Modernity

On the East Asia mainland, ideas of modernity developed later. In Korea, most enlightenment thinkers were trained in Japan, and these became the leading spokespersons for modernizing reforms in the late nineteenth century, and, when Korea eventually fell to Japanese colonialism in 1910, for a cultural nationalism and political independence. Chinese thinking about modernity, by contrast, was shaped by a tenacious Confucian view of the world, intertwined with erratic strands of Buddhism and Western learning, and was marked by the persistent failure of efforts to reform the late Qing state for most of the nineteenth century. The result was a development in which enlightenment discourse was overshadowed by utopian constructions.

The leading reformer of the period, Kang Youwei (1858–1927), was a generation younger than Fukuzawa, but his ideas were notably less Westernized. In the early 1880s, Kang envisaged the emergence in another hundred years of equal rights for all human beings, phasing out the Confucian hierarchy between emperor and ministers, between gentry and commoners, and between men and women. But by the 1890s, the vague notion of a "public agreement" that would "lead every living being into the paradise of supreme happiness" (Kangzi nei wai pian, 1884, Kangzi: Inter and outer chapters) had given way to an accommodating monarchism that promised to give present society a stage of "well being" (shengping, xiaokang), en route to a "grand peace" (taiping) of the whole world of "great harmony" (datong). The vision of progress in it offered utopian constructions dressed in Confucian discourse as a remedy to China's modern crisis.

The thinker-translator Yan Fu (1853–1921) was responsible for introducing Social Darwinism into China with a translation of T. H. Huxley's Evolution and Ethics, significantly rendered as Tianyan lun (1895; On Heavenly evolution). Convinced of the need for the Chinese to understand the implications of "the survival of the fittest," Yan warned his countrymen: "The weak invariably become the prey to the strong, the stupid invariably become subservient to the clever" ("Yuanqiang," 1895, On strength). In an essay entitiled "Lun shi bian zhi ji" (1895, On the urgency of change in the world), he noted that "[t]he greatest difference in the principles of West and East, that which is most irreconcilable, is that the Chinese love the ancient and ignore the present, whereas Westerners strive for present to overcome the past." Here what is modern in his evolutionary horizon was still more a matter of geographical contrast than of temporal advance. As time moved on, through the chaos of the early Republic, Yan became disillusioned with the idea of evolution itself.

The first to tackle problems of modernity more directly was Kang's disciple, Liang Qichao (1873–1929), who fled to Japan after the failed attempt at state reform in the summer of 1898. With far more access to works by Meiji thinkers and Japanese translations of Western literature, he wrote that the effect of reading them was as if "suddenly seeing the sun in a dark room and drinking on an empty stomach" ("Lun xue riben wen shi yi," 1899, On the benefit of learning Japanese). Here were the models for the modernization of China. Reconfiguring the crisis of the time, Liang effectively replaced "Western" with "new" as a defining adjective for the tasks of the time. In his article "Shanonian Zhongguo shuo" (1900, On young China), he wrote: "What has made China today a senile giant is the evil deeds of dying old men." The task of creating a new China fell to the young, and he enumerated all the fields—from morality and laws to institutions and conventions—that required recasting by them in "an independent spirit" (Xinmin shuo, 1902–1906, Discourse on the new citizen). He also called for a "new history" and "new novel," publishing a utopian fiction of his own, Xin Zhongguo weilai ji (The future of new China) in 1902, while advocating a monarchical constitution under the Manchu rule.

Liang's call for a new historiography was challenged by the classical scholar Zhang Binglin (1868–1936), who argued that Confucius should be seen as the first great Chinese historian, founding a tradition of historical studies that retained its validity to the present. "Instead of persuading people to worship Confucianism as a religion, we should encourage them to treasure the history of the Han nation" (1906). Politically a resolute revolutionary committed to the overthrow of the Manchu court, Zhang sought intellectually to tie the nationalist movement to pre-Qing traditions: "Historical events and relics can move patriotic feelings." The ensuing debate between the two showed the persistent classical sense of the past that had to be overcome before "modern times" could be successfully conceptualized in China.

It was not until the following decade that these parameters changed to that similar to, but almost half a century later than, Fukuzawa's bunmei kaika, in both essence and scale. The two leading intellectuals of the period, Chen Duxiu (1879–1942) and Hu Shi (1891–1962), launched a sweeping campaign against Chinese traditions in the name of democracy and science in 1917, in a movement that culminated in the May Fourth Incident against the post–World War I Versailles Peace Conference in 1919. Hu Shi insisted on a "critical attitude" and the need to "revalue all values" (Xin sichao de yiyi, 1919, The significance of the new thought) in the light of modern reason. Chen Duxiu declared:

In support of Mr. Democracy, we must oppose Confucian teaching and rites, the value of chastity, old ethics and old politics. In support of Mr. Science, we must oppose old arts and old religions. In support of both Mr D and Mr S, we must oppose the "national essence" and old literature.… How many upheavals occurred and how much blood was shed in the West in support of Mr D and Mr S, before these two gentlemen gradually led Westerners out of darkness into the bright world. We firmly believe that only they can resuscitate China and bring it out of all the present darkness of its politics, morality, scholarship and thought. (Xin qinqnian zui-an zhi dabian, 1919, In defence of the New Youth against accusations)

It was in the urgency of this perspective that the semantic shift of the term for "modern" from jindai to the more sharply present-focused xiandai occurred.

It was left to China's greatest writer of the period, Lu Xun (1881–1936), to consciously hold skepticism while fighting under the banner of Mr. D and Mr. S against conformist tendency. One of the first in China to introduce literary works from weak and colonized countries in Europe and Asia, he most valued the patriotic affection and fighting spirit expressed by the people. Similarly, he quoted Byron and Neitzsche repeatedly as the model for noncompromised struggle. He attacked those who "dream not about the future, only in the present," and warned those optimistic about modernity that "the most painful experience in life is to wake up from a dream and find no road to follow" ("Nala zouhou zenyang," 1923, Now Nora is after leaving [the Doll's House]). With a clear understanding that no ready model for imitation was available, Lu Xun envisaged life in constant struggle of paving new roads: "What is a road? It is what comes out from tramping over where there was no road, paved out from where there were brambles only." It was also to rejuvenate "human being's potential in longing for perfection" ("Gusiang," 1921, Hometown) to march forward regardless of how difficult, how seemingly hopeless the future ahead might be.