On modern Chinese nationalism and its conceptualization

Abstract

Modern Chinese nationalism arose in the early twentieth century, and its intellectual sources included traditional Chinese nationalism and modern Western nationalism. Since its emergence in the early twentieth century, modern Chinese nationalism underwent three stages: formation, evolvement and climax. The relevant theory of modern Chinese nationalism underwent a similar process of construction. During the period of the late Qing and early Republic, the nationalist theory revolved around the issue of building what kind of nation–state: the revolutionaries represented by Sun Yat-sen advocated “excluding Manchu” and establishing a single-nation state of the Han; while the Constitutionalists represented by Liang Qichao called for “incorporating Manchu” and building a multi-nation state. After a series of heated debates, the two parties reached a consensus about establishing an independent, democratic and unified multinational country. During the May Fourth period, the theorization of nationalism focused on national self-determination and the interconnection between anti-feudalism and anti-imperialism, and between nationalism and cosmopolitanism, under the influence of the national independence movement after WWI and Lenin's theory of national self-determination. Early Chinese Marxists such as Li Dazhao and Chen Duxiu, as well as Chinese Nationalists such as Sun Yat-sen all contributed to it. After the Mukden Incident of 1931, the theorization of nationalism showed new changes with the stimulation of the pernicious national crisis. This was manifested in the idea of national revival which provoked intensive discussions among the intelligentsia.