Imagined Civilization: Identity and Nation Building in Modern China

Abstract

This paper analyzes the journey of the modern concept of “civilization” from the West into
China, via Japan. It traces how Chinese intellectuals at the turn of the twentieth century used the
term and the consequences thereof, through the prism of the proclaimed need to construct a
modern nation, state, and society while negotiating the tensions between “old” and “new.” I
argue that their ideas and imaginaries of civilization were highly significant in shaping national
identity, theories, and practices and were consequential at the individual level as well. The essay
also follows the ways in which civilization, as a term and concept, traveled from the 1920s to the
contemporary People’s Republic of China (PRC). It shows how the concept lost its appeal in the
Maoist era but bounced back in the post-Mao years, particularly over the past decade. I discuss
the current uses and understandings of civilization under the leadership of Xi Jinping, and
examine how century-old notions have been transformed. More specifically, the essay argues
that the relationship between “civilization” and the “nation” changed dramatically and that these
terms acquired new meanings with the changing global context, therefore serving different ends
internally and externally. Presentist accounts often ignore the rich conceptual base on which
newer ideas develop, therefore overlooking not only alternative ways of understanding but also
the deeper context of current developments; the article aims to serve as a corrective to such
accounts by highlighting the historical trajectory and links of the past usage of a concept to its
present.