The Chinese Face Of Rousseau A Study On Rousseau’s Political Image In Chinese Intellectual Circles In The Late Qing Dynasty

For the Western political thinkers who had influence on Modern China, Jean-JacquesRousseau held a unique position. Rousseau was not only an early entry into chinaintellectual circles but also extensively praised by modern Chinese intellectuals, andexerted a great influence on Modern Chinese political operation. The political culturephenomenon which Chinese intellectuals in the late Qing Dynasty continued focus onRousseau is need to explain, and we also should face and solve the fate of Rousseau’sthought in modern china.This thesis studies the Rousseau’s political image in Chinese intellectual circles ofthe late Qing Dynasty, I want to analyze the issues below: the conditions and process of Rousseau’s different political image, its significance to Chinese intellectuals in thelate Qing Dynasty; the political psychology and value orientation of the Chineseintellectuals in the late Qing Dynasty which it reflected; In order to solve the nationaland social problems in the late Qing Dynasty, Chinese intellectuals how to modify theRousseau’s thought. My purpose is trying to summarize the characteristics of Chineseintellectuals in the late Qing Dynasty knew Rousseau from the macroscopic angle: thereason which Chinese intellectuals of the late Qing Dynasty admired Rousseau wasthat they believing in negative values subjectively identified certain ideas in the theoryof Rousseau to make the realization of national independence and prosperity of china,the pragmatic attitude to quickly solve the problem of china’s national and socialproblems had always dominated their understanding of Rousseau and his work, such akind of pragmatism and utilitarianism attitude determined most of them could notprovide a holistic and deep understanding and research on the works of Rousseau, alsoimpossible to form a "learning for learning" attitude; and instead, they only interceptedand absolutized some ideas from the works of Rousseau which they thought useful.As everyone knows, Rousseau’s political theory itself is complex, for this paper,the original Rousseau’s thought has provided a theoretical resources for Rousseau’s political image in the late Qing Dynasty: Rousseau was seen as a Confucian because ofthe commonality in human nature and politics between Rousseau’s political philosophyand Confucianism; Rousseau could be interpreted as a civil rights activist because ofmoral appeal for political legitimacy of the people’s sovereignty theory; artificialconstructing the Greek cosmos which had long been broken off by Scott et al,and asteleological history background for his political plans, this attempt gave Rousseau’sthought a certain radicalism, so that Rousseau could be interpreted as a revolutionary.Through the analysis of Rousseau’s political philosophy, we found that freedomand equality in Rousseau’s political theory is the idealistic rights and a kind of moraloriginated from human nature. Compared to other Western Enlightenment thinkers, forChinese intellectuals of negative values as the meaning structure in the late QingDynasty, this point which freedom and equality is regarded as the new moral viewswas more attractive.In addition to its own characteristics of Rousseau’s political philosophy,Rousseau’s political image in Chinese intellectual circles of the late Qing Dynasty wasalso related to the “Democratic Interpretations” by which Chinese intellectuals knewRousseau. Rousseau’s Confucian image was originated from the “Democratic Interpretations” of Nakae Chomin, in the “Democratic Interpretations”, Rousseau’stheory of people’s sovereignty was interpreted as “civil rights”, and Nakae Chominfurther explained the meaning of “civil rights” by Mencius’s “righteousness”; NakaeChomin interpreted the relationship between Rousseau’s “individual will” and “generalwill” by the Confucian debate, and explained how to form “general will” by theConfucian doctrine of the mode of thinking; Rousseau’s “natural freedom”,“socialfreedom” and “moral freedom” were translated as “destiny freedom”,“humanfreedom” and “freedom of thought”, he further interpreted the “freedom of thought” tothe “Justice and magnanimous” according to Mencius’s “Cun Yang theory”. TheConfucian image of Rousseau in “Democratic Interpretations” was the foundation ofRousseau’s civil activist image and the revolutionary avatar image.Similar to Nakae Chomin, out of concern for “protecting the race”,“protecting theteachings” and “protecting the nation” after the Sino-Japanese war of1894, Liu Shipeialso constructed a Confucian image of Rousseau in an ingenious way, like the otherChinese intellectuals, at this time, under the background of against the monarchy andthe Qing Dynasty, Liu Shipei affirmed the priority of “protecting the nation”, moreimportantly, Liu Shipei advocated that Chinese imitation of the western Republican politics not only according to the requirements of national prosperity and strength, healso reinterpreted the “politics for the public” that China’s traditional philosophyaccording to the “Social Contract” in order to solve the problem of Chinese autocraticmonarchy. In addition, through interpreting the “Social Contract” by Confucianism,Liu Shipei realized the added value of Confucian tradition, and made Chinesetraditional political culture breed new significance, the Confucian Populism also got anew understanding: The thought which people and the whole society as the source ofpolitical legitimacy began to separate from the idea of combining the kingship andcosmology.In the “Democratic Interpretations”, Nakae Chomin explained the theory ofpeople’s sovereignty to civil rights; this was actually laid the groundwork forRousseau’s image of civil rights activist, at the same time, the popular of civil rightsdiscourse in the late Qing Dynasty was the discourse background for Rousseau’s imageof civil rights activist.The term of the Chinese civil rights derived from Japanese legal freedom, but itsnature and semantic meaning had changed due to transfer of physical environment. TheChinese meaning of Reformism civil rights discourse was “everyone has the right to autonomy”, compared with the western concept of democracy, western democracy isthe main solution of the political legitimacy and its idea is “people’s sovereignty”, butthe civil rights discourse of Chinese reformers was designed to get through theconnection between the traditional people-oriented doctrine and the Westerndemocracy, so it was a concept not only by the influence of Western democracy andwith different; Compared with the Western concept of human rights, the concept ofhuman rights was based on universal and abstract individual, and it was mainly toregulate the relation between the individual rights and the state power, while the civilrights discourse of Chinese reformers was based on “crowd”,it was mainly in order toreadjust the relationship between monarch and people,realize the “rule–by-themonarch-and-the-people”system and the prosperity of the country.For Chinese reformers, the civil rights activist Rousseau made them recognize thesignificance of civil rights as a kind of new moral for national autonomous: withoutindividual rights and independent, the national independent became impossible. Civilrights was no longer considered by Liang Qichao as a kind of equilibrium force withmonarchial power, but as the rights people should enjoy. It is important to note thatalthough Rousseau brought Chinese reformers pay attention to the individual rights, but the attention was only limited in the field of public domain and national area,without the national independent, the sense of individual or individualism was mainlynegative, it was referred to Chinese people too pursuit of self-interest resulting incountry could not achieve the revitalization. And before contact Rousseau, the civilrights discourse of Chinese reformers had the characteristic of communitarism andinstrumentalism, this characteristic was not changed because of Rousseau, and also hadnothing to do with Rousseau. At the same time, civil rights activist Rousseau was themain object which criticized by Yan Fu before the Revolution of1911.Relative to the Chinese reformers, the civil rights discourse of Chineserevolutionary was also not the Western citizenship or human rights, but national rights.Relative to the minority Manchus and the monarch, National rights was a kind ofcollective rights mainly referred to the rights of the majority Han Chinese, rather thanto the individual rights; Chinese revolutionary argued that democracy was the negateof emperor despotism, was for the overall free instead of individual freedom, in orderto overall democracy, individual liberty should also be interfered. For Chineserevolutionary, the significance of civil rights activist Rousseau lied in the doctrine of“people’s sovereignty” was corrected to the principle of “popular sovereignty”: the people as a whole was quickly promoted to the masters of the country, at the same time,the meaning of people was still in the Chinese traditional sense.The revolutionary nature and radicalism which the civil rights discourse itselfcontained made civil rights activist Rousseau also must be the advocate of revolution,in addition, Rousseau as the symbol of the revolutionary spirit was related to thefollowing factors:The first factor is the political radicalism formed after the Sino-Japanese war of1894.The political radicalism originated from the Wuxu Reform had made thepsychological preparation for the revolution worship, at the same time, the increasingnational and social crisis after the Sino-Japanese war of1894made the Chineseintellectuals realize that the traditional Confucian ethics was not desirable. This kind ofnegative value made the revolution which covered with the social justicecorresponding to the new moral contained martyrs spirit and the cosmic moral order asa kind of new ultimate concern start throughout the universe, outlook on life and allaspects of society. It was after the Wuxu Reform, the propagation of Rousseau’s workshad reached the climax.The second factor is that the transformation of the Chinese traditional revolutionary discourse and the prevalence of the revolutionary discourse in late QingDynasty. The word revolution which introduced into China through Japan must lead tomutual Geyi of the Chinese and the Western revolutionary ideas, the connotation ofChinese traditional revolutionary discourse had changed. At the beginning, it was theselective absorption, Chinese “revolution” mainly referred to the “rebellion” in the1890s; after1900, Chinese “revolution” was gradually endowed with modernsignificance. Among them, the new meaning which Liang Qichao first used in the“Poetic Revolution” made the term “revolution” really join in the world history; it wasthe key that people from the fear of “revolution” to uphold “the revolution”. Ultimately,the “revolution” combined with political violence evolved into the evolution of axiom,what is more important is that the political violence connected with the revolutionaryconcept represented progressive gained legitimacy because it could completely changethe status quo of china. The symbol of cheering revolution was Zou Rong’s“Revolutionary Army”, and due to the introduction of Liang Qichao’s broad andnarrow concept of revolution, coupled with the violence which gained legitimacybecause of the revolutionary concept of evolution, therefore, the French revolution hadbecome the scale and resource of Chinese revolution, the Chinese people began to adore the French Revolution and Rousseau because of the “revolution worship”. AfterChinese “revolution” had become the evolution of axiom, Rousseau became thesymbol of the revolution.Along with the fierce controversy on the French revolution between theRevolutionaries and the Constitutionalists, the use of Chinese “revolution” reached anunprecedented peak. With the victory of the “revolution discourse”, the significancewhich Rousseau as the symbol of the revolution had been further sublimation,Rousseau was not only meant to overthrow the existing unreasonable social system,but also the symbol of the new state in which all system and difference had beeneliminated.In the late Qing Dynasty, Chinese intellectuals’ understanding of Rousseaulogically roughly experienced from the Confucian to the civil activist, and to therevolutionary symbol, such a process actually was the result of Chinese intellectuals’gradually radicalization. The criticism and reflection on Rousseau’s image ofrevolutionary symbol was started until after Reform and Opening up, because of the“Cultural Revolution”, a lot of Chinese scholars had begun to criticize the Rousseaufrom1980’s,in the1990’s, the criticism on Rousseau began to concentrate, the main representative work was the “The Moral Utopia’s Demise——from Rousseau toRobespierre”.