[ China & Inner Asia, Table of Contents ]
[ Panels by World Area Main Menu ]
[ View the Timetable of Panels ]
Elite Networking in Late Qing and Republican China
Organizer: John Danis, University of California, Berkeley
Chair and Discussant: R. Keith Schoppa, Loyola College
This panel explores the dynamics of social networking and the ways in which networking worked to confer and legitimate elite status in the late Qing and Republican eras. It illuminates ways in which various forms of association facilitated the accumulation of power and the wielding of influence in different locales and spheres of Chinese society. By juxtaposing papers in business, economic, intellectual, and political history, the panel posits the fundamental importance of analyzing social networks to a multiplicity of approaches to the study of power and status in modern China. At the same time, the papers recognize that “network” is not a fixed concept, but, rather, historically contingent, with diverse manifestations. A key concern of the panel is how members of the elite negotiated the rapid cultural, social, and technological changes (in other words, the “modernity”) of the early twentieth century: how did they mobilize their networks to take advantage of new opportunities? Conversely, how did modernity, especially rapidly developing communications, affect the traditional institutions and patterns of elite sociability, such as native-place and school ties? The panel introduces a historical dimension to the study of networks—in particular, how they change over time—thus contributing to the anthropological and sociological literature on sociability and status, while also enriching the body of historical and literary research on various aspects of the ideology and institutions of the Chinese elite.
Native-place Ties in the Making of Lu Xun, 1902-1938
John Danis, University of California, Berkeley
It was not simply artistic genius that made Lu Xun (1881-1936) China’s greatest modern author; he was also part of a social network influential among the educated elite and within the publishing industry. Perhaps because of the unsavory implications of being called part of a “clique” (an accusation thrown at Lu Xun by his contemporary critics), or because attention has focused on him as an extraordinary individual, existing scholarship on Lu Xun under-analyzes the significance of networking in his rise to prominence. Lu Xun’s social network was largely formed outside the literary sphere, along traditional patterns of association based on native-place and teacher-student ties. His career intertwines with that of his life-long friend Xu Shouchang (1882-1948) and their mutual patron Cai Yuanpei (1868-1940), the godfather of modern Chinese intellectuals. The dynamic relationship among these Shaoxing natives furnishes one example of how native-place networking was adapted to new spheres of activity—in this case, from the bureaucracy to academia, publishing, and party politics—in late-Qing and Republican-era China. It also illustrates that these fields were, in practice, closely linked through key figures such as Cai, whose prestige and influence transcended occupational boundaries. The paper contributes to the study of ideas and institutions by approaching the field through an analysis of the underlying patterns of social interaction among intellectuals. By focusing on networking, it highlights power dynamics among the modern Chinese educated elite; as a case study, it deepens our understanding of the canonical but contradictory and perplexing figure of Lu Xun.
Local Charities That Shook the World: Transnational Merchant Networks and Famine Relief in Guangzhou, 1907-1927
Seung-joon Lee, University of Wisconsin, Whitewater
This paper explores a few cases of local famine relief (pintiao) in late-Qing and early-Republican Guangzhou. The focus of this research is both the continuity of traditional patterns of local charities and the change in the social meaning of charity engendered by the encounters with the flourishing commercial culture, political upheavals, and nascent nationalism. Guangzhou—the southernmost metropolis of China—relied for its rice supplies on the world rice trade, consuming mostly foreign rice imports from Southeast Asia via Hong Kong rather than domestic rice from northern hinterlands. Following decades of political and social turbulence, the local mercantile leaders came to play a key role in securing the transnational rice supply networks that fed the local population and thus preserved public order. Hence, at the heart of the resourceful management of famine relief in Guangzhou, with its highly moralistic rhetoric and localized emphasis, lay the mercantile elite’s careful cultivation of commercial networks abroad and their worldwide business reputation. In turn, the successful practice of famine relief led to the furtherance of their business and social influence. In contrast to past scholarship that has insisted on the local character of merchant charities in the Chinese treaty-port cities, this paper argues that the key factor in the making of famine relief in Guangzhou was Cantonese merchants’ extensive building of commercial networks far beyond the local boundary, webbing together not only Chinese treaty ports but also Hong Kong as well as entrepots throughout the Pacific Rim.
The Young China Association and the Benefit the Masses Book Society: The Dialectics of May Fourth Social Networking
Shakhar Rahav, University of California, Berkeley
This paper examines the construction of social networks of political intellectuals during China’s May Fourth movement (1919) as represented in the relationship of the Young China Association (YCA) and its founder Wang Guangqi with Wuhan’s Benefit the Masses Book Society and other organizations associated with local activist Yun Daiying. Scholarship on the May fourth movement and the founding of the Chinese Communist Party has pointed to the importance of local associations for the spread of radicalism during this period. The YCA has been recognized as the largest association of the time, and its members included many of the period’s most prominent activists, such as Mao Zedong, Li Dazhao, and Wang Guangqi. However, the YCA has received little scholarly attention. The Benefit the Masses Book Society was a nexus of radical activity in central China, and conducted an ongoing dialogue with the YCA that shaped both organizations. Examining the relationship between these two organizations, the paper argues that May Fourth radicalism spread by means of social networks that emerged from a dialectic between existing social networks and radical ideas. This dialectical process was nurtured by new forms of sociability conducted via the mushrooming periodical press of the time, as well as by traditional forms of sociability such as correspondence and face-to-face meetings. These changing forms of intellectual sociability via the new media enabled the YCA to become a nation-wide organization, while it allowed the May Fourth movement to become a nation-wide phenomenon.
Culture from Connections: Guanxi Networks that Shaped the Kaiming Press, 1925-1930
Ling Arey Shiao, Southern Methodist University
The avant-garde small presses that mushroomed in the streets of Shanghai during the second half of the 1920s constituted a primary force that popularized May Fourth New Culture and promote newer cultural experimentations of the time. A majority of these presses were founded by young writer-publishers who had no significant financial backing. Instead, they relied upon their social capital—personal, social, and intellectual networks which they had previously cultivated. A prime example of such practice is the Kaiming Press (Kaiming shudian). Founded in 1926, Kaiming was a rebellious off-spring of the leading Commercial Press. Kaiming’s founder and its main supporters had all worked together a the Commercial Press’s editorial department. Additionally, Kaiming enjoyed enthusiastic backing by three mission-driven May Fourth societies—the Women’s Question Research Association, the Literary Research Association, and the Lida Society, all with overlapping memberships. Equally importantly, Kaiming’s editors and the authors they published shared friendships, school ties, native place ties that were traceable back to the hubs of political and cultural activities of Zhejiang Province during the late teens and early twenties. Through a close examination of these multilayered connections and their dynamics, my paper reveals the distinctive pattern of May Fourth intellectual sociability that both drew upon and departed from traditional literati practices. It also moves away from the conventional focus on political ideologies, social visions, literary styles, and financial resources as determining forces in cultural production. Instead, it highlights the significance of networks and shared experiences. I argue that intellectual connections and mutual commitments amongst the Kaiming intellectuals not only laid the groundwork for the press’s success but also contributed to its particular vision and style.