Wang Q.E. Inventing China Through History: The May Fourth Approach to Historiography
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of Yuan Shikai (1859–1916) during the 1898 Reform. As a former
Qing general and an alleged supporter of Empress Dowager
Cixi (1835–1908) in suppressing the Reform, Yuan’s diary of the
Reform was a firsthand document and crucial to the study of the
Reform. But it was not believed as true until Luo verified it with
his research. In his article, Luo confessed that he did not believe its
authenticity when he first saw it. But after a serious and careful
examination, he concluded that except for some interpolations, the
diary was authentic. Although genuine, however, it was not immune
to its author’s own modification, Luo added. Yuan allowed his diary
to be circulated after the death of the Empress Dowager and the fall
of the Qing Dynasty because, Luo explained, he wanted to use it to
clear his name for his dishonorable role in persecuting the reform-
ers. While a valuable primary source, therefore, it contained the
author’s strong bias.
149
Luo’s assessment is shared by Dai Yi, a
leading Qing historian in the PRC, in the latter’s most recent analy-
sis of Yuan’s diary. Dai also notices that Yuan’s decision to publish
it after Ci Xi’s death is for, while unsuccessfully, courting the
reformers and revolutionaries who had gained by then an upper
hand in power struggle.
150
Toward the end of his life, Luo Jialun finally settled down to
pursue his academic interest. As a scholar, he was not very suc-
cessful; except for a few articles, most of his publications, amount-
ing to ten volumes in toto, were written for other purposes than
history. Thus viewed, Luo was like a modern mandarin; he used his
education, combining both the Chinese and Western, to advance his
political career for most of his life. It was not until later in his life,
when he retired from politics, that he returned to scholarship. To be
sure, his life was different from other May Fourth veterans—some
chose to stay away from politics in order to concentrate on scholar-
ship—but it was not totally unattractive to others. As we shall see
in the next chapter, many of his friends chose to be involved in
politics as well when China was drawn into a deeper national crisis.
148 EQUIVALENCES AND DIFFERENCES
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hapter
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Seeking China’s National Identity
History—in all but a few, rather esoteric, senses of the term—
is public time. This is, it is time experienced by the individual
as public being, conscious of a framework of public institutions
in and through which events, processes and changes happened
to the society of which he perceives himself to be part. ...To
say that “history is public time,” therefore, is to say that indi-
viduals who see themselves as public beings see society as
organized into and by a number of frameworks, both institu-
tional and conceptual, in and through which they apprehend
things as happening to society and themselves, and which
provide them with means of differentiating and organizing the
things they apprehend as happening.
—J. G. A. Pocock, Virtue, Commerce, and History
To China and its people, the coming of the 1930s brought nothing
but sorrow, anger, and shame. In September 1931, the Japanese
created the Mukden incident and began conquering Manchuria.
Chiang Kai-shek, who just defeated the warlords and unified China
proper, decided not to fight Japan. The loss of Manchuria, which
occurred so suddenly and easily, angered and frustrated many intel-
lectuals. If World War I led European intellectuals to cast doubts on
the future of Western civilization, the loss of Manchuria caused a
149
similar trauma to the Chinese. In the eyes of Chinese nationalists,
Japan’s occupation of Manchuria, China’s northeastern region,
threatened the very existence of Chinese civilization. It was like
Damocles’ sword hanging around the neck of the Chinese nation.
Their worry was very legitimate. A few years later, Japan launched
a nationwide invasion in China, starting World War II in Asia.
In modern Chinese history, China’s relations with Japan often
exerted a crucial impact on the direction of its movement. As the
Sino-Japanese War of 1895 led Chinese intellectuals to campaign
for political reform, Japan’s invasion of Manchuria, and subse-
quently the whole of China, in the 1930s, forced them to reconsider
the focus of China’s cultural reform. This reconsideration was
clearly reflected in the practice of historical study. If in the 1920s,
the May Fourth historians evoked the past to reconcile tradition
and modernity, negotiating between China and the West, now
they were more interested in using the past to fortify and foreground
the Chinese national identity. Consequently, foreign cultures,
whether from the West or Japan, changed its role as the “other”
in this process of identity construction; it was viewed more as
an antagonistic “other” than as a comparable, supplementary
“other.”
This change was reflected very distinctly in the career orienta-
tion of Chinese intellectuals. The loss of Manchuria and the
imminent danger of more invasions from Japan created a serious
national crisis. In the face of the crisis, these scholars were no longer
able to sit complacently in their ivory tower, continuing their
research. One after another they were drawn to political actions.
Some chose to accept offers from the GMD to join its government,
others formed political forums to take part in the discussion on
national defense. If in the 1920s, Luo Jialun was somewhat of an
exception among his friends, he now became an example in uniting
politics with scholarship. Fu Sinian, for example, who had vowed
not to be involved in politics earlier, now challenged his peers with
an emotional question, “What can a scholar do to save the nation?”
Fu’s own answer was, as shown by his actions at the time, to come
out of their studies and classrooms and rally behind the govern-
ment, preparing to contribute their wisdom and knowledge to the
cause of national salvation.
In the study of Chinese intellectual history, many have argued
that there was a perceptible antithesis between enlightenment and
nationalism, the former referred to the May Fourth enthusiasm for
science and free thinking and the latter to the nationalist impulse,
150 SEEKING CHINA’S NATIONAL IDENTITY
which from time to time urged intellectuals to modify their goals in
the former.
1
However, as we have shown earlier, the relationship
between enlightenment and nationalism was not always antitheti-
cal. Rather, in the pursuit of a scientific approach to history, they
appeared reciprocal: By appropriating elements from both Chinese
and Wester culture, May Fourth historians re-created a past that
was suitable to China’s national needs. In fact, we can go as far as
to argue that it was this reciprocity, rather than the antithesis,
between enlightenment and nationalism that supplied the very
basis for constructing modern Chinese culture. Once the reciprocity
was replaced by antithesis, the culture itself would also lose its
momentum.
During the wartime, the endeavor of Chinese historians at
reconstructing Chinese history faced a new challenge, which
required them to develop a new approach that could, on the one
hand, address the urgent need of national salvation and the impor-
tance of national identity and, on the other hand, maintain an open-
ness for foreign cultural influences. While some of the historians
seemed to have retained this openness, some faltered, recanting
their previous position; still others who, while remaining com-
mitted to an academic career, simply had to change the style and
subject of their research in order to cope with the treacherous war
situation. This wide spectrum of reactions seen in the behaviors of
these intellectuals, rather normal as it seems given the impact of
the war, nevertheless undermined their cause; they were no longer
able to pursue a collective project in which they could share their
common concern and interest.
If in the course of modern Chinese history, there could be a
three-way grouping of intellectuals it would be traditionalists,
Marxists, and liberals. The liberals during the wartime became
widely divided, if not disintegrated. By contrast, the other two
groups grew at the loss of the liberals; as more and more young
students turned to Marxism, there also appeared an apparent
attraction of traditional culture, as shown in the popularity of
Feng Youlan’s new interpretation of Confucianism and Qian
Mu’s (1895–1990) comprehensive and thoughtful narration of
Chinese history.
2
The Anti-Japanese War, therefore, contributed to
the polarization, or “radicalization” according to Yu Ying-shih,
3
of
Chinese intellectual history, which not only determined to a great
extent the fate of Chinese liberalism but also delineated the
future course of modern Chinese history in the second half of the
twentieth century.
SEEKING CHINA’S NATIONAL IDENTITY 151
China-Based Modern Culture
For He Bingsong, the Japanese invasion was immediate and dev-
astating. When Chinese and Japanese armies fought in Shanghai
in January 1932, the Commercial Press, where he worked as the
director of the translation department, was heavily bombed and
destroyed by the Japanese air force, including its Oriental
Library.
4
Though He stayed on his job until 1935, this catastrophic
incident decisively changed his career orientation.
5
He curtailed
an ongoing large project which was originally planned to translate
a series of Western history works. In its place, he proposed a new
series, entitled “National Rejuvenation” (Minzu fuxing congshu),
to which he contributed his study on Chinese folklore in a pamphlet
called A Study of Chinese Folklore (Zhongguo minsu zhi yanjiu).
6
In fact, from the late 1930s to his death in 1946, He did not
publish anything on Western history, except two high school
textbooks.
7
This change is particularly conspicuous in He because in the
1920s he was an ardent advocate of the importation of Western
learning. His study of Zhang Xuecheng, as shown earlier, espoused
the need for comparative studies in historiography, emphasizing the
relevancy of the Western experience. But he now decided to move
his research focus away from Western scholarship. Here was
another example. In 1934 he elected to publish a chapter from his
book General History, entitled “The Development of Chinese histo-
riography.” Consider the fact that the book was originally written
as a comparative study, He’s decision to publish this particular
chapter was indicative of his mind at the time.
8
He’s renewed interest in Chinese scholarship reflected a cul-
tural nativism. This cultural nativism also affected his political
preference: like many Western trained intellectuals, He chose to
support the GMD government, the official leadership of China,
rather than other political parties including the CCP. He became
actively involved in the social activities sponsored, directly or
indirectly, by the GMD and served as the director of the The
Association of Chinese Art and Scholarship (Zhongguo xueyishe), an
association that gathered intellectuals with similar political incli-
nations. His activism and leadership caught the attention of some
GMD leaders including Chen Lifu (b. 1900).
He’s participation in these activities culminated in cosigning a
manifesto with nine other professors in 1935, called “Declaration
of the Construction of a China-based Culture” (Zhongguo benwei
wenhua jianshe xuanyan, hereafter “Declaration”), which appeared
152 SEEKING CHINA’S NATIONAL IDENTITY
originally on January 10, 1935, in the Cultural Construction
(Wenhua jianshe), a journal endorsed by Chen Lifu’s CC clique
through the Association for Cultural Construction in China (Zhong-
guo wenhua jianshe xiehui), and was reprinted in other journals
and magazines afterward.
9
Though it was not clear whether He
Bingsong himself drafted the Declaration, as a renowned advocate
of Western historiography, his signature did contribute to the
wide attention the Declaration received after publication.
10
In the
ensuing discussions, He played a leading role among the cosigners
in defending their position. He presided, for example, over a round
table discussion held on January 19 in Shanghai. On January 30,
he also delivered a speech about their stance in Nanjing at a similar
meeting. In these two meetings, many leading scholars and GMD
officials joined the discussion, including Luo Jialun, and showed
their support.
11
As many intellectuals, sympathetic with its nation-
alist tone, endorsed the Declaration, He’s friends and former Beida
colleagues Hu Shi and Cai Yuanpei were on the other side. Hu Shi
sharply criticized the Declaration, regarding it as an unhealthy
trend in the academic community. On behalf of all the signers, He
responded to Hu’s criticism and made more clarifications. It is
obvious that though the Declaration was signed by ten scholars, He
was the key figure among them.
The Declaration began with an assessment of the status quo of
Chinese culture, which was rather gloomy and disappointing:
Chinese culture lost not only its position in the world, but also its
appeal to the Chinese people. In order to change this situation and
enhance the position of Chinese culture vis-à-vis foreign cultures,
the authors proposed a China-based approach to “cultural con-
struction” (wenhua jianshe). He and his cosigners admitted that it
was not until the twentieth century that Chinese culture encoun-
tered a challenge that resulted in fundamental changes; they also
acknowledged that it was the May Fourth/New Culture Movement
that ushered in a new era of Chinese cultural history as scholars
began to embark on cultural reform. However, they asserted, while
many scholars took an interest in the reform, they had not yet
reached a consensus in regard to its execution. As Chinese scholars
were debating back and forth in order to find a workable plan,
foreign culture entered China in different forms. As a result, China
became a battlefield in which foreign cultures were fully present and
vying for superiority, whereas Chinese culture was losing consis-
tently its validity and relevancy. Concerned with this unhealthy sit-
uation, these professors declared that only a China-based approach
could lead to a constructive cultural reform.
SEEKING CHINA’S NATIONAL IDENTITY 153
This approach, He and others argued, was constructive for the
following reasons. First, it addressed the present needs; “cultural
reform must meet the needs of the present society.” Second, it advo-
cated the importance of holding a “critical attitude” and using sci-
entific method in dealing with traditional culture. Third, it upheld
a “high criterion for judging Western culture” and avoided whole-
sale Westernization. In a word, the Declaration aimed to create a
Chinese modern culture, rather than a modern culture in China.
12
The argument was of course nothing new. For one thing, from
the mid-nineteenth century when the Chinese began to face the
expanded world, the question of how to maintain the substance of
Chinese culture while absorbing useful elements from others was a
recurrent theme in the writings of Chinese intellectuals. To a large
degree, the point made by these ten professors was reminiscent of
the ti and yong dichotomous thinking that prevailed in the late Qing
Dynasty. Further, after the May Fourth/New Culture Movement, it
became almost a cliché to argue the need for scrutinizing the
Chinese tradition. He Bingsong, along with a couple of others who
also signed the Declaration, used to be an active participant in such
an endeavor in the 1920s.
Though the approach was not original, the Declaration did strike
a sensitive chord. By reiterating the need to maintain the Chinese
substance, it addressed the identity issue that became extremely
sensitive among Chinese people at the time. Due to the Japanese
invasion, most Chinese were facing the immediate danger of losing
their national identity. Considering He Bingsong’s earlier experience
in the Commercial Press, his involvement with the Declaration
was not surprising. According to some witnesses, He Bingsong was
quite emotional in signing the Declaration. And his emotion was
shared by many. Tao Xisheng (1899–1986), another signer, admitted
to Hu Shi that it was the “nationalist feeling” (minzu ganqing) that
propelled him to sign his name on the Declaration.
13
The Declaration also showed an affinity between the scholars
and the GMD government. A year earlier, the GMD had launched a
New Life campaign, aiming to revive traditional Chinese culture,
especially Confucian values. Explaining why such “New Life” was
necessary, Chiang Kai-shek proclaimed that he wanted to reach a
“social regeneration of China” by reviving the traditional virtues
such as “etiquette, justice, integrity and conscientiousness,” and
creating a “national consciousness and mass psychology.” To achieve
this goal, Chiang urged people to make sacrifices for the nation and
asked them to help the government overcome current difficulties
and live their lives by that standard.
14
Thus viewed, the GMD
154 SEEKING CHINA’S NATIONAL IDENTITY
endorsement of the Declaration was only natural. Not only did GMD
officials participate in the discussions following its publication, they
also invited these professors to many occasions in which they could
exchange ideas with them. For example, He Bingsong attended a
meeting organized by the GMD party branch and the provincial gov-
ernment in the Jiangxi Province and was asked to deliver a speech
about their cultural construction proposal. Zhang Qun (1899–?), the
chairman of the GMD party branch, met He afterward and told him
that a year earlier, Zhang had given a speech that made a similar
argument.
15
Hu Shi, the Declaration’s main critic, understood clearly what
this “China-based cultural construction” meant politically and cul-
turally at the time. While he was by no means anti-GMD, he was
uncomfortable with the GMD’s involvement in what he considered
an academic issue. Moreover, he truly believed that what was pro-
posed by these professors was reactionary and detrimental to the
ongoing cultural reform. In his response, published in the midst of
the discussion in 1935, he pointed out bluntly that what the ten
scholars championed was nothing but Zhang Zhidong’s well-known
ti-yong dichotomy; Zhang’s proposal had long proven wrong, as
shown in history. This China-based approach was also conserva-
tive in character, because it reflected a narrow-minded cultural
protectionism and celebrated indiscriminately traditional values.
Although Hu chose not to comment directly on the New Life move-
ment, he related some activities associated with the movement,
especially the warlords’ worship of Confucius, to underscore the con-
nection between the movement and the Declaration.
16
According to Hu, no cultural tradition need be preserved if still
viable. Any effort, regardless of its intention, to preserve a culture
could only do harm rather than good to it, for culture should be able
to preserve itself under all kinds of conditions. There was no need
to fend off competitions from different cultures, domestic or foreign,
for only through competition could the real value of a culture be
shown. If a culture could not survive the competition, from Hu’s
pragmatist point of view, why should we preserve it? For the same
reason, no one should set up a criterion and pass judgment on
whether a culture was advanced or backward, useful or useless, and
worthwhile or worthless. For Hu Shi cultural construction was an
experimentation.
From this pragmatist perspective, Hu declared, scientific
method was actually not helpful in settling cultural conflicts,
because it could not decide which culture could and would survive
in the conflict. He criticized these professors for misunderstanding
SEEKING CHINA’S NATIONAL IDENTITY 155
scientific method, which to him was a method of practice and
experiment, not a method of speculation. One could not use scien-
tific method to screen “good” and “bad” cultures; one had to use it
in order to know the value of a culture. That is to say, no one knew
beforehand how to construct a modern culture, or what kind of
culture would be needed by the world. To him, the construction of
modern Chinese culture just barely started; China still had a great
deal to learn from other cultures.
17
To answer Hu Shi’s harsh criticism as well as other people’s
questions, He Bingsong and others published another article in May
1935, entitled “Our General Response” (Women de zongdafu), in
which they attempted to clarify their position. Their language
remained abstract and vague. But the authors did spell out the so-
called present needs mentioned earlier, to which this China-based
modern culture should respond. These needs were “to enrich
people’s cultural life, develop the country’s economy, and strive for
the survival of the nation.” The first two of course appeared general,
but the last one disclosed that what prompted them to campaign for
the China-based approach was the ongoing Sino-Japanese conflict.
18
This avowed nationalist agenda made Hu Shi’s criticism sound
almost anachronistic.
In addition to the “General Response,” He Bingsong in April
1935, gave a speech at Daxia University in Shanghai, responding
directly to Hu’s criticism. He stated that Hu misread their message
in their proposal for the China-based approach. First of all, although
they emphasized the importance of building a China-based modern
culture, they were not suggesting returning to the past. In fact, they
remained quite committed to the enlightenment project of criticiz-
ing traditional culture and introducing Western culture. What
they recommended was a critical attitude toward both Chinese and
Western culture. This critical attitude, He believed, allowed the par-
ticipants in the cultural construction to become more responsive to
the present needs.
In regard to Hu Shi’s pragmatic interpretation of cultural devel-
opment, He Bingsong retorted that culture did need preservation
and encouragement, as shown in both Chinese and world history.
In the process of preservation, scientific method was needed for
designing the future development of the culture. Moreover, in his
opinion, whether a culture was valuable and whether this culture
could survive were two different questions. Citing examples from
world history, He pointed out that many extinct cultures and civi-
lizations achieved great accomplishments in the past, but they still
vanished for various reasons.
19
Behind this rhetoric, we find He’s
156 SEEKING CHINA’S NATIONAL IDENTITY
strong nationalist concern for the survival of Chinese culture. The
Declaration was de facto a political statement.
To better understand its political message, we can use J. G. A.
Pocock’s wisdom from his study of the political thought of early
modern Europe. Pocock discovered that social thinkers often used
terms and languages that denoted meanings requiring a contempo-
rary understanding. Accordingly, we must understand a language
in its specific context where novel ideas are conveyed through con-
ventional terms—new wine poured into the old bottles. Pocock also
states that there were some other cases in which a new language
was invented to defend a traditional order.
20
Pocock’s contextual analysis helps us understand why the
Declaration precipitated heated debates. Obviously, both sides, its
sponsors and critics, were not simply engaged in an academic dis-
cussion on the China-based approach. Rather, they were quite clear
about its political connotation. For example, much as he liked to
make it an academic discussion, Hu Shi himself went beyond the
academic arena when he criticized He Bingsong’s new approach. He
was angry about it not because it emphasized the study of Chinese
culture but because it followed a dichotomous (Chinese versus
foreign) way of thinking. Indeed, Hu would never oppose the focus
on traditional culture—he himself spent most of his life con-
structing China’s scientific tradition—he was concerned about the
upsurge of cultural conservatism, which would put China against
the other, namely foreign cultures in the world. For him, as always,
the success of China’s cultural modernization relied on a “complete
globalization” (chongfen shijiehua).
What He Bingsong did from 1935 onward seemed to have con-
firmed Hu Shi’s worry. In contrast to his earlier comparative
approach, in which China and the West were regarded more or less
as equals, He in the late 1930s and the 1940s intended to demon-
strate that China was better than the West. In June 1935, amid the
boiling discussion of the China-based cultural construction, He pub-
lished a long essay on China’s cultural influence on the West. Like
most of his earlier works, this essay was based on a Western
scholar’s work—German historian Adolf Reichevein’s China und
Europa. But He attempted this time to reach an entirely different
conclusion: It was not that China should learn from the West, but
vice versa. He pointed out that eighteenth-century European schol-
ars like Voltaire and Leibniz were admirers of Chinese culture. He
then continued to describe Goethe’s interest in Chinese culture and
how Chinese architecture and gardens inspired European designers
and architects in the Romantic Movement. However, he ended his
SEEKING CHINA’S NATIONAL IDENTITY 157