Popular narratives versus Chinese history: Implications for understanding an emergent China
Popular narratives versus Chinese history: Implications for understanding an emergent China
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流行叙事与中国历史：对理解新兴中国的启示
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发表时间：
2014
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通讯作者：
J. I. Chong
中科院分区：
文献类型：
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作者：
J. I. Chong
与中国在国际政治中日益突出的地位密切相关的是关于如何理解中国历史的讨论，以及这种视角如何为更强大的中国与世界其他地区建立联系提供信息。这篇文章考察了两个叙事案例，并考虑它们如何与更仔细的历史学术相适应。一是关于清、共和历史的民族主义叙事，二是关于中国世界秩序的叙事。对中国民族主义的分析往往认为，更强大的中国在国际上更自信，这在一定程度上是基于一种信念，即需要正视和克服过去的错误。对亚洲历史区域制度的研究指出，和平的“儒家”精神在维持中国主导的稳定秩序方面发挥了作用，并强调了它在遏制地区和国际紧张局势方面的前景。这两种视角在试图理解中国的崛起时产生了明显的张力，这可能表明，用历史的观点来理解当代的发展可能注定是不连贯的。本文认为，运用过去的知识来分析中国在当代世界政治中的作用是一种对中国和亚洲历史相对不重视的表现。它表明，中国崛起的本质可能更多地取决于它所面临的外部环境，而不是普遍接受的智慧可能表明的情况。文章建议，更广泛地参与历史研究和史学研究，可以增强和丰富人们对中国崛起背景的理解。
Closely associated with China’s growing prominence in international politics are discussions about how to understand Chinese history, and how such perspectives inform the way a stronger China may relate to the rest of the world. This article examines two narratives as cases, and considers how they fit against more careful historical scholarship. The first is the nationalist narrative dealing with Qing and Republican history, and the second is the narrative on the Chinese world order. Analyses of Chinese nationalism tend to see a more powerful China as being more assertive internationally, based in part on a belief in the need to address and overcome past wrongs. Studies of historical regional systems in Asia point to the role that a peaceful ‘Confucian’ ethos played in sustaining a stable Chinese-led order, and highlight the promise it holds for checking regional and international tensions. The two perspectives create an obvious tension when trying to understand China’s rise, which can suggest that using historical viewpoints to understand contemporary developments may be doomed to incoherence. This article argues that difficulties in applying knowledge of the past to analyses of China’s role in contemporary world politics indicate a relative inattentiveness to Chinese and Asian history. It illustrates how the nature of China’s rise may be more contingent on the external environment that it faces than popular received wisdom may indicate. The article suggests that a more extensive engagement with historical research and historiography can augment and enrich attempts to appreciate the context surrounding China’s rise.