of you whether old or in middle years, in your prime of life or young, be it man or woman, who is talking of revolution or working actively for revolution? Fellow countrymen, assist each other and live for each other in revolution. I here cry at the top of my voice to spread the principles of revolution throughout the land.
Revolution is the universal principle of evolution. Revolution is the essence of the struggle for survival of destruction in a time of transition. Revolution submits to heaven and responds to men's needs. Revolution rejects what is corrupt and keeps the good. Revolution is the advance from barbarism to civilization. Revolution turns slaves into masters

4. For revolution, race must be clearly distinguished

The yellow and white races which are to be found on the globe have been endowed by nature with intelligence and fighting capacity. They are fundamentally incapable of giving way to each other. Hence, glowering and poised for a fight, they have engaged in battle in the world of evolution, the great arena where strength and intelligence have clashed since earliest times, the great theater where for so long natural selection and progress have been played out.
When men love their race, solidarity will arise internally, and what is outside will be repelled. Hence, to begin with, clans were united and other clans repelled; next tribes were united and other tribes repelled, finally the people of a country became united and people of other countries were repelled. This is the general principle of the races of the world, and also a major reason why races engender history. I will demonstrate to my countrymen, to allow them to form their own impression, how our yellow race, the yellow race of which the Han race is a part (and I refer you to the history of China) is able to unite itself and repel intruders.

6. The purport of Revolutionary Independence

(…)
I do not begrudge repeating over and over again that internally we are slaves of the Manchus and suffering from their tyranny, externally we are being harassed by the Powers, and we are doubly enslaved. The reason why our sacred Han race, descendants of the Yellow emperor, should support revolutionary independence, arises precisely from the question of whether our race will go under and be exterminated.

With the rapid advances in science, the superstitious doctrine whereby a man becomes an emperor through the gift of heaven and the spirits can be destroyed. With the rapid advance in world civilization, the system whereby the rule of a single man in a despotic form of government can cover the whole country may be overthrown. With the rapid advances in wisdom, everybody will be able to enjoy his or her natural rights. If today our great Han people are to throw off the bonds of the Manchus, to retrieve all the rights we have lost, and is to take its place among world powers (for we wish to preserve in its entirety our natural equality of status and independence), we cannot avoid carrying out a revolution and safeguarding our right to independence. Alas, I am young, ignorant, and brutish, not equal to speaking for the fundamental principles of revolutionary independence. Wary and fearful, I have carefully modeled (my proposals) on the principles of American revolutionary independence. I have summarized them under a number of headings, and with the utmost deference I offer to my most revered and beloved 400 million countrymen of the great Han people to prepare them for the path they are to follow.
-China is the China of the Chinese. Coountrymen, you must all recognize the China of the Chinese of the Han race.

-Not to allow any alien race to lay their hands on the least rights of our China

-To expel the Manchus settled in China or kill them in order to revenge ourselves

-In each area and province a deputy to a general assemble is to be elected by vote in public elections. From these deputies, one is to be elected by vote to serve as provisional president to represent the whole country A vice-president is also to be elected, and all chou and hsien are to elect a number of deputies.

-The whole population, whether male or female, are citizens.

-All men have the duty to serve as citizen soldiers

-Everybody in the country, whether male or female, is equal. There is no distinction between upper and lower, base and noble.

-A free and independent state has full rights and equality with other great states in the matter of war and peace, treaties and trade, and all other matters pertaining to an independent state.
-The law of the constitution shall be modeled on the American constitutional law, having regard for Chinese conditions.

-The law of self-government shall be modeled on the American law of self-government.
-Likewise in all matters of a national chharacter, negotiations, the establishment of official departments and the determination of the official duties in the state American practice will remain a criterion.”

Other important anti-Manchu racist and Social-Darwinist theoretician – Zhang Binglin (章炳麟; 1868-1936), first stressed the ”yellow-white survival struggle”, and then shifted to the ”struggle against the inferior Manchu race with alien surnames”, using traditional ancestral worship as a tool for nationalist indoctrination. Dispute with Kang Youwei, who was willing to accept Manchus as Confucians (traditional culturalism). Still, he was against the total slaughter of the Manchus (which many revolutionaries approved of) and had some personal friends among better-educated Manchus.

Republican Period: growth of the print capitalism, and shift of the cultural discourse from the cosmology and ethics to medicine/biology: F.Dikotter: “Chen Yucang (1889-1947), director of the Medical College of Tongji University and a secretary to the Legislative Yuan, boldly postulated that cranial weight was the only indicator of the degree of civilisation: 'If we compare the cranial weights of different people, the civilised are somewhat heavier than the savages, and the Chinese brain is slightly heavier than the European brain.' Liang Boqiang, in an oft-quoted study on the 'Chinese race' published in 1926, took the blood's 'index of agglutination' as an indicator of purity, while the absence of body hair came to symbolise a biological boundary of the 'Chinese race' for a popular writer like Lin Yutang (1895-1976), who even proclaimed that 'On good authority from medical doctors, and from references in writing, one knows that a perfectly bare mons veneris is not uncommon in Chinese women.' Archaeologists, too, sought evidence of human beginnings in China. Like many of his contemporaries, Lin Yan cited the discovery of Peking Man at Zhoukoudian as evidence that the 'Chinese race' had existed on the soil of the Middle Kingdom since the earliest stage of civilisation. Excavations supported his hypotheses by demonstrating that migrations had taken place only within the empire. It was concluded that China was inhabited by 'the earth's most ancient original inhabitants'.

If 'Chineseness' was thought to be rooted in every part of the body, cultural differences between groups of people were also claimed to be solidly grounded in nature, in particular in the case of Africans. The Great Dictionary of Zoology (1923), the first reference work of its kind, contended that the 'black race' had 'a rather fonts head, many protruding teeth and a quite low forehead, so that their face is inclined towards the back. This type of people have a shameful and inferior way of thinking, and have no capacity to shine in history.' In a popular introduction to the 'human races of the world', professor Gu Shoubai wrote that black people could be recognised by their smell. They had a 'protruding jaw, very thick lips, a narrow forehead' and emitted an offensive stench. Professor Gong Tingzhang claimed that even the slightest physical contact with a black person was enough for the olfactory organs to be repelled by an 'amazing stench'. The presumed inferiority of African people was made to appear permanent and immutable through a discourse of race which firmly located social differences inside the body: the use of the term 'black slave race', common in China until the 1920s, most clearly expressed the conflation of social and racial differences. Chen Jianshan, the popular evolutionist, classified the 'black slave' with the chimpanzees, gorillas and Australians as a branch of the propithecantropus. A popular zoology textbook first published in 1916 included a paragraph on the differences between man and ape. The 'inferior races' (liedeng zhongzu) had a facial index similar to that of the orang-utan. The 'black slave' was classified in the gorilla branch, and Malays were represented as descendants of the orang-utan.”

“Chinese-ness” now is thought to be something corporeal, steeped in the cranial capacity and blood qualities. Superiority even to the “whites” is claimed, not even to speak about the “blacks” (“recognizable by the smell”, “no capacity to shine in history”) and “southerners” (“Malays” – “the descendants of orang-utan”). Wen Yiduo (聞一多; 1899-1946): the poem ”I am Chinese”: ”I am the divine blood of the Yellow Emperor! I came from the highest place in the world (…) From us have flowed exquisite customs. Mighty nation! Mighty nation!”. Popularity of the eugenics: “the choice of the unfit partner harms the future of our race”. F.Dikotter: “Eugenic ideas, indeed, were also dominant among modernising elites in Republican China. Heredity, descent, sexual hygiene and race became the core themes of medical and eugenic discourses, which thrived on folk ideas of patrilineal descent. In their racialisation of the nation, the discourse of eugenics most clearly endowed the state with a responsibility in the production of a healthy population. Although eugenics in China never achieved legislative expression, in contrast to other countries like the USA and Germany, ideas of race improvement were eagerly appropriated and spread by the new medical professions. As a Textbook of civic biology (1924) for middle schools put it, 'the choice of a partner who is unfit harms society and the future of the race. To establish a strong country, it is necessary to have strong citizens. To have strong and healthy citizens, one cannot but implement eugenics. Eugenics eliminate inferior elements and foster people who are strong and healthy in body and mind.' Proponents of eugenics claimed that breeding principles such as assortative mating and artificial selection could prevent further degeneration. Although modernising elites were instrumental in putting forward eugenic views, theories of race improvement circulated among a much wider audience in China. Cheap textbooks on heredity

and genetics explained to the public the dangers of racial degeneration. Primers, self-study manuals, pamphlets and 'ABC' introductions to mainline eugenics were published throughout the 1920s. Hereditary principles, granting sex a biological responsibility for future generations, were thought to highlight further the need for social discipline. Mendelian laws were circulated by popular journalists and commercial writers to underline how genetic factors determined the endowment of an individual. Student magazines urged university students to undertake eugenic research for the sake of advancing the 'race', the state, and the individual. In the 1930s, eugenic arguments became increasingly common in medical circles, 'degeneration' and 'racial hygiene' being the catchwords of the day. Official marriage guides encouraged 'superior' people to marry for the regeneration of the 'race', since 'inferior' and 'weak' characteristics were transmitted through sexual congress; a popular guide for women published by the Commercial Press described hereditary diseases as the 'germs' which threatened the nation with degeneration and final extinction (zhongzu zimie). Professor Yi Jiayue, a highly respected member of the academic community, made the forceful statement that 'if we want to strengthen the race, there is no time to waste. We should first implement a eugenic program. Strictly speaking, we should not just forbid the sexually diseased, the morons and the insane to marry. For those who abuse the sexual instinct and create a menace to future generations, there can be only one appropriate law of restraint: castration!'”

Sun Yat-sen (1844-1925), and his Fundamentals of National Reconstruction (1923):

“Principle of Nationalism:

Revelations of Chinese history prove that the Chinese as a people are independent in spirit and in conduct. Coerced into touch with other people, they could at times live in peace with them by maintaining friendly relations and at others assimilate them as the result of propinquity. During the periods when their political and military prowess declined, they could not escape for the time from the fate of' a conquered nation, but they could eventually vigorously reassert themselves. Thus the Mongol rule of China (1260-1333 CE), lasting nearly a hundred years was finally overthrown by Tai Tse of the Ming dynasty and his loyal follower. So in our own time was the Manchu yoke thrown off by the Chinese. Nationalistic ideas in China did not come from a foreign source; they were inherited from our remote forefathers. Upon this legacy is based my principle of nationalism, and where necessary, I have developed it and amplified and improved upon it. No vengeance has been inflicted on the Manchus and we have endeavored to live side by side with them on an equal footing. This is our nationalistic policy toward races within our national boundaries. Externally, we should strive to maintain independence in the family of nations, and to spread our indigenous civilization as well as to enrich it by absorbing what is best in world civilization, with the hope that we may forge ahead with other nations towards the goal of ideal brotherhood.”

Mao Tse-Tung, “On New Democracy” (1940):

“XV. A NATIONAL, SCIENTIFIC AND MASS CULTURE

New-democratic culture is national. It opposes imperialist oppression and upholds the dignity and independence of the Chinese nation. It belongs to our own nation and bears our own national characteristics. It links up with the socialist and new-democratic cultures of all other nations and they are related in such a way that they can absorb something from each other and help each other to develop, together forming a new world culture; but as a revolutionary national culture it can never link up with any reactionary imperialist culture of whatever nation. To nourish her own culture China needs to assimilate a good deal of foreign progressive culture, not enough of which was done in the past. We should assimilate whatever is useful to us today not only from the present-day socialist and new-democratic cultures but also from the earlier cultures of other nations, for example, from the culture of the various capitalist countries in the Age of Enlightenment. However, we should not gulp any of this foreign material down uncritically, but must treat it as we do our food -- first chewing it, then submitting it to the working of the stomach and intestines with their juices and secretions, and separating it into nutriment to be absorbed and waste matter to be discarded -- before it can nourish us. To advocate "wholesale westernization" is wrong. China has suffered a great deal from the mechanical absorption of foreign material. Similarly, in applying Marxism to China, Chinese communists must fully and properly integrate the universal truth of Marxism with the concrete practice of the Chinese revolution, or in other words, the universal truth of Marxism must be combined with specific national characteristics and acquire a definite national form if it is to be useful, and in no circumstances can it be applied subjectively as a mere formula. Marxists who make a fetish of formulas are simply playing the fool with Marxism and the Chinese revolution, and there is no room for them in the ranks of the Chinese revolution. Chinese culture should have its own form, its own national form. National in form and new-democratic in content -- such is our new culture today.”

East Asian connection of Chinese racism/nationalism: Liang Qichao was strongly influenced by Kato Hiroyuki (1836-1916)’s manner of employing Social Darwinism to promote “statist” ideology in Japanese society. In its turn, Liang deeply influenced Korean nationalists of the 1900s, his collected works being used as a textbook in “progressive” schools and translated into Korean. Racial taxonomy – became a common discursive field for the modernizing elites of the whole region.