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Title: “New Year’s Dream” Author: Guangyi Li Date: 2013 Language: en Topics: cosmopolitanism, Chinese Anarchism, utopia Source: Retrieved on 15th April 2021 from http://www.jstor.org/stable/10.5325/utopianstudies.24.1.0089 Notes: Published in Utopian Studies, Vol. 24, No. 1 (2013), pp. 89–104
This article is an in-depth analysis of “New Year’s Dream” (1904), a
utopian story by Cai Yuanpei, one of the most prominent Chinese
intellectuals in the twentieth century. In combination with the story’s
late Qing milieu, it explores how Cai Yuanpei maps his contemporary
world and designs a better one. Based on detailed discussions of the
linear progressive future history in the story, this article values “New
Year’s Dream” for its landmark importance in the transition of Chinese
utopian thought and critically analyzes its theme of dual revolution—a
national revolution leading to >a world revolution, which is significant
for our understanding of world utopianism and anarchism.
---
The revolution has not yet succeeded. Comrades, carry on!
—Sun Yat-sen, “Political Testament” (1925)
On February 17, 1904, one month after the Russo-Japanese War broke out
in northeastern China (Manchuria), Cai Yuanpei,[1] a prominent Chinese
intellectual, began to publish his short story “Xinnian meng” (New
Year’s dream) in Eshi jingwen (Alarming news about Russia), a daily
based in Shanghai.[2] In this piece, Cai depicts his dream of a future
world where humans ultimately achieve universal freedom and affluence.
The contemporary scholar Arif Dirlik praised Cai Yuanpei’s creativity,
regarding “New Year’s Dream” as worthy of inclusion in an “anarchist
canon.”[3] Cai Yuanpei, although a prestigious scholar and educator and
the most famous chancellor of Beijing University, was by no means a
prolific writer. Indeed, “New Year’s Dream” is the only fictional work
he ever wrote. Why, then, did he write this story at this very moment?
What might the author’s thinking have had to do with his social and
intellectual milieu? How did he envisage a better world? And how did Cai
Yuanpei break new ground for anarchism? Based on a detailed survey of
the text, I will argue that “New Year’s Dream” epitomizes an age of
transition: deep-rooted in the long tradition of Chinese thought, the
story reflects a world system epicentered in China while also
foreshadow-ing the distinct twentieth-century Chinese utopian passion.
In the final decade of the Qing dynasty (1901–11), Cai Yuanpei was first
and foremost a revolutionary. For some time he was even a zealous
learner of assassination skills, in the hope that one day, like many
partisans, he might eliminate the conservative officials.[4] His major
work, however, was cultivat-ing progressive students in schools such as
the Aiguo xueshe (Patriotic Study Society) and writing editorials to
spread revolutionary ideas. “New Year’s Dream,” like the articles Cai
wrote to warn his readers against the ambitions of Russia for Manchuria,
was part of this revolutionary practice.
The humiliation of Qing China’s fiasco in the first Sino-Japanese War
(1894–95) forced the Chinese elites to seek new ways to save their
country. Fiction henceforth received much attention for its alleged
function in social enlightenment. However, many argued, the “old
fiction” was such a lowbrow form of entertainment that it would be very
unlikely to convey new ideas to its readers.[5] Liang Qichao, a leading
intellectual at the turn of the century, thus called for a revolution in
fiction in 1902, holding the belief that new fiction could renovate the
people’s mind over time and eventually foster the new citizens necessary
for a modern nation.[6] “Today to reform the politics,”
Liang wrote, “we should begin with a revolution of fiction; to renovate
the people, we should begin with the renovation of fiction.”[7] Many
scholars and writers ardently echoed Liang’s words, and the last years
of the Qing Empire therefore witnessed an unprecedented boom of fiction
writing, mostly in Shanghai.
Early in the 1890s, Liang and his teacher Kang Youwei, another leading
thinker, extolled Edward Bellamy’s utopian novel, Looking Backward,
2000–1887. From their point of view, the Confucian ideal depicted in the
ancient classic Liji (Book of rites) was realized in Bellamy’s future
Boston.[8] Later, dur-ing his exile in Japan, Liang Qichao was exposed
to future stories by Meiji Japanese writers, the influence of which is
manifest in his own utopian work, “Xin Zhongguo weilaiji” (A story of
future new China), which inaugurated the literary imagination of a
powerful and flourishing new China.[9]
Many utopian stories emerged in the following years, indicating people’s
longing for a strengthened China. “New Year’s Dream” is Cai’s only work
in this tide of utopian narratives aroused by Liang. It is of particular
importance for several reasons. First, it is among the earliest works
that enthusias-tically resonated with Liang’s fantasy. Second, although
structurally similar to Looking Backward, “New Year’s Dream” contains
significant heterogene-ities. For instance, in sharp contrast to
Bellamy’s all too happy eulogy of the perfect society, much of Cai’s
piece centers upon the painful, even violent, struggle before a bright
future can be attained. Third, unique among late Qing fiction, “New
Year’s Dream” offers a comprehensive account of world revolution, which
resonates uncannily with later revolutionary discourses and movements
over the course of China’s turbulent twentieth century. It is precisely
this last point that invites me to explore Cai’s daring utopia.
Cai Yuanpei has nicely incorporated his own life experiences into the
plotline. The story starts with “Congratulations! Congratulations! It’s
a new year, and also a new world!” followed by a flashback to the
protagonist’s early life. The protagonist, who calls himself “a Chinese
citizen” ( zhongguo yimin), is born into a well-educated and “rich
Jiangnan family.” Apart from traditional learning, he is also fond of
engineering. At the age of sixteen, he leaves home for treaty ports,
where he learns foreign languages. This young man then roams about the
world. Inasmuch as he values equality and freedom, he first goes to the
United States and France. Later he travels to Germany to study industry
and philosophy, where he makes friends with Russian populists. His trip
after graduation begins in Britain and ends in Russia. Back in China,
the protagonist conducts a thorough investigation of his home country.
All these experiences, especially his family ties and knowledge
structure, tell us that the hero is actually a progressive Chinese elite
intellectual of the day. Most pro-revolution or pro-reform intellectuals
were from coastal provinces, where they readily encountered colonial
effects and Western learning.[10] By means of the study of language,
technology, and philosophy, they absorbed Western culture. The hero’s
global journey, which Cai Yuanpei himself had yet to carry out, implies
his accumulation of knowledge and experience concerning the West over
the past decades. Meanwhile, the failure of the Hundred Days’ Reform in
1898 and subsequent suppression of progressive intellectuals and
officials destroyed many people’s confidence in the Qing government.
Only against this historical backdrop can we understand why Cai Yuanpei,
a top-rank scholar-official, supposedly a guardian of law and order,
became a steadfast revolutionary.[11]
The revolutionary significance of “New Year’s Dream” is thus manifold.
Not only does it reflect Cai Yuanpei’s personal revolutionary
trajectory, but the story, written in vernacular Chinese on the serious
theme of national sal-vation and world revolution, also offers a
forceful response to Liang Qichao’s call for a revolution in fiction.
Its linear progressive account of future history was hardly available in
earlier Chinese literature. More important, it articu-lates a blueprint
for dual revolution: a national revolution for China’s revival is to be
followed by a world revolution, which results in a thoroughgoing
reconstruction of the entire world system.
“Human beings cannot yet overcome Nature,” Cai writes, continuing:
“Things like disease, flood, and drought are still unavoidable. This is
because the Earth is divided into many countries, and each fights for
its own benefit. The strength of human beings is wasted in the
intercourses between the countries. A country that cannot prevail over
other countries suffers from either losses of land or cessions of
rights. [That such a country fails] is precisely because it is again
divided into many families, and each fights for its own benefit, thereby
wasting all its strength.”[12] In this compassionate tone, the hero
states the common predicament of humans. His Chinese identity
not-withstanding, what is put into question is not merely the situation
of China. Rather, the fundamental way by which humans organize their
civilization is doubted. Nation and family, the basic categories of a
person’s political and personal life, are both problematic in the
author’s eyes.
While a world perspective is evinced in many late Qing utopian writings,
few provide such a general critique of human civilization. Among those
that do cast doubt upon the whole world, “New Year’s Dream” is the most
impres-sive, anticipating the world’s grand transformation over time.
This feature has everything to do with Cai’s advocacy of anarchism. In
his autobiography, Cai admits that he wrote this story to valorize
anarchism.[13] Anarchism is opposed to any kind of oppression, be it
nation, family, or other social formations.
These oppressive structures, anarchism argues, unfortunately, exist
every-where. On this account, no country is exempt from critique, and
humans need to reform their civilization by voluntary mutual aid, like
Kropotkin calls for in his works.[14] Therefore, though focusing on
China as well, Cai Yuanpei differs from many peer utopian writers in
that he evidently sees the revolution in China as part of a worldwide
revolution to reorganize and ameliorate human civilization in general.
Cai’s story offers a panorama of the post-Westphalian world, consisting
of competing nation-states. This state form, or guo, is of crucial
importance for the welfare of human beings. He writes:
Nowadays, people in the most civilized states still exhaust half of
their strength upon their states and the other half upon their families.
Actually they do not have a complete state yet. How can they talk about
cosmopolitanism! First we should allow those who do not have a state to
carefully build one. Currently, both the Slavic and Chinese peoples have
families rather than states. The Slavic people’s [efforts to] build
their state are increasing day by day, while for Chinese people, few are
thinking of such matters. But everyday they claim to be Chinese. How
shameless the Chinese people are! In fact, if everyone were to devote
his strength wasted on the family to the public, there would be no
difficulty in building a new China![15]
This passage abounds with interesting points. To begin with, we have
“the most civilized states” in the picture. Which states does he mean?
Obviously, they are the Euro-American powers through which the hero
travels. Following China’s debacle in the First Opium War (1839–42),
Chinese intellectuals were always painstakingly comparing Chinese and
Western civilizations.[16] At the turn of the century, after a
succession of failures, a great many of them were willing to acknowledge
the overwhelming supremacy of the imperialists. In the eyes of many late
Qing revolutionaries, the Western powers were more civilized than China,
whose own civilization had lasted for thousands of years. Nevertheless,
Cai acutely pointed out that they were far from perfect. In criticizing
these “most civilized states,” he adopted the ideas of European
anarchists, taking the state and the family as two major targets.
Given such forthright critique, Cai has no passion for immediate
utopias. If “a complete state” has yet to be achieved, it is definitely
too early to talk about cosmopolitanism. Cai thereby diverges from the
European anarchist orthodoxy: For most European anarchists, there was no
need to “complete” the current nation-states; instead, they could be
superseded by the new forms for which anarchists called, for instance,
communes based upon the principle of mutual aid.[17] One reason for the
difference between Cai and his European comrades lies in his primary
concern for China. From describing those who lack complete states, Cai
turns abruptly to the problem of those who have no states at all,
explicitly singling out the Slavic and Chinese peoples. Without the
“Slavic and Chinese peoples” in the next sentence, one might well
con-fuse their plight, that is, lacking a state ( meiyou chengguo), with
the problem of people in the most civilized states, that is, lacking a
complete state ( meiyou wanquan de guo). Arguing for the priority of
state formation in the less civilized world, Cai offers a dialectical
response to the ideal pursued by anarchists in the European center. To
be exact, although favoring anarchism, he foregrounds the imbalances of
the capitalist world system and asserts a Chinese subjectivity by
justifying their need for a state. The work of Peter Zarrow has pointed
out that another prominent anarchist in 1900s China, Liu Shipei,
predated Lenin in revealing the key importance of liberation struggles
in the peripheries.[18] “New Year’s Dream,” I argue, is an even earlier
example of Chinese anarchists’ insight into the world system.
To better understand Cai Yuanpei’s vision of the future, we also have to
take into account the intellectual tradition of China. Like most
contemporary scholars, Cai was first exposed to Darwinian evolutionary
theory thanks to Yan Fu’s Chinese translation of T. H. Huxley’s
Evolution and Ethics.[19]
Cai, also akin to his contemporaries such as Kang Youwei, invoked the
historical view in the Gongyang Commentaries to the Spring and Autumn
Annals, a central Confucian classic, to interpret evolutionary
theory.[20] In common with Kang, who offered a utopian reinterpretation
of the “Three Ages” of historical development posited in the Gongyang
Commentaries, Cai suggested a gradual, three-stage improvement of
society, with the people’s identity shifting from family members
(jiaren) to state citizens ( guoren) and finally to cosmopolitan
citizens ( shijieren).[21] However, one can draw a clear distinction
between Cai and Kang, for the former avidly embraced revolution, while
the latter strived for a peaceful shift to constitutional monarchy.[22]
Cai Yuanpei insisted that history follows a certain evolutionary
process, in which no society can cut corners, and yet he also believed
that revolution was indispensable for each stage of transition.
Albeit successfully calling attention to the oppressed China, Cai
Yuanpei’s world vision is still incomplete, for he neglects the
suffering of many other countries around the globe. Present in his
picture are the Euro-American powers, plus Japan. Meanwhile, China and
the Slavic people, part of Europe, are presented as the oppressed. If
Japan, the promising latecomer calling for breaking away from Asia and
joining Europe, can be taken as a member of the Western club, Cai
Yuanpei’s world is actually composed of just two sides, China and the
West. Where is the agency of other Asian countries, for instance, Korea,
Vietnam, and India, which were under substantial colonial rule? Where
are the people suffering from the “Scramble for Africa” by the Western
imperialist countries? Where is Latin America, the United States’
so-called backyard? At this moment Cai Yuanpei was by no means unaware
of these other flashpoints of struggle for national determination. In
his world, however, whether present or future, these countries are
totally left out of the scene. To comprehend Cai���s negligence, one has
to remember that China had been an empire throughout most of its
history. Even overwhelmed by the Western powers, Chinese intellectuals
were still unwilling to identify China as coeval with other victims of
colonialism.[23] Rather, many of them easily assumed a China/West
dichotomy when reflecting upon their national crisis and in response,
then imagined a new hierarchy restoring China’s supremacy as the most
advanced civilization.[24] Despite his occasional mention of China’s
fellow victims, Cai was not exempt from traditional Sinocentrism, which
ren-ders his utopian story problematic.
In spite of his call for the formation of a nation-state, Cai has no
intention of building a capitalist state. Rather, he desires its
socialist variant. Like many utopian travelers, the hero enters into the
new era by means of dream. He is awakened by the ringing of a bell,
which leads him to a grand conference room where people from all over
the country come to discuss how to change China. The keynote speaker
says: “All of us here are called Chinese. But how do we deserve this
name? We definitely have a China in our mind, yet if we don’t
substantially build a state now, I’m afraid we will never have a
chance!”[25]
Thus Cai differed from fellow anarchists in that, for him, protecting
China from invasion was his immediate point of departure. There are
vari-ous oppressions in this world. Major anarchists in the last half of
the 1900s were more concerned with the oppressions imposed upon workers,
peasants, and other commoners by states. Despite their pan-European
cooperation and some leaders’ critique of colonialism, hardly any effort
was directed toward decolonization.[26] In contrast, Cai Yuanpei’s first
care was the colonial oppression China suffered in the world arena. To
fight off the Western countries, Cai maintained, China first required
the political and economic power of a modern state. Social reform was
necessary, but it should serve the paramount political end. Put another
way, social revolution, the focus of most anarchists, gave way in Cai’s
vision to political revolution.
What Cai Yuanpei proposes for the first phase of revolution is a
socialist state with a strong central government. In his futuristic
China, people are to elect their representatives, who hold meetings to
decide national policies.
The economy is completely state-owned, running well-planned,
noncompeti-tive social production and fair allocation and ensuring
everyone a proper job, from each according to his ability and to each
according to his work. Every person is to receive education from seven
to twenty-four years of age, to work from twenty-four to forty-eight,
and then to retire. Every day, one is to spend eight hours working,
eight hours sleeping, and another eight hours taking meals, talking, and
enjoying leisure time. The state provides public facilities including
schools, parks, libraries, and so on. There is a system to care for the
children, the aged, and those with disabilities. Up to this point, Cai
was appar-ently invoking Bellamy, who had inspired most late Qing
utopians. Certain notable facilities, for example, public bedrooms (
gonggong qinshi) and mating rooms ( nannü pei’ou shi), nevertheless
reveal Cai Yuanpei’s anarchist mind.
Had Bellamy been able to read “New Year’s Dream,” Cai’s relentless
enforcement of revolutionary justice might have astonished him. To
achieve a socialist state, the state machine, as well as capital, has to
be owned by the public. More to the point, citizens in this new state
have to be, at least to a certain degree, altruistic. This is what Cai
has in common with Bellamy.
Yet, according to most theories of socialism and anarchism, the old
society is based upon private ownership of property, thus making its
members self-ish. In what way can the necessary transformation happen?
While Bellamy called for peaceful reform, most early Chinese anarchists,
mainly exposed to Russian nihilism, were in favor of violence,
especially assassination.[27] Cai Yuanpei also regarded violence as an
effective means to realize the revolutionary ideal. In his story, a sort
of populist, tyrannical democracy is preferred:
Now to do anything the majority will force the minority to obey. If
someone obstructs the public enterprise for his own benefit, he will be
our public enemy. It was well said by the ancients that “it’s better to
sacrifice a few for the benefit of the majority.” We have but to be
ruthless.... Only a few wealthy people who once falsely claimed the
state lose their minds. People strive to comfort and prevent them (from
doing mad things), but they don’t care. Then they are found guilty in
the local parliament. Once the court also sentences a person to
condemnation, it will be declared in public that he is to be executed
for his crime. Immediately this person is electrocuted by a sudden bolt
of lightning, with the condemnation imprinted on his body, just like the
legendary Thunder God’s strike.... The opposition parties, even in empty
houses, dare not to speak and live in fear.[28]
Cai Yuanpei celebrates the effect of brutal violence with an ironic
comment that “[the opposition parties] are reformed [ ganhua] quickly.
In fewer than one year national unity is accomplished.”[29] In the
meantime, rich people’s money, whether hidden in their homes or
deposited in foreign banks, is confiscated for public cause.
All these efforts create a powerful state, which in no time has to
defend itself. If Cai Yuanpei were to justify his imaginary use of
violence and state-building, he might call attention to the very real
threat of colonial powers. He might also agree with Franz Fanon that
“decolonization is always a violent event.”[30] Cai Yuanpei anticipates
a war between the new China and the powers that are unwilling to lose
their control over China. Interestingly, in Cai’s vision, Russia and the
United States decide to recognize the new state, because the former has
experienced similar sufferings and now operates with a similar set of
institutions, while the latter has the highest respect for civil rights.
The armies sent to fight against China come from Korea, India, and
Vietnam, suggesting that Japan, Britain, and France are the major
enemies of the new China. The defending country, though, is no longer a
weak, disintegrated China. A vital change, Cai says, has transpired in
Chinese peoples’ minds so that now “they take China as their own
soul.”[31] Thanks to this flame of patrio-tism, plus a slight technical
advantage, China manages to defeat the invading troops and thence
reclaims all the foreign concessions.
Finally, the nation-state topic surfaces. National spirit is regarded as
the decisive factor in the competition among countries. All China’s
internal reforms, including the lessening of provincial division, the
endeavor to raise public benefit, and the abolition of private property,
serve to create a strong, unified nation-state. Meanwhile, the social
enlightenment accomplished through literature and the performing
arts,[32] and “New Year’s Dream” per se, exemplifies the formation of a
powerful “imagined community.”[33]
The first half of the twentieth century was witness to much of Cai
Yuanpei’s predictive vision. China, through incessant wars and
movements, some of which were very bloody, won its full independence as
a socialist nation-state.
We should keep this correspondence in mind as we read the magnificent
climax of Cai Yuanpei’s utopian composition: anarcho-communism.
After the war, the defeated powers hold a conference in Berlin,
concluding that it is better to have peace with China and benefit from
reciprocal trade.
China, on the other hand, takes this opportunity to raise a way to
eliminate wars of all kinds:
We suggest that all the countries collaborate to establish a world
public law court, and train several legions of a single world army. The
number of judges and the constituency of the army are to be decided
based upon the population of the countries. Except for internal police
forces, no one country is allowed to establish its own army. Any
conflict between two countries is to be brought before the court for
settlement. Those who refuse to obey the judgment will come under the
attack of the world army. In addition, if a citizen of a certain country
cannot settle a dispute between the state and himself, he can also turn
to the world court.[34]
One can easily find an affinity between Cai’s world court and the League
of Nations, indicating that Chinese thinkers preceded Woodrow Wilson in
suggesting an international organization for global collective
security.[35] Under the regulation of the world court, Cai imagines,
eternal peace becomes possible. Human beings channel all their efforts
to enhance social welfare, thus changing society fundamentally. There
are no monarchs and subjects. Each person works earnestly and regularly.
No distinction is made between fathers and sons. Proper institutions are
available for the children, old people, and people with disabilities.
The categories of husband and wife are eliminated.
Once two people fall in love with each other, they go to the mating
rooms (to have sex). Even names are abolished, and each person is
assigned a number.
Before long, since no one breaks the law anymore, laws and courts are
both abrogated. New culture is first manifested in the language. A new
kind of written characters (xinzi) is created, which can indicate the
sounds and the meaning of language at the same time, thus making the
system easy to learn.
Due to this benefit, and also because of the consistency between writing
and speaking, people all over the world happily learn the new language.
“From words to thought, then from thought to practice,” in fewer than
sixty years, new practices prevail throughout the whole world.[36]
People then decide to hold a conference in order to abolish the states,
the world court, and the world army, for they are no longer of any use.
Instead, humans form an association for overcoming Nature ( shengziran
hui). There are no more disputes among the people; rather, what people
now strive to do is to fight with Nature. Humankind will put the climate
under their rule and harness the air to (fly to and) colonize the
planets. This is “the true end of Earth people’s competitive mind.”[37]
As an anarchist, in his fantasy Cai Yuanpei unsurprisingly chooses to
surpass the world system of nation-states. For him and like-minded
anarchists, states and families are the major sources of oppression,
without the abolition of which a new era will never come. However, the
abolition of these basic social categories signifies a thoroughgoing
revolution, which for many is open to question. It is reasonable for one
to doubt: How can new institutions and new culture be established
peacefully and smoothly? Reading the story “New Year’s Dream,” a person
suspicious of human nature might raise a further question: If violence
is applicable in domestic revolution and world war, how is it possible
to avoid the abuse of violence by someone or some organization? Due to
all these doubts, utopian designs are assigned extremely negative
significance in the dystopias produced decades later. For instance, the
replacement of names by numbers is terrifying in Zamiyatin’s We, as it
actually puts people under the firm control of authority. Another case
in point is seen in the realm of language. In “New Year’s Dream,” the
new language is established to bridge the gap between different
cultures, whereas George Orwell’s “Newspeak” only plays the role of
eliminating any ideas inconsistent with the totalitarian government.
The part China plays in the remaking of the world order seems to be Cai
Yuanpei’s answer to the aforementioned questions, although it certainly
adds to the uneasiness of readers. In the beginning of “New Year’s
Dream,” the reform or revolution for which the hero calls is supposed to
be a change happening in the world’s periphery. However, by putting the
correct social thought into effect, in a short time China regains the
central position it had assumed for so long in earlier times. It is
China that proposes al the new principles to form a better world. In
response to the suggestion of China, “at that time the words of China
sound like heavenly speech [tianyu] for other countries. Since Russia
and the United States also come to her aid, no country dares to disobey.
After the treaty is confirmed, al the countries soon act
accordingly.”[38]
In the subsequent years, all the other countries remodel themselves
after China’s fashion. Almost the whole world voluntarily emulates
China, the purported center of world revolution.[39] We have to ask,
though, why revolution goes so smoothly in the West. Considering the
frantic resistance that rich Chinese people put up in the story, why do
we not see the same resistance in Western countries? Moreover, struggles
in other peripheral areas are totally missing, as if Western colonizers
would willingly give up their privileges or the colonies and their
suzerains would realize anarchist bliss at the same pace.
What Cai Yuanpei has in his mind, in my opinion, is a Confucian
confidence that assumes China as the moral center: “If such a state of
affairs exists, yet the people of far-off lands still do not submit,
then the ruler must attract them by enhancing the prestige of his
culture; and when they have been duly attracted, he contents them. And
where there is contentment there will be no upheavals.”[40] Cherishing
men from afar and reforming them through culture is none other than the
underlying doctrine of the tributary system that China maintained
throughout most of its premodern era.[41] Cai Yuanpei, though advocating
a Western ideology, manages to integrate the traditional worldview of
China within his anarchist scheme. While enriching anarchism by
foregrounding its cosmopolitan dimension, his cultural arrogance is
none-theless evident.
“New Year’s Dream” is Cai Yuanpei’s singular contribution to anarchism.
On the one hand, Cai Yuanpei offers a concise yet complete—in time and
in space—delineation of the universal realization of anarchism, arguing
for the necessity of a dual revolution and thus endowing anarchism with
a true sense of world revolution. On the other hand, in terms of
political practice, the story encom-passes complexities that surpassed
the simple and immediate expectations of many European anarchists. To
examine the interweaving power relations in “New Year’s Dream,” we have
to take into account the author’s training in the Chinese scholarly
tradition, his entanglement with authority, and his participa-tion in
nationalistic revolution. First of al , though, it is worth inquiring
what “China” means to Cai Yuanpei. Though he asserts that Chinese people
“do not have a state,” by state he means a modern nation-state. If we
interpret state as a sovereign political entity, in Cai’s time China did
have a state. More to the point, this state was in fact an empire,
extending from the South China Sea to Central Asia. Modern China
inherited and maintained most of the territory of the Qing Empire,
thereupon wrestling with its power intricacies: peripheral minorities,
border disputes, and the tributary system, to name but a few.
Looming over al the late Qing utopians, even their successors throughout
the century, is just such an empire, from which utopians derive insights
as wel as prejudices. Indeed, the question of “empire in our mind” can
also be raised in interrogating mainstream anarchists of Cai’s time,
whose Eurocentrism prevented them from substantial y addressing
colonialism. In this sense, “New Year’s Dream” sheds new light on
“oppression,” a central concern of anarchism. Cai Yuanpei surprisingly
anticipated the outgrowth of the Chinese revolution, and yet many issues
he put forward, especial y the imbalances of the world and regional
systems, remain unresolved. His thought experiment, a fas-cinating blend
of anarchism, cosmopolitanism, and social evolutionism, should be
inspiring for al those persistently seeking social equality and global
justice.
This article is an extended version of a discussion paper presented at
the Third Annual China Undisciplined Conference at the University of
California, Los Angeles, in May 2010 and again at the Thirty-Fifth
Annual Meeting of the Society for Utopian Studies in Milwaukee in
October 2010. I am greatly indebted to Andrea S. Goldman, who offered
generous help in revising this article.
[1] For a general introduction to Cai Yuanpei, see Eugene S. Lubot,
“Ts’ai Yuan-P’ei from Confucian Scholar to Chancellor of Peking
University, 1868–1923: The Evolution of a Patient Reformer” (Ph.D.
dissertation, Ohio State University, 1970).
[2] Cai Yuanpei, “Xinnian meng” [New Year’s dream], Eshi jingwen
[Alarming news about Russia], February 17–20 and 24–25, 1904; also
available in Cai Yuanpei quanji, vol. 1, ed. Cai Yuanpei Research
Society of China (Hangzhou: Zhejiang jiaoyu chubanshe, 1991), 422–36.
All quotations are cited from the Cai Yuanpei Research Society of China
edition and are my translation.
[3] Arif Dirlik, Anarchism in the Chinese Revolution (Berkeley and Los
Angeles: University of California Press, 1991), 67.
[4] Hu Guoshu, Cai Yuanpei pingzhuan (Zhengzhou: Henan jiaoyu chubanshe,
1990), 71–74.
[5] For a sketch of late Qing literature, see Leo Ou-Fan Lee, “Literary
Trends I: The Quest for Modernity, 1895–1927,” in The Cambridge History
of China, vol. 12, ed. John K. Fairbank (Cambridge: Cambridge University
Press, 1983), 452–504.
[6] See Theodore Huters, Bringing the World Home: Approaching the West
in Late Qing and Early Republican China (Honolulu: University of Hawaii
Press, 2005), chap. 4. For a case study of the new media’s significance
for late Qing social enlightenment, see Joan Judge, Print and Politics:
“Shibao” and the Culture of Reform in Late Qing China (Stanford:
Stanford University Press, 1996), 1–13, 100–119.
[7] Liang Qichao, “Lun xiaoshuo yu qunzhi zhi guanxi” (1902), in Ershi
shiji zhongguo xiaoshuo lilun ziliao, vol. 1, ed. Chen Pingyuan and Xia
Xiaohong (Beijing: Beijing daxue chubanshe, 1989), 37.
[8] See the description of datong (Great Unity) in the Book of Rites.
The Sacred Books of China: The Texts of Confucianism, pt. 3, trans.
James Legge (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1885), 364–66. For Liang and
Kang’s comments on Bellamy’s utopian novel, see Liang Qichao, “Xixue
dushu fa,” quoted in Zou Zhenhuan, Yingxiang zhongguo jindai shehui de
yibai zhong yizuo (Beijing: China Translation and Publishing, 1996),
100; Kang Nanhai xiansheng koushuo, comp. and ed. Wu Xizhao and Deng
Zhonghao (Guangzhou: Zhongshan daxue chubanshe, 1985), 31.
[9] Meiji Japanese future stories’ influence upon Liang’s utopia is
evident: to name but a few, the story’s title, constant dialogue, and
reversed narrative structure. See Chen Pingyuan, Zhongguo xiaoshuo xushi
moshi de zhuanbian (Beijing: Beijing daxue chubanshe, 2004), 40–43.
[10] Cai Yuanpei was born and raised in a rich business family based in
Shaoxing, a city some one hundred miles away from Shanghai.
[11] Cai Yuanpei had served for four years in the Hanlin Academy (the
top official academic institution of Qing China) until he left for home
in 1898.
[12] Cai, “New Year’s Dream,” 423.
[13] Yang Yang, ed., Zishu yu yinxiang: Cai Yuanpei (Shanghai: Sanlian
shudian, 1997), 9.
[14] For a general account of anarchism and its modern development in
China, see Dirlik, Anarchism in the Chinese Revolution, chap. 1.
[15] Cai, “New Year’s Dream,” 423.
[16] For their early debates, see Huters, Bringing the World Home, chap.
1.
[17] Daniel Guérin, Anarchism: From Theory to Practice (New York:
Monthly Review Press, 1970), 14–17, 57–60.
[18] “[Liu] strikingly foreshadowed Lenin’s notion that liberation
struggles in the colonies were a part of revolution in the metropole.
Indeed, he went beyond Lenin in locating the key to revolutionary
endeavor in the peripheries. Thus the Chinese anarchists not only began
the process of the sinification of Marxism, but independently reached
conclusions similar to those of European Marxists” (Peter Zarrow,
Anarchism and Chinese Political Culture [New York: Columbia University
Press, 1990], 174–75).
[19] See Benjamin Schwartz, In Search of Wealth and Power: Yen Fu and
the West ( Cambridge: Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, 1964),
chap. 4.
[20] Yang, Zishu yu yinxiang, 4–5. For Kang Youwei’s reference to the
Gongyang Commentaries, see Hsiao Kung-Chuan, A Modern China and a New
World: K’ang Yu-wei, Reformer and Utopian, 1858–1927 (Seattle:
University of Washington Press, 1975), 54–57.
[21] The Gongyang Commentaries is among the canons of a long suppressed
Confucian school, New Text Confucianism. While employed to justify
evolutionism, New Text Confucianism was also reinvigorated by the
former. For the revival of New Text Confucianism in the mid–eighteenth
century, see Benjamin A. Elman, Classicism, Politics, and Kinship: The
Ch’ang-chou School of New Text Confucianism in Late Imperial China
(Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press, 1990).
[22] For a detailed account of the early introduction of anarchism in
China and Cai’s reception, see Jiang Jun and Li Xingzhi, Zhongguo jindai
de wuzhengfuzhuyi sichao (Jinan: Shandong renmin chubanshe, 1990),
17–29.
[23] See Rebecca E. Karl, Staging the World: Chinese Nationalism at the
Turn of the Twentieth Century (Durham: Duke University Press, 2002).
[24] After the Second Opium War (1856–60), there came a bitter debate on
whether Western technology is from China, whether the West is entirely
the opposite of China, and whether Chinese learning is for fundamental
principles while Western learning is for practical application. See
Huters’s discussion in Bringing the World Home, chap. 1.
[25] Cai, “New Year’s Dream,” 424.
[26] Guérin, Anarchism, 66–69.
[27] Hu Qingyun, Zhongguo wuzhengfuzhuyi sixiangshi (Beijing: Guofang
daxue chubanshe, 1994), 44.
[28] Cai, “New Year’s Dream,” 427, 431. Herein Cai Yuanpei quotes a
famous Song dynasty politician, Fan Zhongyan (989–1052). Fan spoke the
sentence when advised that he should be lenient to corrupt officials.
What he literally said is, “How can a weeping family be compared to a
weeping province!”
[29] Ibid., 432.
[30] Franz Fanon, The Wretched of the Earth (New York: Grove Press,
2005), 1.
[31] Cai, “New Year’s Dream,” 433.
[32] Ibid., 431.
[33] See Benedict Anderson’s analysis of print culture’s role in the
development of nationalism in Imagined Communities: Reflections on the
Origin and Spread of Nationalism (London: Verso, 2006).
[34] Cai, “New Year’s Dream,” 434.
[35] Kang Youwei also developed his blueprint for world government and
perpetual peace. See Ta T’ung Shu: The One-World Philosophy of K’ang
Yu-Wei, trans. Laurence G. Thompson (London: George Allen and Unwin,
1958).
[36] Cai, “New Year’s Dream,” 435.
[37] Ibid.
[38] Ibid., 434.
[39] Occasionally, revolution is intentionally transplanted to other
countries. For example, before the world war the protagonist is sent to
Russia to “mobilize their populists,” who consequently take over the
country (ibid., 432).
[40] The Analects of Confucius, trans. and annotated by Arthur Waley
(1938; London: Routledge, 2005), 203.
[41] For two rather different, even contrasting overviews of the
tributary system, see J.K. Fairbank, “Tributary Trade and China’s
Relations with the West,” Far Eastern Quarterly 1, no. 2 (1942): 129–49;
and Takeshi Hamashita, “The Tributary Trade System and Modern Asia,” in
Japanese Industrialization and the Asian Economy, ed. A. J. H. Latham
and Heita Kawakatsu (London: Routledge, 1994), 91–107. For a discussion
of the significance and practice of the tributary system’s
culture-ritual institution, see James L. Hevia, Cherishing Men from
Afar: Qing Guest Ritual and the Macartney Embassy of 1793 (Durham: Duke
University Press, 1995), 9–25, 116–33.