MANUFACTURING MARTIAL SPIRIT ETHOS, IDEOLOGY AND IDENTITY IN THE CHINESE MARTIAL ARTS

Abstract

This article interrogates the enduring place of ‘martial spirit’ (shangwu jingshen) in China. It argues that it emerged decisively as a discursive trope during the late nineteenth-century as China faced the existential threat of internal rebellion, Western and Japanese imperialism and a moribund Manchu dynasty. This was when China’s self-image as the ‘Central Kingdom’ gave way to the international image of the ‘Sick Man of Asia’, prompting many native and foreign observers to attribute China’s vulnerability to a chronic deficiency of martial spirit. The article shows that progressive intellectuals sought models of courage and self-sacrifice, looking both to China’s ancient history and to Sparta and Japan, while foreign historiographers, from Montesquieu, Hegel, Marx and Spencer to Lattimore and Wittfogel, proposed various theories to explain China’s weakness. Similarly, Confucian and Daoist, as well as Legalist and Moist philosophers of the late Bronze Age, all identified a role for martial spirit in character-building and the construction of national ethos, while military strategists from Sunzi to Qi Jiguang addressed such issues as esprit de corps and dedication to national salvation. Finally, the paper argues that even today, in the midst of unprecedented economic and military expansion, the competing demands of filial piety and patriotism continue to bedevil Chinese parents and policy makers.