Daoism and Anarchism: Critique of State Autonomy in Ancient and Modern China by John A. Rapp (review)

As the second of two concluding chapters for this collection on Chinese architecture, this chapter reviews the contributions on modern China, as the preceding chapter did on ancient China). As the last chapter, it also provides an overall review. Observing the chapters on modern China, six themes are detected – knowledge, design, practice, space, technology, and theorization. Connecting to Part I on ancient China, the chapter discovers discontinuities as well as continuity in the role of state authority – an active agent, a producer of other agents, and a cultural force. The chapter ends with an observation regarding three emerging trends – long perspective, sociology with history, and theorization.

This chapter tells of the technological achievements in hydrologic and hydraulic survey in ancient and modern China. Firstly, water level survey appeared very early in ancient China, and by the Song Dynasty, it had reached a peak, with water gauges widely used. Besides water level survey, flow measurement and calculation were also attached importance to. In modern times, more advances were made in hydrologic survey. Secondly, in terms of hydraulic survey, leveling instruments and practice are elaborated on. In addition, this chapter also introduces measurement of distance, height, depth, and bearings. Thirdly, the chapter sums up the achievements in hydraulic surveying in both ancient and modern China.

Reviewed by: An Unfinished Republic: Leading by Word and Deed in Modern China by David Strand Robert J. Culp An Unfinished Republic: Leading by Word and Deed in Modern China BY David Strand. Berkeley: University of California Press, 2011. Pp. xiv + 387. $65.00. Few scholars' oeuvre has the high degree of coherence that David Strand's does. From Rickshaw Beijing, through his articles on the 1989 Tian'anmen protest movement,1 to the book reviewed here, Strand has explored dynamics of political action in twentieth-century China that continue to animate and inflect Chinese politics today. In particular, Strand has analyzed how Chinese political practice has been a medium of both authority and dissent, contributing to the formation of what could be called the "citizenship studies" subfield in the study of modern China.2 Further, he has tracked with great acuity the fluid interplay between culture and politics that modern China inherited from the late imperial past. Strand's latest book continues to explore these themes, with a particular focus on public speaking and its political implications. An Unfinished Republic analyzes the political dynamics of the first decade and a half of the Chinese Republic, reconstructing how they established many of the parameters of Chinese republicanism. Strand is most concerned with the growth of popular participation in politics during this period and how speech making became a key feature of Chinese public life. Even as highly anticipated new political institutions failed, Chinese republicanism flourished in the form of new modes of popular discourse and civic action. In Strand's words, "Within a few years the Republic became entrenched, not so much as a set of national political institutions, but as a political way of life in which citizens confronted leaders and each other face-to-face in a stance familiar to republics worldwide. Political equality as a value and an everyday practice stood in stark contrast to the inequality and hierarchy that long formed the spine of China's social and cultural order" (p. 1). [End Page 171] Strand portrays these emergent political dynamics through thematic chapters that focus, in turn, on the scope of political inclusion, through women's efforts to gain full citizenship in the new polity (Chapter 1), on the development of new modes of public discourse (Chapter 2), and on the dynamics of citizenship (Chapter 4). This thematically driven discussion is complemented by Chapters 3, 5, and 6, which focus on three individuals—Tang Qunying, Lu Zhengxiang, and Sun Yat-sen—who, Strand convincingly argues, shaped the development of Chinese republicanism through their words and actions. The thematic chapters chart in more systematic terms the parameters of popular participation and the emergent structure of direct address between political leaders and the people. The biographical chapters illustrate the terms under which particular Chinese political actors could enter public life by using new patterns of public discourse, and they evaluate the impact of those figures' speech and actions on the dynamics of Chinese politics. By focusing on political organizing and speech making in the first decade or so after the 1911 Revolution, Strand reveals the fluid and contingent nature of early Republican political action. Tang Qunying and other suffragettes were not immediately given speaking roles in the political system founded by the revolution they helped make. They first needed to take dramatic action—"slapping Song Jiaoren" (p. 13)—to claim any place in party politics and the polity. Lu Zhengxiang, as an elite diplomat with extensive experience in Europe, inherited key posts in Yuan Shikai's cabinets, but he badly flubbed a major speaking role before the Senate, in part because he misread the new political context and its requirements. In contrast, Sun Yat-sen, soon deprived by Yuan Shikai of a meaningful institutional base or audience as an official speaker during the early Republic, turned to address "the people" directly, whenever and wherever he could. In doing so, Sun fostered a form of Chinese populism on which Chiang Kai-shek and Mao Zedong, among others, would later build. By tracking the political action of these three figures and their contemporaries, Strand subtly illustrates how contingent acts of public address sedimented into a new culture of public...

Reviewed by: An Intellectual History of Modern China Mary G. Mazur (bio) Merle Goldman and Leo Ou-fan Lee, editors. An Intellectual History of Modern China. Cambridge, New York, Oakleigh (Australia), Madrid, and Cape Town: Cambridge University Press, 2002. vii, 607 pp. Hardcover $90.00, ISBN 0-521-80120-6. Paperback $30.00, ISBN 0-521-79710-1. The imposing title of this newly published collection of essays holds great promise—promise that leads the reader to expect an overview and penetrating analysis of the breadth of the fomenting intellectual discourse in modern China, China's most seminal and divisive period in many centuries—some would say ever. Since no comprehensive study has been undertaken to date on the intellectual history of China's modern era, such a work would make a great contribution. What does the reader find? A collection of nine essays on intellectual developments in modern China, seven taken from four volumes of the Cambridge History of China (hereafter CHOC) published from 1983 to 1991, with the addition of two new essays including the book's brief introduction. The seven republished essays are by five eminent establishment authors named on the front of the paperback: Merle Goldman, Leo Ou-fan Lee, Charlotte Furth, Benjamin I. Schwartz, and Stuart Schram, all major contributors to the CHOC on various aspects of intellectual history. This newly published book opens with a brief introduction, by editors Merle Goldman and Leo Ou-fan Lee. Another new piece, by Merle Goldman, closes the book, discussing "A New Relationship between the Intellectuals and the State in the Post-Mao Period" in the 1980s and early 1990s. The majority of the essays were based on research done some thirty years ago—a long time in a rapidly developing field—by people working with John King Fairbank at Harvard. It is all solid, influential work, but the stand-alone essays collected in this book, not integrated as a comprehensive analysis, are now, in 2003, of interest as historical pieces in themselves, representing the historiographical thinking of Euro American academic scholarship at a time when that scholarship focused its lens on the political aspect of events. The book's bibliography underscores the lack of utilization of recently available sources and secondary material. Editors Goldman and Lee have selected from among the essays dealing with intellectual history in the four CHOC volumes on modern China seven for republication in this book. In the paperback edition Cambridge University Press has made them available to readers at a reasonable purchase price, an admirable goal as they are important essays to which both area-specialist and nonspecialist readers will want to refer. However, the editors have chosen to present the volume as An Intellectual History of Modern China—not as the collection of selected essays on modern Chinese intellectual history that it is. The reader is left to deduce from the contents what this book's view of intellectual activity in the "modern" era is [End Page 165] and what the editors consider to be the geographical and time boundaries of modern China. The table of contents begins with the new Introduction by Merle Goldman and Leo Ou-fan Lee. Then it proceeds with: "Intellectual Change: From the Reform Movement to the May Fourth Movement, 1895-1920," by Charlotte Furth (from CHOC, vol. 12); "Themes in Intellectual History: May Fourth and After," by Benjamin Schwartz (vol. 12); "Literary Trends: The Quest for Modernity, 1895-1927," by Leo Ou-fan Lee (vol. 13); "Literary Trends: the Road to Revolution, 1927-1949," by Leo Ou-fan Lee (vol. 13); "Mao Tse-tung's Thought to 1949," by Stuart Schram (vol. 13); "The Party and the Intellectuals: Phase Two," by Merle Goldman (vol. 14); and "Mao Tse-tung's Thought from 1949-1976," by Stuart Schram (vol. 15). The final (and new) essay is "A New Relationship between the Intellectuals and the State in the Post-Mao Period," by Merle Goldman. Since all of the previously published chapters were reviewed by eminent reviewers after publication in their CHOC volumes, we will look separately only at the last essay and comment briefly on the Introduction. The final piece, by Merle Goldman, "A New Relationship between...

Reviewed by: Voting as a Rite: A History of Elections in Modern China by Joshua Hill John James Kennedy (bio) Joshua Hill. Voting as a Rite: A History of Elections in Modern China. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Asia Center, 2019. xi, 297 pp. Paperback $32.00, isbn 978-0-674-23722-3. I have been studying village elections in the People’s Republic of China (PRC) since 1995, and I have come across a variety of local election interpretations from “democratic voting” to “corrupt undemocratic process.” Evidence for both election types exist as well as a wide range of procedures in between. Indeed, some scholars have hailed grassroots elections as “village democracy” while others view these as hollow elections with little meaning or function. Regardless of how western scholars and journalists perceive grassroots or local People’s Congress elections, the intent of the election laws in the PRC is a key factor in how we interpret these election practices. Local and national elections in China are not new, and when examining election laws in the PRC, it is critical to place these elections in historical context. To this end, Joshua Hill provides a fascinating and sobering account of elections in China from the late Qing to the PRC in the 1990s. Several scholars have mentioned that despite the competitiveness and open nomination process we observed in PRC village elections, these elections were not intended to democratize China or villages. The central party-government intention was to have villagers select “good” local leaders as well as connect rural residents to the party-state. Although scholars suggest these elections were never intended to express the will of the people, few were able to place the current development of village elections in the political and historical context. Through careful archival examination of voting laws and procedures, manuals, handbooks, newspapers, and personal accounts, Hill offers an engaging intellectual history of elections in China. To my knowledge, this is the first full historical account detailing the introduction and development of elections in China from the 1890s to the 1990s. Hill skillfully uses the historical record to show that for over a century “Chinese political and intellectual elites have held a stable set of attitudes toward and expectations for elections” (p. 5). These attitudes emphasized state-building rather than the will of the people. Moreover, for the late Qing, the Republican, and PRC leadership, “elected bodies were intended to harmonize, regularize and strengthen the communications between the rulers and those they ruled” (p. 70). Thus, Hill provides an important theoretical contribution to the literature on elections in China. The earliest rational for elections was to select “virtuous” leaders especially after the end of the civil service exam system in 1905. The aim of the civil service exam was to appoint moral leaders well trained in the classics. The new selection procedures allowed a narrow voter registration pool to participate in competitive elections. For example, Tianjin held the first central government-sanctioned [End Page 180] local election in 1907, and less than 3 percent of the population voted in an indirect election. The following year, the central government enacted the first national election law. The intent as well as some of the procedures of the 1908 election law would have implications for the Qing, Republican, and PRC elections. The law limited voter registration and created a two-stage indirect election where voters (about 2 percent of the population) selected candidates for county representatives and then in the second stage these county selectors elected the provincial assembly members. The key point is that the imperial government was able to control the selection of candidates. Moreover, the 1908 election law as well as the proceeding election laws from the 1920s to the 1990s were top-down state-initiated regulations rather than a bottom-up or popular push for greater representation. Hill demonstrates how the press from the late Qing to the PRC played an important role in shaping public opinion on elections rather than reflecting it. Newspapers such as Shenbao and Shibao during the late Qing and Republican period frequently ran stories about the elections, candidates, and the process. The rich detail from these publications and individual accounts brings...

The ecological agriculture movement in modern China

Qiang Fang and Xiaobing Li, editors. Corruption and Anticorruption in Modern China. Lanham, MA: Rowman & Littlefield Publishing Groups, Inc., .  pp. Hardback $., ISBN ----. While students and observers of China may disagree on many things about China, one thing that they tend to agree on is the serious, and continuous, corruption throughout Chinese history, from imperial ages to the reform era. Accordingly, anticorruption is also an important, if not more important, theme that continues to be an issue in Chinese politics. Thus, corruption and anticorruption, both have constituted a lens through which we can understand modern China, including the ruling regimes in different periods, the political elites, the common people, and the underlying cultural identity of the nation. This book covers a topic that has long been of interest to me. Hence, it was a great pleasure to read this book, Corruption and Anticorruption in Modern China, edited by Qiang Fang and Xiaobing Li. Being a political scientist who studies corruption and anticorruption in contemporary China, I find the historians’ studies in this book fascinating. Under their pen, corruption and anticorruption in modern China become a grand picture dynamically unfolded in front of the readers, linking imperial dynasties (e.g., Han, Tang, Ming, and Qing), Republic China (e.g., Yuan Shikai, Chiang Kai-Shek’s GMD), and contemporary China (e.g., under Mao, Jiang, and Xi) in both a longitudinal and comparative way. Feeling the echo of history, and reconsidering the similarities and differences between the present and the past, one can more deeply reflect the logic of Chinese political institutions. As a famous quote from Kenneth Lieberthal’s book, Governing China, states, “But all long-term observers of this remarkable country (i.e., China) know that there are few places in the world for which the phrase ‘the more things change, the more they stay the same’ more aptly applies” (, p. xvii). It also comes as a surprise to see scholars in other disciplines share similar research interests in several specific topics that have been largely understudied, such as corruption fugitives (chapter  by Yue Li and Chen Liu), political satire (chapter  by Helen Xiaoyan Wu), and political rumors (chapter  by Stella Y. Xu). In these chapters, the historians’ documentation and interpretation of the issues, for example, why the problems occurred and their sociopolitical implications, and the authors’ scholarly utilization of the available materials, Review©  by University of Hawai‘i Press provide new analytical and methodological angles to think about in my own related research (e.g., Zhu ; Zhu, Lu, Shi ). Moreover, for the general readership who are interested in the general topic of China, or corruption and anticorruption in China in particular, this book has at least the following merits making it worth reading. First, this book provides an earnest and timely presentation of historical materials. All contributors skillfully dissect historical materials into analytical stories accessible to general readers. For example, chapter  by Qiang Fang sampled sixty-one primary corruption cases involving top Qing officials and classified the politics behind corruption reporting and tackling, which demonstrates the fundamental flaws of the imperial system. In chapter  written by Patrick Fuliang Shan, abundant information and analysis about Yuan Shikai’s management ideas and implementations are presented in detail, and readers can reconsider their constructed opinions on Yuan Shikai and the Beiyang period. In chapter  by Sherman Xiaogang Lai, historical details conveyed by Chiang Kai-Shek’s wartime diaries are excavated, illuminating how Chiang as the national leader perceived his own political party and the critical historical moments at that time. In contrast, other chapters remind readers of the near past. For instance, chapter  by Dongyu Yang, reviewed the corruption and anticorruption in Jiang’s era by studying a case of anticorruption in Shaanxi Province to exemplify the practices at that time. This is also the age when the market economy and the socialist political system were dramatically adapted together, economic opportunities and political resources met, and thus cultivated the hotbed of corruption. The anticorruption practices in Jiang’s era also inspire readers to compare these with the recent anticorruption initiatives under Xi. Chapter  by Xiansheng Tian, documented the recent breaking news about the Bo and Wang event...

Multiple religious belonging refers to the idea that individuals can belong to more than one religious tradition. This article aims to explore the concept of multiple religious belonging in modern China, focusing on its pattern as well as the social functionality that gives rise to such a pattern. The methodology is developed using structural functionalism as formulated by, in particular, Emile Durkheim, who investigated how different institutions, practices, and customs come to exist because of their contribution to the reproduction and integration of society. This article studies the social functions of multiple religious belonging in three social units, from small to large: family, community, and the state. It explains how multiple religious belonging functions in modern China and thus consolidates each member’s identity within the social units.

Scholarly interest in print culture and in the study of religion in modern China has increased in recent years, propelled by maturing approaches to the study of cultural history and by a growing recognition that both were important elements of China's recent past. The influence of China in the contemporary world continues to expand, and with it has come an urgent need to understand the processes by which its modern history was made. Issues of religious freedom and of religion's influence on the public sphere continue to be contentious but important subjects of scholarly work, and the role of print and textual media has not dimmed with the advent of electronic communication. This book, Religious Publishing and Print Culture in Modern China1800-2012 , speaks to these contemporary and historical issues by bringing to light the important and abiding connections between religious development and modern print culture in China. Bringing together these two subjects has a great deal of potential for producing insights that will appeal to scholars working in a range of fields, from media studies to social historians. Each chapter demonstrates how focusing on the role of publishing among religious groups in modern China generates new insights and raises new questions. They examine how religious actors understood the role of printed texts in religion, dealt with issues of translation and exegesis, produced print media that heralded social and ideological changes, and expressed new self-understandings in their published works. They also address the impact of new technologies, such as mechanized movable type and lithographic presses, in the production and meaning of religious texts. Finally, the chapters identify where religious print culture crossed confessional lines, connecting religious traditions through links of shared textual genres, commercial publishing companies, and the contributions of individual editors and authors. This book thus demonstrates how, in embracing modern print media and building upon their longstanding traditional print cultures, Christian, Buddhist, Daoist, and popular religious groups were developed and defined in modern China. While the chapter authors are specialists in religious traditions, they have made use of recent studies into publishing and print culture, and like many of the subjects of their research, are able to make connections across religious boundaries and link together seemingly discrete traditions.

Liberalism, Disfigured

The entrance of “nature” from English to Chinese and the transformation of the word ziran in Chinese had been intertwined together. In the formal process, “nature” was not translated as ziran at first while in the latter process, the western concept and Chinese ideas of nature combined together with multiple, comprehensive meanings in the history of modern China. This means the second process consists some major transformations of ziran as a key concept in modern China. Firstly, it has been a process of materialization for the traditional concept of ziran from ancient China. Secondly, traditional ideas of nature like tian, tianran, ziran, got revived during their association and collaborations with western understandings of nature as a concept of naturalist philosophy. Thirdly, it was also in this process where a humanistic and existential definition of ziran began to emerge, not only as a response to the materialized understanding of ziran, but also created the confrontation between a material occidental civilization and a spiritual oriental civilization. This dualist view not only ignored other thought like Romantism, Humanism and ideas which go against materialism or scientism, but also overlooked materialism and scientism itself in the history of Modern China.

In modern China, there has been a notable shift in the usage of 'X dog', disparaging words involving the word "dog" with a noun, resulting in a progressive diminution of its negative impact. Using Lynne Tirrell's theory of derogatory terms, this paper employs a combination of literature review and corpus analysis to explore the ways in which the essentialism condition has contributed to the historical prevalence of 'X dog' as a widely used derogatory term in ancient China, and how its shifting perception has impacted its usage in the modern era. This study gives vital insights into the intricacies of linguistic and social practices in Chinese society by exposing the deep relationships between disparaging terminology and the essentialism condition. In addition, the paper discusses potential disagreements and differing perspectives regarding the usage of pejorative terminology, providing nuanced explanations and perspectives on this contentious matter. Overall, this research presents a nuanced examination of the manner in which 'X dog' and other pejorative labels are created by historical, cultural, and linguistic factors, and highlights the need for more investigation into the intricate dynamics of language use in modern China.

The following essay attempts to compare and collate Ezra Pound's poetico-political 'mission' of redeeming the West through his interpretations, translations and commentaries of the Confucian system of thinking with the ongoing revival of Confucius in China. Did Pound's poetico-political visions of a Confucian framework for the Western world consider whether or not Confucianism had ever taken root in Ancient China much less in modern China ? Is present day China's return to the Old Master a re-idolisation of him or a promotional stimulus to her globalising crusade ? Or can this return be interpreted as the spiritual and cultural asset to sustain and nurture her global élan ? Where does the 'real' Figure of Confucius lie between Pound's poetico-political 'mission' and China's own mission to influence the world ? Indeed, my readings of Pound's meditations on Confucian thinking, and their poetic and political implications in today's ever-expanding Chinese economy, may explain, relatively speaking, the Chinese Communist Party's need to accompany its economic and technological discourses, challenges and drives by a Mentor whose towering momentiousness, however 'ancient' or 'antiquated', confers to these discourses, challenges and drives, a powerful civilising Figure, whose rectitude, probity and virtue quell or mitigate any untoward consequence of these economic and technological adventures, purvey them a sound and stable humanised or enlightened resource. Keywords : Confucius-Ezra Pound-Cantos-globalization-mission-Order-Beauty-Harmony-Analects DOI: 10.7176/JAAS/79-04 Publication date: April 30 th 2022

This chapter discusses the historical development of comparative law in modern China, from the late Qing dynasty to the present day. It first traces the origins of China’s reception of foreign law in the late Qing period, citing the Opium War as a watershed moment in the development of Chinese law and the elites’ efforts to transplant Western law. It then considers how ‘comparative law’ as a formal academic discipline took shape during the Republican era. It also examines the emergence of a completely different paradigm for legal reform under the People’s Republic of China (1949–78), with Soviet law replacing Western European and American law as the primary source of foreign influence. Finally, it describes the new era of political and legal reform that came after the death of Mao Zedong in 1976, focusing on Chinese politics in relation to Confucian pragmatism, nationalism, communism, and Western liberalism.

Since the early 1980s, China's rapid economic growth and social transformation have greatly altered the role of popular religion in the country. This book makes a new contribution to the research on the phenomenon by examining the role which popular religion has played in modern Chinese politics. Popular Religion in Modern China uses Nuo as an example of how a popular religion has been directly incorporated into the Chinese Community Party's (CCP) policies and how the religion functions as a tool to maintain socio-political stability, safeguard national unification and raise the country's cultural 'soft power' in the eyes of the world. It provides rich new material on the interplay between contemporary Chinese politics, popular religion and economic development in a rapidly changing society. Contents Problem and method; Shenxi and Tujia society; Tujia cosmology; Nuo; Nuo as a cultural marker of the Tujia; Nuo and state ideology; Nuo, intangible cultural heritage and the commercialisation of culture; Conclusion; Glossary; Bibliography; Index.