The chain reaction caused by the dispute over the Diaoyu Islands reminds everyone of the structure of the relations between China and Japan before and after "918": a small number of extreme right-wing people in Japan provoked incidents and occupied the highest point of Japan's "patriotism" discourse, although China is a weak country, but high-profile nationalism at home exerts more and more pressure on China out of righteous indignation, and in order to gain popular support, it has to maintain the high-profile position since the "revolutionary diplomacy" of Wang Zhengting of the National Revolution, and there is a continuous hard interaction between China and Japan. The relatively moderate Japanese diplomats and civil servants have been replaced by the main war opportunists.
With the victory of the extreme right, the Japanese centrist people have become more and more inclined to the far-right militant faction, and militarism has ...... like a fish in water.
At this critical moment in history, can we learn a little more of the wisdom of "should be coarse but not fine":
"Our children and grandchildren are smarter than we are, and they will have better solutions. ”
It is out of concern of a historian that this article from three years ago has been subtitled and sent out for reference (this article has been included in the book Beyond Radicalism Left and Right).
At this critical juncture in history, it is often more important to be well-versed in the Middle Way than to be passionate.
Original Introduction: The political outlook of pan-moralism, the arrogant rhetoric full of bookishness, the strong patriotic passion, the psychological anxiety about the situation and crisis caused by the invasion and crisis of the foreign powers, the closed vision of information about the outside world, and the formation of a high-profile posture of expressing self-defense determination with self-promotion, all these factors are mixed together to form the high-profile nationalist characteristics of China as a super-large and weak country in modern times. For nearly half a century, China's political culture and high-profile nationalism have been isomorphic in their way of thinking. Only on the basis of long-term and conscious self-criticism and self-reflection can our nation truly mature and move toward true civilization.
Chinese nationalism since the late nineteenth century is a kind of reactive nationalism that has risen under the conditions of extreme deterioration of the living environment of the nation, and its expression and development trend are related to the intensity of the challenge and pressure on China from the Western powers as the source of stimulation, as well as to the subjective factors such as the history, political culture, and psychological characteristics of the nation. Since the Qin and Han dynasties, the sense of imperial superiority has been dominating our ancient nation, and the national psychological characteristics under the influence of Confucian culture have a potential deep impact on the expression of modern nationalism.
This article examines the high-profile phenomenon of modern Chinese nationalism. Since the Sino-French War and the Sino-Japanese War at the end of the Qing Dynasty, Chinese nationalism under the pressure of the crisis has shown a high profile and radicalism of pan-moralism among the gentry elite and the people, and these characteristics have not only strongly and distinctly affected the political life and historical choices of the Chinese in different forms under the conditions of the extreme deterioration of the national living conditions before and after the Sino-Japanese War, but also in the early years after the Northern Expedition, when the country completed the unification and was still in the condition of being a weak country. Later, in the trend of folk and official nationalism after the reunification of China by the Kuomintang in 1928, we can all find that this high-profile nationalism has a strong influence on China's historical choice. As the dominant discourse between the official and the non-governmental, it did restrict the diplomatic path and political orientation of the ** period to a large extent.
It must be admitted that this kind of passionate and high-profile nationalism can be said to have played a certain role in rallying people's hearts and mobilizing the masses to participate in the national salvation movement, but, on the other hand, it has a serious negative effect. In the following, the author attempts to make some preliminary analysis of the characteristics of high-profile nationalism in modern times.
1. Qingliu nationalism in China during the First Sino-Japanese War
Before and after the First Sino-Japanese War, nationalism among the Chinese gentry had a strong tendency and attitude towards pan-moralism. In the words of Tang Caichang, a righteous man in the late Qing Dynasty, the Qingliu Party people in the late Qing Dynasty "no matter how strong or weak they are, they win or lose, but if they don't fight, the world will be guilty." In the view of pan-moralist nationalists, the choice of whether or not to go to war is determined not by the comparison of the strength of the enemy or the enemy, nor by the question of whether the war can be won, but by the creed of justice and morality. The Qing gentry of the Qing school at the end of the Qing Dynasty used high talk about the "main battle" to reflect their patriotic pan-moralist stance. In their view, war or not war is the touchstone for embodying political morality and morality. Only by having the courage to face the great powers can we be patriotic and loyal to the general interests of the nation, otherwise it is capitulationism. In their view, the key to the success or failure of the war is not the secular calculation of military rationalism, but whether morality and people's hearts are righteous or evil is the key. Zhang Pei's theory in the Sino-French War, Weng Tonghe's rhetoric in the First Sino-Japanese War, and the great rhetoric of the main battle are precisely based on such a pan-moralistic enthusiasm and national righteousness concept that can be called "Qingliuism."
In this way, the political outlook of pan-moralism, the arrogant rhetoric full of bookish vigour, the strong patriotic passion, the psychological anxiety about the situation and crisis caused by the invasion and abuse of foreign powers, and the high-profile posture of expressing self-defense determination with self-promotion formed under the closed vision of information from the outside world, all these factors were mixed together to form the nationalist characteristics of the Qingliu Party members in the government and the opposition before and after the First Sino-Japanese War. Among the traditional Chinese scholars, doctors, intellectuals, and the gentry class, the sense of humiliation caused by the pressure of the crisis can be "justified" precisely through the rhetoric of the main battle theory. This pan-moralistic attitude and way of thinking has invisibly penetrated into the deep psychology of these Confucian scholars and political elites, and whether Japan is fighting or negotiating has become the criterion for judging right and wrong. During the First Sino-Japanese War, this kind of Qingliu nationalism had already gained absolute discourse superiority among the scholars and doctors of the government and the opposition.
Even the Empress Dowager Cixi, under the pressure of this dominant discourse of clear-stream nationalism, feared that her rule would lose its moral legitimacy and would come under great pressure. The change in her attitude from the main peace to the main battle is related to this discursive pressure. After the First Sino-Japanese War, she once told Liu Kunyi that the reason why she was fighting was because she was afraid that the official would say that she was the main peace, "Suppress the emperor and dare not fight the main battle, how can the history books be for future generations?" ”
However, at that time, on the whole, China lacked the actual military capability to fight a decisive battle with Japan, and the military modernization effect of the Westernists was very poor; although the difference between the tonnage of the navy and Japan did not seem to be large, the actual level of military training, command level, comprehensive quality, and actual combat capability were far from Japan's. Before the war, Li Hongzhang realized that the Chinese side did not have enough military spending, not enough talents, and was not enough to talk about war, and he had a premonition that the prospects were not optimistic, so he strongly advocated peace, but he was strongly attacked by the Qing school of thought. In the atmosphere in which the Qingliu ideological trend occupies the hegemony of discourse, most of the officials and gentry of the government and the opposition are in the main battle, and whoever does not take the lead in the battle is in danger of being regarded as a sinner in the name of the religion by the government and the opposition. From the perspective of military rationality and long-term national interests, under the circumstance that the military strength of China and Japan is already very unfavorable to China, it should be more in line with China's interests to endure humiliation, avoid war for the time being, and actively gain time.
As we all know, the First Sino-Japanese War was the Battle of Waterloo that affected the fate of Chinese history, and it was a turning point in the decline of the Qing Dynasty in China. As a direct consequence of the war, China lost more than 200 million taels of silver, equivalent to four billion US dollars, which is equivalent to the total income of Japan in four years. With this huge amount of money, Japan became a power in East Asia. Since then, China has fallen into a vicious circle of poverty and weakness, and from weakness to poverty. After that, after the Gengzi Incident, China paid reparations to Japan, and the total reparations for the two wars amounted to $9 billion, and China's financial situation has since worsened and plummeted. After the war, Korea became a protectorate of Japan, and in 1910 it was formally annexed by Japan, and China not only lost Korea as a barrier, but also became the most convenient springboard for aggression against China. The Matthew effect between China and Japan is formed in which "the strong are stronger, and the weak are weaker".
A considerable number of far-sighted people among the Japanese had previously believed that China and Japan were both in a position of being pressed by Western forces step by step, that the two countries shared a common destiny and were dependent on each other, and hoped to unite and cooperate with China to jointly resist Western countries. However, China's defeat in the First Sino-Japanese War was so miserable that even the Japanese could not have imagined that the Japanese hardliners would taste the sweetness and encouragement from the great benefits they had gained from their aggression against China. In the eyes of the Japanese hardliners, since China is so vulnerable, it is better to carve up China in accordance with the internationally accepted "law of the jungle" in such a world where the law of the jungle prevails. In the eyes of the Japanese, China changed from a revered cultural mother country of the same culture and the same species to a "poor donkey" that could be eaten, and this great change in concept began with the First Sino-Japanese War. Since then, Japan has been filled with a belligerent atmosphere of aggression against China, and the attitude of the vast number of Japanese people toward China has also undergone a major reversal, and Japan has since become China's most dangerous enemy country in the 20 th century. This has affected the fate of the Chinese nation for a hundred years
After the First Sino-Japanese War, the attitude of the Western powers towards China also underwent major changes, and the six years from 1894 to 1900 were considered by even Westerners to be a critical period of major turning points in Sino-foreign relations. Previously, the British rulers basically treated China as a diplomatically "normal" country after the conditions in Tianjin, trying to realize their own commercial interests through trade. However, after the First Sino-Japanese War, the West, like Japan, suddenly discovered that China was so incompetent, and since then it has held that in this world of the jungle, it is really not worth treating China as a "normal country." Since Japan has received such a large and generous war reparation without much effort, then the Western countries can also treat China as India that can be cut down by others. The "wolf nature" of the Western nation has been activated since then. The policy of cooperation, which began to be pursued in the early sixties of the nineteenth century, was transformed into a policy of partition. They followed in the footsteps of Japan and actively participated in the invasion of China, especially Germany and the rising colonial empires, which were particularly excited.
Since then, China has entered an era of national crisis with many disasters and difficulties, and it has also opened up the experience of our nation's suffering destiny in the 20th century. China is plunged into a major national crisis of national destruction, and the living conditions of the nation have deteriorated extremely. All of this is related to the homogeneity of the radical thinking formed by the high-profile and vain superiority of the "great powers" represented by the Qingliu Party, the rhetoric of pan-moralism, and the lack of information about the masses.
2. High-profile nationalism in the early years
After the completion of the Northern Expedition in 1928, China was reunited under the rule of the Kuomintang, and the people were full of strength due to patriotic passion, but China was still a weak country. At that time, a considerable number of radical nationalists had the illusion that since our country was vast and rich in land and had a large population, and now it was reunified, they spontaneously developed a subjective feeling of self-magnification and "strong national strength." A feeling of raising one's eyebrows and exalting oneself, and the deep psychology of wanting to sweep away the humiliation suffered for a long time, arose spontaneously, and people's hearts were filled with an illusory sense of great power. For a nation that once had a sense of cultural superiority in historical traditions, but has suffered many calamities in modern times, a high-profile nationalism has emerged.
When Japan was in power by Yuan Shikai, it imposed the "21 Articles" on China, and after the reunification of China by the people, it can be said that the society is full of nationalism full of hatred and hatred for Japan's aggressive ambitions, and there is a rumor in society that "every Chinese who spits on a mouthful of water will drown little Japan." It can be said that this high-profile nationalism is another manifestation of this high-profile nationalism. This kind of high-profile nationalism was widely expressed among the Chinese people in the late twenties and early thirties. For the nascent Kuomintang regime, its legitimacy is nationalism, and high-profile nationalism is undoubtedly "popular and usable" in the eyes of the nascent nationals, and it can be used as an important spiritual resource to consolidate the legitimacy of its own authority. The power of the people and the power of the people are agitated with each other. High-pitched nationalist fervor stirred up with the people. But the strength of the country cannot be commensurate with the development of it.
The "revolutionary diplomacy" in the early days after the reunification of the Kuomintang asserted China's sovereignty, but there were indeed some characteristics of high-profile nationalism, and the "revolutionary diplomacy" represented by Wang Zhengting, the head of the Kuomintang, aimed at unilaterally abolishing all unequal treaties in a short period of time, including tariff autonomy, recovering customs, recovering legal rights, and further recovering concession railways and other rights. Wang Zhengting stated in a memorandum to Britain at the end of '30 that China decided to unilaterally abrogate the treaty and take back all rights and interests by February '31. He declared that if it cannot be resolved within the predetermined period, even if the whole world declares war on China for this, the Chinese can cope with it and achieve their goals, and are "ready to bear all the consequences."
Prior to this, after the resignation of the Tanaka Cabinet of the Hard-Lined Political Friends Association in July 1929, the moderate Yuyuki Hamaguchi formed a cabinet, with Bihara as the foreign minister, who advocated non-interference in China's internal affairs, had a sympathetic attitude towards China's current situation, was willing to relax Japan's military control over Northeast China, and did not adopt the previous policy of directly protecting Japanese overseas Chinese by force, and so on. However, Wang Zhengting, who was governed by the concept of "revolutionary diplomacy", refused to make any concessions to the Japanese civil service moderate. At this time, Japan's relatively liberal civilian bureaucracy was increasingly under strong pressure from hard-line political forces expanding abroad. At that time, Toshio Sato, Japan's negotiator for the implementation of Bihara's policy of coordination with China, committed suicide under internal and external pressure, and Wang Zhengting received an extremely confidential suicide note from Sakuro afterwards, in which he repeatedly warned Wang that if China did not give in, it would inevitably arouse the disgust of the Japanese circles, and the letter also specifically mentioned that the final result was that the Japanese hardliners would take the last resort to war against China, which could lead to greater misfortune for China and Japan.
On the one hand, there is a serious lack of national strength, and on the other hand, there is an extraordinary self-confidence among the people and the elite because of the unification of the country. Although China has been weak for many years and its national strength is far from being truly strong, it is still self-confident because China is a big country and due to the "scale effect". High-profile people will gain a strong appeal among the people and become national heroes and staunch defenders of national interests. This will further make some opportunists want to gain popular support and the nascent Kuomintang regime to gain political legitimacy, which will strengthen the high-profile nature of nationalist protests against foreign countries. At that time, high-profile nationalism was so strong that even "moderates" like Wang Zhengting, who was considered by scholars to be in "revolutionary diplomacy", were still criticized as "thieves" and "old bureaucratic minds" because of a number of compromises made in the negotiations.
Generally speaking, because the citizens of small countries do not have the confidence to achieve scale effect, they are always more modest, more pragmatic, and more low-key and pragmatic, and their attitude and bottom line towards foreign affairs are determined according to their national strength. On the contrary, this is not the case with the big countries, where high-profile nationalists tend to make their people go beyond their actual capabilities and assert their own claims on major issues of safeguarding national interests. In July 1929, the Nanjing Kuomintang supported Zhang Xueliang to forcefully recover the Eastern Railway under the actual control of the Soviet Union, which caused the Sino-Soviet War and Zhang Xueliang's army suffered a crushing defeat, and the Soviet army occupied Manchuria and Hailar, which greatly damaged China's prestige in the international arena, and also indirectly caused the Japanese warlords to invade China in the same way, which can be said to be a typical example of abuse of "revolutionary diplomacy".
When Wang Zhengting dealt with Britain and France with revolutionary diplomacy, he did not seem to encounter much problem. Since Britain and France were in decline after World War I, and as far away as Europe, after the rise of Chinese nationalism, they had no choice but to make some concessions to China, which was further encouraged by the high-profile faction, and then negotiated with Japan in the same way. At this time, this nationalism caused ** among the hardliners in Japan. But Japan is not prepared to do the same as the UK. They believe that in the Russo-Japanese War, Japan sacrificed 100,000 lives, billions of yen and made a major sacrifice of billions of yen, and finally recaptured Northeast China for China from the mouth of the tiger, but after the war, Japan did not receive the corresponding rights and compensation, and only got the 24-year lease of the South Manchurian Railway, so that the rights and interests were again used by the new Chinese regime as "revolutionary diplomacy" "China's nationalist move of unilaterally declaring the treaty null and void made the Manchurian Railway, Lushun and Dalian, which Japan had acquired after the Russo-Japanese War, the objects of revolution." In addition, Zhang Xueliang did not effectively deal with the large number of outstanding cases between the Japanese and Chinese people in Northeast China, and China's "revolutionary diplomacy" made the moderate faction of the Japanese civil officials speechless, and further formed a mutually reinforcing effect with the hard-line militarists in Japan.
After the reunification of the Northern Expedition, the pace of development and expansion of high-profile nationalism among the Chinese people was far faster than the development of national strength and economy, and at that time, the nationalism of Japanese militarism formed a positive feedback of mutual reinforcement and interaction, and Japan's hard-line expansionists made a big fuss about high-profile nationalism in China, so that the Japanese people in Japan increasingly supported the hard-liners' attitude toward China, and the September 18 incident in Northeast China was produced under this circumstance. After Zhang Zuolin was assassinated by the militants of the Japanese Kwantung Army, Zhang Xueliang, who had shown the most fierce and high-profile attitude toward Japan, did not make any resistance after the September 18 Incident and withdrew the army to the Guannei, which further stimulated the ambition of the militarist hardliners to advance an inch. As a result, the Japanese civilian moderates, who strive to maintain Sino-Japanese relations within the scope of international rules, have lost their voices, and the people have bent over because the Chinese forces are unable to fight against Japan, and China's suffering has deepened step by step.
It was not until after 918 that the people realized the background of China's weakness and gradually abandoned the high-profile nationalism of the "revolutionary diplomacy period". But it is already too late, and the catastrophe caused by high-profile vain nationalism has just begun.
Before the War of Resistance Against Japanese Aggression from 918 to 77, some frustrated politicians continued to show their high-profile style, and Feng Yuxiang, who was defeated after the Great War in the Central Plains, was such a typical figure. At that time, very few people in China could recognize the dangers of high-profile radical nationalism. In modern times, whenever China is in a moment of crisis, the high-profile nationalist rhetoric of the Qingliu Party has always won them a lot of applause among the Chinese people.
From the perspective of the War of Resistance Against Japanese Aggression itself, Chiang Kai-shek hastily decided on the Battle of Songhu on August 13 under the strong pressure of the main battle without reaching the minimum preparation base, and thus entered the eight-year War of Resistance against Japan. At this time, the national army did not even complete the minimum combat preparations, the Shanghai campaign was defeated, the squadron lost one-third of its military combat strength in Shanghai, and on the way from Shanghai to Wuxi, even the key to the military facilities originally used as the second line of defense could not be found. After the defeat of Songhu, it never recovered in the next eight years of war, and it was not until the successive victories of the Pacific War that the United States extricated China from its predicament. The second war between China and Japan can be summed up in two words for China, and the Chinese are building their own Great Wall of war with flesh and blood. It could not be more vivid to express the tragedy and grandeur of China's War of Resistance Against Japanese Aggression.
3. Characteristics of high-profile nationalism in modern times
China's nationalism in modern times is a kind of reactive nationalism, which is an amorphous social mentality with a collective psychological basis after facing the more powerful Western challenges in modern times and falling into a deep national crisis, which converges in the collective unconscious and unconsciously but continuously influences people's behavioral choices. People are not necessarily rationally aware of its existence, but they are governed and influenced by it. The following factors make up China's particular nationalism.
First of all, it is an illusory sense of great power, China as a big country, but since modern times, as a country based on a long-term closed agricultural civilization, it is actually a weak country, however, a kind of public psychological feeling due to the "large number of people" will spontaneously generate a group illusion of "unity". In this atmosphere of social homogeneity, this psychological feeling of "a big country is a strong country" born from a collective illusion can easily evolve into a reason to support a tough and radical stance to safeguard national interests. After the success of the Northern Expedition, after suffering setbacks and humiliation for a long time, once the country is reunified, under the subconscious control of this illusory sense of great power, the Chinese people will naturally change from a state of mental depression with no anger to a high-profile, excited, and passionate nationalism. In this homogeneous and emotional atmosphere and mental state, because the Chinese people encounter the same situation with each other, a kind of square effect is formed, but the strength of the national strength has not received due attention.
In fact, while China maintains a strong posture of resistance externally, it is in a state of political turmoil and crisis internally. ** From 1929 to 30, when the British negotiated the abrogation of the treaty, it was a period of internal party and military struggles within the Kuomintang. Even during Wang Zhengting's negotiations in Nanjing, he even made it clear that he himself was likely to become a prisoner of the rebel Shi Yousan. During the Great War of the Central Plains, Jiang Yanfeng mobilized 1.4 million troops on both sides. As a matter of fact, the high-profile and passionate foreign policy under the conditions of war had to retreat from the unilateral "forcible abrogation" due to the unstable domestic political situation.
Second, the thinking of high-profile nationalism is characterized by pan-moralism, what is pan-moralism? It is to judge political and military issues as moral and ethical standards. Pan-moralism is to regard issues that should not be judged by morality, and the choice between war and non-war is not judged on the basis of whether the military conditions are ripe or not, but simply as a moral and ethical issue. Broadening moral and ethical standards. It is isomorphic in the structure of thinking and value in the Qingliu Party in Chinese history, Zhang Peilun in the Sino-French War, and Weng Tonghe in the First Sino-Japanese War, and this pan-moralism is closely related to the Taoist concept in Chinese Confucian culture. It is also deeply rooted in the cultural psychology of the Chinese, and the resulting notion that moral judgments interfere with military-political choices. If you don't fight the main battle, the whole world will punish you, and those who are the main fighters are moral, and those who don't fight are "capitulationists", "traitors" or "** people".
The greatest power of pan-moral nationalism lies in passion, but moral passion has a dual nature: on the one hand, it is conducive to uniting people from the highest point of morality, but on the other hand, it is not conducive to pragmatic rational thinking, and it rejects rational military and political choices based on rational judgments. Its passionate personality is easy to form a charisma among the masses and achieve discourse hegemony.
Corresponding to pan-moralism is military rationalism, military rationalism, which is the embodiment of secular rationality in the military field, and the so-called secular rationality is sound rationality in daily life, which excludes the interference of morality, faith, and religious doctrine, and directly appeals to the consideration of efficacy. In order to seek a solution that best realizes the interests of the nation. This is a manifestation of secular rationality in the interests of the nation. Military rationalism is to transcend moral judgment, to think about the cost, benefit, risk, and benefit considerations of war from the angle of what method can be adopted to maximize the realization of national interests, and from the angle of maximizing effectiveness, and not to fight an unprepared war.
Third, the homogeneity of information, because the same in a closed environment, the Chinese have quite limited information about the judgment of things, and homogeneous, under the same poor information. One deduces from this that resources are homogeneous, and this pan-moralistic nationalism creates a magnetic effect. People in this field reinforce each other's original ideas in the process of homogeneous interaction. There are other factors that characterize China's nationalism after it has been challenged by the West in modern times, but these three points are of great significance.
Fourth, the remainder
Since the reform and opening up, Chinese nationalism has risen among the people, and the Yinhe incident, the Yugoslav bombing incident, the Sino-US plane collision incident, and the Olympic bid process have all been clearly embodied; on the one hand, Chinese nationalism has shown its cohesive strength in defending its own vital national interests, and on the other hand, we can see some unconscious manifestations of arrogant and high-profile nationalism in modern times from the radical trend of Chinese folk nationalism and from a series of fierce calls to boycott Japanese goods, Korean products, and French goods. In fact, the political culture of a nation will be unconsciously passed on to the next generation, and the reason why the book "China is Unhappy" became a bestseller among the people immediately after its publication is also related to this high-profile nationalist mentality. The authors of the book are also aware that this long-suppressed folk psychology of "raising eyebrows and raising eyebrows" is a force that can be mobilized. The book argues that "the ** of young people in 2008 actually contains the cultural accumulation since 1840". "The next step in the process of China's modernization will determine that China will engage in a commercial war with the West supported by military warfare," and that it will "conditionally break with the West" and so on. One can see from the radical online discourse since the publication of the book "China is Unhappy" how similar it is to the modern school of vain arrogance and purity.
The Chinese have shared the fruits of global economic development with other nations in the world for 30 years, so why do some radical nationalist young people still view international issues in a paranoid and combative way? The radical leftist political culture once permeated the marrow and spiritual life of our nation so deeply that the influence of the leftist way of thinking on people's domination and influence was much slower than that of economic change. In fact, the pan-moralism, arrogance, and high-profile of the ultra-left political culture are isomorphic to the way of thinking of the modern Qingliu nationalism in history. Only on the basis of long-term and conscious self-criticism and self-reflection can our nation truly mature and move toward true civilization.
With the development of the economy and the progress of social civilization, a nationalism that can be called a middle-income class, a nationalism that is more moderate, more rational, and more tolerant, will likely replace the high-profile nationalism in modern times and become the basic trend of Chinese nationalism in the 21 st century. Strengthened cooperation will further develop this reactive nationalism towards positive interaction. However, there is still a long way to go in this process, and whether Chinese nationalism can successfully achieve this turn still depends on whether the process of social civilization progress is smooth.