现代中国知识谱系中的南洋 (1911-1937) = Nanyang in modern China's knowledge system 1911-1937

Abstract

In the early twentieth century, Nanyang 南洋 (Southern Ocean or South Seas, now Southeast Asia) played an important part in understanding the transformation of Asia and the regional discourse toward its connection with China and Japan. This dissertation focuses on creating the imagination of Nanyang in China’s knowledge system, through relevant Chinese periodicals published between 1911 and 1937. This study explores the complicated interactions between Nanyang and China in three dimensions. Firstly, it examines the flow, diversification, inheritance, and expansion of the ideas. Secondly, it examines the interpretation of Nanyang by people such as authors, translators and editors. Thirdly, the mechanism of institutions to construct Nanyang imagination is investigated. In addition, it deciphers the ways of observation, reflection, and dissemination of Nanyang in China’s intellectual system under the influence of transnational network. In the early twentieth century, China and Japan fought to dominate the influence in Nanyang, thus both countries had significantly shaped Nanyang sphere. From the perspective of transnational Asia, Nanyang could also provide a model which could be adopted in the modernization of China in areas of commerce and education, etc. On the other hand, the way China imagined Nanyang had established one of the critical methods to imagine Asia, as well as itself.