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Translating and transplanting revolution: the circulation of discourses on the American Revolution between China and Japan

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  16 May 2023

Fei Chen Open the ORCID record for Fei Chen [Opens in a new window]
Fei Chen*
Affiliation:
Faculty of International Studies, Nagoya University of Commerce and Business, Nisshin, Aichi, Japan
*
Email: fei_chen@nucba.ac.jp
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Abstract

The American Revolution, as recent studies have shown, was appropriated by Chinese revolutionaries to use in their anti-Manchu propaganda in the early twentieth century. Few scholars have fully recognised Japan's important role in mediating Chinese revolutionaries’ understanding of the American Revolution. This article aims to bridge the gaps in existing scholarship through a close reading of Chinese and Japanese writings on the American Revolution in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. I will show that Chinese and Japanese elites’ understanding of the American Revolution was structured by the changing power relations between China, Japan, and the West. Before Chinese and Japanese elites internalised the ideology of Western cultural superiority, the former inspired the latter to see the American Revolution through a Confucian lens. After the ideology of Western cultural superiority became entrenched in Japan, Japanese elites reinterpreted the American Revolution through the lens of Western ideas of liberty, civil rights, and popular sovereignty. Their new interpretation, in turn, inspired Chinese revolutionaries in Meiji Japan to view the American Revolution as a model for their anti-Manchu revolution in the 1900s when the ideology of Western cultural superiority started to take root in China.

Keywords

American RevolutiontranslationMeiji JapanQing Chinathe Chinese Revolution of 1911
Type
Article
Information
Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society , Volume 34 , Issue 1 , January 2024 , pp. 129 - 153
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Copyright
Copyright © The Author(s), 2023. Published by Cambridge University Press on behalf of The Royal Asiatic Society

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45 Ibid., vol. 4, p. 27.

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47 Ibid., p. 106.

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68 Ibid., pp. 11–13.

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72 ‘ziyou shengchan guo shengchan ri lüeshu’ 自由生產國生產日畧述, Youxue yibian 遊學譯編 1 (1902), p. 1.

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74 Ibid., pp. 6–7.

75 Ibid., p. 2.

76 Ibid., pp. 4–5.

77 ‘ziyou shengchan guo shengchan ri lüeshu’ 自由生產國生產日畧述, Youxue yibian 遊學譯編3 (1902), p. 21.

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81 T. Chen 陳天華, ‘Menghui tou’ 猛回頭, Chen Tianhua Ji 陳天華集 (Shanghai, 1928), p. 92.

82 X. Lu 盧信, ‘Geming zhenli—jingao Zhongguo ren’ 革命真理—敬告中國人, in Xinhai geming shi ziliao xinbian 辛亥革命史資料新編, (eds) K. Zhang章開沅, F. Luo 羅福惠 and C. Yan 嚴昌洪 (Wuhan, 2006), p. 7, p. 15.

83 R. Zou 鄒容, Geming jun革命軍, in Xinhai geming qianshinian shilun xuanji 辛亥革命前十年時論選集, (eds) Z. Zhang 張枬 and R. Wang 王忍之, vol. 1 (Beijing, 1960), p. 653.

84 Ibid., p. 651.

85 Ibid., p. 652.

86 Ibid.

87 Ibid., p. 676.

88 Nanxia 南俠, ‘Zhongguo liansheng zhi duli yu beimei hezhong zhi duli nanyi bijiao lun’ 中國聯省之獨立與北美合眾之獨立難易比較輪, Henan 河南 9 (1907), pp. 8–10.

89 Ibid., pp. 11–19.

90 Ibid., pp. 24–29.

91 Ibid., p. 8.

92 Armitage, D., The Declaration of Independence. A Global History (Cambridge, 2007), pp. 145–155CrossRefGoogle Scholar.