Connectivity or Geo-body: The Two 1919 Moments in China

Known as the May Fourth Movement, the “1919 moment” in China was full of ambiguity and tension. On the one hand, it refers to a one-day incident where thousands of students marched through Beijing on the May Fourth of 1919 to protest the Versailles Settlement. On the other hand, it connotes a decade-long movement, from 1915 to 1925, to change the Chinese language and the Confucian tradition. This doubling of the “May Fourth” highlights the two differing images of the ‘1919 moment” in China: its heroism and its melancholy. It was heroic because in 1919 the Chinese—especially the young generation—joined other peoples around the world demanding national self-determination. It was melancholic because the Chinese—especially the cultural elites—began to doubt about the supremacy of the West

In this paper, I will discuss this doubling of the “1919 moment” in China by focusing on two concepts: the hierarchy in time and the hierarchy in space. With the former, I analyze the Chinese belief in following the universal principle of human progress that emphasized the participation in global networks and “the family of nations.” With the latter, I examine the Chinese belief in protecting their country’s territorial sovereignty in an increasingly hostile and predatory world. These two concepts, I argue, underscore the dilemma that Chinese leaders faced during the first half of the twentieth century. For them, while the nation-state system encouraged global connectivity and self-determination (as shown in the Wilson’s Fourteen Points), it also privileged the strong nations over the weak (as evident in the Versailles Settlement). To this day, this dilemma is still affecting Chinese leaders’ policy decisions as they struggle to come to grips with the conflicting natures of the global system.