Modern China

In 1892, Terrien de Lacouperie (1845—1894), professor of Chinese at University College in London, set out to prove that the Chinese migrated from Mesopotamia in prehistoric times. Despite mixed responses from his colleagues, Lacouperie’s “Sino-Babylonianism” found its way into China and captured the imagination of Chinese historians from the 1900s to 1930s. Whether they supported or opposed Lacouperie’s view, Chinese historians were intrigued by his boldness in linking early China to the global network of trade and cultural exchange. This article examines how Chinese historians adopted, transformed, and appropriated Sino-Babylonianism in their discourse on the nation. It argues that the rise and fall of Sino-Babylonianism coincided with the Chinese perceptions of the world system of nation-states. Sino-Babylonianism was warmly received when the Chinese perceived the world system of nation-states as a hierarchy in temporality, prescribing a process of evolution that all human communities must follow. Sino-Babylonianism was fiercely rejected when the Chinese saw the world system of nation-states as a hierarchy in space, characterized by incessant territorial expansion of imperialist powers. In both instances, Sino-Babylonianism was no longer what Lacouperie had proposed in the late nineteenth century. Rather, it was an important benchmark for the Chinese understanding of the modern global order.

The economic role of women in pre-1949 China has been the subject of an ongoing debate. Farm surveys conducted in the highly commercialized region of the Lower Yangzi in the early to mid-twentieth century show that the value of women’s overall economic contribution was very similar to men’s. In particular, while a gendered division of labor existed, it was likely more notable within sericulture rather than between sericulture (in which women were supposed to specialize) and farming (predominantly a man’s job). Moreover, although men were overrepresented in local wage employment both on and off the farm, the comparatively low economic returns to these activities suggest that economic considerations rather than cultural preferences were the primary reason behind this gendered specialization. Equally important, although outnumbered by men, women were able to migrate and, conditional on employment in this better remunerated sector, they contributed equally to remittance income.