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The Evolution of Social Darwinism in China, 1895–1930

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  04 May 2022

Xiaoxing Jin
Xiaoxing Jin*
Affiliation:
Harvard University, Cambridge, MA, USA
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Abstract

This paper investigates the development of social Darwinism in China from the mid-1890s to 1930 vis-à-vis its ties with social Darwinism in the West, employing a comparative analysis of Spencer, Huxley, and Yan Fu. A form of evolutionism that envisioned a cosmological order based upon strength was transformed into a component of power politics in Republican China, despite unsuccessful political endeavors that illustrated both the triumphs and social malfunctions of evolutionary ideas. From the late 1910s, a new variety of social Darwinism arose alongside the scientific one, reflecting the influence of Kropotkin and de Vries, as Chinese thinkers incorporated non-Anglophone texts. The theories that emerged made sense of the changing Chinese adaptations of evolutionary thinking by contextualizing and modifying them within the intellectual and political dynamics inside China and also in China’s evolving relationship with capitalism and imperialism.

Keywords

social DarwinismChinaSpencerHuxleyYan FuDarwinevolutionPyotr KropotkinHugo de Vries
Type
Spiritual Wares, Retro Kitsch, and Theoretical Things
Information
Comparative Studies in Society and History , Volume 64 , Issue 3 , July 2022 , pp. 690 - 721
Copyright
© The Author(s), 2022. Published by Cambridge University Press on behalf of the Society for the Comparative Study of Society and History

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Footnotes

Acknowledgments: For their invaluable feedback and support, I thank Janet Browne, Phillip Sloan, Felipe Fernández-Armesto, Bernard Lightman, Thomas Stapleford, Daqing Zhang, Haiyan Yang, Guosheng Wu, Geneviève Zubrzycki, Paul Christopher Johnson, and David Akin. CSSH’s anonymous referees were particularly helpful. For securing copies of the old, rare materials, I thank the librarians at Harvard University, the University of Notre Dame, the University of Chicago, the Australian National University, and the Peking University Library.

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