What is ‘Modern’ China? Desperately Seeking for ‘a’ Birthday

Abstract

Historians have been obsessed with pinpointing the birth of modern China. However, what do we (historians) look for when we try to trace its birth? And more importantly, how do we understand the term ‘modern’ and by extension ‘modernity’? Has its meaning changed over time? This essay addresses these problems by focussing on two main aspects. The first aspect concerns Chinese modernity in relation to historians’ subjectivity and periodisation. The concept of modern and modernity is not set in stone and what is modern depends on who is asking the question, with context, nationality/ ethnicity and gender accounting for historians’ subjectivity. One should also take into account that new perspectives are gained due to the passage of time and the concept of what makes China modern at any given point shifts accordingly. The second aspect is the nation‑ and state‑building process. The changing relationship between the individual and the state seems a good vantage point from which to explore modernity. From citizenship to mass politics, the essay draws on different examples to illustrate the main trends that emerged and bedded in during the Republican period, and beyond, and explain why we might (or might not) consider them markers of modernity.