Organizer: Caroline Reeves, Harvard University
Chair: Charles Hayford, University of Illinois, Chicago
Discussant: David Faure, Oxford University
"State Building and Social Initiative in Republican China" brings together three papers, "The Changing Nature of Chinese Philanthropy in Late Qing and Republican China," "Spreading the Revolution Beyond Politics: Queue Cutting, Calendar Reform and the Revolution of 1911" and "Playing with Fire: The Nanjing Government and Popular Anti-Opium Agitation in 1928." These papers explore the relationship between the state and extra-governmental social movements. Examining the assumption that Chinese governments were invariably hostile to such initiatives, the panelists explore how popular social initiatives during this volatile period were frequently co-opted by a state attempting to build moral and political capital at home and abroad. The papers trace these initiatives from their origins, examining how the movements were transformed into official campaigns and programs-often with new agendas far from their original design.
Launched with an eye to the "outside" (that is, with the intention of bringing China into line with perceptions of norms of "modern" industrial states), these movements fanned the flames of Republican nationalism even as they relied on nationalism to swell their ranks. Probing these issues, the papers also illuminate how power oscillated between the locality and the center, the elite and the government, as the state sought to gain control over symbols of moral and social legitimacy. In analyzing the socio cultural struggle over the symbols of Chinese nationalism, the panel emphasizes an approach to Republican Chinese history seldom taken in earlier scholarship.
Caroline Reeves, Harvard University
Using the Chinese Red Cross Society as a case study, this paper will discuss the changing nature of Chinese philanthropy in the late imperial and early Republican period, exploring the new directions in charitable work taken by Chinese elites and the new hands-on attitude of the state towards charitable initiatives. Philanthropy was not a new phenomenon in late imperial China, but by the early 1900's, Confucian public-mindedness was being radically transformed. This paper will show how a new international emphasis on "national health," both literal and figurative, was adopted by the imperial government and by China's elite, permanently changing the Chinese discourse on public welfare.
Charitable organizations, both old and new, acquired new social significance and legitimacy during this period. Newspapers in China's urban centers advertised and popularized philanthropic groups, trumpeting China's need for social change and calling for donations. For example, the activities of the Chinese Red Cross Society were featured in popular magazines, and calls for charitable subscripions appeared in major newspapers.
This summons to social involvement was answered enthusiastically by all levels of society. To China's elite, the philanthropic groups presented opportunities to develop elite networks with strong international connections. Advisory boards of charitable organizations such as the Red Cross Society were often comprised of prominent foreigners as well as Chinese. Philanthropic activity also allowed merchants and gentry to make a familiar and yet "modern" statement, offering both a traditional outlet for the expression of social concern and a new "modern" identity, in which a commitment to Chinese nationalism played a significant part. The new social imperative also resonated among the general population. Not only were the new welfare initiatives personally relevant to citizens frequently victimized by natural and man-made disasters, but they also offered an opportunity to participate in the revitalization of the nation.
Taking advantage of an ovewhelming popular response, philanthropists and social welfare activists expanded traditional, locally based social welfare initiatives into nationally coordinated organizations and movements. Branch societies of the national Chinese Red Cross were formed all over China, in urban centers and rural towns, drawing their membership and donations from factory workers and farmers as well as from elite members of society. Although the elite were the first to mobilize to reform public social welfare, the government soon realized the potential political advantage it could gain from associating itself with such initiatives. In the case of the Red Cross, this meant a wholesale co-optation of the Red Cross movement first by the Qing and then by subsequent governments. Installing itself as the head of philanthropic organizations, the state was able to proclaim itself the ultimate benefactor of the Chinese people-thus establishing its nationalist credentials.
Henrietta Harrison, Oxford University
Queue cutting and calendar reform, two government campaigns which forced a very visible outward acceptance of the state on each individual, help us see how social initiatives of the late Qing were adopted by leaders of the new Republic and used to build a new sense of national identity.
By the late l9th century, the queue had come to be seen as quintessentially Chinese. Revolutionaries and modernizers first redefined the queue as a symbol of Manchu domination and then took advantage of pervasive anti Manchu feelings during the 1911 Revolution. A broad range of modernizers, from the educated elite to revolutionary soldiers, cut off their own queues and pressured others into doing the same. Popular initiatives were backed by decrees and propaganda from the central and later regional militarist governments. By the early 1930s the vast majority of China's male population wore the short hair that identified them as citizens of the new Republican state.
By contrast, the use of the solar calendar, advocated by the same late Qing modernizers who first promoted queue cutting, was taken up by a government optimistically hoping to replace the annual cycle of popular religion with a new cycle of national holidays commemorating events of the new Republic. Few members of the public were willing to accept this new calendar and compliance came mainly from those who had official dealings with the government. Thus use of the solar calendar and its associated holidays came to represent not only commitment to the principle of the new Republican state, but also a degree of commitment to the government in power-not only to the nation, but to the state. It was not until the extension of central government control during the Nanjing decade that the solar calendar came into widespread use.
The Revolution of l911 has long been seen primarily in political terms rather than in terms of its impact on society. By looking at the spread of queue cutting and of the use of the solar calendar, we can see how Republican governments were able to manipulate social initiatives associated with the revolution to achieve their state building objectives.
Alan Baumler, University of Illinois, Urbana
In 1928 the Nationalist government decreed a new policy for opium suppression, based on licensing addicts to receive decreasing amounts of opium. Most observers assumed, however, that the government's true aim was not to eliminate opium, but to profit from it. Nanjing's policy was attacked by a broader and more sophisticated group of critics than the government had ever faced before. The government of Zhejiang charged that this was only a small part of Nanjing's abandonment of Sun Yatsen-ism and with great fanfare announced a more strict anti-opium policy. The Ju Du Hui (Chinese Anti-Opium Society), China's official representative at the League of Nations drug conferences, accused the government of humiliating China in front of the world, and went to great lengths to rally support from all politically active sectors.
The government was unwilling to give up the profits that controlling the opium trade could bring, but it was also unwilling to abandon the political capital that could be gained from manipulating the issue. Throughout the Nanjing period, accusations of opium trafficking would be an important part of the GMD's arsenal in its struggles with local militarists, and central government anti-opium inspectors would be the aspect of central power that militarists found hardest to keep out of their fiefs.
The Nanjing government dealt with the critics of its opium policy quickly and effectively. Unlike the clumsy tactics of suppression the government would use against later mass movements, the anti-opium movement was co-opted rather than destroyed. Nanjing called for a national conference to bring the drug control effort under central guidance, and issued new laws intended to placate critics while keeping policy essentially the same.
In order to have their cake and eat it, too, the government would have to control the discourse of opium suppression. Some critics, like the Zhejiang provincial government, could simply be crushed. The JDH and other private anti-opium organizations were enveloped and neutralized by the new Jin Yan Wei Yuan Hui (Anti-Opium Commission). Foreign criticism was deflected by convincing the League of Nations that the government was taking steps against opium (which was true) and that this would lead to total suppression.
The anti-opium movement provides a counterpoint to the accepted view of the Nationalist government as incompetent and reactive. The opium problem showed the Nanjing government at its most effective, capable of identifying threats to its nationalist credentials and of taking control of public discourse to defend itself.
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