scholarly journals Not Just a Man of Guns: Chen Jiongming, Warlord, and the May Fourth Intellectual (1919–1922)

2019 ◽  
Vol 4 (1) ◽  
pp. 161-185
Author(s):  
Vivienne Xiangwei Guo
Keyword(s):  
Formative Period ◽  
Hu Shi ◽  
May Fourth ◽  
Chinese Intellectuals ◽  
Chen Duxiu

AbstractInstead of assuming “warlords” as a homogeneous counter-force to the May Fourth enlightenment while imagining Chinese intellectuals as a natural alliance for the “anti-warlordism” National Revolution, this article examines the prevailing idea exchange and political collaboration between Chen Jiongming, the Cantonese military strongman, and the May Fourth intellectual within and beyond regional borders. Between 1919 and 1922, Chen Jiongming not only fostered his anarcho-federalist blueprint, but also garnered support from prominent thinkers hailing from across different ideological camps such as Liang Bingxian, Chen Duxiu, and Hu Shi. Focusing on the ideological and intellectual aspects of warlord rule, this article attempts to situate the study of warlordism against the backdrop of the Chinese enlightenment, to downplay the differences between the man of guns and the man of letters, and thereby to redefine, re-characterize, and reappraise “warlords” as active agents—the initiators—of China's renewals during this formative period.

The Power of Position: Beijing University, Intellectuals and Chinese Political Culture 1898–1929. By Timothy B. Weston. [Berkeley, Los Angeles, London: University of California Press, 2004. xiv+325 pp. $60.00; £39.95. ISBN 0-520-23767-6.]

2004 ◽  
Vol 179 ◽  
pp. 841-843
Author(s):  
Benjamin A. Elman
Keyword(s):  
Los Angeles ◽  
Intellectual Life ◽  
May Fourth Movement ◽  
New Culture Movement ◽  
Fourth Movement ◽  
May Fourth ◽  
Chinese Intellectuals ◽  
The University ◽  
Chinese Political Culture ◽  
The May Fourth Movement

Timothy Weston's study of Beijing University (hereafter, “Beida”) spotlights how modern Chinese intellectuals positioned themselves politically and socially in the early 20th century. Weston relies on the Beida archives, dailies, journals, and many other sources, to make four contributions. First, Beida's early history shows how literati humanists repositioned themselves during a period of great uncertainty. New style intellectuals had influence because they mastered Western and classical learning. Secondly, Beida's complex history did not break sharply with the past. Earlier accounts of the May Fourth movement obscure the efforts of intellectuals since 1898 to redefine their role. Weston suggests that May Fourth amplified a continuing progression of new and old ways of doing things. Thirdly, political tensions emerged when the university increasingly radicalized after 1911. No more than 20 per cent of Beida students were involved in the New Culture movement. A strong conservative undertow continually challenged radical agendas. Often we hear only the voices of the latter. Finally, Weston assesses Beida's history in light of how the May Fourth movement played out in different locations. In the 1920s, Shanghai replaced Beijing as the leading venue for urban China's cultural and intellectual leaders. Beijing increasingly lost status under warlordism, and the Nationalist shift of the capital to Nanjing refocused Chinese intellectual life on the Chang (Yangtze) delta.

The official reappraisal of May Fourth intellectuals: Hu Shi in the Sinicization of Marxism

2019 ◽  
Vol 33 (3) ◽  
pp. 257-273
Author(s):  
Selena Orly
Keyword(s):  
Political Identity ◽  
Chinese History ◽  
Political Climate ◽  
Reform Era ◽  
Hu Shi ◽  
Leading Role ◽  
Chinese Characteristics ◽  
May Fourth ◽  
The Times ◽  
The Moment

In the two decades after 1995, the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) executed a significant philosophical shift in its relentless struggle for legitimacy and relevance through the Sinicization of Marxism (马克思主义中国化). Following the pattern of many other political reorientations, the party undertook a reassessment of a prominent historical figure to conduct ideological work – in this case, a leading May Fourth intellectual, Hu Shi. For decades the orthodox CCP view of Hu had been uniformly negative, but from 1995 onwards the People’s Republic of China’s establishment intellectuals presented a more positive appraisal of his impact on Chinese history. Previous scholarship on the rehabilitation of Hu argues that the shift reflected the more liberal academic and political climate of the times. This article argues however that the reappraisal of Hu enabled the CCP to manage a key problem in its political identity – the disjuncture between revolutionary Maoism and reform-era policies captured by the slogan ‘socialism with Chinese characteristics’. By analysing the discussion on a key 1919 debate – known as the ‘problems and isms’ debate – I show that the CCP used Hu’s philosophical ruminations to trace the Sinicization of Marxism from the moment Marxism entered China to reform-era socialism with Chinese characteristics, and in the process it diminished the role of revolutionary Maoism. In so doing, the CCP consolidated legitimacy through showing its leading role in the historic Sinicization of Marxism without Maoism.

Enlightenment and Unity: Language Reformism in Late Qing China

2001 ◽  
Vol 35 (2) ◽  
pp. 469-493 ◽  
Author(s):  
W. K. CHENG
Keyword(s):  
Social Change ◽  
Chinese Language ◽  
Modern China ◽  
New Culture Movement ◽  
Language Reform ◽  
Late Qing ◽  
Late Qing China ◽  
May Fourth ◽  
Chinese Intellectuals

The movement to create a phonetic script for the Chinese language was arguably one of the most arresting and exciting engagements in modern China. While generations of Chinese intellectuals tirelessly applied themselves to sorting out the linguistic technicalities in devising a Chinese phonetic system, what made language reform—or, depending on the perspective taken, revolution—historically so intriguing was that it had been a fiercely contested domain where a fascinating array of ideological positions was staked and contended. As John de Francis has observed, there had always been ‘a significant correlation between attitudes toward social change and attitudes toward linguistic reform in China’. Indeed, Qian Xuantong insisted at the height of the May Fourth New Culture Movement that to destroy Confucianism, one must ‘first dispose of the Chinese language’, whereas the Communist-led latinization movement of the 1930s, for its part, was meant to create a medium for the emergence of a true proletarian culture.

The Concept of Rendaozhuyi in Late Qing and Early Republican China

Cultura ◽  
2019 ◽  
Vol 16 (2) ◽  
pp. 105-117
Author(s):  
Ke ZHANG
Keyword(s):  
Human Dignity ◽  
Great War ◽  
Republican China ◽  
Chinese Tradition ◽  
Late Qing ◽  
Republican Period ◽  
May Fourth ◽  
Early Republican ◽  
Chinese Intellectuals ◽  
The Great War

This paper examines the concept of Rendaozhuyi in Late Qing and Early Republican China. Appearing as early as 1903, Rendaozhuyi is the Chinese rendering of both humanism and humanitarianism. For the Chinese intellectuals during the Late Qing and Early Republican period, “rendao” itself represented a modern value of humanity and human dignity. In the wake of the Great War, Rendaozhuyi gained tremendous popularity among the May-Fourth scholars. Some of them held it up as a universal ideal and tool to critique Chinese tradition, while others respectfully disagreed, worrying it would undermine the collective morale of “strengthening the nation”. Finally, the late 1920s saw the rapid ebb of the discussions of Rendaozhuyi.

The Chinese Renaissance: A Transcultural Reading

PMLA ◽  
2005 ◽  
Vol 120 (3) ◽  
pp. 783-795 ◽  
Author(s):  
Gang Zhou
Keyword(s):  
Twentieth Century ◽  
European Countries ◽  
Modern China ◽  
Italian Renaissance ◽  
Hu Shi ◽  
Cultural Phenomenon ◽  
Early Twentieth Century ◽  
Chinese Intellectuals ◽  
European Renaissance

This paper examines the ways in which the idea of renaissance was understood and appropriated by Chinese intellectuals in the early twentieth century. My discussion foregrounds Hu Shi, one of the most important intellectual leaders in modern China and the main architect of the Chinese vernacular movement. I analyze his rewriting and reinvention of the European Renaissance as well as his declaration and presentation of the Chinese Renaissance in various contexts. Hu's creative uses of the Italian Renaissance and passionate claims for a Chinese Renaissance reveal the performative magic of the word renaissance and prompt us to ask what a renaissance is. The Chinese Renaissance and the fact that various non-European countries have declared and promoted their own renaissances invite a scholarly reconsideration of “renaissance” as a trans-cultural phenomenon rather than as a critical category originated and therefore owned by a certain culture.

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