Chair: Don C. Price, University of California, Davis

Organizer: Leigh Kathryn Jenco, University of Chicago

Discussant: Guy S. Alitto, University of Chicago

The papers on this panel take seriously the possibility that early Republican thinkers have contributions to make not only to history, but also to political and social thought. Responding to calls within Western political theory for a more inclusive and global account of the political experiences of non-Western societies, each paper offers a look into the political thinking of early Republican intellectuals and substantively evaluates their contributions to understanding shared problems. Not surprisingly, this approach offers not only new insight into common political dilemmas, but also a more sensitively calibrated and more accurate look into what these thinkers argued and why they argued it. Centered on the conflict of "traditional" Chinese society with the simultaneously daunting yet promising modern Western approaches to governance that characterized early Republican politics, these glimpses into the ideas that motivated historical events draw upon the assumptions of modern Western political theory even as they challenge them, resulting in a richer overall portrait both of early Republican politics and of the political theory ultimately informed by it. Don Price explores how early Republican intellectuals understood key factors of competition, unity, and accountability within a working constitutionalism; Leigh Jenco draws on the debates over "rule of law" and "rule by man" to re-examine the foundations of liberalism; David Strand sheds light the theories and narratives of early feminist reformers in their drive for recognition as Republican citizens; and Theresa Lee brings early Republican concepts of culture to bear on contemporary discussions of "Asian values" and political identity.

Don C. Price, University of California, Davis

The purpose of this paper is to re-examine one explanation for the weakness of democracy in 20^th century China: that Chinese culture prevented even the advocates of democracy from understanding 1) the tension between democracy’s value in promoting a unitary national interest, and in providing an arena for political competition within the nation and 2) the essential function of institutional guarantees to prevent leaders from acquiring dictatorial powers.

Late Qing reform proponents’ stress on the value of representative institutions for uniting rulers and ruled certainly suggests that unity trumped political competition, while the ineffectiveness of efforts to circumscribe leaders’ arrogation of powers suggests insufficient concern for mechanisms to achieve that goal.

Nevertheless, revolutionary and reform literature amply documents the view that a new regime should place effective sovereignty in the hands of the people, as a matter of simple justice. At the same time, the question remained how this could be implemented in amidst grave foreign threats, and with an ill-prepared population. Accordingly, the proponents of the new order paid a great deal of attention to the constitutional systems of England, America, France, Japan and Prussia, as well as the plans of the Qing court.

The product of their studies and debates was a broad consensus in favor of a responsible cabinet constitutional system which, they reasoned, could achieve broad representation, open political competition, government accountability to elected representatives, and national unity. The failure of their efforts owes more to other factors than their cultural limitations.

Tang Qunying and Her Sisters: Women’s Rights in the First Year of the Chinese Republic
David Strand, Dickinson College

Tang Qunying (1871-1937) was a literary prodigy, accomplished poet, bomb-maker, military commander, spy, journalist, orator, civic activist, and educator. That is, she was every inch a "founder" of the Chinese republic and, in fact, the political and intellectual peer of more famous figures like Sun Yat-sen. Having fought the good fight to overthrow the Qing dynasty, she, and a small cohort of likeminded women, expected to gain the vote and allied rights once a republic was established in 1912. Tang and her supporters, female and male, failed in this endeavor but not without months of argument and agitation against fierce opposition. The spectacle of women demanding the vote helped make women’s rights one of the most compelling public issues of 1912. The arrival of international women’s suffrage campaigner Carrie Chapman Catt in China in August1912 (Catt confided to her diary that "now I have shaken the hands of Mohammedan, Hindu, Buddhist, and Confucian suffragists!") further stimulated debate among Chinese women about the theory and practice of women’s rights in global perspective. This paper explores the theories ("natural rights"), narratives (Chinese women as "heirs to the mother of Mencius and Mulan"), and sentiments (sacrifices made in the revolution merit a share in the fruits of revolution) that animated the Chinese suffrage movement and contributed to Tang Qunying’s vision of a "republic of women" as well as men.

Re-casting Liberalism: ‘Rule by Man’ Versus ‘Rule by Law’ in Early Republican China
Leigh Kathryn Jenco, University of Chicago

Liberalism was a political doctrine with many political adherents in early Republican China, but its ultimate failure suggests that this European import lacked cultural grounding for its application. Indeed, modern scholars of liberalism like John Rawls conclude that liberalism’s political ideals reside exclusively in the doctrine of tolerance that the religious struggles of the Protestant Reformation brought forth, which casts liberalism as an answer to the particular contradictions inherent in the epistemological commitments of Euro-American societies. Does this imply, as some scholars have suggested, that what was embraced by Chinese intellectuals is a "false" liberalism or simply the trappings of liberalism without the epistemological foundation that properly grounds it? In this paper I argue rather that early Republican liberalism is better explained by reference to a different kind of tension, exhibited in the debate over the "rule by law" (fa zhi) of constitutionalism versus the "rule by man" (ren zhi) of traditional Confucianism that captivated early Republican intellectuals like Zhang Shizhao, Liang Qichao, and Wu Guanyin. By treating their work not as historical data, but as political theory, I can avoid evaluating the "success" of the early Republican liberal project in terms of a Western yardstick premised on particular tensions of church and state and instead explore the possibilities for re-centering liberalism as they did: around the pole of virtue and its political function. This approach both contributes to modern debates in political theory and promises greater clarity into the historical fate of liberalism in the Republican era.

Theresa Lee, University of Guelph, Canada

Culture became increasingly central to Chinese political discourse as China confronted Western and Japanese imperialism in the late Qing and early Republic. By rejecting Confucianism as the basis for transforming the traditional imperial state, Republican-era intellectuals shaped the Chinese self-perception of their culture as being antithetical to its Western counterpart. Thus understood, the current "Asian values" debate, which is set against the backdrop of global human rights politics, is just the latest rendition of a century-old theme in Chinese political discourse. This debate has taken a significant turn, however, in that some intellectuals now uphold the view that uniquely Asian values such as those endorsed by Confucianism can in fact enhance human rights in non-Western societies without compromising their cultural integrity.

Accordingly, the questions that guide this comparative study are as follows: Why is it that the earlier Republican-era generation of thinkers thought that Confucianism was beyond reform while the current generation sees Confucianism as having the potential of offering a much-needed alternative to Western liberalism? Is this a case of one side getting Confucianism right and the other not? Or is this a case of an essentialist notion of culture versus a constructionist conception? If so, how did Republican Chinese intellectuals reconcile Westernization with the need to reconstruct a national identity which is also distinctly Chinese? What can we learn from this juxtaposition between the past and the present regarding culture and political identity?