Chinese Visions of Progress, 1895 to 1949 ed. by Axel Schneider and Thomas Fröhlich

Abstract

Reviewed by: Chinese Visions of Progress, 1895 to 1949 ed. by Axel Schneider and Thomas Fröhlich Viren Murthy (bio) Chinese Visions of Progress, 1895 to 1949. Edited by Axel Schneider and Thomas Fröhlich. Leiden: Brill, 2020. Pp. ix + 323. Hardback $177.00, ISBN 978-90-04-42653-5. The essays in this volume edited by Axel Schneider and Thomas Fröhlich deal with a crucial topic, namely discourses around the concept of progress in China. Although numerous authors, including Prasenjit Duara, Luke Kwong and others,1 have dealt with this issue, this volume goes further by examining the details of the interpretation of ideas of progress and showing that the incorporation of linear time in China was far from linear. The book is divided into an Introduction, three parts, and nine chapters. The first part, "Initial Conceptual Encounters," consists of two chapters, Kai Vogelsang's "The Chinese Concept of Progress" and Takahiro Nakajima's "The Progress of Civilization and Confucianism in Modern East Asia: Fukuzawa Yukichi and Different Forms of Enlightenment." Part Two, "Tides of Optimism," consists of five chapters, Li Qiang's "The Idea of Progress in Modern China: The Case of Yan Fu," Thomas Fröhlich's "Prospect Optimism in Modern China: The Foundation of a Political Paradigm," Peter Zarrow's "An Anatomy of the Utopian Impulse in Modern Chinese Political Thought," Leigh Jenco's "The Optimism of Cultural Construction in the 1930s: Wholesale Westernization, Cultural Unit Theory, and Cultural Construction on a Chinese Base," and Rui Kunze's "Fantasizing Science: The Idea of Progress in Early Chinese Science Fiction." Part Three, "Margins of Skepticism," consists of two chapters: Axel Schneider's "Critiques of Progress: Reflections on Chinese Conservatism" and Susanne Weigelin-Schwiedrzik's "Playing the Same Old Tricks: Lu Xun's Reflections on Modernity in his Essay 'Modern History.'" Together the essays cover a wide range of topics and consequently, I will selectively deal with a few essays to bring out the philosophical contribution of the volume. From the perspective of comparative philosophy, one of the key points of interest will be the manner in which traditional Chinese philosophies continue to inform visions of time and progress during the modern period, after 1895. The editors' choice of 1895 is significant because it is the date of the Sino-Japanese War, after which Chinese began to translate Western texts related to linear history and evolution. Joseph Levenson famously contended that the modern period implied a radically new conception of history in which the [End Page 1] tradition merely became a symbol of national identity.2 Levenson's claim was later challenged by many, including Chang Hao and Thomas Metzger, who argued for the continuing relevance of tradition in ways that many overlooked.3 This book goes beyond this traditional response by showing how modern Chinese thinkers transcended any simple opposition between universality and particularity whether they affirmed or rejected the idea of progress. Moreover, the book takes readers beyond the opposition between China and the West. Fröhlich writes: Chinese calls for catching up with the industrialized countries in the West rarely comprised the idea of a complete Westernization of China. Most advocates of "catching up" expected that China would follow a special path to modernity as compared to Western countries. Such an outlook was by no means exclusively Chinese. Similar discussions about a special path (Sonderweg) of catching up with the West from the starting point of a "belated nation" had taken place in Germany, Russia and Japan since the mid-nineteenth century. (p. 21) The book places China within a larger global intellectual trajectory, where starting late could imply different historical trajectories. Some of these trajectories could point beyond modernity itself. In the Introduction, Fröhlich cites the Chinese anarchist Wu Zhihui 吳稚暉 to show belief in progress could be connected to a universal utopia. Wu writes: [W]hen the world of great uniformity is reached, all forms of labor shall have been replaced by machinery… When the time comes that each can take according to his need, every human being will have an exalted, pure, and exemplary character… This is not a utopian idealization. There is already some evidence of its realization in countries...