Changes in the Western Perspectives of Chen Duxiu during World War I

Focusing on the writings by Chen Duxiu(陳獨秀), the leader of the New Culture Movement and the May 4th Movement, this paper examined the transformation of his Western style in the 1910s.<br/> In Magazine New Youth(新青年), which was founded about a year after the outbreak of World War I, Chen Duxiu assumed that Western civilization, represented by ‘democracy’ and ‘science’, was the only civilization and emphasized that China should follow the methodology of Western civilization. On the other hand, ‘science’, which he talked about as an important pillar of Western civilization along with democracy, was not referring to science as an individual collection of scientific knowledge but as an abstracted whole. Presuming science as a value standard was a new perspective in China at the time.<br/> In terms of Chen Duxiu’s writing and understanding, the ‘West’ existed in two layers. One was the West as the totality of real individual countries. The other was the Western civilization, an idealized concept of state and society built by democracy and science as its axis. When China joined the Allies and participated in the world war I, problem occurred. Since Germany was part of the central powers, it could no longer be an advanced being to China. In order to maintain the argument that such West and Western civilizations have the value to pursue, Chen chose the method of distinguishing the real West through the criterion of ‘Universal right(公理)’. He argued that China’s participation in the war belongs to the side of the divided West that values righteousness, and believed that participating the war would be a shortcut to become equal to the West.<br/> After the end of the war, Chen Duxiu repeated the existing argument that China’s direction was to follow Western civilization, contrasting ‘righteousness and powers’. However, when China’s rights and interests in Shandong were violated by major Western countries and Japan at the Paris Peace Conference, he came to insist that it should be acquired through power beyond following Universal right(= democracy). However, it is worth noting that Chen Duxiu did not recognize the post-war treatment of the great powers as Universal right being denied. Even after the end of World War I, he did not give up or abandon the pursuit of Western civilization, due to disappointment with the real West.