1920년대 재미 중국 유학생들의 국가주의 활동에 관한 소고 — 大江會를 중심으로

Abstract

Recently, China's nationalism has become stronger and more extreme. Their tenacity for “one China” has created a strong national policy. The coercive and tenacious nature of China's nationalistic character is by no means different from the Dajianghui, which engaged in purely patriotic nationalism for national liberation and freedom in the 1920s in the United States. In this paper we looked at the Dajianghui and their nationalist activities. Nationalism entered China as a kind of progressive idea. At first, it was patriotic nationalism that progressive intellectuals accepted. They wanted to awaken the Chinese's national consciousness and spirit of independence through the spread of nationalism. The nationalism of the Dajianghui, which was examined in this paper, can also be called patriotic nationalism. They insisted on fighting against the powers externally, eliminating traitors internally, and awakening national consciousness. Intellectuals studying in the United States sympathized with their arguments and actively practiced them. In particular, they analyzed the causes of China's national crisis through various literary writings and agonized over how to overcome the national crisis. It also helped Americans understand traditional Chinese plays and China through plays. From their activities we could get a glimpse of the intellectuals' view of the state and people. At that time, Chinese intellectuals had different views and positions on nationalism. However, the Dajianghui cited a case of a small country with a strong national ideology that opposed the invasion of Western powers. And they also saw that it was more important than anything else for China to have a sense of nationalism in order to overcome its crisis. As such, most members of the Dajianghui agreed that nationalism is essential to China. But attitudes toward nationalism and answers to the question of whether nationalism can be realized in China were different. Some already believed that China could realize nationalism, while others argued that it should be careful in bringing it in. These diverse positions are due to concerns about maladjustment and side effects that may inevitably arise from the acceptance of the foreign idea of nationalism. Nevertheless, the Dajianghui regarded nationalism as pure patriotism, not political ideology, and evaluated it from its own perspective. It can also be highly appreciated that they have actively tried to implement this.