ZHANG BINGLIN’S REVOLUTIONARY NATIONALISM
Zhang Binglin (1868–1936) is often spoken of as the father of Chinese nationalism. Born into a once wealthy but declining gentry family in the lower Yangzi region, he was one of the last great classicists of the Chinese tradition, equally at home amid philosophical, historical, and literary texts. Unlike Wei Yuan and Kang Youwei, who favored the New Text school, Zhang’s scholarly allegiance lay with the Old Text school, especially with the Zuozhuan, but he was increasingly anti-Confucian and became a leader in the movement to rediscover the noncanonical pre-Qin texts.
In the mid- and late 1890s, Zhang supported the reform movement, but in the years after the debacle of the 1898 Hundred Days of Reform and the Boxer Rebellion of 1900, which resulted in Western and Japanese troops occupying Beijing, he moved toward an explicitly revolutionary call to overthrow the Manchu Qing government and as a symbolic act of defiance cut off his queue (the braid of hair that signaled allegiance to the Qing dynasty). On issues such as modernization and democratic politics, the differences between the radical reformers and the revolutionaries were often slight, but Zhang did much to magnify the issue of overthrowing the Manchu dynasty and building Chinese nationalism on the basis of Han ethnicity. Kang Youwei, on the other hand, still promoted the cause of gradual reform, hoping the Empress Dowager could be retired and the deposed Guangxu emperor restored to power. Kang criticized anti-Manchu racism, pointing out that China had been composed of numerous peoples and that the Manchus had identified themselves with Confucian humanist universalism. He warned that revolution would result in bloodshed, dictatorship, and foreign invasion.
The passages below are translated from Zhang’s open letter to Kang written in 1903. Zhang explicitly espoused revolution and attacked the Manchus. His nationalism cannot be called “racist” in the ethnic sense of being based on “blood.” Rather, he insisted (as had Wang Fuzhi) that long historical experience produced deep cultural differences among peoples, implying that these were for all practical purposes as impassable as biological determinism, and he emphasized the right of self-determination of all peoples (in this regard, Zhang acknowledged that the Manchus had a right to Manchuria but not to rule the Chinese).
Zhang’s letter is both erudite and deliberately provocative. He was arrested for calling the emperor a little clown and using his tabooed personal name, Zaitian. Released from prison in 1906, he continued to agitate for an anti-Manchu revolution, sometimes working with and sometimes estranged from Sun Yat-sen. After the Revolution of 1911, Zhang briefly engaged in politics, was put under house arrest for three years, and increasingly turned toward traditional scholarship in the 1920s and 1930s.
LETTER OPPOSING KANG YOUWEI’S VIEWS ON REVOLUTION
This open letter was written in 1903 not long after the failure of the Boxer Rebellion, at a time when the Qing regime was belatedly moving toward a constitutional process. It is a lengthy and powerful diatribe against Kang as a champion of constitutionalism and against the Manchus as foreign conquerors. Much of it consists of stinging personal ridicule of both Kang and the deposed Emperor Guangxu, as well as of conflicting readings by Kang and Zhang of events in Chinese or world history.
Following are excerpts that illustrate three main themes of Zhang: nationalism as a basic human instinct, Manchu rule as inherently repressive and exploitative, and revolution as the only means to achieve effective change.
Though opposed in their views on Confucianism and nationalism and equally unsuccessful politically, Kang and Zhang contributed to two major trends of the times: millenarian expectations of a total solution to China’s problems, and on Zhang’s part, revolution as the necessary course of action.
Dear Changsu [Kang Youwei],
I have read the letter you wrote to the Chinese merchants in the Americas in which you say that China should only have a constitutional monarchy and not a revolution. You long-windedly cite endless historical precedents. Alas, Changsu, how can you be happy doing this? You are desperately trying to get recalled into government service after a restoration [of Guangxu to power], and so first you write this nonsense to get the attention of the Tungusic beasts [Manchus], hoping that by some chance you will be amnestied. You weren’t writing to merchants—you were writing to the Manchus!
For a moment’s wealth and prestige, you dare everything that is wrong and won’t quit. Your tricky rhetoric has confused the nation to the point where you set the example for evil Confucians and vicious culprits. You are respected as a sage and you call yourself a religious leader, but it seems that your fanciful lies here mean you are doing nothing but cunningly buttering up the Manchus. However, the way you have fooled the world far surpasses that which comes out of the mouths of the evil Confucians and vicious culprits. Can I let this nonsense go by without a word of correction?
Your basic idea is that one should ground a theory only on truth and results and not talk about whether races are the same or not. Although nationalism was a firmly rooted potentiality even among primitive peoples in ancient times, it began to develop only as we approached modern times. It is a natural human sentiment.25
Today, have the Manchus assimilated to the Han people? Or have they conquered the Han people? Manchu shamanism is not the orthodox imperial religion; queues and jeweled necklaces are not the Chinese caps; and the documents of the Qing in its own language are not traditional Chinese characters. The Manchus merely respected Confucius, followed the ways of Confucianism, and presented a false picture as a technique for claiming the emperorship and fooling the people. Their talk of the “same race” is not to turn the Manchus into Han people but to make the Han people Manchus!
You have admitted that the Grand Commonality (Datong) and universal principles are not practical in our times. Rather, since ours is certainly the age of nationalism, your confounding together Manchus and Han is like mixing fragrances and stinks in the same bowl. . . .
As for clothing and queues, [you argue that] the Han people have become accustomed to Manchu fashion, and even if we could go back to Song and Ming fashions, we would feel uncomfortable with them. But do you people not know that these queues are a barbarian fashion instituted by force? How can we become accustomed to them? When King Yu went to the kingdom of the naked peoples, he wore his hair long and tattooed his body; when Mozi went to Chu, he wore embroidered clothes and played the sheng. They did not enjoy doing these things. After being forced to be a particular way for a long time, one becomes accustomed to it, but this is certainly no way to determine right and wrong.
Kang Youwei’s letter had defended Manchu rule as more enlightened than the Ming, especially for the Manchu’s professing of Confucian egalitarian and meritocratic ideals whereby worthy Chinese, including the successful scholar-official-generals Zeng Guofan and Zuo Zongtang, had risen to high positions under the Qing. Zhang belittled all this.
Although General Zeng, General Zuo, and others were given wonderful titles, they really just commanded tiny local forts and never had real power. Yet, as soon as Fukangan [a Manchu general] suppressed an uprising in Taiwan he was ennobled as a Beile Commandery Prince, while Zeng and Zuo, who managed to destroy the Taipings and restore the emperorship to Manchus, were merely made marquises and assigned only nominal positions. While Zeng was still alive he had to fawn upon [the Qing bannerman] Guanwen to protect his life. How can we compare them in terms of importance or accomplishments! Lately, the leading members of the Council of State have all been imperial relatives. The ruler does nothing yet controls everything, and his subordinates are mere servants. [The Manchu] Prince Gong and Prince Chun succeeded while doing nothing, while [the Han Chinese] Shen, Li, Weng, and Sun worked hard, which shows that the former were masters while the latter were slaves. . . .
Now the reasons why you do not admit that we are slaves, and why you promote constitutional monarchy in order to destroy the sprouts of revolution, are simply that you have twisted your own heart and bent your will too long, and have turned yourself
into a slave. In promoting constitutional monarchy, you had to make the emperor into a sage. . . .
After 1895, what worried this “sagely emperor” most was that he would not stay on the throne long just because the Empress Dowager wanted to abdicate. Saddened by internal problems, [Guangxu] planned to reach out externally. He knew that without reform there was no way to get the support of the foreign powers; without the support of the foreign powers there was no way to shore up his strength and take away the Empress Dowager’s powers. The little clown Zaitian [the taboo personal name of the Guangxu emperor] couldn’t even distinguish between beans and wheat, and he marched into danger. He certainly was not planning for the Manchus as a whole. . . .
Today five million Manchus rule over more than four hundred million Han only because rotten traditions make the Han stupid and ignorant. If the Han people should one day wake up, then the Manchus would be totally unable to rest peacefully here, like the Austrians in Hungary or the Turks in the former Eastern Roman Empire. It is human nature to love one’s own race and to seek gain for oneself. The so-called Sagely Emperor is not far from this human nature. Can he really discard his position, and forsake everything to benefit the Han people? . . .
Moreover, the so-called constitutional system must have a bicameral legislature. The lower house would make laws while the upper house would have a veto power over them. But who would comprise the members of the upper house? If it is to be the imperial clan, then it will simply consist of the emperor’s relatives and princes. If it is to be the nobility, then it will simply consist of the Eight Banners and the princes of Inner and Outer Mongolia. If it is to be the important religious leaders, then it will simply consist of the Dalai Lama and the Panchen Lama of Tibet. Of all these groups, none includes any Han people in their number—there are only people of other races—and so parliamentary rights will still not be given to Han people. . . .
You believe that “blood will flow like water and the dead will lie everywhere in the disaster of revolution, and its goals will in the end still be left incomplete.” However, can a constitutional system ever be achieved without bloodshed? England, Austria, Germany, and Italy all first won their rights to liberty and parliaments through revolts. Were these insurrections just a matter of debate, or did they involve spears and bows and flying bullets? Closer to us lies the example of Japan. Although their constitutionalist movement first arose in peaceful discussion, it had been preceded by armies devoted to expelling the foreigners and overthrowing the Bakufu. There would have been no constitutional system without the violent struggle that preceded it.
Men of spirit [self-sacrificing activists] who would take responsibility for the world are originally without real power; we cannot discuss them in terms of success and failure. The emperor, however, must be judged in terms of success and failure. Why so? Because to possess power but not be able to use it is simply to clothe oneself with the empty title of “emperor.” He cannot protect even himself, yet he wishes to share the concerns of the country! He cannot control even his own ministers, yet he wishes to make the people follow the laws! . . .
You suppose, “The Chinese people today are incapable of understanding universal principles or abolishing old customs; thus, after a revolution violence would continue unabated and bare survival would be difficult. How then could one reform the country and save the people and reorder politics!” But how could a people who cannot understand universal principles and [who] persist in following old customs be incapable of revolution but capable of constitutionalism? How can there be a constitutional order with a single sage at the top while the rest of the population are the most primitive of barbarians?
In your “The Destruction of India” (“Lun Yindu wangguo shu”) you said that Indian literature and craftsmanship were vastly superior to Chinese, and you cited a number of writings as evidence. But you forget that tropical zones do not have to worry about cold and hunger and so their people become lazy. Various objects quickly rot in the heat, and so the people have little idea of ownership. This is why Hinduism and Buddhism could arise nowhere but in India. Precisely because they lack the idea of ownership, they think that everything is impermanent and they cannot hold on to anything. Sociologists have proved this beyond any doubt. Since their idea of possession is weak, Indians have generally not cared if their national territory is lost or if their race declines. When the Buddha was born, a number of Indian kingdoms had already been turned into provinces of Persia. The Buddhist scriptures show that they only thought about the various kingdoms and never the Persian emperor, as if they didn’t know that the nation was lost to the Persians. Only King Asoka roused himself to maintain the independence of his kingdom. . . . The Chinese terrain and national spirit are vastly superior to those of India. The land is not fragmented and the people are possessive. Ever since the Manchu conquest, we have been enraged by the sheep stink of these lesser races. Chinese determination is stronger than the Indian, and we can foresee that Chinese accomplishments will certainly surpass those of the Indians. . . .
If the Manchus are not expelled, however, we cannot expect that the scholars will perform well or that the people will share a bitter hatred of the enemy in order to reach a realm of freedom and independence. If the situation continues to decline, we will simply become the slaves of the Westerners. If bad seeds are not removed, the good ones will not grow. If bad people are not removed, the good ones will not flourish, and naturally if we do not personally take a large broom to sweep away the rotten customs of the ancestors, then how can we hope to foster the ideal China?
[Bo Kang Youwei lun geming shu, in Zhang Taiyan quanji 4: 173–184—PZ]
1. Mencius 4B: 8.
2. See Han Yu’s idealization of the ruler, ch. 18.
3. Kang Nanhai zibian nianpu 4: 113–114, as translated by Richard Howard.
4. Early book on political and economic institutions that foreshadows Legalist doctrines. See ch. 7.
5.Mean 20.
6.Classic of Changes, Hexagram no. 26 (Dachu).
7.That is, the Han Learning pursued text criticism at the expense of moral principle.
8. Mencius 7B: 37.
9. Mencius 7B: 14.
10. Internal customs duties.
11. The relationships between ruler and minister, parent and child, husband and wife, elder brother and younger brother, and friends.
12.The Han dynasty conception otherwise known as the Three Mainstays: the relations of ruler/minister, parent/child, husband/wife.
13.Zhuangzi, ch. 10. Trans. from Watson, Chuang Tzu, p. 110.
14.Tan’s account has some resemblance to Huang Zongxi’s, but Huang speaks of the sage rulers of antiquity only as men who stood forth to undertake a heroic, self-sacrificial role as servants of the people. As such they were accepted by the people, but not raised up in the sense of being elected.
15.Under the influence of Buddhism and perhaps utilitarianism, Tan viewed the traditional moral values as mere “names” or empty concepts (ming) in contrast to reality or actuality (shi).
16. Cf. Huang Zongxi, ch. 25.
17.Mean 2.
18.Mean 25.
19.Analects 11: 15; Legge, The Chinese Classics, p. 242.
20.Liang is referring to the failed Hundred Days of Reform.
21.The character shi can be translated as time or an era, but in this context, “timely” or “the opportune moment” is close to the meaning.
22. Wenming guo is translated here as “advanced nations,” according to the new meaning the term wenming took on in Meiji Japan in the late nineteenth century rather than in its classical meaning as a civilized cultural condition.
23. In Chinese mythology, he is held to be the inventor of writing.
24. Gezhi (an abbreviation of “the investigation [of things] and the extension [of knowledge]”in the Great Learning). This term was also used as an equivalent of “physics” in the early days of contact with the modern West.
25. The natural knowledge o
r good knowing (liang zhi) of Mencius and Wang Yangming.
Chapter 32
THE NATIONALIST REVOLUTION
The Chinese Revolution of 1911, which led to the overthrow of the Manchus the following year, was complex in its origins and confused as to its outcome. There is no single trend of thought or political action with which it can be identified. Nevertheless, amid the shifting currents of ideas and events in the two decades following, nationalism and republicanism emerged as perhaps the leading slogans in the political arena; and in the popular mind (if we may so speak of a political consciousness still somewhat inchoate), it was Sun Yat-sen (1866–1925) and his Nationalist (Guomindang) followers who stood out as the most eloquent, though not always the most effective, spokesmen for these concepts. In the post-Mao era many Chinese returned to these ideas as having a continuing relevance to the process of modernization under Deng Xiaoping. To express their basic aims and hopes is the purpose of the selections that follow. The next chapter will illustrate the extraordinary intellectual ferment and vitality during this same republican era.
SUN YAT-SEN AND THE NATIONALIST REVOLUTION
The origins of the revolutionary movement may be traced back to 1895, when Sun, convinced that the Manchu regime was beyond hope of reforming, attempted his first abortive coup in Canton. As a practitioner of revolution Sun was never a great success; nor, on the other hand, did he stand out as a brilliant political philosopher. It was rather as a visionary that Sun eventually caught the imagination of Chinese youth—as a man of intense convictions and magnetic personality, who, through his crusading and somewhat quixotic career, dramatized ideas and catalyzed forces that outlived him. The first clear sign of this came just after the Russo-Japanese War, which gave great impetus to revolutionary nationalism throughout Asia. Japan was a hotbed of agitation among Chinese in exile and students sent abroad for study under official auspices. Sun, in 1905, united his secret revolutionary society with other extremist groups to form the League of Common Alliance (Tongmeng hui, sometimes loosely translated as the Revolutionary Alliance), out of which later grew the Nationalist Party (Guomindang). Through its party organ, the People’s Report (Minbao), this group published a manifesto that stated the aims of the movement, including three from which evolved the Three People’s Principles.
Sources of Chinese Tradition, Volume 2 Page 47