Militarization as Personal Cultivation
Student Military Training in Guomindang China, 1928–1937
Bibliographic Data
| ID | 6008085 |
|---|---|
| Authors | Sau-Yi Fong (Weatherhead East Asian Institute, Columbia University, New York, NY, USA, corresponding author) |
| Year | 2023 |
| Volume | 49 |
| Issue | 4 |
| Pages | 480-514 |
| Publication date | 2023-07-01 |
| Peer Reviewed | Yes |
| Open Access | Yes |
| Type | ARTICLE |
| Venue | Modern China (JOURNAL) |
| Journal identifiers | ISSN: 0097-7004 • E-ISSN: 1552-6836 |
| Publisher | SAGE Publications Inc (PUBLISHER) |
| DOI | 10.1177/00977004221134211 |
| OpenAlex | W4311411461 |
| Language | EN |
| References cited | 11 |
By examining the Guomindang’s (GMD’s) on-the-ground implementation of its student military training program, this article addresses the ideological tensions and diplomatic predicaments underlying the party-state’s youth mobilization strategies. While fetishizing a regimented society, the program incorporated a heterogeneous set of tactics to both inspire and control youth martial activism. The peculiar mix of military discipline, Confucian modes of education, and liberal ideals of voluntarism and competition gave rise to multifarious experiences and sentiments that muddied the main objective of the state—to convert military training into a form of personal cultivation. This study sheds light on the gap between Chiang Kai-shek’s conception of militarization as the practice of everyday discipline and Chinese students’ embrace of military training as patriotic resistance against Japanese invasion. Ultimately, the program’s mobilizational potential was undercut by its obsession with managing the trivialities of everyday life and Nanjing’s appeasement policy toward Japan
Appeasement · China · Ideology · Militarization · Political economy · Political science · Politics · Sociology · State (computer science · Voluntarism (philosophy · Chinese history and philosophy · Japanese History and Culture · Law · Public Administration · Vietnamese History and Culture Studies
Articulating Citizenship
The Soldier Image and State-Building in Modern China, 1924-1945
A Revisionist View of the Nanjing Decade
China's Conservative Revolution
Student Protests in Twentieth-Century China
War and Nationalism in China
Germany and Republican China
Revolutionary Nativism
The Christian Student Movement, Ymcas, and Transnationalism in Republican China
The Chinese Blue Shirt Society. Fascism and Developmental Nationalism
| Citation velocity | historical |
|---|---|
| Highly cited | No |