The origins of modern citizenship in China

This paper considers the emergence in China from the 1890s onwards of several distinct but interrelated interpretations of citizen and citizenship. It shows how these differing interpretations have drawn on a variety of political influences and traditions, some relating to the cultural and political worldview of late Qing and early Republican China, and some absorbed from Europe and Japan. It notes that they have acquired renewed potential during the last two decades or so, as elite groups in the Chinese People’s Republic attempt to construct new approaches to the state and society in the wake of the collapse of Maoist socialism and under the influence of market–orientated economic reforms.