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Malthusianism and nationalism in republican China

University of British Columbia

This study deals with the debate over Malthusianism and .population control in China within the context of the growing sense of national awareness which characterized the May Fourth period. Beginning with Liang Ch'i-ch'ao, this controversy was closely linked to the issues of national strength and Social Darwinism by both the opponents and proponents of population control. The proponents of population control tended to be Western-educated intellectuals who believed in the tenets of classical Western liberalism. To them, population control was a means of achieving a better environment for individual development and economic laissez faire. In their opinion, population pressures had more to do with China's woes than exploitation by any nation or economic class. They attempted to justify their views on nationalist grounds by pointing out that the emancipation of the individual was the key to the strength of the Western powers. The opposition to population control viewed population growth as proof of a race's fitness for survival and felt that China faced the threat of eventual national extinction if the rate of population growth in Western countries and Japan continued to be much higher than that in China. Liang Ch'i-ch'ao and Sun Yat-sen shared this appraisal of population growth in China. By studying the books and magazine articles that were written on this question during the period following the May Fourth Incident, it becomes evident that the opponents of population control enjoyed the advantage in harnessing the nationalist sentiments of the Chinese public against population control. This was not the result of any overpowering logic in their arguments. Events in China and around the world tended to confirm the original fears of - Liang Ch'i-ch'ao, and more Chinese grew convinced that China needed to match the population growth of other countries in order to survive in a world of nation-states that they envisioned to be governed by the forces of natural selection as outlined by Charles Darwin's theory of evolution. The advocates of population control grew more defensive in their appeals as their ideas were increasingly portrayed as defeatist and unprogressive. Also, many Chinese nationalists firmly believed in the contradictory nature of individualism and nationalism. To them, Malthusianism was one of the most harmful manifestations of excessive individualism. Although early Marxists such as Li Ta-chao did not oppose Malthusianism on nationalist grounds, later Marxists were able to tap some of the nationalist resentment toward imperialism by arguing that Malthusianism was a great lie promoted by the imperialist powers to avoid responsibility for the economic disruptions that they created in China.

Text

2010-02-26

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http://hdl.handle.net/2429/21130

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