The Impossibility of Pan-Asianism: Zhang Junmai’s Cold War Regionalism

• In Event: Thinking Economics in Twentieth-Century China

Abstract

This paper explores how the ideal of unity between China, India and other Asian societies became embroiled in Cold War politics. In November 1949, social democratic politician Zhang Junmai (Carsun Chang) visited India as the Chinese Communist Party sealed its victory over Chiang Kai-shek’s Nationalist government. News of New Delhi’s rapid shift in diplomatic allegiance to Beijing impressed upon the visitor from “Free China” the changing nature of India’s role in Asia. Until India’s independence and the conclusion of the Chinese civil war, the South Asian subcontinent existed in the Chinese political elite’s imagination as an ancient nation bringing succor to war-ridden humanity. Culture was the natural bond between China and India, two peace-loving nations tainted by Western avarice. The civilizational amity between the two Asian societies, much touted since Rabindranath Tagore’s visit to China in 1924, was called into doubt by the new Nehruvian paradigm of non-alignment. As Zhang emerged from his stint in India as a staunch Cold Warrior, India’s embrace of Communist China fundamentally altered the terms of Asian regionalism. While religions, languages and anticolonial experiences of Asian societies were still identified as points of commonality, the imperative to contain communism became the raison d’être of regional alliances. Furthermore, while Pan-Asianism had traditionally aimed to overcome Euro-American dominance, Zhang’s Cold War grand alliance was part of an American-led model of global development and order. Zhang sounded the death knell of Pan-Asianism just as he called for solidarity between China, Japan and India in the struggle against communism.

Author

• Brian Tsui, The Hong Kong Polytechnic University