Pan-Asianism and the Legacy of the Chinese Revolution

by Viren Murthy

University of Chicago Press, 2023
Cloth: 978-0-226-82798-8 | Paper: 978-0-226-82800-8 | Electronic: 978-0-226-82799-5
DOI: 10.7208/chicago/9780226827995.001.0001

AVAILABLE FROM

University of Chicago Press (cloth, paper, ebook)
Apple Books
Barnes & Noble Nook
DeGruyter Multi-User Ebook Program
Google Play
OverDrive
University Press Scholarship Online (UPSO)

ABOUT THIS BOOKAUTHOR BIOGRAPHYREVIEWSTABLE OF CONTENTS

ABOUT THIS BOOK

An intellectual history of pan-Asianist discourse in the twentieth century.

Recent proposals to revive the ancient Silk Road for the contemporary era and ongoing Western interest in China’s growth and development have led to increased attention to the concept of pan-Asianism. Most of that discussion, however, lacks any historical grounding in the thought of influential twentieth-century pan-Asianists. In this book, Viren Murthy offers an intellectual history of the writings of theorists, intellectuals, and activists—spanning leftist, conservative, and right-wing thinkers—who proposed new ways of thinking about Asia in their own historical and political contexts. Tracing pan-Asianist discourse across the twentieth century, Murthy reveals a stronger tradition of resistance and alternative visions than the contemporary discourse on pan-Asianism would suggest. At the heart of pan-Asianist thinking, Murthy shows, were the notions of a unity of Asian nations, of weak nations becoming powerful, and of the Third World confronting the “advanced world” on equal terms—an idea that grew to include non-Asian countries into the global community of Asian nations. But pan-Asianists also had larger aims, imagining a future beyond both imperialism and capitalism. The fact that the resurgence of pan-Asianist discourse has emerged alongside the dominance of capitalism, Murthy argues, signals a profound misunderstanding of its roots, history, and potential.

AUTHOR BIOGRAPHY

Viren Murthy is professor of history at the University of Wisconsin–Madison and the author of The Political Philosophy of Zhang Taiyan and The Politics of Time in China and Japan.

REVIEWS

“Murthy’s book is a breathtaking achievement that combines in a true dialectical synthesis what Western intellectuals consider incompatible. This book is necessary reading for all who are interested in our future!”

— Slavoj Žižek

“Against the view of Asia’s rise as treading the path of the capitalist world, this book articulates powerful visions of pan-Asianism. Rethinking representative Asian and Western thinkers, Murthy illuminates how the imaginaries of Asian solidarity and alliances confronted imperialism and colonialism, and how traditional resources, the Chinese Revolution, and socialism were mobilized in projecting a future beyond capitalism.”

— Ban Wang, Stanford University

“Since the nineteenth century, the figure of pan-Asian civilization has been imprisoned in permanent standstill, devoid of subjectivity. Murthy brilliantly transforms our understanding by showing how lack was turned into fullness through the proposal that Asia both rescued its own past and provided a crucial supplement to what was missing in the West.”

— Harry Harootunian, emeritus, University of Chicago

Introduction: Pan-Asianism in the Short Twentieth Century - Viren Murthy
DOI: 10.7208/chicago/9780226827995.003.0001
[Pan-Asianism;rise of Asia;rise of China]
In the past few years, discussion in the public sphere of the rise of Chinese and Asian capitalism has been ubiquitous. Xi Jinping’s recent plan to connect much of Asia and the West by means of reviving the ancient Silk Road has been viewed as both a possible alternative to a world economy dominated by the West and as a potential threat to other countries in the region. Thus, it is not surprising that in recent decades, a turn toward analyzing pan-Asianism from various scholarly and popular perspectives has occurred. This book examines prominent twentieth-century Japanese and Chinese pan-Asianists to bring to the fore such issues, especially as they cluster around strategies for resisting imperialism and struggling for a different future. I closely read specific pan-Asian texts to reveal their internal logic as it relates to larger historical contexts. However, unlike popular books on pan-Asianism and the rise of Asia, my project is not limited to narrowly defined periods. This book teases out a pan-Asian critique of capital, which pan-Asianist thinkers used in different ways to critique the history they found themselves in the midst of from the early twentieth century to the present. (pages 1 - 15)
This chapter is available at:
https://academic.oup.com/chica...

1. Asia as Pharmakon: The Early Constitution of Asia as Resistance - Viren Murthy
DOI: 10.7208/chicago/9780226827995.003.0002
[Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel;Fukuzawa Yukichi;Okakura Tenshin;Romantic anti-capitalism;Marxism]
Chapter 1, “Asia as Pharmakon: The Early Constitution of Asia as Resistance,” lays the groundwork for the rest of the book by examining the Japanese intellectual who might be considered the paradigmatic anti-pan-Asianist, Fukuzawa Yukichi (1835–1901), and one of the first transnationally recognized pan-Asianists, Okakura Tenshin. Both sides of this divide can be contextualized in relation to Hegel and, in particular, his conception of history as the progress of subjectivity. Hegel described the Orient as bereft of subjectivity, and though Fukuzawa was probably not very familiar with Hegel, he outlined a similar trajectory of civilization. In Fukuzawa’s philosophy, the growth of civilization and subjectivity is fundamentally connected to capitalism, which in turn becomes a fulcrum that can be used to understand debates across Asia. From a Japanese perspective, the key shift in Fukuzawa’s discourse concerns the radical demotion of China and the simultaneous elevation of Western civilization. Pan-Asianism was a response to this discourse and the attempt to put forward a legitimate Asian alternative. For this reason, pan-Asianist discourse often returns to the subject of China. This chapter uses Okakura to outline this basic response, which is an Asian version of romantic anticapitalism. (pages 16 - 49)
This chapter is available at:
https://academic.oup.com/chica...

2. The Critique of Linear Time: Pan-Asianism in Early Twentieth-Century China - Viren Murthy
DOI: 10.7208/chicago/9780226827995.003.0003
[linear time;Zhang Taiyan;Sun Yat-sen;socialism]
Chapter Two, “The Critique of Linear Time: Pan-Asianism in Early Twentieth-Century China,” examines how Chinese intellectuals often took Japan as a model for the future. The Chinese reformer Kang Youwei (1858–1927) stands apart from Fukuzawa in key ways, since Kang himself outlined a socialist vision of the future while offering an evolutionary vision of the world and placed Asia behind the West. His revolutionary contemporary Zhang Taiyan (1869–1936) was initially supportive of the Japanese path as well but ended up constructing a pan-Asian vision that was critical of Japan and promoted unity between India and China. Li Dazhao (1889–1927) also embraced this idea of a pan-Asian alternative to the path Japan was following at the time. This chapter ends with a discussion of Sun Yat-sen’s famous essay of 1925, which affirms pan-Asianism but potentially delinks the idea of “Asia” from geography. Sun notes that Japan can either be in Asia or not depending on whether it follows an imperialist path. He claims that after the 1917 Revolution, Russia became part of Asia. This statement is important because it suggests that the idea of Asia is more than merely geographical and also underscores the connection between pan-Asianism and socialism. (pages 50 - 79)
This chapter is available at:
https://academic.oup.com/chica...

3. Asia as Anticapitalist Utopia: Okawa Shumei’s Critique of Political Modernity
DOI: 10.7208/chicago/9780226827995.003.0004
[Romantic anti-capitalism;Okawa Shumei;Eurocentrism;Japanese imperialism]
Chapter 3, “Pan-Asianism as Romantic Anti-Capitalism: Okawa Shumei’s Critique of Political Modernity,” focuses on Okawa Shumei, one of the foremost propagandists for the Japanese state during World War II. Of all the pan-Asianists discussed in this book, Okawa came closest to giving his pan-Asianism an institutional form by supporting the wartime Japanese government, eventually being identified as a Class-A war criminal during the Tokyo War crimes tribunal. His vision of Asia is especially significant because he constructed an unusually inclusive vision of Asia, which included the Arab world and at times even the Jews. Moreover, his critique of Eurocentrism and support for anticolonial movements in India became an important, if controversial, legacy for later pan-Asianists such as Takeuchi Yoshimi. This chapter analyzes Okawa’s key texts, showing how he mobilized Indian philosophy along with heroic visions from Chinese history in order to create a fascist vision of Asia; the chapter also argues that this fascist vision responded to real problems of capitalist modernity, including global unevenness and the alienation of people from politics.

4. Takeuchi Yoshimi, Part I: Rethinking China as Political Subjectivity - Viren Murthy
DOI: 10.7208/chicago/9780226827995.003.0005
[subjectivity;religion;Takeuchi Yoshimi;Lu Xun]
Chapter 4, “Takeuchi Yoshimi, Part I: Rethinking China as Political Subjectivity,” examines how Takeuchi constructed a new theory of subjectivity, which would inform his vision of pan-Asianism. Whereas Hegel had defined the Orient as lacking subjectivity and being drowned in the substantiality of community, Takeuchi turns this on its head by arguing that it is precisely Asia that has a subjectivity that is more radical than the West’s. He does this largely through an innovative reading of the famous Chinese writer Lu Xun (1881–1936). During the prewar and interwar periods, Takeuchi supported Japan’s war as part of the pan-Asianism project. For this reason, he provides a key bridge in pan-Asianist thought from the prewar to the postwar periods, because unlike many other pan-Asianist intellectuals, he did not reject pan-Asianism after World War II but rather attempted to rethink it in a new context and bring it into dialogue with other movements, such as Third Worldism. (pages 110 - 135)
This chapter is available at:
https://academic.oup.com/chica...

5. Takeuchi Yoshimi, Part II: Pan-Asianism, Revolutionary Nationalism, and War Memory - Viren Murthy
DOI: 10.7208/chicago/9780226827995.003.0006
[Third Worldism;anti-imperialism;decolonization;Mao Zedong;global equality]
This chapter examines the place of Takeuchi’s pan-Asianism in his overall thought, including his theory of nationalism, revolution, and war memory. In Takeuchi’s famous essay “What Is Modernity?” written in 1948, he combats Eurocentrism by rethinking the 1911 Revolution. In doing so, he envisions an alternative Asian modernity based on the Chinese experience. “What Is Modernity?” was written only a few months before the Chinese Revolution of 1949, and Takeuchi’s interpretation of China overlaps with that of Mao. The essay contains the kernel of Takeuchi’s vision of China and Asia as resistance. In it, Takeuchi begins to formulate how weak countries on the periphery can break free from the capitalist world system. This chapter also examines how Takeuchi reacted to the larger movement of decolonization that emerged in the 1950s and 1960s, including the famous 1955 conference in Bandung. In this regard, Takeuchi’s vision of Asia developed in relation to the idea of socialism in underdeveloped or late-developing countries, which paradoxically connects his vision with the West and the Enlightenment. Toward its end, the chapter examines Takeuchi’s famous claim that the task of Asia is to take ideas of the West, such as equality, to a higher level. (pages 136 - 191)
This chapter is available at:
https://academic.oup.com/chica...

6. Wang Hui: Contemporary Pan-Asianist in China? - Viren Murthy
DOI: 10.7208/chicago/9780226827995.003.0007
[contemporary China;Chinese Revolution;Wang Hui;Chinese New Left;Belt-Road Initiative]
“Wang Hui: Contemporary Pan-Asianist in China?” explores the future of pan-Asianism in the midst of leftist melancholy and continues to trace the dialogue between pan-Asianism and Marxism that pan-Asianists from Okakura to Takeuchi had begun. Chapter 6 asks how such ideas might fare in China today. To answer this question, the chapter presents an examination of the political writings of Wang Hui. Wang Hui revives Third Worldism, Asian unity, and revolution in an unfavorable historical context, namely when the Chinese Revolution and socialism in general appear to have been a failure. Wang attempts a double maneuver where, on the one hand, he uses the Chinese revolutionary past to criticize the present, and on the other, he points out the links between Mao’s China and China today. Considering China’s rise, one wonders whether pan-Asianism—especially the Chinese Revolution—has won a pyrrhic victory. Two decades into the twenty-first century, one can again speak of the rise of Asia and a China that invokes Mao’s legacy. However, given the extent to which capitalism mediates everyday life in China, this victory seems fraught with paradoxes at best. (pages 192 - 213)
This chapter is available at:
https://academic.oup.com/chica...

Epilogue: Pan-Asianism, the Chinese Revolution, and Global Moments - Viren Murthy
DOI: 10.7208/chicago/9780226827995.003.0008
[Marxism;automation;Chinese socialism]
The epilogue situates the goals of pan-Asianism in relation to the logic of capitalist automation and questions the idea of the global. If we follow Takeuchi and Wang Hui in bringing together pan-Asianism with socialism, then we need to reflect critically on both the continuities between the twentieth and twenty-first centuries and the possibility of a postcapitalist world. Capitalist automation is an issue that most pan-Asianists have overlooked, but going forward it will be crucial for the project of creating a postcapitalist world. This is because the logic of productivity partially explains the twin nemeses of pan-Asianism—imperialism and capitalist expansion—but also constantly drives capitalism into crisis. This itself is one of the factors that could pave the way to a world beyond proletarian labor, but this path should not be understood in a linear manner. (pages 214 - 220)
This chapter is available at:
https://academic.oup.com/chica...