Saving the Nation: Economic Modernity in Republican China

To readers who follow current events, contemporary China presents something of a paradox. The Chinese Communist Party (CCP) continues to invoke ideas of "socialism" and social unity, but few governments in the world are more involved in capitalist-oriented growth than the CCP. Margherita Zanasi's recent book,Saving the Nation: Economic Modernity in Republican China, sheds light on the above apparently contradictory tendencies in Chinese society by examining earlier Chinese discourses that combined capitalism and corporatism. Zanasi carefully examines the tensions between those who supported some version of corporatist economic development and those who advocated central control of the economy. She impressively illuminates her readings of Chinese economic thought in the 1930s by making comparisons with similar theories in other areas. Moreover, she rethinks the work of the pro-Japanese collaborators Wang Jingwei and Chen Gongbo, focusing on the subtle connections between their economic thought, their nationalism, and their political judgement.

Zanasi's book consists of an introduction and conclusion that envelop seven chapters, organized under four sections: "Envisioning Modern China," "Building the Corporativist State," "From Theory to Practice," and "Defending Which Nation?" In the first two sections, Zanasi examines Wang and Chen's respective ideas of the nation in relation to the plans of industrial organizations such as the Cotton Control Commission, and the third section deals with some of the complications that arose as individuals and institutions attempted to realize corporatist goals. Finally, in the fourth section, which works as a type of appendix, she shows how Wang and Chen's respective ideals of a strong China paradoxically led them to collaborate with the Japanese.

Zanasi's work transcends the boundaries of China studies because she analyses Chinese intellectuals' support for corporatism in an international context in which intellectuals questioned the liberal form of capitalism. Throughout her work, but especially in the introduction and conclusion, Zanasi connects her analysis to larger intellectual and political movements, such as a global tendency towards corporatism during the early 1930s and the influence of fascist ideas around the world during the inter-war years. Zanasi follows Gregory Kasza in linking this worldwide trend towards corporatism during the 1930s with the Great Depression and the crisis of liberal capitalism. She notes that the Soviet Union, Nazi Germany, Fascist Italy, and Imperial Japan all responded to this crisis by developing some type of corporatism (p. 106).

In analysing corporatism, Zanasi distinguishes between two forms: one in which the state directly controls the economy, and one that implies some type of alliance between business elites and the government. In Zanasi's view, despite their different political goals, both the Leninist and Nazi German modes of political organization belong to the first category because they emphasize state control of industry. Against this, Mussolini and certain fascist economists in Italy such as Alfredo Rocco stressed a corporatism that left room for capitalist initiative.

Zanasi contextualizes these two types of corporatism in debates about rural modernity in Republican China. At one end of the spectrum, she mentions the proponents of a rural modernity, such as Liang Shuming and the economist Fang Tianwen. Diametrically opposed to this group was the Chinese Communist Party, which associated rural life with feudal inequalities and thus advocated land reform. In Zanasi's view, this group represents a Leninist perspective. Representing a middle path between the above two extremes, Wang Jingwei and Chen Gongbo advocated nationalist productivism, which emphasized bringing the industrial success of the coastal regions to the rural areas. Like Liang Shuming and the proponents of rural reconstruction, they stressed the importance of agriculture, but, rather than thinking of the countryside as the root of national values and identity, they focused on the importance of the agricultural sector for modernization and industrialization.

Zanasi shows that their brand of corporatism was not unique to intellectuals, but was a wider-spread project that had support from Chinese businessmen and elites in the Jiangnan region. For example, in chapter 3, she examines the activities of Song Ziwen, a businessman who established the National Economic Council and "attempted to make this the highest economic planning agency of the government" (p. 83). Song Ziwen was the minister of finance under Jiang Jieshi, and Jiang "valued Song's financial abilities" (p. 85). However, Song supported Wang's ideas about developing a corporatism that provided a role for capitalists and thus came into conflict with Jiang.

The split between Jiang and Wang resulted in fragmenting the Chinese nation, but, ironically, at the root of this fragmentation were their different visions of a unified China. Moreover, the rift between Jiang and Wang did not just represent a conflict of opinion, but was rooted in different structures of power in the government, specifically the military (Jiang) and the Jiangnan elite businessmen (Wang). Zanasi notes that, given this tension between government and capital, the Chinese economy continued to develop as it had done since the Self-strengthening movement in 1865, namely through informal channels often without the acknowledgment of the state.

Zanasi's work makes a major contribution by highlighting that capitalism comes in different organizational forms. The protagonists of Zanasi's book clearly promote industrial development but do not advocate laissez-faire forms of liberalism. However, potential problems emerge when she places Lenin, Jiang Jieshi, and Nazi Germany in the same category and claims that they all attempted to bring the economy under state control. Not only did each of these theorists have diverse political goals; they also had different ideas of what constitutes a state. Hence we need a more detailed analysis of social practices and state formation to furnish the analytical grounds for comparing modes of bringing the "economy" under "state" control. In the China field, some of this work has already been done by scholars who look at the twentieth century as a continuous process of nation-state and capital formation, and Zanasi points to a more concrete analysis when she mentions a global response to the Great Depression. However, a more detailed treatment of the interaction between the ideological logic of corporatism and processes of state formation in a global capitalist world might highlight and strengthen the comparative nature of this significant study.