The Discourse of Race in Modern China

Abstract

First published by Stanford University Press in 1992, The Discourse of Race in Modern China showed on the basis of detailed evidence how and why racial theories became so widespread in modern China. After the country's devastating defeat against Japan in 1895, leading reformers turned away from the Confucian classics to seek enlightenment abroad, hoping to find the keys to wealth and power on the distant shores of Europe instead. They discovered the notion of 'race', and used new evolutionary theories to present a universe red in tooth and claw in which 'yellows' competed with 'whites' in a deadly struggle for survival. After the fall of the empire in 1911, prominent politicians and writers continued to measure, classify and rank people from around the world according to their supposed biological features, all in the name of science. The second edition, published two years ago by Oxford University Press, takes the story up to the twenty-first century, as racial theories remain popular in the People's Republic of China. The talk will also look at the challenges involved in producing a second edition twenty years after the original came out.