梁啓超의 中國國民性論 및 朝鮮國民性 批判 探究

Abstract

The influence of nationalism and social darwinism around the end of the 19th century in China spurred the rise in discussions of national character. Westerners who first had oriental perspectives and Japanese scholars began to discuss Chinese character negatively from the beginning of the 19th century. As a result, Chinese intellectuals in their desperate search for social reform accepted the theoretical trend without strong resistance. In particular, Chinese people who received severe shock from the defeat in the Sino-Japanese War asked for the transformation of its national character as a part of the social reform. Liang Qi-Chao as a representative of the Chinese intellectuals played a leading role in the reform movement. In sum, Liang Qi-Chao pointed out six common features of unsound national character in his writing, 「The Basic Theory of the Weakness of Chinese National Character, 國民積弱溯源論」(1901), including slave-like traits, ignorance, extreme selfishness, false preferences, weakness, and apathy which were needed to be changed. Moreover, he strongly argued in his writing, 「Discourse of Chinese National Character, 論中國國民之品格」(1903) that the following four traits should be transformed: insufficient patriotism, lack of independence, absence of publicity, and a loss of self-governance. He criticized the weakness of Chinese national character and made a great effort to rebuild the nation. Liang Qi-Chao concurrently brought up the issue of the weakness of national character and regarded it as the most fundamental problem of the destruction of Chosun Dynasty. First, people from Chosun Dynasty could not stand on their feet and were more likely to be dependent upon others. Second, they were extremely individualistic and lack of the concept of nationality and national sovereignty. Third, they were reckless, impatient, and untrustworthy. Fourth, he criticized that Koreans were incapable of imagining anything new and thus had a lack of ideas about their future. The fifth thing he indicated was that Koreans were unaware of a sense of duty and public moral consciousness about the fate of the nation. Furthermore, this type of hopeless nationality was considered as a national and social phenomenon and thus nothing could be done to make it better. Most of all, the discussion about the Korean national character helped him provide his rationale for Chinese enlightenment. His analysis of the problems with Chosun was subjective and biased in order for him to enhance Chinese character by making use of his criticism on Korean character. It is thought that his prejudicial criticism on the Korean character seemed to originate from the Japanese distorted perspectives of Chosun Dynasty. Thus, his criticism of Korean character was neither pure nor legitimate if we understood what were his underlying intentions and how his perspectives were constructed. In addition, Liang Qi-Chao's criticism was based on his biased perceptions of Chosun, which was influenced by Japanese when he lived in exile in Japan working as a journalist and meeting with Japanese people. Meiji Restoration basically had a great impact on him in terms of his own experiences situated in Japanese political, social, and academic cultures. It can be inferred that Japanese manipulative perspectives of Korea since the Meiji period had had a significant influence on his awareness of Korea and Koreans. Thus, it is concluded that his criticism on Korean character was not completely profound due to his problem with the biased thoughts about Korea in the process of constructing his theoretical background. However, it can be referred to as one of the criticisms on the Korean people at that time, who were incompetent to appropriately react to the historical changes worldwide and incapable of getting out of their comfort zone in many aspects of their lives.