The Discourse of Race in Modern China

First published in 1992, The Discourse of Race in Modern China rapidly became a classic, showcasing for the first time—through detailed evidence—how and why racial categorization became so widespread in China.

Historical Context

• After China's devastating defeat against Japan in 1895, leading reformers like Yan Fu, Liang Qichao, and Kang Youwei turned away from the Confucian classics.
• Seeking enlightenment abroad, they hoped to uncover the keys to wealth and power on the distant shores of Europe.
• Instead, they encountered the notion of 'race' and adopted new evolutionary theories from Charles Darwin and Herbert Spencer. These theories painted a universe "red in tooth and claw," where 'yellows' competed with 'whites' in a deadly struggle for survival.

Evolution of Racial Thinking

• After the fall of the empire in 1911, prominent politicians and writers in republican China continued to:
  • Measure, classify, and rank people from around the world based on supposed biological features.
  • Justify these practices in the name of science.
• Even in the People's Republic of China, racial thinking remains popular, with serologists, geneticists, and anthropometrists continuing to interpret human variation in terms of 'race'.

Revised and Expanded Edition

This new edition has been revised and expanded, including a new chapter that brings the reader into the twenty-first century.