The concepts of nation state, national identity and nationalism emerged in Western Europe in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, and since then have become a mighty political force that has had great global influence over the last two centuries.⁶ For the Chinese, national identity and nationalism are new ideas imported from the West. The renowned Chinese philosopher Lin Yutang (1895–1976) has argued that ancient China developed into a ‘Tianxia’⁷ (meaning the world, literally ‘under heaven’) instead of a country or nation state. The prominent Chinese social scientist Li Shenzhi (1923–2003) has pointed out that in ancient China, the term ‘Guojia’ (country) meant the government and that ‘Tianxia’ meant the culture so that ‘Tianxiaism’ equals ‘Culturalism’.⁸ The core of this cultural entity is Confucianism and the major concept of Tianxiaism was the idea that China was the only true civilisation in the world and its cultural superiority remained unchallenged. There was no concept of or need for nation state and nationalism in a world that lacked cultural or interstate competition.⁹ As Liang Qichao (1873–1929), a leading reformist and philosopher who inspired Chinese scholars with his enlightened essays, observed in 1899:

We do love our country. It is the absence of the concept of ‘country’ that caused a lack of patriotism. China gained unification and sovereignty in ancient times; other small nations and countries near China were not strong enough to challenge China’s dominance, and were regarded as Manyi [barbarians] rather than neighbouring countries. That’s why the Chinese use ‘Tianxia’ instead of ‘country’ to describe their territory. As the notion of ‘country’ was ambiguous, patriotism and nationalism failed to come into being.¹⁰

Tianxiaism is based on the concept of unification which is attributed to China’s unique climate, geography and ideology. First, appropriate amounts of rainfall and fertile farmlands made the Zhongyuan (middle China) into East Asia’s most populated, affluent and developed region, one that was based on an agricultural economy. Second, surrounded by high plateaus, deserts, mountains and the Pacific Ocean, China was physically separated from the West and developed into an ‘isolated world’ that lived off its own resources. There were only two pathways to the outside world: the desert in the northwest and the sea in the east, both were blocked unless a potential major trade partner existed at their terminal.¹¹ This isolation lasted for thousands of years until the industrial revolution made it possible for European countries’ merchant fleets and battleships to reach China’s east coast in the late Ming dynasty (1368–1644). Third, Confucianism contributed to the prevalence of ‘Tianxiaism’ and eroded awareness of ethnic differences. As China’s leading historian and philosopher Qian Mu (1895–1990) has argued, ‘in China, the notion of country or nation was absorbed into the notion of Tianxia. People considered the country or nation a cultural entity’.¹² At the core of this cultural entity is Confucianism. From the rise of Confucianism in the Han Dynasty (202 BC–220 AD), China was governed according to Confucian principles. ‘Politicians and social elites showed their loyalty to principles that defined a manner of rule and the social hierarchy based on Confucianism instead of a particular king, regime or nation’.¹³ In short, the world was Confucianism’s Tianxia, a world based on Confucian ideology, social norms and manner of rule.

Townsend argues, ‘The history of modern China is one in which nationalism replaces Culturalism/Tianxiaism as the dominant Chinese view of their identity and place in the world’.¹⁴ It was not until the mid-nineteenth century that the Celestial Empire began to realise that it was no longer a dominant power in the world. China’s defeat in the two Opium Wars (1840–1842 and 1856–1860) forced the Qing court to re-evaluate the foreign powers and redefine the meaning of Tianxia. Zhao Suisheng asserts that the rise of Chinese nationalism was intertwined with the intellectual search for answers as to why China had suffered defeat in the Opium Wars.¹⁵ Imperialist aggression and colonial expansion from Western powers made late Qing enlightenment thinkers believe that national salvation could only be achieved when people showed their loyalty to a modern nation state instead of submitting to an emperor or a culture-bound regime. Liang Qichao argued that it was nationalism that had made Europe strong.¹⁶ He believed that a lack of collectivism was one of the most significant reasons for China’s failure and that the ideas of nation state and nationalism that had come from the West could be applied to enhance social cohesion and make China powerful. Liang stated in 1901, ‘Facing the danger of being invaded and occupied by foreign powers, we must cultivate and promote nationalism to defend [China]. This is the most urgent issue for China’.¹⁷ According to Liang, the traditional idea of ‘Tianxia’ should be replaced by ‘country’ and the only way to save China was to establish a modern nation state.¹⁸ In order to achieve this goal, the concepts of nation state and nationalism were introduced to the broader public by the country’s intellectuals and revolutionists.

Guangyi Li’s opening chapter on ‘Yellow Peril or Yellow Revival: Ethnicity, Race and Nation in Late Qing Chinese Utopianism (1902–1911)’ delves into late Qing enlightenment thinkers’ utopian thought from the perspective of race and nation, and offers some insights on the formation of an embryonic form of modern Chinese national identity in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. The chapter begins with an analysis of the origin and development of modern racism, especially the concept of the ‘yellow’ race and racial discrimination and discourse against the people thus categorised. It then points out that for China, a country where yellow has been a symbol of greatness, nobility and royalty for thousands of years, Western racial discourse such as ‘yellow peril’, surprisingly, became a catalyst for racism and nationalism. A considerable number of Chinese intellectuals regarded the xenophobic fear of the ‘yellow’ race in the West as recognition of their own potential from which they derived a utopian prospect for China and the Chinese. The author highlights that there are interesting divergences between these utopias, reflecting very dissimilar aims and hopes relevant to the world order.

By the late nineteenth century, with its defeat in the Sino-Japanese War (1894–1895), China had been brought to its knees by imperialist and colonial powers, triggering a strong anti-foreign sentiment. With the accumulation of the resentment caused by the Qing government’s inability to defend against foreign aggressions, the growing ethnic nationalism among the Han Chinese sparked uprisings. From the late 1890s, an anti-Manchu movement organised by Han nationalists and led by Sun Yat-sen (1866–1925) plotted to overthrow the Manchu’s Qing dynasty, and nationalism was utilised to propagandise revolutionary ideas. The Qing government was overthrown in the 1911 Revolution. A modern nation state, which the country’s enlightenment thinkers, politicians, nationalists and revolutionaries believed was the only way forward for the Chinese nation, eventually took shape.¹⁹ The nationalists moved to the second stage of the revolution: building up a multi-ethnic nation state capable of withstanding imperialist aggression. During the early years of the Republic of China (ROC), against the background of the two World Wars and in response to imperialist aggression, anti-imperialism, militarism and Social Darwinism prevailed in China, giving rise to a nationalism that focused on national unity and national survival. Fuelled by nationalism, the first half of the twentieth century saw the transformation of the modern Chinese nation state, bringing it from its infancy to maturity.

Anderson developed the concept of an ‘imagined political community’ to define a nation. He believed that a nation is a socially constructed community, imagined by the people who perceive themselves as part of that group, and print media facilitates the construction of national identity.²⁰ Lu Zhouxiang’s chapter on ‘Shaolin, Wuxia Novels, Kung Fu Movies and National Identity’ investigates how print media plays its part in nation building and identity construction in China in the twentieth century. It points out that wuxia novels and kung fu movies functioned as important vehicles for the maintenance and reinvention of nationhood. They served two purposes: retri...