Hostname: page-component-cd9895bd7-dk4vv Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-12-22T22:14:50.149Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Dying against Democracy: Suicide Protest and the 1905 Anti-American Boycott

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  09 June 2021

Keren He Open the ORCID record for Keren He [Opens in a new window]
Keren He*
Affiliation:
Keren He ([email protected]) is Assistant Professor of East Asian Studies at Dickinson College.
Get access

Abstract

The joint rise of popular movements and mass media in early twentieth-century China gave birth to a democratic imagination, which culminated in the anti-American boycott of 1905. The transnational campaign nonetheless disintegrated as a result of partisan division—an ingrained predicament of democratic agonism that is best illustrated by the story of Feng Xiawei, a grassroots activist whose suicide in Shanghai constituted a key moment in the boycott. Juxtaposing a variety of accounts about Feng's death in journalism, political fiction, reformed opera, and advertisements, this article examines how, together, these texts construct democratic agonism and suicide protest as revealing two opposing political sensibilities as well as modes of action. Instead of expressing only nationalist passion, Feng's suicide reveals a deep anxiety of his time to locate a spiritual source of authority in the face of its glaring absence in social negotiation. This fraught dynamic between the democratic and the transcendent continues to characterize modern Chinese political culture to the present.

Keywords

anti-American boycottAsia-PacificChinademocratic agonismFeng Xiaweipopular culturepopular movementsuicide protest
Type
Research Article
Information
The Journal of Asian Studies , Volume 80 , Issue 4 , November 2021 , pp. 865 - 888
Check for updates
Copyright
Copyright © The Association for Asian Studies, Inc., 2021

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

List of References

Ying, Ah, ed. 1960. Fanmei huagong jinyue wenxueji [Selected writings on the anti-American boycott movement]. Beijing: Zhonghua Shuju.Google Scholar
Benjamin, Walter. 2019. “The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction.” In Illumination: Essays and Reflections, edited by Arendt, Hannah, 166–95. New York: Schocken Books.Google Scholar
Zhuren, Biheguan. 1960. “Huangjin shijie” [The golden world]. In Fanmei huagong jinyue Wenxueji [Selected writings on the anti-American boycott movement], edited by Ying, Ah, 113–229. Beijing: Zhonghua Shuju.Google Scholar
Chunxuan, Cen. 2017. “Cen Chunxuan, Governor-General of Guangdong and Guangxi, to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, 27 July 1905, Attachment: Copy.” In Qingdai waiwubu zhongwai guanxi dang'an shiliao congbiao [A series of documents illustrating the diplomatic relations between China and foreign countries in the Qing Dynasty: Correspondence between China and United States], vol. 7, 411–12. Beijing: Zhonghua Shuju.Google Scholar
Tianhua, Chen. 1994. Meng huitou: Chen Tianhua Zou Rong ji [Turning around: Selected works of Chen Tianhua and Zou Rong]. Shenyang: Liaoning Renmin Chubanshe.Google Scholar
Chen, Yong. 2000. Chinese San Francisco, 1850–1943: A Trans-Pacific Community. Stanford, Calif.: Stanford University Press, 2000.Google Scholar
During, Simon. 2012. Against Democracy: Literary Experience in the Era of Emancipations. New York: Fordham University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Esherick, Joseph W., and Wasserstrom, Jeffery N.. 1994. “Acting Out Democracy: Political Theatre in Modern China.” In Popular Protest and Political Culture in Modern China, edited by Wasserstrom, Jeffery N. and Perry, Elizabeth J., 32–69. New York: Routledge.Google Scholar
Xiawei, Feng. 1905. “Xiawei yishu” [Last words of Xiawei]. Lat Pao, September 20.Google Scholar
Goldstein, Joshua. 2007. Drama Kings: Players and Publics in the Re-creation of Peking Opera, 1870–1937. Berkeley: University of California Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Hollingsworth, Julia, Shelley, Jo, and Coren, Anna. 2019. “How Four Deaths Turned Hong Kong's Protest Movement Dark.” CNN, July 22. https://www.cnn.com/2019/07/21/asia/hong-kong-deaths-suicide-dark-intl-hnk/index.html (accessed August 1, 2019).Google Scholar
Ko-wu, Huang. 1991. “Qingmo mingchu de minzhu sixiang: yiyi yu yuanyuan” [Democratic thought in the late Qing and early Republic: Its significance and origins]. In Zhongguo xiandaihua lunwenji [Essays on modernization in China], 363–98. Taipei: Zhongyang yanjiuyuan jindaishi yanjiusuo.Google Scholar
Zunxian, Huang. 1933. “Zhuke pian” [On expelling the guests]. In Renjinglu shicao [Poetry from the human realm studio], 100–103. Beiping: Wenhua Xueshe.Google Scholar
Larson, Jane Leung. 2007. “Articulating China's First Mass Movement: Kang Youwei, Liang Qichao, the Baohuanghui, and the 1905 Anti-American Boycott.” Twentieth-Century China 33 (1): 4–26.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Lefort, Claude. 1988. Democracy and Political Theory. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press.Google Scholar
Li, Hsiao'ti. 2019. Opera, Society, and Politics in Modern China. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Asia Center.Google Scholar
Cheng, Liang. 1905. “Zhumei Liang qinshi niding zhongmei xiugai gongyue” [The revised treaty on the exclusion of Chinese laborers by the minister to America, Liang Cheng]. Shenbao, June 4.Google Scholar
Du, Liang. 1905a. “Feng Xiawei xiansheng zhuan” [A biography of Mr. Feng Xiawei]. Shenbao, August 18.Google Scholar
Du, Liang. 1905b. “Feng Xiawei xiansheng xingzhuang” [Anecdotes of Mr. Feng Xiawei]. Shenbao, August 23.Google Scholar
Qichao, Liang. 1960. “Ji huagong jinyue” [A report on the exclusion of Chinese laborers]. In Fanmei huagong jinyue wenxueji [Selected writings on the anti-American boycott movement], edited by Ying, Ah, 487–521. Beijing: Zhonghua Shuju.Google Scholar
Qichao, Liang. 1989. Yinbingshi heji [Collected works of the ice-drinker's studio]. Beijing: Zhonghua Shuju.Google Scholar
Lorenzo, David J. 2013. Conceptions of Chinese Democracy: Reading Sun Yat-sen, Chiang Kai-shek, and Chiang Ching-kuo. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press.Google Scholar
Lye, Colleen. 2004. America's Asia: Racial Form and American Literature, 1893–1945. Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press.Google Scholar
Zhiyuan, Ma. 2002. Ma Zhiyuan quanji jiaozhu [Complete works of Ma Zhiyuan with annotations]. Beijing: Yuwen Chubanshe.Google Scholar
McKee, Delber L. 1977. Chinese Exclusion versus the Open Door Policy, 1900–1906: Clashes over China Policy in the Roosevelt Era. Detroit, Mich.: Wayne State University Press.Google Scholar
Meng, Yue. 2006. Shanghai and the Edges of Empires. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press.Google Scholar
Zhuren, Minrenshe. 1942. Zhonguo dizhi jinyue ji [An account of the anti-exclusion boycott in China]. Shanghai: Minrenshe.Google Scholar
Mouffe, Chantal. 2000. The Democratic Paradox. New York: Verso.Google Scholar
Mouffe, Chantal. 2013. Agonistics: Thinking the World Politically. New York. Verso.Google Scholar
Jushi, Nanquan. 1960. “Haiqiao chun” [The spring of overseas Chinese]. In Fanmei huagong jinyue Wenxueji [Selected writings on the anti-American boycott movement], edited by Ying, Ah, 437–86. Beijing: Zhonghua Shuju.Google Scholar
Nathan, Andrew J. 1986. Chinese Democracy. Berkeley: University of California Press.Google Scholar
Perry, Elizabeth J. 2015. “The Populist Dream of Chinese Democracy.” Journal of Asian Studies 74 (4): 903–15.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Rodgers, L. James. 1905. “James L. Rodgers to the Department of State, November 15, 1905.” In Despatches from United States Consuls in Shanghai, China, 1847–1906. National Archives Microfilm Publication 112, roll 68.Google Scholar
Rorty, Richard. 2010. “Redemption from Egotism: James and Proust as Spiritual Exercises.” In The Rorty Reader, edited by Voparil, Christopher J. and Bernstein, Richard J., 389–406. Malden, Mass.: Wiley-Blackwell.Google Scholar
Shibao. 1905a. “Shanghai renjing xueshe zhi gehu juyue zhujun shu” [A letter from the Men's Mirror Association in Shanghai to anti-exclusion activists in all port cities]. June 22.Google Scholar
Shibao. 1905b. “Zhongguo jiaoyuhui duiyu dizhi meiguo huagong jinyue wenti zhi yijianshu” [Chinese Education Association's statement on the issue of the anti-exclusion boycott]. September 15.Google Scholar
Shishi huabao. 1906. “Yuedong yancao gongsi gezhong xiangyan fashou” [The East Guangdong Tobacco Company releases multiple brands of cigarette]. Issue 19.Google Scholar
So, Richard Jean. 2010. “Fictions of Natural Democracy: Pearl Buck, The Good Earth, and the Asian American Subject.” Representations 112:87–111.Google Scholar
Wang, Guanhua. 1995. “Media, Intellectuals, and the Ideology of the 1905 Anti-Exclusion Boycott.” Chinese Historian 15:1–48.Google Scholar
Wang, Guanhua. 2001. In Search of Justice: The 1905–1906 Chinese Anti-American Boycott. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Asia Center.Google Scholar
Weijiang, Wang. 2009. Qingliu yanjiu [A study of the “Clear Flow”]. Shanghai: Shanghai shiji chuban jituan.Google Scholar
Weber, Max. 1968. On Charisma and Institutional Building. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.Google Scholar
Wenman, Mark. 2013. Agonistic Democracy: Constituent Power in the Era of Globalisation. New York: Cambridge University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Wingenbach, Edward C. 2011. Institutionalizing Agonistic Democracy: Post-foundationalism and Political Liberalism. Burlington, Vt.: Ashgate.Google Scholar
Wong, Sin kiong. 2000. “Mobilizing A Social Movement in China: Propaganda of the 1905 Boycott Campaign.” Chinese Studies 19 (1): 375–408.Google Scholar
Wong, Sin kiong. 2001. Haiwai huaren de kangzheng: duimei dizhi yundong shishi yu shiliao [The struggle of overseas Chinese: historical facts and materials about the anti-American boycott]. Singapore: Xinjiapo Yazhou Yanjiu Xuehui.Google Scholar
Wong, Sin kiong. 2002. China's Anti-American Boycott Movement in 1905: A Study in Urban Protest. New York: Peter Lang.Google Scholar
Xinwen Bao. 1905. “Lun dizhi gongyue zhi dangpai” [On different parties of the boycott]. August 12.Google Scholar
Hun, Ya. 1907. “Ni Fenggong Xiawei xiejue tongxiang songbin shu” [A parody of Feng Xiawei declining his fellow countrymen from joining the funeral procession]. Zhenhua wuri dashiji 11:57–59.Google Scholar
Yeh, Catherine V. 2015. The Chinese Political Novel: Migration of a World Genre. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Asia Center.Google Scholar
Yousuowei bao. 1905. “Xunlie weiren Feng Xiawei zhi xiao lishi” [A mini history of the great martyr Feng Xiawei]. November 24.Google Scholar
Zarrow, Peter. 2012. After Empire: The Conceptual Transformation of the Chinese State, 1885–1924. Stanford, Calif.: Stanford University Press.Google Scholar
Aiyun, Zhang. 1981. “Xinhai geming qian meizhou huaqiao geming yundong jishi” [The revolutionary activities of overseas Chinese in Americas before the 1911 Revolution]. In Sun Zhongshan yu xinhai geming shiliao zhuanji [Special collection of historical materials on Sun Yat-sen and the 1911 Revolution], 36–90. Guangzhou: Guangdong renmin chubanshe.Google Scholar
Cunwu, Zhang. 1982. Guangxu sayinian zhongmei gongyue fengchao [The 1905 movement against the Sino-American labor treaty]. Taibei: Zhongyang Yanjiuyuan Jindaishi Yanjiusuo.Google Scholar
Zhou, Yongming. 2006. Historicizing Online Politics: Telegraphy, the Internet, and Political Participation in China. Stanford, Calif.: Stanford University Press.Google Scholar