Imperialism In Modern China

Imperialism is the key words in modern china.But it is differ from the complicated and fickle history.It is always be treated as an simplex and emotional one,sometimes,even a paradigm,which describe imperialism as the root of modern Chinese failure and the antithesis of nationalism.It is not the all aspects of imperialism yet.What this article wants to explore is to restore the change understandings of imperialism in modern china so as to reveal the core of modern Chinese thoughts on the bases of abundant contents of imperialism.Firstly,imperialism is a western word.Its means are historical and multiple with the practice of imperialist.For example,an imperial system of government,ruled by an emperor or supreme ruler are all its meanings.And from the birth of this words,people are divided to advocates and objectors.In the end of 1800s and the beginning of 1900s,the advocates were the main trend,especially in Japan,where some intellectuals named imperialism as an historical inevitability.In this background,imperialism translated from the west,via Japan,into China.In China,the traditional view of international order is "tian xia",which has a hierarchical and holistic feature,closing to imperialism.At the same time,social Darwinism,advocating competition law of the jungle,was popular in Chinese society.So,at first,imperialism was a neutral and even as a development direction of the concept of "national imperialism" represented by Chinese intellectuals to understand,such as Liang Qichao.But this understanding that emphasize the importance of internal construction and ignore the outside environment was less spread in society.Later,with the end of world war I,the western image destructed.Under the spread of Leninism,the inherent tension was released.Chinese imperialism gradually be seen as the reason why China failed in modern times and also became the key words of the Chinese revolution.So as the Chinese views on Korea.Anti-imperialist became the main form of Chinese imperialism.And then,with the revolution going on,the KMT and the CCP,who were once partner,had different understandings of imperialism,influencing the later revolutionary road.Behind the change is the success of imperialism,which release the modern china’s tension between self-improvement and identity.