Language of Nation-State Building in Late Qing China

Qing Cao is Associate Professor in Chinese Studies at the School of Modern Languages and Cultures, Durham University.

‘The press was a powerful vector for creating the nation in modern China. Qing Cao uses original sources and rigorous analysis to show that a key newspaper contributed to this process. Fascinating reading for all scholars of modern nationalism.'Rana Mitter, Professor of the History and Politics of Modern China, University of Oxford‘New concepts, new words for them, new actions from them! How powerful the wordsmiths were, in laying the fires for China’s century of alternating regeneration and destruction, is laid bare in Qing Cao’s study, a remarkable illustration of the role of language in shaping history.’Hugo de Burgh, Walt Disney Professor of Media & Communications, Schwarzman College, Tsinghua University‘What was a nation, a state, a nation state? A citizen? Even a society of citizens? Let alone a republic. With democracy. With rights. There were no words for these things in late Qing China and, thus, in the everyday population, no concepts which made sense of what foreign-trained intellectuals were slowly beginning to discuss – hesitantly, for they too had no Chinese words to encompass world-wide movements and conditions of modernity. The debate had first to take place, with words and concepts clarified by the literate and educated. Qing Cao has traced these debates in the most influential periodicals of their day. It is an intellectual history that is also a linguistic history. The foundational concepts came from Europe, from the French Revolution. To even articulate ways of going forward that would match the organisational prowess of the imperial nations that came to China required not only a reinvention of the Chinese sense of self, but the creation of a vocabulary that could express that new self. The marvel of his book is how well Qing Cao renders this. No revolution has ever been so transformative: not just a world reborn, but all selves in the world reborn. The Chinese could only stand up when they first learned to think forwards and speak in a new conceptual language. The fruits of that era remain with us today.’Stephen Chan OBE, Professor of World Politics, School of Oriental & African Studies, University of London

• Preface AcknowledgementsAbbreviations Introduction Intellectual and Linguistic Genesis of the Chinese NationChapter One The Lure of Utopia: Liang Qichao and Xinmin CongbaoChapter Two The Discourse of Xinmin: Mindset Remodelling Chapter Three The Press Debate between Xinmin Congbao and Minbao, 1905-1907Chapter Four The Discourse of Guomin: Rule of the People vs. Rule of the StateChapter Five Translating ‘Nation’: The Remaking of the Chinese SocietyChapter Six Rupture in Modernity and the Struggle for National Identities Appendix 1 List of key articles in the late Qing press debate corpusAppendix 2 Top 20 concept nouns in the late Qing press debateAppendix 3 Top 50 concept nouns in the full-text of Xinmin Congbao and MinbaoAppendix 4 Occurrence frequency of the term ‘state 国家’, 1830-1930Appendix 5 Occurrence frequency of the term ‘nation 民族’, 1830-1930Appendix 6 Occurrence frequency of the term ‘revolution 革命’, 1830-1930Appendix 7 Occurrence frequency of the term ‘democracy 民主’, 1830-1930Appendix 8 Occurrence frequency of the term ‘people’s rights 民权’, 1830-1930Appendix 9 The top 30 collocation word chains for guomin in the debate corpusIndex