80 years ago today Liang Qichao, one of the greatest and most influential literary figures of the early 2oth century, passed away in Beijing. He died relatively young, only 55, but his career spanned an era in which the political, cultural, and intellectual currents swirled and surged, both carrying and buffeting Liang even as he doggedly sought to understand and chronicle the challenges and potential of the age.
Conventional histoiography on Liang divides his life and work into three parts: the young radical reformer, the moderate journalist, and the disillusioned scholar. Levenson* long ago argued it was Liang’s attempts to reconcile in his mind different binaries, China/West, tradition/modernity, the nation/culture, which informed Liang’s evolving ideas and worldview. Such neat divisions are useful for the historian as a canvas on which to paint his biographical portrait though the reader remains aware that the life and ideas of the individual will always exceed in complexity the biographer’s text.
In my own class, Liang Qichao appears when discussing the events of the 100 Days Reforms (though later in life, Liang would admit that the amount of influence that he and other participants, notably Kang Youwei, had over the affairs of state was less than their own successful post-debacle spin campaign would suggest) and he comes up again when we look at his writings on the nation and the need for a “New People” to carry China into the modern age. His views on race, shared with other intellectuals of the age, tell us something about developing concepts of ethnicity, ethnic nationalism, and a worldview, which lingers somewhat in the Chinese consciousness to this day, of a Darwinian international order. I’m also fond of having the students read his travel account of the United States, written in 1902 when Liang was in exile.
When I thought about the anniversary of his death, I realized that I really hadn’t read very much about his latter days — after the dreams of a Meiji-style constitutional monarchy or a republican-style national order had perished in the grit and muck of the warlord era, and after his faith in Western progress and dynamism had been shaken by reading about the modern horrors of the First World War. In the 1920s, Liang taught and wrote, he spent time as a university professor and began reexploring aspects of Asian ‘spiritual civilization,’ seeking a middle path forward for human progress.
In 1922, when Liang was 50, the editors of the Shen Bao, one of the major Shanghai newspapers of the day, asked Liang to survey the last half-century of China’s progress. It was a daunting assignment. The resulting work is a mix of necessary pessimism, forced optimism, and reads less as a reflection of China’s own progress, than Liang’s career trying to make sense of it all.
He was necessarily pessimistic given the obstacles, especially in the realm of politics, to building a strong, independent nation-state. But he found reason for hope in the evolving self-consciousness of the Chinese people, in the power of ideas even in the face of stern opposition, and, perhaps, because of a personal need not to give in to the temptations of despair after nearly twenty years of chaos, disintegration, and war. In his conclusion, Liang writes:
“In the last ten-odd years since the establishment of the Republic, the political pheonomena have indeed been disgusting; but I think we should not be too disappointed, becasue these phenomena have been caused by two special factors, and these factors are going to disappear soon. The first one is that during, during the time of the revolution, because the power of the people themselves had not yet become sufficient, they could not help relying on traditional influences.
The second factor is that it is normal for all matters in society to have their ups and downs. From 1894 to 1898 to 1911 benevolent people and scholars dedicated to a worthy cause have really been wroked to the point of physical and mental exhaustion. The most regrettable thing is that many people who struggled for ideals died martyrs of their times. Their successors could not immediately take up the task. Therefore the interregnum has become a dark and colorless period; but I think this period will soon be over. The former leaders seem to have reawakened, caught their breath, and renewed their struggle. The fighting power in the rear has, furthermore, become stronger day by day. In these circumstances a new spirit and a new phase will naturally appear.
In summary, I am completely optimistic in regard to the political future of China. My optimism, however, has grown from the pessimism of ordinary people. I feel that China during the last fifty years has been like a silkworm becoming a moth, a snake removing its skin. These are naturally very difficult and painful processes. How can these be accomplished easily? — only if biologically it is possible to function during the necessary change or removal, and if psychologically there is consciousness of the necessity for change and removal. Then, after we have undergone the unavoidably difficult and painful process, the future will be another world. Therefore, while everyone may consider that our political life is retrogressing. I eel the possibility of progress is very great.”**
It’s hard to say if the PRC would have met with his approval. The founding in 1949 at least fulfilled one of two conditions of political consciousness about which Liang was so optimistic twenty years earlier, “That all who are not Chinese lack the right to control Chinese affairs,” even as the CCP failed (and continues to fail) to fulfill the second, “All Chinese have a right to control Chinese affairs.”
Mostly though, I admire Liang’s optimism, however forced, that even in dark times, there is always hope for a brighter and better future.
—————-
*Joseph R. Levenson. Liang Ch’i-ch’ao and the Mind of Modern China. (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1953).
**Translated in T’eng Ssu-yu and John K. Fairbank, China’s Response to the West: A Documentary Survey, 1839-1923. Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1961), pp. 272-274.
Recent Comments