The last decade of the Qing dynasty and the first decade of the Republic of China was a period of momentous social change and political turmoil. The traditional imperial system, unable to cope with the challenges of the day, was brought into question. There was a strong sense that it must be ended. “Monarchy or Republic?”, and “How is a world without emperor conceivable?” were questions with which late Qing intellectuals wrestled. In his thoughtful and balanced account Peter Zarrow presents readers with the different arguments put forward by the New Text school writers, including Kang Youwei and Liang Qichao, and those of Old Text school such as Zhang Binglin and Liu Shipei, as well as the challenges these different groups faced.
The 1911 Revolution and the creation of the Republic of China in 1912 was in a way the answer to their earlier questions. These late Qing intellectuals, as Zarrow argues in this book, “could no longer imagine a future in which the form of the state was monarchical” (p. 5). They became preoccupied with the quest for a “modern Chinese identity”. The new civic nationalism, as proposed by Liang Qichao, replaced the old form of ethnic nationalism. In this civic nationalism the new China – the state – consisted of a group of “new citizens” (xinmin) who processed private/individual virtues which were essential for building public morality or “civic virtue” (gongde). The early years of the new Republic proved a fertile ground for cross-breeding new ideologies imported from the West and those that had been in China for thousands of years. To make sense of this rapidly changing world, traditional morality came under heavy fire. Western models and theories were translated and adopted by many modernizing intellectuals. The adoption was, however, not a blind one. In most cases what was imported from the West was synthesized with Confucian ideas and Buddhist teachings. Democracy was understood not as a Western value but as a spirit shared by the Chinese. The Mandate of Heaven was reinterpreted as one stage in achieving democracy, similar to the Western insistence on the ruler's responsibility to God (p. 187). Human rights, or the rights of citizens (civic rights), were expressed in Confucian terms. It was argued that Confucianism and Republicanism were perfectly compatible, and citizens of the new Republic were the same as the people under Heaven in Confucian teaching.
In the last chapter, entitled “The Last Emperors”, Zarrow goes on to argue that if imperial influence had not quite ended in 1912, “it was certainly gone in 1924” (p. 242). By 1915, the New Youth intellectuals such as Chen Duxiu challenged this Confucian Republicanism. Rejecting autocracy, Chen exalted individual consciousness. For Chen, citizens were a political entity, and not based on blood, language and culture. The debate over individual morality and the Republican polity dominated debate during the new cultural period. While the emperors might be gone for ever, Confucianism was not dead, argues Zarrow. Instead it went through its own democratic stage of development. The Confucians and the New Cultural radicals “shared a faith that the Chinese people, if they were properly disciplined, would become good citizens” (p. 282). In the following years, rights and duties became key debates in political discourse in China.
One of the most enjoyable chapters in Zarrow's book is chapter 7 “Founding the Republic”. Zarrow begins by showing there was not one founding date for the Republic of China. By examining how different political rituals, including anthem and flag, were created in the wake of revolution, Zarrow demonstrates how the process of constructing the new state was an ongoing one. The Republicans were not one but many different voices, and the making of new political rituals became their battleground.
While Zarrow's account of this rich and complex period in modern Chinese history is undoubtedly accomplished, I find the structure a little problematic. Some themes, such as the relationship between citizen and state, keep on popping up from time to time throughout the book, but there is no clear sense of how they developed. One other thing is that he uses the English terms “kingship”, “monarchy” and “emperorship” broadly in his discussions but never explains their differences. I also find his treatment of “identity and history” rather superficial, but even more so is the section on the Mao era and China today in the concluding chapter. It's all very well to say that today's Chinese state is modelled on Bluntschli's nineteenth-century political-legal theory – first introduced to China by the late Qing intellectuals. As a reader, however, I would like to know what makes Taiwan − a state − different from Communist China − also a state.
Despite these shortcomings, After Empire is undoubtedly an important addition to Zarrow's earlier works on intellectual currents, politics, and the ideology of the early twentieth century. The book is also meticulously referenced with a rich bibliography particularly beneficial to students and researchers alike.
