Nationalism And Political Vicissitude Of Modern China

As we talk about the political vicissitude of modern China, the most important subject is to build a nation state with independent sovereignty and steady regime. From the political subrogation that China underwent in the period of 1840 to 1949, we can see this endeavor clearly. The collapse of the Qing Dynasty, the foundation of the Chinese Republic, the end of the BeiYang Government and the rise of the Nanjing Government, all of these regime alternations were connected with the goal of founding a unitary nation state. If we examine from historical experience, we can see that all nation states have undergone the processes of founding a set of faiths that serve as the bases of the nation's foundation. Under the political, diplomatic and economic presses that modern China suffered, the Confucian autocracy with the characteristics of integrative of ethics and politics lost its praxis efficiency and stuck into a severe ideological crisis at the same time. Under such backgrounds, the need of ideological beliefs for the foundation of Chinese nation state was even greater. With the deeper and deeper crises of the subjugation of Chinese nation and the expiration of Chinese race, in the process of modern Chinese political vicissitude, nationalism became the most effective resources for social mobilization, feeling agglomeration and social cohesion. It became the ideological symbol of modern China. As an indispensable ideology, nationalism played a vital role in modern Chinese regime alternations, profoundly affected the process of Chinese political vicissitude.In this essay, the first chapter mainly deals with the following things: summarizing the main fruits which deal with modern Chinese nationalism in and out our country, discussing the relationship between nationalism and political vicissitude, defining the central concepts that this essay will involve and introducing the main methods that this essay will use. The second chapter, firstly, analyzes the rise of nationalism in modern western Europe which exhibits as the following steps: because of the cosmopolitism, there was no modern nationalism in the Middle Age period; the appearance of the Dynasty States gestated the rise of modern nationalism; in the processes of the bourgeois' overthrowing the Dynasty states and the founding of the nation state, modern nationalism which shows strong political feelings really appeared; after that, nationalism spread quickly throughout the world, which mainly exhibited on the continuity of European nationalism movements and the rises of the Latin America nationalism movements. Secondly, analyzes the origin of Chinese nationalism, which exhibits as the following steps: the affection of the traditional racial thoughts, the reference of Japanese and western countries' nationalism theories. It can be concluded that under the background of clashing between west and east in the twentieth century, with the crises that Chinese traditional culture experienced, born with the Chinese nationalism. Because of the differences of time and space between east and west, Chinese nationalism has its unique characteristics. The third chapter deals with the functions that nationalism has played in the collapse of the Qing Dynasty. The author holds that Chinese nationalism has taken on plural forms in the late Qing Dynasty, which can be divided into racial nationalism, cultural nationalism and political nationalism. The new intellectuals, the esquires and the revolutionists are more or less affected by nationalism and their social behaviors changed correspondingly, which resulted in the alienation with the Qing Dynasty at last. We can say nationalism has catalyzed the collapse of the Qing Dynasty. The fourth chapter illustrates the using of nationalism by the Beiyang government. This essay argues that Chinese nationalism has experienced a structural change after the Xinhai revolution. That is: the racial nationalism had faded out, and there happened a vehement controversy between the political nationalism and the cultural nationalism and the form...