REVISITING THE ORIGINS OF MODERN CHINESE NATIONALISM: A COMPARATIVE STUDY OF HUNAN'S AND FUKIEN'S RESPONSES TO THE WEST, 1840-1920s

Abstract

Hunan and Fukien were two of thirty-five Chinese provinces that all underwent a tremendous shift from being a universal empire to modern nation-state. This thesis argues that both Hunan and Fukien formulated dissimilar imaginations of and visions for China in response to foreign ideas and imperial oppression, as well as the perceived failures of the Qing Chinese government. From the mid-nineteenth to early-twentieth centuries, ideas of nationalism were still being formulated, grappled with, and negotiated. It was a period when the idea of a nation had yet to be dictated and formalized by institutions. The plurality of the term 'nationalism' is of utmost importance to this paper's research methodology, as it acknowledges the understanding that even though China was the nation that Hunan and Fukien identified themselves with, the way they imagined China and asserted their Chinese identity was dissimilar, though they converged in some aspects. Acknowledging that there are varieties of Chinese nationalism also allows for more deeper comparative analysis. This also means that no particular group exhibited the 'correct' or 'most accurate' form of Chinese nationalism.