Chinese Journal of Sociology ›› 2018, Vol. 38 ›› Issue (6): 180-215.

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The Formation of “Gong-yi” in Modern China: A Philological Perspective

WU Huanyu   

  1. School of Sociology and Anthropology, Sun Yat-sen University
  • Online:2018-11-20 Published:2018-11-20
  • Supported by:

    This research was supported by the China Charity Alliance "Bamboo Program"(2016ZLJH-251), a Joint Project with Guangdong Planning Office of Philosophy and Social Science for the 13th "Five Year" Plan, which was entitled "Cantonese Patriots and the Formation of Modern Chinese Gong-yi"(GD16XLS06), and Seiyu Kiriyama Foundation for Young Scholars of Social Science and Humanities at Sun Yat-sen University(1709001).

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Abstract:

The Chinese term "gong-yi"(公益), which usually translated as "philanthropy" or "public interest" in English, has long been regarded as a new modern concept originated from Japan in the early 20th century. This study, however, finds the term "gong-yi" had appeared in China at least no later than the middle of Qing Dynasty. Its usage stood for three major meanings:economic benefit, national interest and local public affair. With high probability, the meaning of "national interest" of the term was introduced into Japan through the Japanese translation of a Chinese version of Henry Wheaton's Elements of International Law in the first place. The Japanese usage of "gong-yi" was thus transformed accordingly ever since. Consequently, at the late 19th century this usage was brought back into China along with the new thinking of the Meiji Restoration, becoming a tool for reform discourse in Chinese language. "Gong-yi", with its newly coined meaning, was used as an ideological term to express ideas about reformation in the early 20th century China. It was in this capacity that the Chinese "gong-yi" was swiftly popularized and often referred to the reformation as national interest. At the same time, the denotation of "gong-yi" was sometimes inevitably ambiguous wavering between "the nation" and "the local". It reflected the volatile conflict between the state and the local over legitimate control of "public" resources in a transitional period. Therefore, while "gong-yi" was used as an ideological concept to construct a political movement at the time, its discourse between the state and the society seemed unsettled and intermingled. In author's view, the question of to what extent this interlock between the emergency of modern "gong-yi" and the nation's modern transition might have shaped the historical formation of Chinese citizenship yields insights to the investigation of the nature of Chinese philanthropy and its essence in public spirit.

Key words: modernization, contextualization of concept, meaning system, gong-yi