Rethinking Pan-Asianism through Zhang Taiyan

The early twentieth century Chinese thinker, Zhang Taiyan is most famous for his role as a radical anti-Manchu propagandist as well as being a major proponent of national learning. However, he was many things to different readers: a scholar, a revolutionary, a Buddhist, and a pan-Asianist. Recently, scholars have turned to his pan-Asianist writings and his Buddhist critique of capitalist modernity. Continuing the above trend, the contributor brings India and China together through Zhang Taiyan by examining his writings on India, which are often embedded in his works on anti-colonialism. Then, he turns to Zhang’s writings on Buddhism, through which he constructs a critique of imperialist epistemologies and specifically deconstructs the Hegelian idea of history as progress. He contends that the critique of colonialism and linear narratives of history are two sides of Zhang’s use of India in his writings, which continue to be relevant today.