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The Introduction of <I>Minbenzhuyi</I> and the Return of Its Traditional Chinese Meaning

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The Introduction of <I>Minbenzhuyi</I> and the Return of Its Traditional Chinese Meaning Cultura. International Journal of Philosophy of Culture and Axiology 16(2)/2019: 67-88 The Introduction of Minbenzhuyi and the Return of Its Traditional Chinese Meaning Xiaobo LV School of Government Nanjing University 163 Xianlin Avenue, Nanjing, Jiangsu Province, China [email protected] Abstract: The concepts of Minben ≇ᵢ, Minbensixiang ≇ᵢᙓᜩ, and Minbenzhuyi ≇ ᵢѱѿ are rather popular in current Chinese discourse. However, “Minben” was hardly found in Chinese ancient literature as a noun. Around the year of 1916, “Minbenzhuyi” became widely accepted in Japanese intellectual circles, interpreted as one of the Japanese versions of democracy. In 1917, “Minbenzhuyi” was transferred to China as a loanword by Li Dazhao and developed into one of the Chinese definitions of democracy. Nevertheless, Chen Duxiu questioned the meaning of the term in 1919. It was not until 1922 did Liang Qichao bring Minbenzhuyi back into Chinese context and conduct a systematic analysis, which had a lasting impact on Chinese intellectual community. In the following 20 years, Minbenzhuyi was largely accepted in two different senses: 1) interpreted as Chinese definition of democracy; 2) specifically refers to the Confucian idea of “Minshiminting and 0LQJXLMXQTLQJµ(≇㿼 ≇੢, ≇䍫ੑ䖱). Gradually, it became evident that Minbenzhuyi in China had grown distant from the meaning of democracy and returned to its traditional Confucian values. Keywords: Minbenzhuyi, SAKUZO YOSHINO, Loanword Following the first Sino-Japanese war, the influence of “Dongxue” (ђ ᆜ, Eastern Learning, refers to Japanese thought at the time) on the Chinese intellectual community grew greater and greater, especially on the use of new nouns and terms. “During the late Qing dynasty, my fellow country men’s resistance against and criticism of the new words translated from Japanese have been almost completely annihilated, leaving behind little traces of their existence.” (Huang, 2012: 96; Shen 2010) Nonetheless, “Minbenzhuyi ≇ᵢѱѿ”, as a word of Japanese origin, was a “latecomer” among Japanese loanwords. Its meaning ultimately broke away from the Japanese context and reentered the Chinese context, therefore perhaps becoming a “trace” that deserves scholarly investigation. Minben thought, Minbenzhuyi and other related concepts are quite popular in today’s Chinese political discourse. However, in ancient Chinese © 2019 Xiaobo LV - https://doi.org/10.3726/CUL022019.0005 - The online edition of this publication is available open access. Except where otherwise noted, content can be used under the terms of the Creative 67 Commons Attribution 4.0 International License (CC-BY 4.0). For details go to http://creativecommons.org/ licenses/by/4.0/ Xiaobo LV / The Introduction of Minbenzhuyi and the Return of… literature, it is rare to see the use of “Minben” as a noun. Around 1916, “Minbenzhuyi” as a concept became popular in Japanese intellectual circles. In 1917, Minbenzhuyi was brought into China by Li Dazhao as one of the Chinese definitions of Democracy, unrelated to traditional Chinese philosophy. In 1918, the use of Minbenzhuyi became a subject of attention and discussion among Chinese intellectual elite. The first to bring Minbenzhuyi back to the Chinese linguistic context was Chen Duxiu, who used Minbenzhuyi to express the Confucian idea of “Minshiminting and 0LQJXLMXQTLQJµ(≇㿼≇੢, ≇䍫ੑ䖱, What the Heaven sees comes from what the people see, what the Heaven hears comes from what the people hear, the people are more important than monarchs.). In 1922, Liang Qichao conducted a systematic academic analysis of Minbenzhuyi in the Chinese context, which left a lasting impact upon the Chinese intellectual community. I. SAKUZO YOSHINO AND THE MEANING OF Minbenzhuyi IN JAPANESE In 1919, Chen Duxiu said: “Minbenzhuyi is used by the Japanese to allude to Democracy. The reason they did not dare to publicly reference Democracy was because they wanted to avoid government interference of their discussion.” (Chen, 1919) Li Dazhao said, “Minbenzhuyi is a Japanese translation of Democracy. Because their country is still a monarchy, and the word Democracy is translated as Minben.” (Li, 1984: 589) Both Chen and Li had studied in Japan, and therefore were familiar with concepts related to Democracy in Japanese. The question lies in whether the Japanese use of “0LQEHQ]KX\Lµ as a translation for “democracy” can be interpreted as “alluding”? Is there any difference in meaning between the use of “Minbenzhuyi” and “Minzhuzhuyi” (≇ѱѱѿ: literally translated as “the people’s sovereignty-ism”, currently the most widely used Chinese translation for “Democracy”) in Japanese? “Minbenzhuyi” first appeared in the Japanese language in 19061, when it was used to refer to the wishes, well-being, and welfare of the people, similar to the Chinese ideas of “Zhongmin (taking people seriously), Yangmin (nourishing people), and Baomin (protecting people)”. Minbenzhuyi became a popular word during the Taisho Era (1912-1926). Inspired by the Japanese intellectual elite, a democratic movement was launched during the Taisho period. This democratic mass movement, which 68 Cultura. International Journal of Philosophy of Culture and Axiology 16(2)/2019: 67-88 expanded from a base class consisting of farmers, workers, and laborers and a vanguard class of urban industrial bourgeoisie, was the second large- scale democratic movement following the Meiji Era “Freedom and People’s Rights Movement.” (The Research Society of the History of Modern Japanese Thoughts, 1991: 162) Unlike the Meiji Era movement, the Taisho democratic movement was a resistance against the polarizing effect that resulted from greater state empowerment caused by the Meiji era’s statism as well as the weakening of individualism. As a result, the Taisho democratic movement was far more powerful than its Meiji counterpart. Sakuzo Yoshino (1878-1933), a graduate of Tokyo Imperial University’s law department, taught at Beiyang Law School in China from 1906-1909. After returning to Japan, he taught political history in the department of law at Tokyo University. He studied abroad in Europe and America from 1910 to 1913, and returned to his position in Tokyo afterwards. Yoshino was one of the spiritual leaders of the Taisho democratic movement and gave “Minbenzhuyi” a meaning that reflected the spirit of that era. Yoshino published many essays related to Minbenzhuyi in Chuokoron (a well-known Japanese literary magazine), including “Advocating for Minbenzhuyi” (1915), “On the Original Meaning of Constitutionalism and its Effective Path to Perfection” (1916), “On the Content of Minbenzhuyi and the Continued Discussion of the Path to Perfect Constitutionalism” (1918). Yoshino’s idea of “perfect” Constitutionalism contained three principles: protection of civil rights, separation of powers, and popular election of parliament. In the Taisho era, two main sentiments arose among Japanese democratic activists facing the setbacks of the post-Meiji era Constitutionalism movement: “absolute pessimism” and “relative pessimism”. The former was utterly disappointed at the effects of Constitutionalism, while the latter believed that, “Only because there were flaws in constitutionalism and because the ways in which it was implemented were not all appropriate, was it unable to produce the expected results”. Yoshino himself held an optimistic perspective. “In order to achieve the beauty of completing a constitutional system, citizens must put in the greatest effort based on a certain ideology and a set of policies”. This “certain ideology” refers to following the spirit of constitutionalism, i.e. the kind of spirit that, as an inevitable product of modernization, constitutes the universal founding principles of a 69 Xiaobo LV / The Introduction of Minbenzhuyi and the Return of… constitutional monarchy. It is this spirit that can be called “Minbenzhuyi.” (The Research Society of the History of Modern Japanese Thoughts, 1991: 168) Yoshino’s use of Minbenzhuyi was a new translation and interpretation of democracy, and, comparing with previous translations of democracy, it was “evidently a different concept”. According to Yoshino’s explanation, if “the idea that legally speaking the sovereignty of a state is derived from the people” constitutes Minzhuzhuyi (democracy), then “the understanding that politically speaking the purpose of all national sovereignty related actions must be for the people” should be the position of Minbenzhuyi. He believes that democracy includes two main ideas: the first is “sovereignty must be held by the common people”, which is an idea that represents the “absolute or philosophical conception of democracy”. The second is that “in a given country, according to the interpretation of its national constitution, sovereignty must come from the people”, which is a form of “relative or explanatory conception of democracy”. Nonetheless, neither of these conceptions are in line with the provisions of the Japanese Constitution at the time. The first article of the Japanese constitution provides that “The Empire of Japan shall be reigned over and governed by a line of Emperors unbroken for ages eternal”; And the fourth article provides that “The Emperor is the head of the Empire who combines in himself the rights of sovereignty, and exercises these rights according to the provisions of the present Constitution”. Therefore, “in the interpretation of the Constitution, there is absolutely no room for democracy”. In Yoshino’s view, “Minbenzhuyi” means only that, without discussing in legal terms whom
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