The problem of China: British writings on China in the 1920s

Abstract



This dissertation examines the British conception of the problem of China in the 1920s, as reflected through political writings on the country. The focus of this study is on the texts of three authors: Bertrand Russell, Rodney Gilbert, and Arthur Ransome. Though coming from diverse traditions and drastically dissimilar political backgrounds, these writers, like many other British writers at the time, had come to view China as being essentially problematic – a view that is open to multiple interpretations, and perhaps deliberately so. Books with titles such as The Problem of China, The Chinese Puzzle, What’s Wrong with China, and Is China Mad?, to name a few, reveal a way of thinking about the country that was prevalent and well-entrenched. Demands for books on a problematic China reveal a desire, on the part of the British home audience, not only to gain a better understanding as to the constitution of problem, but also to appreciate how this Chinese problem can affect Britain, and how it can be resolved. What is interesting, however, upon examining these texts that seek to explicate the titular problem, is that one discovers that there is hardly a consensus among these

This dissertation examines the British conception of the problem of China in the 1920s, as reflected through political writings on the country. The focus of this study is on the texts of three authors: Bertrand Russell, Rodney Gilbert, and Arthur Ransome. Though coming from diverse traditions and drastically dissimilar political backgrounds, these writers, like many other British writers at the time, had come to view China as being essentially problematic – a view that is open to multiple interpretations, and perhaps deliberately so. Books with titles such as The Problem of China, The Chinese Puzzle, What’s Wrong with China, and Is China Mad?, to name a few, reveal a way of thinking about the country that was prevalent and well-entrenched. Demands for books on a problematic China reveal a desire, on the part of the British home audience, not only to gain a better understanding as to the constitution of problem, but also to appreciate how this Chinese problem can affect Britain, and how it can be resolved. What is interesting, however, upon examining these texts that seek to explicate the titular problem, is that one discovers that there is hardly a consensus among these