Modern China’s Imagining of the Nanyang and the Construction of Transnational Asia

Abstract

In recent years, academic attention has been increasingly focused on the study of Asianism. This chapter analyses modern China’s imagining and construction of the Nanyang in the early twentieth century and the view of Asia that it embodied. It also explores the ways in which this process was influenced by Japan’s political and economic development and its diplomacy, and through it the fluidity of and reciprocal linkages with the modern concept of Asia. While Late-Qing intellectuals’ imagining of Asia was largely produced by the Sino-Japanese, Sino-Western, or Sino-Nanyang binary, the cases presented in the chapter transcended this binary and constructed their imagining of Asia chiefly on multi-faceted and fluid grounds, re-examining regional relationships in Asia from the angle of the East–West conflict and maritime connectivity.

The author is grateful for Professor Gregor Benton’s invaluable help in preparing for this chapter and the funding support from Nanyang Technological University (#04INS000103C430) under the research project entitled “Plural Co-existence and Asian Sustainability: East Asian Experiences in a Comparative Perspective.” The author is solely responsible for all the views expressed in this chapter and remaining errors.