Liu Shipei: the Expulsion of the Non-Chinese People from China’S History

Chapter 3 Liu Shipei: The Expulsion of the Non-Chinese People from China’s History 或者曰漢族之性質惟以依賴强有力為宗旨者也無論何種何族苟以權力加之無不帖然服從斯言也吾不忍信之然已及身見之或者曰漢族者有特立之精神者也故無論何種何族入據中國卒為漢族所排斯言也吾不敢信之而吾日夜望之滿族者 Some say that the Han [Chinese] ethnicity’s character has a certain power as their maxim. No matter for what race or ethnicity this power is used in order to adjoin it—everyone attaches and follows [the Chinese ethnicity]. Unless I see it myself, I do not dare to believe in this statement! Some say that the Han [Chinese] ethnicity has a special spirit. No matter what race or ethnicity migrates to China it is finally rejected by the Han [Chinese] ethnicity. Looking at the Manchu ethnicity night and day I do not dare to believe in this statement!1 Liu Shipei (1905) ∵ Liu Shipei (1884–1919) is usually classified as a nationalist revolutionary like Zhang Taiyan. Zhang changed his opinion about how to deal with the non- Chinese in a Chinese nation-state from exclusion to inclusion, and, like Liang Qichao in late Qing times, came to support a solution based on assimilation. In contrast to Liang, Liu seems to have held firm to his belief that the Chinese had to exclude all non-Chinese people in order to found a strong nation-state. Liu thus promoted what Liang had once called “lesser nationalism” and what according to Liang could be no alternative to “greater nationalism.” Liang thought that only when China managed to become a nation-state based on “greater nationalism” by including the large non-Chinese regions of the Qing Empire and forming one united nation, would it be strong enough to with- stand the imperialist powers. Liu Shipei thought, however, that the inclusion of non-Chinese would pollute the Chinese people, and that their inclusion 1 Liu S. 1997 [1905], 46a. © koninklijke brill nv, leiden, ��7 | doi ��.��63/9789004330��_005 212 Chapter 3 would, in fact, weaken the Chinese. Like Liang and Zhang, Liu thought that a nation-state functioned best when it was based on a nation unified by lan- guage, culture, and tradition, but he did not believe that a seamless incorpora- tion of non-Chinese was possible because he did not accept Liang’s theory of “China’s assimilative power.” In the 1900s discourse on ethnicity, nationalism, and assimilation Liu was a rare—and, chapters four and five will show, soon to be extinct—example of a thinker who was against a nation-state, which took the Qing Empire as its territorial blueprint. His reasons were not based on lib- eralism or the acceptance that other people, too, could proclaim themselves to be nations and have the right to form nation-states. His reasons were mainly ethnocentric and led him to a view of history different from Liang and Zhang. 3.1 Liu Shipei’s Biography Liu Shipei was born in 1884 in Yangzhou (Jiangsu Province). He came from a family of scholars renowned for their interpretation of the classics, espe- cially of the Zuo zhuan, and received a profound traditional education. In 1902, he obtained a juren degree. One year later, he travelled to Beijing to take part in the jinshi examination, which he failed. On his way back, he visited Shanghai and ended up staying for two years. There, he met Zhang Taiyan and Cai Yuanpei (1868–1940), who acquainted him with revolutionary ideas. During these years, Liu authored the Rangshu (Book of expulsion, 1903) and published it in the Zhongguo baihua bao2 (China col- loquial journal), one of the first journals to use vernacular Chinese. Liu strongly supported revolution, discussed the Zuo zhuan with Zhang, and became one of the last representatives of the Old Text School.3 In 1904, Liu 2 Published semimonthly in 1903–1904. 3 As in the case of the New Text School the roots of the Old Text School lie in ancient times. Allegedly, the first emperor Qin Shi Huangdi (259–210 BC, r. 247–221/221–210 BC) had ordered the “burning of the books and burying of the scholar” ( fenshu kengru) in 213 BC. After the decline of the Qin Dynasty in 206 BC, attempts were made to restore those pre-Qin classics which had been destroyed. They were written down from memory in the so-called “new script” ( jinwen), and this is the origin of the name of the New Text School ( jinwenxue or jin- wenjia) emerging in Former Han times (206 BC–24 AD). By that time, the New Text School’s preference of the classics written in the new script, mainly the Gongyang zhuan, was rejected by another group of scholars, later called Old Text School (guwenxue or guwenjia) who did not see Confucius as a divine being, but as a human teacher. The Old Text scholars considered the new script versions of the classics as being merely contemporary solutions. Tradition tells that in 168 BC pre-Qin versions of the classics were found in Qufu in Shandong Province, .

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