Chinese Asianism, 1894-1945 by Craig A. Smith

Abstract

Craig A. Smith. Chinese Asianism, –. Cambridge, MA, and London: Harvard University Asia Center, . xiv,  pp. Hardcover $., ISBN . For understandable reasons, existing scholarship on Asianism heavily focuses on Japanese (pan-)Asianism in the context of Japanese imperialism, even though recent studies have proposed complicated frameworks that highlight various forms of Japanese Asianism in different historical periods that could serve as either an anti-hegemonic discourse or an instrument of Japanese imperialism. The biggest contribution of Dr. Smith’s new book, Chinese Asianism, –, is treating Asianism as a product of the dialogue between Chinese and Japanese intellectuals against the backdrop of the global trend of internationalism and pan movements. The book is organized both chronologically and thematically. It traces how Asianism was developed and perceived by Chinese intellectuals in China and Japan in the last decade of the nineteenth century and the first half of the twentieth century. The journey of Chinese Asianism is presented as moving from Confucian Asianism, to racial Asianism, to civilizational Asianism, to socialist utopian Asianism, to Asianism as a means to save weak and small nations, to political Asianism led by China, and eventually to political Asianism led by Japan. For Smith, these categories of Asianism are neither strictly temporally defined nor mutually exclusive. But such categorization does enable the author to clearly display how Asianism intersected with dominant paradigms and concepts in turbulent times. Chapter , “Lips and Teeth,” studies the real interest among Chinese and Japanese intellectuals in Sino-Japanese alliance, or even unity, around the time of the  Hundred Day Reform. Through detailed analysis of various leading voices and influential translations, Smith shows how some of the key concepts of Asianism were established during this period—shared script and cultural history by China and Japan, the same “yellow” race of the Chinese and the Japanese, their common fear of Western aggressiveness, and the use of Western frameworks of political thought to imagine a truly Eastern society. Smith also refutes the “Golden Decade” paradigm prominent in current research of Sino-Japanese intellectual exchange between  and , disclosing the distain of Chinese intellectuals that existed beneath the surface of enthusiasm. Reviews©  by University of Hawai‘i Press Chapter , “Jaws and Jowls,” focuses on the Datong school in Japan, which was a network of educational institutions operating in Japan’s China towns. The Datong school was associated with some prominent Chinese public figures of the time, such as Kang Youwei, Liang Qichao, and Sun Yat-sen. Discarding the intellectual discourse proposing that Japan leave Asia, Chinese intellectuals in Japan imagined a future that was both Asian and modern. And they espoused a version of Confucian Asianism that accepted the central claim of social Darwinism and the belief that a muscular progressive Confucianism could meet the challenge posted by white imperialism to both China and Japan. Chapter , “Same Script, Same Race,” examines the discourse of racial solidarity in Chinese writings in the first decade of the twentieth century. The author shows that race was a fluid concept, which was easily and purposefully molded to meet the political need of the speaker. On the one hand, the idea of a race war—an ultimate war between the while and yellow races—was widely accepted by Chinese intellectuals, which was used to call for Asian unity in face of Western oppression. On the other hand, anti-Manchu revolutionaries, such as Zou Rong, Liu Shipei, and Chen Tianhua, adopted a pseudoscientific explanation of race to distinguish the Han, who were believed to belong to the same subracial group as the Japanese and Koreans, from the Manchus, who were assigned to the “Siberian” subracial group like the Turks and Mongols. This complex application of the concept of race exemplifies the imbrication of nationalism and Asianism in the context of racialization of both. Chapter , “Asia for the Asians,” looks at how the catastrophes of World War I prompted the development of a new paradigm in multiple civilizations to categorize East and West. After Japan’s victory over Russia in  and its annexation of Korea in , Chinese intellectuals were increasingly alerted by Japan’s rising as a full colonial power. At the same time, Japan remained the source of knowledge throughout...