The Salvation of Religion? Public Charity and the New Religions of the Early Republic

Abstract

Founded in 1921, Daoyuan combined a growing interest in spiritualism with the emerging civic Confucianism of the post-imperial era. In response to the lack of effective government services, Daoyuan formed the World Red Swastika charitable society the following year. The World Red Swastika Society, which enjoyed the political support of many well-connected individuals, soon began organizing relief activities on a large scale, but would eventually come into conflict with the newly founded Nanjing government. At the same time, elements within the group were moving in creasingly close to Japan, forming an ideological alliance with a new Japanese religion called the Teaching of the Great Source (Ōmotokyō), and eventually becoming a breakaway organization under the Japanese client state of Manchukuo. Like Nanjing, the government of Manchukuo remained wary of offering institutional support, and began laying the foundation for its own charitable sector under direct state control. Rather than new sociological phenomena, this article views organizations such as the Daoyuan-Red Swastika Society as a response to a particular set of political and social conditions.