Semi-colonial Status Research Articles

БЫТ ШИИТСКИХ ПАЛОМНИКОВ В НАДЖАФЕ И КЕРБЕЛЕ В XIX В.

The only pilgrimage as a “pillar of Islam” prescribed for every Muslim is the Hajj to Mecca and Medina, but adherents of this religion make “pious journeys” to other places. Sunni Muslims recognize holy cities that contain desirable sites to visit (for example, Jerusalem, considered the “third holy city,” and the Al-Aqsa Mosque located there), however, these pilgrimages are not obligatory, but recommendatory. Shiite pilgrimages to the land of Iraq - primarily to Najaf and Karbala, on the contrary, have a status very close to mandatory. The first and third Shiite Imams, Ali and Hussein, are buried in these cities, respectively, in Najaf from the 18th-19th centuries. The main center of Shiite scholarship has been formed, and therefore the views and thoughts of millions of Shiite believers are directed here. At the same time, the Shiite pilgrimage, like the Hajj, is not only a purely religious action, but also a social one. People who visit holy places receive the nicknames “Karbelai”, “Najafi” (as well as “Mashhadi” - after visiting another center of pilgrimage - the Iranian Mashhad) and enjoy special respect from their coreligionists. In this study, we will look at the life of pilgrims to the Shiite shrines of Iraq (the territory of which was called “Turkish Arabia”, or “atabat”) in the 19th century, because It was at that time that the traditional realities of the Muslim world in general and its Shiite part began to change rapidly. These changes are associated with a unique political situation (on the one hand, the presence of Shiite shrines on the territory of the Sunni Ottoman Empire, and on the other, the orientation of the local Shiite population towards Iran ruled by the Qajar dynasty, both states having a semi-colonial status), and with the rapid development of science and technology, and with a very peculiar ideological situation. Both Iran and the Ottoman Empire underwent secular reforms in the 19th century, and many significant Shia communities lived in territories belonging to the non-Muslim states of Russia and Great Britain.

Anticolonialism as a Guiding Principle of Chinese Foreign Policy

This article explores the ideology of anticolonialism as a guiding principle in the foreign policy of the People’s Republic of China (PRC). It highlights the close association of anticolonialism with decolonialism, anti-imperialism, and the Nonaligned Movement, emphasizing their importance throughout the history of the PRC. While the current Chinese leadership may not emphasize anticolonial rhetoric as frequently as during the Mao Zedong era (1950–1970s), the core essence of Chinese foreign policy remains unchanged. China acknowledges its former semi-colonial status and aligns its policies with the interests of developing countries, seeking cooperation to protect its own interests amidst potential superpower pressures. Recent initiatives by Xi Jinping, such as the Belt and Road Initiative and the concept of a “Community with a shared future for mankind,” demonstrate a universal character that extends beyond developing countries. Authored by scholars from Russia and China, this article aims to familiarize the international audience with China’s official discourse on its semi-colonial past, anticolonialism, and decolonization. The authors also highlight the potential for cooperation between Russia and China based on their shared perspectives on these issues. Understanding China’s foreign policy principles provides valuable insights into its historical context and contemporary approach to international relations.

Сьогодення України в дзеркалі минулого – проблеми багатошаровості

The article is devoted to actualization of the problem of multilayered nature of Ukrainian history in the situation of wide-scale Russian-Ukrainian war. Ukrai­nian heritage includes the layers of few empires, namely two of them (Russian empire and USSR) create associations with the state, attacking Ukraine now. Under the influence of history, modern Ukrainian society is often characterized by cultural fragmentation and existence in the regime of a cultural frontier: next to the actual Ukrainian culture and history, there is a legacy of imperial culture, and imperial history has become an integral part of the history of Ukraine itself. The multi-layered nature of Ukraine’s history is reflected in the complex political landscape of Ukrainian society and shapes it in many respects. Discussions about the interpretation of the history of Ukraine are conducted not only by historians, but also by politicians. This significantly affects the study of historical memory in Ukraine, but also gradually changes the collective memory of Ukrainians. The policy of historical memory is largely influenced by the historical policy of the state and other political forces. The main lesson for Ukraine is the need for a clear definition not only of the evaluation of certain periods of the history of Ukraine, but also of the methodology of providing historical evaluations. In addition, it is necessary to take as a basis the special laws of Ukraine devoted to specific issues of the policy of historical memory. The former semi-colonial status of Ukraine as part of Tsarist Russia and the USSR actualizes the problem of overcoming the remnants of the influence of this colonial past. Therefore, working with historical memory in Ukraine requires an obligatory appeal to post-colonial studies. The strategy of memorizing of the empire past ought to include the instruments of working through the memory of these periods: it is necessary to provide a proper assessment and to distance oneself from such a past. Author observes the dynam­ics of working with the imperial past in recent decades.

Thomé H. Fang, Tang Junyi and Huayan Thought: A Confucian Appropriation of Buddhist Ideas in Response to Scientism in the Twentieth Century by King Pong Chiu

Reviewed by: Thomé H. Fang, Tang Junyi and Huayan Thought: A Confucian Appropriation of Buddhist Ideas in Response to Scientism in the Twentieth Century by King Pong Chiu Erik Hammerstrom King Pong Chiu, Thomé H. Fang, Tang Junyi and Huayan Thought: A Confucian Appropriation of Buddhist Ideas in Response to Scientism in the Twentieth Century. Leiden and Boston: Brill, 2016. xvi, 258 pp. €110/US$142 (hb). ISBN 978-90-04-31387-3 This book is a lightly revised version of the author’s 2014 dissertation (available online). It analyzes the way in which two important twentieth-century Chinese philosophers applied one of the most “Chinese” forms of Buddhist thought to the issues of modernity. The author covers a topic that has not been studied before in English, providing a useful introduction to the context and thought of both of its main [End Page 199] subjects, whom he treats not simply as “Neo-Confucians,” but as more complex thinkers (p. 13). Chiu employs three categories of analysis in this work. First, as the title indicates, his main concern is to explain and assess the way in which each thinker used Huayan 華嚴 thought to rebut the claims of scientism, in particular, the belief that “… quantitative natural science is the only valuable part of human learning and the only source of truth” (p. 31). The rise of scientism in China in the early twentieth century was intimately linked to China’s semi-colonial status vis-à-vis the West, and had a major impact on the fortunes of traditional modes of Chinese thought. Chiu provides useful context for this process, and clearly explains what was at stake for Thomé H. Fang (Fang Dongmei 方東美, 1899–1977) and Tang Junyi 唐君毅 (1909–1978) in their meditations on Huayan thought. Chiu’s second category of analysis is the traditional Chinese philosophical concepts of ti 體 (which he defines as “state” or “condition,” p. 26) and yong 用 (function). He spends less time on this topic than on the topic of scientism, and much of his ti/yong-based analysis occurs in the book’s final chapter. This reviewer was somewhat confused by Chiu’s analysis here, especially given that it did not seem to add much to the good critical analysis he provides without it. The final analytic category that Chiu employs in this book, which receives less attention than either of the other two, is that of “Chinese hermeneutics” (Zhongguo quanshi xue 中國詮釋學). Although his discussion of this is rather brief, Chiu provides a useful introduction to the idea, which has received a fair bit of attention by Chinese thinkers in the past decade. Chiu invokes this idea mainly to highlight the vitality and dynamism of Chinese thought in response to issues associated with modernity (pp. 78–79). The structure of this book is clear at the levels of both chapters and sections. He generally first supplies historical and intellectual context before summarizing the thought of a figure, and concludes with a critical assessment of that thought. Chapters 1 and 2 introduce the scope of the study and the historical and intellectual context for both scientism and Huayan thought. His summary of Huayan is particularly well done, given its complexity. He draws from a range of good scholarship on the subject to cover the development of its primary components in a clear manner. Chapters 3 and 4 form the heart of the book. Chapter 3 discusses the elder figure, Thomé H. Fang. Fang was highly prolific, but, as Chiu notes, his thought was not entirely systematic. Fang used Huayan thought to develop a “transcendent-immanent metaphysics” that has as its aim the achievement of “comprehensive harmony.” Fang’s philosophy was synthetic, and he had a vision of a grand organic harmony that included beauty, creativity, and the mental realm of human beings, which he felt were omitted within the rational materialism of scientism. Tang Junyi made more explicit use of Huayan ideas about the relationship between different ideologies by invoking the doctrinal classification scheme (panjiao 判教) of Huayan. In chapter 4, Chiu explains that Tang was probably inspired by Fang, and that like him he sought to harmonize all “valuable intellectual traditions” as well as their “relative...

Foreign Military Educations as PLA Soft Power

Abstract: This article argues Chinese foreign military education programs, modeled on similar US efforts, promote a positive international image of China while simultaneously advancing military-to-military relations. To ensure American soft power remains strong, US policymakers should prioritize international military education as a method of supporting long-term partnerships even in constrained fiscal environments. Ona midsummer evening at the People's Liberation Army National Defense University (PLA NDU) in Beijing, Chinese and foreign military officers in full dress uniform, accompanied by their spouses in traditional garb, assemble. Aided by crisply dressed PLA singers, everyone belts out a rendition of the Beijing 2008 Olympics anthem, You and Me ([TEXT NOT REPRODUCIBLE IN under a long red banner emblazoned with Chinese characters that translate as Commemorating the 70th Anniversary of Victory in the Global Struggle against Fascism and College of Defense Studies 2015 Graduation. As the banner indicates, the event marks the graduation of 136 senior foreign military officers from 82 countries from the College of Defense Studies (CDS), while simultaneously commemorating the 70th anniversary of China and its allies' victory in the of Resistance against Japanese Aggression in 1945. (1) The 70th anniversary of the end of World War ii was enthusiastically celebrated globally and in China. Nevertheless, the significance of linking China's struggle against Japanese imperialism with a graduation ceremony for officers primarily from African, Asian, Middle Eastern, and Latin American countries was undoubtedly not lost on the event's organizers who understood many College of Defense Studies graduates are from countries with histories of Western colonialism. Similarly, the period from 1839 to 1949 is embedded in Chinese historical memory as a century of humiliation ([THE NOT REPRODUCIBLE IN ASCII]), when the European powers, Russia, and Japan imposed a series of unequal treaties, which coerced territorial, economic, and juridical concessions that reduced China to semicolonial status. (2) In domestic media, the ruling Communist Party portrays itself as executing a post-1949 revival of Chinese civilization from this nadir. Comparable historical grievances provide a basis for camaraderie between China and other countries with postcolonial legacies. The function of the CDS memorial-cum-graduation ceremony testifies to the multiple purposes of the PLA's foreign military education programs. As in other war colleges, students examine and analyze key issues in the contemporary security environment while learning about the host nation's domestic and international politics, military, culture, and history, as well as general aspects of strategic studies. (3) The educational exchanges also strengthen military-to-military relations by building person-to-person relationships with foreign officers. Finally, the public diplomacy aspect seeks to improve international perceptions of China by winning the hearts and minds of foreign officers, a key segment of governing elites in many countries particularly in the developing world. (4) Educating foreign military officers at PLA military academies such as the CDS constitute just one line of effort in the Chinese party-state and PLA's conduct of public diplomacy and military-to-military relations. Nonetheless, an examination of the College of Defense Studies, the PLA's flagship academy for educating foreign officers, elucidates several key developments, particularly with regard to the role that military diplomacy plays in China's overall foreign policy efforts: * The PLA is assuming a growing, although still secondary, role in the conduct of Chinese public diplomacy and foreign policy. * China is using public diplomacy to compensate for its limited soft power and to cultivate international influence. * China is safeguarding its expanding global interests through diversified foreign policy strategies that utilize all instruments of national power, not merely economic leverage. …

The transformation of the Chinese state in modern and contemporary times

Review. article considers the history of the Da Qing Gou (Qing Dynasty), the Republic of China, led by the Kuomintang and the People's Republic of China led by the CPC during the period of the Opium Wars since the middle of the XIX century to the present day. article reflects a long and painful way of The Celestial Empire from the and national humiliation to wealth and power From the middle of the XIX century great powers using gunboat diplomacy imposed on China a semi-colonial status. This prompted the ruling Qing dynasty to the self-strengthening by implementation of Western affairs, and then forced into the promise of constitutional reform. ineffectiveness of ongoing government reforms led to the radicalization of the opposition movement which later turned into a revolutionary one. Xinhai Revolution in 1911, overthrowing a strange Manchurian Qing dynasty, proclaimed the restoration of national statehood and the Chinese republican form of government. For the sake of public consent the first President of the Republic of China Sun Yat-sen ceded his post to General Yuan Shikai, who was backed by military elite. young Republic of China was threatened by both a restoration attempts of Qing dynasty's supporters and the imperial ambitions of the President Yuan Shikai, and then by high-handedness of the generals - warlords who ignored the weak central government. Kuomintang founded by Sun Yat-sen threw its weight in defense of the republic by creating a temporary united front with the Communist Party of China. Under the influence of the Soviet experience of building both the KMT and CPC turned into authoritarian parties designed to lead the state and military forces. Created by Sun Yat-sen theory of political tutelage was included in the KMT's ideological arsenal and practices, and then was secretly borrowed by CPC. Successful completion of the Northern Expedition 1926 - 1928 saved the Republic of China and gave rise to a ten-year party rule of the Kuomintang. practice of Nanjing Decade led to the merging of the Party, military and state apparatus, which is typical of the subsequent periods of the Chinese history. break of Kuomintang alliance with the CPC and the repressions against the communists initiated the Civil War of 1927 -1936. It was the war with Japan which forced the rivals into the temporary re-establishment of the united front. Civil War resumed in 1946 led to the victory of the CPC and the establishment of the People's Republic of China. paper analyzes in detail the main stages and the most important events of the development of China and its constitutional design

Troublesome Spirits: Alcohol, Excise and Extraterritoriality in Nineteenth and Early Twentieth Century Siam

Although alcohol has long been a feature of Thai society, historical evidence indicates that excessive drinking on a regular basis is a relatively recent phenomenon. During the nineteenth century, there were significant quantitative and qualitative changes in both alcohol consumption and production in Siam, due largely to the introduction of new alcoholic beverages and methods of distillation by Chinese immigrants and Western entrepreneurs. As public drunkenness became more common, excessive drinking was blamed for an apparent increase in violent crime throughout the kingdom. This paper examines how the Thai government tried to manage the upsurge in drunken behaviour and the obstacles it faced in doing so. Most of these problems stemmed from the limits on the kingdom's fiscal and judicial sovereignty imposed by the unequal treaties it had signed with the Western imperial powers; as such, they are indicative of Siam's semi-colonial status during this period.

The Gold Standard at the Turn of the Twentieth Century: Rising Powers, Global Money, and the Age of Empire (review)

Reviewed by: The Gold Standard at the Turn of the Twentieth Century: Rising Powers, Global Money, and the Age of Empire Kenneth Mouré The Gold Standard at the Turn of the Twentieth Century: Rising Powers, Global Money, and the Age of Empire. By Steven Bryan. New York: Columbia University Press, 2010. 288 pp. $50.00 (cloth). Alan Milward lamented fifteen years ago that studies of the adoption of the gold standard in less developed countries were "almost entirely lacking" and posited that politics and diplomacy had likely been more important than economic logic in shaping their decisions to adopt the gold standard.1 Steven Bryan's new book is a welcome addition to the work focusing on experience outside the European core to the gold standard world. Bryan examines the context and the public debates for and against the adoption of the gold standard in Japan and Argentina in the 1890s. As developing economies on the periphery, their perspective on international monetary standards and behavior provide an essential counterbalance to Eurocentric assumptions. Argentina depended heavily on trade with Britain and was vulnerable to changing world prices for agricultural exports. Japan was more advanced industrially, emerging from the semicolonial status imposed by trade treaties since 1859. A large share of its export trade went to countries with silver standard currencies. The depreciation of silver and the rivalry between gold, silver, and bimetallism as world standards made the gold standard a better prospect to provide exchange-rate stability, but trade considerations and access to international finance played a major role in decisions regarding whether and when to adopt [End Page 228] the gold standard and at what exchange rate. The international position of each country influenced domestic coalitions of interest in terms of exchange rate, trade partners, and capital flows. Bryan follows earlier authors who stress the accidental nature of the classical gold standard,2 giving attention to the 1890s as a "third phase" in the global expansion of the gold standard. (England linked its currency to gold in 1717, key European countries and the United States adopted the gold standard in the 1870s, and developing countries followed in the 1890s.) In both countries, concern for national prestige, currency stability, trade advantage, and access to foreign loans factored into the debate on gold standard adoption. Bryan's analysis and argument are framed to challenge authors who claim that the gold standard marked a late nineteenth-century triumph of international trade and free markets, as a historical parallel and precedent for the veneration of free markets and globalization at the end of the twentieth century. Not so, Bryan cautions. Adherence to the gold standard was not the success of English theories advocating free trade and a night watchman state. Countries joined the gold standard for nationalistic reasons in an era of protectionism, industrial competition, and increasing nationalism. The ideas of Friedrich List and Alexander Hamilton dominated policy discussions, not the classical liberalism of free trade and minimal government. The gold standard needs to be understood for its national, not its international, character (p. 32). In each country, national and sectoral interests structured the public debate on whether to adopt the gold standard. In Argentina, the gold standard advocates were industrial and agricultural exporters worried by the rising value of the Argentinean peso. Fixing the value to gold was advocated as a means to fix the peso at a low level to stimulate exports. The strongest opposition came from partisans of English theory, free trade, and laissez-faire, who saw the proposed currency stabilization as "not a true gold standard" but rather as devaluation and "robbery." The main architect of the gold standard policy, Carlos Pellegrini, sought to promote Argentinean industrial development through protectionism, government support for key industries, and monetary expansion. It was not just the gold standard but also undervaluing the peso to preserve an export advantage that motivated Pellegrini and his allies. In combination [End Page 229] with protectionist measures the gold standard would promote exports and national industrial development. In Japan the gold standard was less controversial. It was accepted as a fundamentally conservative measure to increase Japanese industrial and military power through export growth and access to foreign loans...

Expo 2010: A Historical Perspective

A remodeled city awaits Shanghai's visitors this summer. As always, tourists will crowd the famous Bund and enjoy the classic architecture erected by the International Settlement's foreign powers during an earlier day of cosmopolitanism and imperialism. Recently, Shanghai's city planners have undertaken a major project in remodeling the urban landscape that surrounds the Bund, with its old Hong Kong and Shanghai banks, Custom House, and grand hotels built during the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. In doing so, planners have effectively transformed this waterfront symbol of China's former semicolonial status into a breezy park, sightseeing plaza, and high-end shopping district, all rolled into one. The classic architecture of the treaty port era has become the backdrop for a new day's consumerism, perfectly suited to the Chinese state's own celebration of the successes of a reform economy.

Writing Okinawa: Narrative Acts of Identity and Resistance (review)

Reviewed by: Writing Okinawa: Narrative Acts of Identity and Resistance Michael Molasky Writing Okinawa: Narrative Acts of Identity and Resistance. By Davinder L. Bhowmik. Abingdon, Oxon: Routledge, 2008. 248 pages. Hardcover £85.00/$170.00. At last, we have a book-length study in English that explores the rich diversity of modern Okinawan fiction. That fact alone would be cause for celebration, but Davinder L. Bhowmik's Writing Okinawa does far more than merely fill a gap in extant English-language scholarship on Okinawan literature. Through detailed analysis of a wide range of fiction published from the early twentieth century to the present day, this book offers diverse perspectives into the region's perpetually shifting, yet ever tenuous, relationship with the Japanese state. During the past fifteen years or so, Okinawa has increasingly garnered attention from scholars both inside and outside Japan for its intrinsic interest as well as for the ways in which it productively complicates our understanding of Japanese history, politics, and culture. It is simply impossible to grasp the full complexity of contemporary Okinawa without considering the region's ambivalent relationship to Japanese imperialism, its own semicolonial status within the empire, its unique experience (within Japan) of the Pacific War as a face-to-face ground battle, and its prolonged postwar experience of American occupation—not to mention the ongoing, ambiguous post-reversion political economy that continues to this day. At the same time, studies of Okinawa have been crucial to acquiring a thorough understanding of Japanese imperialism and colonialism, of the Pacific War and the Cold War in the Pacific, and of the myriad legacies left to the twenty-first century by all of these. Writing Okinawa contributes to this dialogical understanding of the region's relationship to Japan by examining narratives by writers who seem to have little in common other than that they are Okinawan and write fiction. Yet Bhowmik argues that underlying these disparate works is a shared concern with the question of Okinawan identity—indeed, the problem of identity lies at the heart of her inquiry, although she is careful to highlight its multifaceted, constructed nature and is sensitive to the pitfalls of ahistorical, essentialist assumptions, to which some Okinawan authors themselves have proven susceptible. The book consists of an introduction, six chapters, and a brief conclusion. The chapters proceed in roughly chronological order, thereby offering a sense of the development of Okinawan fiction over the course of the twentieth century. The first three chapters concentrate on writers active from the late Meiji era through the early 1940s: Yamagusuku Seichū, Ikemiyagi Sekihō, Hirotsu Kazuo (a mainland writer), Kushi Fusako, Yogi Seishō, and Miyagi Sō. Bhowmik situates their prose fiction in relation to the dominant Japanese intellectual and cultural currents of the times while drawing on postcolonial theory to bring these works into dialogue with contemporary literary scholarship. The second half of the book concentrates on the important postwar Okinawan writers Ōshiro Tatsuhiro, Medoruma Shun, and Sakiyama Tami. The chapter on Ōshiro concludes with a section on Shimao Toshio's influential theory on the cultural realm he identifies as "Yaponesia." [End Page 439] Most chapters focus on one or two writers, providing close readings of both representative stories and lesser-known works while addressing a key theoretical or methodological issue confronting the region's writers at the time. Such issues include: the incorporation of "local color," which was commonly emphasized by critics intent on distinguishing regional writing from mainstream Japanese literature during the early twentieth century; the repression of women's voices among Okinawa's cultural elite; the challenge of translating Ryukyuan spoken languages onto the written page (including hybrid Japanese-Okinawan dialects); private versus social memory; the possibilities and limitations of specific literary approaches such as allegory, realism, magical realism, and (for lack of a better term) "postmodernist prose"; and the problem of representing the periphery within a cultural sphere that is already deemed marginal by many readers. Throughout her study Bhowmik traces the vicissitudes of Okinawan identity across time, class, gender, and region as well as among individual writers and their fictional characters. During the Taishō and early Shōwa years, many Okinawan writers lived in major Japanese cities and wrote...

A Topography of Confucian Discourse: Politco-philosophical Reflections on Confucian Discourse since Modernity (review)

Reviewed by: A Topography of Confucian Discourse: Politco-philosophical Reflections on Confucian Discourse since Modernity John Berthrong (bio) Lee Seung-hwan. A Topography of Confucian Discourse: Politco-philosophical Reflections on Confucian Discourse since Modernity. Translated by Jaeyoon Song and Lee Seung-hwan. Paramus, NJ: Homa and Sekey Books, 2006. xii + 256 pp. Hardcover $49.95, ISBN 1-931907-27-7. Paperback $29.95. ISBN 1-931907-34-X. What to do with Confucianism? This is a question that engages many contemporary Chinese, Korean, and Japanese intellectuals. Simply deciding what we mean when we use the term “Confucian” or “Confucianism” is not entirely clear and has become a hotly contested issue in East Asia and among the East Asian diaspora. This is especially fascinating for a tradition that not long ago had been given up for dead. In the 1920s, many of the best and brightest young Chinese intellectuals mounted and sustained philosophical and historical attacks on what they considered the incubus of a dead Confucian tradition on the current Chinese situation. At its most simple and pragmatic level, the argument was crystal clear: Confucians were in charge of the Chinese ship of state when it ran aground, with disastrous consequences, when it encountered the unknown shoals of Western imperialism. It did not really matter that no other country could actually stand against the tide of Western imperial might; the fact still held that Confucians were in charge and were held responsible for the catastrophe. A recounting of the general historical interpretation of the role Confucianism played in the demise of the various traditional East Asian cultures is critical to understanding the task that Professor Lee set for himself in collecting this set of stimulating essays on Confucian discourse. In short, Lee explores the various contexts and pretexts of the assorted ways that missionaries, historians, philosophers, and public intellectuals sought to define Confucianism. His basic argument is that all of these parties have interpreted the Confucian Way in order to fit their own agendas. The Jesuits had one agenda, the European Enlightenment audience for the Jesuits back home had another agenda in which the Confucians were to play a role, Western imperial policy makers had yet another interpretation, and, of course, various Asian intellectuals responded to these interpretations as part of the Western imperial and colonial assault on the peoples and cultures of what the Westerners called “East Asia.” Lee argues that this kind of construction of alternative discourses about the history and nature of Confucianism continues today and includes the various theories of postmodernism that are now so popular in Europe and North America. Even these new postmodern theories, alas, are often just the last in a long string of Western interpretations of Confucianism as a perfect example of the culturally different other, an exotic and distant mirror in which the Western eye finds itself endlessly refracted and distorted through its interaction with other cultures and traditions. [End Page 120] The condemnation of the role that Confucianism played in the demise of traditional China was sustained and broadly conceived by both Asian and Western intellectuals. In the first place, the modern reformers pointed out that the Confucians were such an insular, self-satisfied, and petrified group of civil servants that they did not have the sense to realize that they were in trouble. Moreover, young Chinese (and Korean) intellectuals in the 1920s would also have a perfectly good counterexample of what needed to be done to resist the degradation of what the Chinese called the “semi-colonial status” of China in the first part of the twentieth century. This would, of course, be the rise of modern Japan. The lesson drawn from the Japanese case is that there was no reason for an East Asian country to fall prey to Western colonial status if it modernized, and a distinct part of the modernization package was the condemnation of the Confucian past, save for its preservation in the museum of cultural history. The Korean case was even more poignant. If China had slipped into semicolonial bondage by the early 1920s, Korea had fallen prey to the one successful case of East Asian modernization and nation building and had become incorporated into...

China and the Issue of Postwar Indochina in the Second World War

China's foreign relations during the Second World War underwent a radical metamorphosis. The Chinese government under Chiang Kai-shek (Jiang Jieshi) earned new international respect by mounting a tenacious resistance against the Japanese enemy. By allying itself with powerful countries in the West for the first time in modern history, China emerged from its involuntary diplomatic isolation. The new Grand Alliance facilitated China's diplomatic initiatives seeking to eradicate the legal stigma of its semi-colonial status through the abrogation of the unequal treaties. In the process China also leaped to the rank of the ‘Big Four’. At a time when the Western colonialism was receding, the Japanese Empire was collapsing and national independence movements were on the rise in many Asian countries, China seemed positioned to achieve a new prominent leadership role in Asian and world affairs.

Is China Returning to Semi-colonial Status?; Can the Chinese Dragon Match Pearls with the Dragon God of the Sea?: A Response to Zongli Tang

William Hinton raised many controversial issues in his speech at Harvard University (Monthly Review, November, 1991). I shall focus on whether Deng's open door policy is leading China back to semi-colonial status. This issue has three major aspects.This article can also be found at the Monthly Review website, where most recent articles are published in full.Click here to purchase a PDF version of this article at the Monthly Review website.

Foreign Trade Policy and Apparatus of the People's Republic of China

As an aftermath of the Opium War of 1840-1842 and the subsequent military and diplomatic setbacks at the hand of foreign powers, China was forced to open its doors to foreign traders on terms calculated to give every possible advantage to those traders at the expense of China's domestic economy and industry. Under treaties imposed upon China, foreign traders were permitted to navigate Chinese inland waters without restriction and to operate factories, banks, insurance companies, and other commercial enterprises in China. These treaties allowed foreign powers to control such governmental functions as customs and postal services, and granted foreign nationals in China immunity from local jurisdiction. As a result of these treaties, all of China was open to foreign exploitation, making the development of domestic industry extremely difficult. For almost a century, China remained in this semi-colonial status, and its economy gradually but steadily deteriorated to the point of total collapse before the communist take-over in 1949. It was against this background that the foreign trade policy of the new regime was formulated. It is small wonder that the People's Republic of China has adopted a very stringent protective trade policy, and that it emphasizes the need for domestic industrialization and strict control of import and export activities. It is also easy to understand why contemporary China has not welcomed with open arms foreign traders who desire to operate within its territory.