Rousseau’s “Revolution” in a Global Context: Nakae Chomin’s Classical Chinese Translation of The Social Contract and Its Reception in China

This paper discusses political theory in a global frame through examining Nakae Chomin’s classical Chinese translation of Rousseau’s The Social Contract in 1880s Japan and its reprinting in Shanghai, China at the turn of the twentieth century. Nakae’s translation was favored by Chinese republican revolutionaries.  This phenomenon raises questions about the translation and Rousseau’s text as well as the traveling of political theory across cultural contexts.  To what extent did the translation support republican revolution in the land of Confucius?  What parts of Rousseau’s text is supportive of revolution and democracy? And how was it possible for Nakae to connect two great traditions of political thinking through translating a single text?

By comparing Nakae’s translation with Rousseau’s text and the Shanghai edition, this paper argues that Nakae’s translation contains powerful messages of republican revolution and his incorporating Rousseau’s theory with Confucian anti-tyrannical tradition provides new possibility of interpreting the text. Nakae’s translation advocates radical change in the form of government.  Despite Rousseau tolerating the handling of administrative affairs by the elective monarch, the translation argues that monarchy must give way to republic. As to the means of change, while Rousseau’s passage of “be(ing) forced to be free” has been understood either as the excessive violence by totalitarian regimes or the legal violence necessary for a healthy political society, the translation reveals that it is probable to link the passage to revolutionary violence.  Whereas the nature of Rousseau’s political community formed through the social contract is debatable, the translation deliberately interprets it as an egalitarian, well-disciplined political party with coercive force, which is fitter for revolutionary actions than for parliamentary politics.  The Shanghai edition, despite its more conservative attitudes towards cultural and ethical issues, keeps Nakae’s negation of monarchy, embrace of political freedom and worship of revolutionary party intact.