Modern Chinese history without “modernity”: Paul A. Cohen's three dogmas and the logical contradictions of the “China‐centred approach”

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Notes

1. Xia Mingfang, “The Construction of Modernity in 18th‐century China – A Reflection on Qing Studies under the Influence of the ‘China‐centered Approach’” (paper presented at the International Conference on the West and Qing Culture sponsored by the Institute of Qing History, Renmin University of China, 24–26 August 2006). This paper was published in Shilin [Historical Review], no. 6 (2006), 116–42.

2. Yang Nianqun, “Postmodernism in China – Its Complex Relations with Other Doctrines in the 1990s,” Kaifangshidai [Opentimes], no. 3 (2003), 7–30.

3. Paul A. Cohen, Zai zhongguo faxian lishi: Zhongguo zhongxinguan zai meiguo de xingqi [Discovering History in China: The Rise of the China‐centered Approach in America] (Beijing: Zhonghua shuju, 2002), 4–8.

4. Cohen, Zai zhongguo faxian lishi, 41–4.

5. Chen Junjing, Dayang bi’an de huisheng: Meiguo zhongguoshi yanjiu lishi kaocha [The Echo from the Other Shore: An Historical Survey of Chinese History Studies in America] (Beijing: Zhongguo shehuikexue chubanshe, 2003), 249.

6. Cohen, Zai zhongguo faxian lishi, 12.

7. Ibid., 13.

8. Ibid., 21.

9. Ibid., 174–5.

10. Ibid., 176–7.

11. Ibid., 37–41.

12. Xia Mingfang, “The Construction of Modernity in 18th‐century China,” 128.

13. Cohen, Zai zhongguo faxian lishi, 45.

14. Ibid., 61–5, 87–92.

15. Ibid., 54.

16. Ibid., 206.

17. Ibid., 205–10.

18. Ibid., 210.

19. Cohen claims that “in repudiating the old Western picture of a static, unchanging China as being a reflection of parochial assumptions concerning the sorts of change that are significant, I have no intention of insinuating into Chinese history an equally parochial, equally counterhistorical set of assumptions, to wit, that change as such is good, that the more change a society experiences the ‘better’ it is, and that therefore, to even the score with West, China must be seen as a vigorous and dynamic society, alive with change of every sort. I most emphatically do not believe that change per se is good; I believe that some change is good and some bad”. Ibid., 57–8.

20. Ibid., 206.

21. Zhou Wu, Li Deying and Dai Dongyang, “Zhongguo zhongxinguan de youlai jiqi fazhan” [The Origins and Development of China‐centrism – An Interview with Professor Cohen], Shilin [Historical Review], no. 4 (2002), 34–5.

22. Paul A. Cohen, “New Preface to ‘Discovering History in China’”, Lishi Yanjiu [Historical Research], no. 6 (1999), 100. Cohen responds similarly to studies by Chinese scholars.

23. Zhou Wu, Li Deying and Dai Dongyang, “Zhongguo zhongxinguan de youlai jifazhan,” 34–5, 39.

24. Cohen, Zai zhongguo faxian lishi, 73.

25. Ibid., 171.

26. Ibid., preface to the Chinese edition, 3. In the preface, Cohen argues that two works published by William Rowe and Benjamin A. Elman in 1984 provide support for his hypothesis of the “China‐centred Approach”.

27. Ibid., 208, 210.

28. Ibid., 80.

29. Paul A. Cohen, “The Post‐Mao Reforms in Historical Perspective,” The Journal of Asian Studies 47, no. 3 (August 1988), 518–40.

30. Philip A. Kuhn, Rebellion and its Enemies in Late Imperial China: Militarism and Social Structure, 1796–1864, (Beijing: Zhongguo shehuikexue chubanshe, 1990; new ed. 2002), 8, 221–32. Kuhn explores the question of passive continuity in greater depth in his widely circulated book Soulstealers: The Chinese Sorcery Scare of 1768 (Shanghai: Shanghai sanlian chubanshe, 1999; new ed. 2002), 299–306.

31. Benjamin A. Elman, New Directions in the Study of Chinese Culture: Issues to be Discussed, in Elman's preface to the Chinese edition of Classics, Politics, and Kinship: The Ch’ang‐chou School of New Text Confucianism in Late Imperial China (Nanjing: Jiangsu renmin chubanshe, 1998), 17–19.

32. See Liu Danian, “Ping jindai jingxue” [An Analysis of Modern Classical Studies], in Ming Qing luncong [A Collection of Essays on the Ming and Qing Dynasties], vol. 1, gen. eds. Zhu Chengru and Wang Tianyou (Beijing: Zijincheng chubanshe, December 1999), 3.

33. Andrew G. Walder, Communist Neo‐traditionalism: Work and Authority in Chinese Industry (Chinese ed. of Oxford University Press, 1996, with its original publication in English by University of California Press, Berkeley, 1986).

34. Edward Friedman, Paul G. Pickowicz and Mark Selden, Chinese Village, Socialist State (Beijing: Shehuikexue wenxian chubanshe, 2002). It was originally published in English in 1991.

35. Kenneth Pomeranz, The Great Divergence: China, Europe and the Making of Modern World History (Nanjing: Jiangsu renmin chubanshe, 2003), 226.

36. Arif Dirlik, “Rethinking Colonialism: Globalization, Postcolonialism and the Nation,” in Zhongguo xueshu [The Chinese Academy], vol. 13, no. 1 (Beijing: Shangwu yinshuguan, 2003), 136.

37. Cohen, Zai zhongguo faxian lishi, 59.

38. Cohen later characterized this model more precisely as the “imperialism‐revolution model”. Paul A. Cohen, “Changing Perspectives on Chinese Historical Studies,” in Cohen, Zai zhongguo faxian lishi, 250.

39. Cohen, Zai zhongguo faxian lishi, 59.

40. Ibid., 154, 209–10.

41. Dirlik, “Rethinking Colonialism,” 136.

42. Cohen, Zai zhongguo faxian lishi, 47.

43. Ibid., 166–9.

44. Ibid., 59.

45. Ibid., 136. These expressions were used by American scholars Hou Jimin and Ma Ruomeng in their rebuttal of “passive imperialism”. Cohen's strategy is very similar.

46. Arif Dirlik, After the Revolution: Waking to Global Capitalism (Beijing: Zhongguo shehuikexue chubanshe, 1999), 91, 105. Also Arif Dirlik, “Rethinking Colonialism,” 126.

47. Cohen, Zai zhongguo faxian lishi, 151–2.

48. Frederick Wakeman, Strangers at the Gate: Social Disorder in South China, 1839–1861 (Beijing: Zhongguo shehuikexue chubanshe, 1988, new ed. 2002), 56–61.

49. Cohen, Zai zhongguo faxian lishi, 178.

50. Here Cohen adopts double standards: while defining Western colonialism in the strictest terms, so‐called Manchu colonialism is very broadly defined.

51. Cohen, Zai zhongguo faxian lishi, 153–4.

52. Ibid., 154–5.

53. Ibid., 155.

54. Xia Mingfang, “What Kind of History Can Be Saved? A Review of Postmodernist Studies of Modern China” (paper presented to a national symposium on regional theory and methodology sponsored by the History Department, Anhui University, in November 2006).

55. Lin Tongqi, “China‐centrism: Features, Reflections and Internal Strength,” translator's preface, in Cohen, Zai zhongguo faxian lishi, 10.

56. Michael Gasster, “Discovering China in History: Some Comments on Paul Cohen's Discovering History in China,” The American Asian Review 5, no. 2 (summer 1987), 121–53. Also in Cohen, “New Preface to ‘Discovering History in China,’” Lishi yanjiu [Historical Research], no. 6, 1996.

57. Cohen, Zai zhongguo faxian lishi, 204–5.

58. Cohen, Zai zhongguo faxian lishi, 179.

59. Cohen, “New Preface to ‘Discovering History in China’,” 95–105.

60. Cohen, Zai zhongguo faxian lishi, 46.