Fighting Bad Bugs for China: Entomology and Nationalism in China, 1895–1935

By identifying two stages of biopolitical redefinition of insects, I aim to explain how nationalist politics shaped scientists' interpretation and popularization of applied biology between 1895 and 1935. Until the early 20th century, most Chinese saw insects and other arthropods as creatures that shared the same environment: they could be annoying nuisances or enchanting pets. However, a group of entomologists who began carving out their professional niche amidst the transitional years between the late Qing dynasty and the early Republic aimed to change this "outmoded" and "unscientific" view. During the first stage (1895-1911), agricultural reformers of the late Qing period promoted a utilitarian binary that divided insects into "beneficial" (ikechū/yichong) and "injurious (gaichū/haichong)" ones. By analyzing English and Japanese texts that were interpreted and circulated during this period, I argue that intellectuals were more concerned with the "beneficial insects" because of their geopolitical anxiety. To them, these "good bugs" represented an underdeveloped natural resource crucial in securing China's epistemic, economic, and political independence. In the second stage (1911-1935), however, entomologists emphasized the injurious pests. Through their campaigns of pestification in the lower Yangzi, entomologists singled out certain species, such as mosquitoes and flies, as ontologically distinctive in their detrimental effect on the collective interests of the nation. By collaborating with local officials, the entomologists trained "hygenic police" and recruited boy scouts in their campaigns against the newly identified pest species as threats to the body politic. Moreover, such mobilization served as training programs for civil virtues and bourgeois values in cleanliness, self-improvement, and social responsibility. The nationalistic translation of biology into pest control campaigns thus constitutes an important precursor to the well-known history of Maoist China's mass programs on pest control. Overall, the two phases of redefinition shed a revisionary light on the interpenetration between scientism and nationalism.