Introduction
Ku Hung-Ming 辜鴻銘Footnote 1 (1857–1928) was special as a historical figure, a thinker, and a translator. He caught attention first because he had a very different – and interesting – life trajectory. His unique lived experience is showcased in his own description of himself as a “a man of east, west, south and north” 東西南北之人, which is based on the fact that he was born in the South (Penang in Malaysia), educated in the West (Europe), married a woman from the East (Japan), and once worked in the North (Beijing in Northern China). Generations after generations have relished discussing various anecdotes about him. However, his status as a thinker has not been appreciated; his works, as I demonstrate elsewhere (Zhang Reference Zhang2025a, Reference Zhang2025b), appear to many as merely signifying his own complex identity or as a paranoid defense of China from a Chinese nationalist. Indeed, Ku’s works, as Bai points out, are “not commonly considered scholarly” (2019, p. 242). The philosopher Huaiyu Wang (Reference Wang2021) has recently called Ku “the lost Confucian philosopher.”
Ku’s greatness as a translator is shown in both his translation practice and conceptualization of translation. Among the “Four Books” in the Confucian tradition, the Lunyu, the Zhongyong, the Daxue, and the Mengzi, conventionally known in the Anglophone world as the Analects, the Doctrine of the Mean, the Great Learning, and Mencius, Ku translated into English the first three, which he titles “The Discourses and Sayings of Confucius” (1898), “The Universal Order or Conduct of Life” (1906), and “Higher Education” (1915), respectively. Through these translations, Ku “placed canonical Chinese cultural texts into worldwide circulation” (Groppe Reference Groppe and Seigneurie2019, p. 1). The influence of these translations extended even beyond the English-speaking sphere. For example, the German scholar Richard Wilhelm had consulted Ku’s translation of the lunyu for his own German translation of the book (Wu Reference Wu2022, p. 106). And his translations have been reprinted not only in China but also outside it in this century.Footnote 2
Ku’s translations of Confucian classics are significant in multiple ways. First, Ku became the first Chinese translator who translated Confucian classics into English, breaking the long-time monopoly of translation of Confucian classics by Western missionaries. Ku’s path-breaking work was inspiring for later generations of Chinese translators who engaged in translating Confucian classics into English. Second, Ku’s choice to translate from Chinese into English distinguished him from his Chinese contemporaries who almost universally translated from other languages, notably English, into Chinese. This distinct translation directionality casts into relief Ku’s independent personality and critical thinking.Footnote 3 Indeed, Ku’s foresight cannot be overestimated, considering that “outward translation” 外譯is a vogue term in the translation studies community in today’s China.Footnote 4 Third, Ku’s translation of Confucian classics stands out also because he single-handedly produced the translations rather than employing collaborative translation, a popular practice in translation between Chinese and English at the time. It was common that Western missionaries translated Chinese classics with the aid of Chinese Christians, a typical example being the collaboration between James Legge and Wang Tao (see Moratto and Xu Reference Moratto and Xu2023). In the Chinese context, collaborative translation was more popular. St. André (Reference St. André2010) shows that collaborative translation was a main pattern of translation not only in Ku’s time but also throughout the Chinese history. In this sense, Ku’s single-handed translation was distinct in the whole Chinese history of translation.
Fourth, Ku’s understanding of translation, as indicated in his translation strategies and explicitly elaborated in his own discourses on translation, mirrors much scholarship in the discipline of translation studies since the “cultural turn” in the 1980s. Ku’s translation strategies showcase the notions of translation as, for example, “renarration” (Baker Reference Baker2006), “intervention” (Munday Reference Munday2007), and “resistance” (Tymoczko Reference Tymoczko2010). Indeed, apart from frequently citing Western writers and thinkers, Ku in his translations responds to or resists various narratives circulating in the wider society in the contemporary West (see, e.g., Ku Reference Ku1898, pp. 45, 62; Ku Reference Ku1906, p. 47) and explicitly expresses his political wishes that his translations would change Western powers’ conception of and behavior toward China (Ku Reference Ku1898, pp. ix-x). As far as Ku’s discourses on translation are concerned, while space would not allow me to present many, I would like to draw attention to Ku’s assertion that “one must not translate literally” (Reference Ku1917, p. 63), which means that Ku has a target-oriented notion of translation. What Ku emphasizes is that translations should be conceptualized with regard to the target sociocultural context rather than be constrained in the source context. This is in line with a famous thesis argued by Gideon Toury, one of the founding figures for the discipline of translation studies, that is, “translations are facts of target cultures” (Reference Toury1995, p. 29).Footnote 5 Fifth, Ku’s translations of Confucian classics have important scholarly value. Although Ku’s original writings, let alone his translations, as I mentioned above, have seldom been considered scholarly for long, the acknowledgment of the scholarly value of his translations have recently begun to appear. Groppe (Reference Groppe and Seigneurie2019, p. 5) points out that Ku’s translations are “[his] most intriguing contributions to world literature.” Zhang (Reference Zhang2025a, Reference Zhang2025b) demonstrates that Ku’s translations are his serious critique of Western modernity.
Apart from translating Confucian classics into English, Ku also translated a few English poems into Chinese. For example, he translated into Chinese the British poet William Cowper’s ballad “The Diverting History of John Gilpin.” This translation was considered by Wu Mi 吳宓 “to be the beginning of Chinese translation of Western poems in China” (quoted in Huang Reference Huang1998, p. 4). Indeed, Ku was, as Liu (Reference Liu1991, p. 36) points out, “such a master of translation that he could be an equal to Yan Fu,” a frequently mentioned and widely acclaimed translator in the Chinese history of translation.
Despite these remarkable achievements in translation, Ku, however, is seldom included or discussed in existing Chinese historiographies of translation, although Ku’s name has regularly appeared in journal articles in the past few decades.Footnote 6 This shocking peripheralization of Ku has motivated me to write this article, which provides an account for and reflects on this peripheralization. This article first demonstrates how Ku is peripheralized in the Chinese historiography of translation and then moves on to discuss the reasons why contemporary translation historiographers exclude or marginalize Ku. It also reflects on the politics of translation historiography and contemporary Chinese intellectual landscape.
The peripheralization of Ku Hung-Ming in the Chinese historiography of translation
By the Chinese historiography of translation, I refer to the historiographical writing of both translation activities and thought on translation. Both aspects are inevitably related to translators or translation theorists. As Ku lived in the late Qing and early Republican period, that is, the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, I have investigated either general history 通史, which includes the period in which Ku conducted his translation activities, or the historiographies that deal specifically with the history of translation in modern China 近代/現代中國. Therefore, the historiographies that I have surveyed include A History of Translation in China: Volume I (中國翻譯通史 全一卷) (Ma Reference Ma2006), which is almost the same as his A Brief History of Translation in China: Before the May Fourth Period (中國翻譯簡史 五四以前部分) (Ma Reference Ma2004), A History of Translation in Modern China (中國近代翻譯史) (Li Reference Li2005), The Translation History of China in the 20 th Century (20世紀中國翻譯史) (Fang Reference Fang2005), Chinese History of Translation Studies (中國譯學史) (Chen Reference Chen2022), A Brief History of Translation Thoughts in China (簡明中國翻譯思想史) (Cui and Zhang Reference Cui and Zhang2021), and A History of Thought on Translation in 20 th century China (second edition) (20世紀中國翻譯思想史 第二版) (Wang and Wang Reference Wang and Wang2009).
The investigation of these books shows that Ku is peripheralized in three ways: Ku’s total absence, Ku as an add-on, and Ku’s appearance as a target of criticism by other translators. Although they specifically write about the history of translation in modern China, Fang (Reference Fang2005) and Li (Reference Li2005) do not mention Ku at all. Ma (Reference Ma2006) does include Ku but just as an add-on. First, Ma does not give a salient place to Ku. Ku appears at the end of the last chapter of the last section, the penultimate person Ma mentions in this book. The last section, entitled “Literary Translation in the Guangxu-Xuantong Era (1875–1911),” is divided into nine subsections, the first eight subsections covering Chinese translations of Greek, Arabic, Indian, Japanese, British, French, American, and Russian works, respectively, and the last subsection entitled “translations of works from other countries” 其他國家作品的翻譯. Ma mentions “癡漢騎馬歌,” which is Ku’s translation of “The Diverting History of John Gilpin” (2006, p. 529); he also mentions in passing that Ku is also said to have translated Coleridge’s “The Rime of the Ancient Mariner” (2006, p. 531). Although he makes it explicit that both William Cowper and Coleridge were poets from “Britain” 英國 (2006, p. 529, 531), Ma does not include Ku in the subsection “translation of British works” 英國作品的翻譯 but instead mentions Ku in the subsection “translation of works from other countries.” Some may argue that this is because Ma also mentions Ku’s English translations of Confucian classics; in other words, Ma does not include Ku in the subsection “translation of British works,” since Ku’s choice of source languages is not restricted to English. I would argue that this cannot account for Ma’s choice, since he could have mentioned Ku in both subsections, as he does for many other translators. Quite a number of translators appear in more than one subsection because they translated books from multiple countries. For example, Ma includes Lin Shu in up to six subsections, which cover the translated works from Greece, Japan, Britain, France, and America in addition to the last subsection “translation of works from other countries.”
Ku remains a peripheral figure in Ma’s historiography of translation and thus does not merit inclusion in a subsection aimed specifically for a single country, nor does he enjoy such a privilege of being mentioned in more than one subsection as many of his contemporary Chinese translators. I would argue that Ma mentions Ku after introducing translations of 哀希腊, a “long narrative poem” because Ku’s “癡漢騎馬歌” in his eyes is also a “long narrative poem.” Indeed, in Ma (Reference Ma2004), Ma explicitly says he is “introducing Ku as an add-on” (2004, p. 399).
In Chen (Reference Chen2022) and Cui and Zhang (Reference Cui and Zhang2021), Ku does not enjoy the privilege of having a section specifically devoted to him either but appears as a target of criticism in two sections devoted to another two translators. Chen, in the section devoted to Wang Guowei 王國維, discusses how Wang criticizes Ku’s translation of the Zhongyong (2022, pp. 119-120). Cui and Zhang, in the section devoted to Su Manshu蘇曼殊, mention how Su dismisses Ku’s choice of translating the above-mentioned William Cowper’s ballad “The Diverting History of John Gilpin” (2021, p. 68). Wang and Wang more briefly speak of Ku’s name twice in the section about Lin Yutang 林語堂, first mentioning that Ku was from the same province as Lin as well as some other translators (2009, p. 191) and then referring to the fact that Ku and Lin both introduced Chinese culture to the West (2009, p. 203). Ironically, they recognize Ku’s important status as one of “the Chinese pioneers of translating from Chinese into English” (ibid.),Footnote 7 but do not write a section specifically for Ku.
An account of Ku Hung-Ming’s peripheralization in the Chinese historiography of translation
Some may tend to explain away the marginalization of Ku in general and the peripheralization of Ku in translation historiography in particular by referring to language barriers, given the fact that most of Ku’s writings are in and his translations are into languages other than Chinese, notably English. I find this explanation untenable, however, for the following reasons. First, the academic background of most translation historiographers in China is in foreign languages, notably English, so they have the necessary linguistic ability to approach Ku’s translations as well as his original writings. Second, many of Ku’s works were already translated into Chinese decades ago; even his English translations have been translated back into Chinese. Third, as we shall see later, when including translations from Chinese into other languages in their historiography of translation, translation historiographers refer to Western missionaries’ translations rather than those of Ku’s. This means that what translation historiographers refrain from doing is not reading sources in foreign languages but engaging with Ku.
As historiography is “a political phenomenon” (Pocock Reference Pocock2005, p. 3), so is translation historiography. Ku’s peripheralization in the Chinese historiography of translation are to be explained with respect to the socio-political context in modern China. I propose that three factors are at play in peripheralizing Ku. First, translation historiographers, like many other modern Chinese intellectuals, have been too much influenced by the dual meta-narratives of individual enlightenment and national salvation. Second, they have internalized a colonial mode of thinking, which has been developed in China since the May Fourth period.Footnote 8 Finally, they have been influenced by the century-long trivialization of Ku.
The power of the dual meta-narratives of individual enlightenment and national salvation
Li Zehou李澤厚 (Reference Li1987, pp. 7–49) famously claims that modern China witnessed “the dual variation of individual enlightenment and national salvation” 啓蒙與救亡的雙重變奏.Footnote 9 This means that modern Chinese intellectuals have been overwhelmed by the two tasks of saving the country from annihilation by the Western powers (and the Westernized Japan) and enlightening its people. Simply put, individual enlightenment and national salvation are the dual meta-narratives in modern China. By meta-narratives, I refer to “the master narratives in which we are embedded as contemporary actors in history” (Somers Reference Somers and John1997, p. 86), or “particularly potent public narratives that persist over long periods of time and influence the lives of people across a wide range of settings” (Baker Reference Baker2010, p. 351). Indeed, individual enlightenment and national salvation, for modern Chinese intellectuals, are characterized by “a sense of inescapability” (ibid.).
The Chinese historiographers of translation are enthusiastic in – and indeed proud of – elaborating on the inextricable relationship between translation activities in modern China and the cause of individual enlightenment and national salvation. When commenting on translations in the late Qing and early Republican period in the preface to his five-volume Chinese historiography of translation, Ma writes:
After the Opium war, Chinese society gradually became a semi-colonial and semi-feudal society. The military threat from the Western powers made it the first task to save the Chinese nation and race from destruction. The patriotic people with insights had to seek truth from the West. (2006, p. 3)Footnote 10
The narrative of national salvation finds its clearest expression in these words. In Ma’s opinion, translation at the time was primarily aimed at solving the national crisis, and those who actively learned from the West were “people with insights” 有識之士.
He goes on to write:
The May Fourth New Culture movement …… was an enlightenment movement in the history of modern China. In order to seek help from the West in breaking away from the old tradition and changing the old thought, a wave of translating Western culture was formed. (Ma Reference Ma2006, p. 4)
Here, we see Ma’s subscription to the narrative of individual enlightenment. He understands translation activities in the May Fourth period as instrumental in enlightening the Chinese people.
As his historiographical writing is guided by the meta-narratives of individual enlightenment and national salvation, Ma’s focuses on the translators who engaged in introducing Western books into China with the aim of solving the national crisis and enlightening the Chinese people. These translators in his eyes were “people with insights” (Ma Reference Ma2006, p. 3). This explains the peripheralization of Ku in his historiography since Ku in his eyes would not be among these “people with insights,” who tirelessly translated Western books into Chinese for the cause of individual enlightenment and national salvation.
The influence of the dual meta-narratives is such that Ma not only centers around the people who he thinks had insights but also defends their translations. He (2006, p. 4) explicitly responds to the possible accusations that their translations suggest that they lacked literary judgment and translation ability or did not have a good attitude toward translation. He argues that readers should take into consideration “the social demands and standards of translation at the time” so that our evaluation of them is “objective and fair” (ibid.). Undoubtedly, for Ma, the social demands of translation at the time would be individual enlightenment and national salvation. Indeed, Ma’s justification for them is that they “played an unignorable role in enlightening the people” (ibid.). Ma’s defense rings particularly true, considering that this is the only period for whose translation activities he acts as a defender although he in the preface also covers the other three climaxes of translation in the Chinese history, which he identifies as the translation of Buddhism lasting from the Eastern Han dynasty to the Song dynasty (roughly from the second to tenth century), the translation of Western scientific works during the Ming-Qing transition period (around the seventeenth century) and contemporary translation activities since the 1980s. The more Ma highlights the unignorable role of these “people with insights,” the more we can understand why he peripheralizes Ku. In Ma’s eyes, Ku’s role was ignorable because Ku did not translate for individual enlightenment and national salvation at all.
The subscription to the meta-narratives of individual enlightenment and national salvation are also seen under other translation historiographers’ pen. Wang and Wang write:
The late 19th and early 20th centuries saw a group of advanced figures who, faced with the national crisis, were so worried about the country and its people that they strived for self-strengthening and rejuvenation. In working together for the great cause of national salvation, they were active in translating and promoting Western natural sciences, philosophy and social sciences to cultivate talents of science. They launched the climax of translation in the modern history of translation, bringing China to a new phase in the journey of seeking truth from the West. (2009, p. 25)
Here, they associate translation with national salvation. It merits attention that they describe the Chinese translators of Western books as “advanced” 先進 and, like Ma (Reference Ma2006, p. 3), consider these Western ideas to be “truth” 真理. The two words are also adopted by other historiographers, as I will discuss in detail later. While here describing translation activities before the May Fourth movement as contributing to “national salvation” 救亡, Wang and Wang later use the words “individual enlightenment” 啓蒙 to characterize translation activities after that (2009, pp. 104-105).
Likewise, in their summary of each of the four chapters that cover the thought on translation in the late Qing and early Republican period, Cui and Zhang (Reference Cui and Zhang2021) keep mentioning “national salvation” 救國 (2021, pp. 55, 71) and “individual enlightenment” 啓蒙 (2021, pp. 71, 97) as the goals of the translators at the time. Li also mentions in the preface to his book that “national salvation” 救亡圖存 was the theme of translation activities in modern China (2005, p. 5). As he sees a strong relationship between the history of translation in modern China and the history of modern China, Li writes that “considering the special circumstances in which translation activities in the modern period took place, the content focuses on translation of Western learning, only touching upon translation of Chinese learning in very few places” (2005, p. 14). Li seems to be justifying his choice to focus on translation of Western knowledge into China and marginalize translation of Chinese ideas into Western languages. And the very few places where he discusses the translation of Chinese books into other languages further throws into relief his peripheralization of Ku because he only discusses Western missionaries’ translations (2005, p. 54), without referring to Ku at all, who was “the pioneer of translating Chinese into English” (Liu Reference Liu1991). I would argue that Li deprives Ku of a place in his historiography because Ku as a Chinese translator failed to live up to his expectation of striving for the cause of individual enlightenment and national salvation.
Colonial mentality
The second factor that contributes to Ku’s peripheralization is what I would call the colonial mentality of modern Chinese intellectuals, according to which Chinese culture should be replaced by Western culture because the former is considered advanced and the latter backward. This mentality was developed from the May Fourth period. As Li Zehou (1987, pp. 7–49) points out, the narrative of “national salvation” in the end overrode that of “individual enlightenment” in modern China. Quite ironically, confronted with what they considered the unprecedented national crisis, mainstream Chinese intellectuals reached the conclusion that the prerequisite for the survival of China was to eliminate Chinese culture, as reflected in the slogan “Down with the Store of Confucius” 打倒孔家店 in the mid-1910s. This anti-tradition current continued well into contemporary China. The late 1980s saw the popularity of the TV documentary River Elegy 河殤, the theme of which was the inevitability of the replacement of Chinese civilization by Western civilization. A Chinese dissident remarked in the late 1980s that it would be good if China had been colonized by the British for 300 years (quoted in Bai Reference Bai2019, p. 227). Zhang Xianglong’s 張祥龍 proposal that a sculpture of Confucius should be put up in Peking University was met with almost a universal rejection (Zhang Reference Zhang2013, pp. 85–87). When commenting on the difference between Qian Mu 錢穆 and Chen Yinque 陳寅恪 on the one hand and mainstream Chinese intellectuals on the other hand, the historian Yu Ying-shih writes:
Generally speaking, intellectuals’ identification with the Western culture eventually gained dominance in China …… Mainstream intellectuals, identifying with either North America or Eastern Europe as far as culture is concerned, could fearlessly go ahead; they only had joys of spiritual emancipation, without any bothering. However, intellectuals such as Qian Mu and Chen Yinque could not accept the simplistic dualism between “progress” and “backwardness”; they pursued the new but refused to abandon the old. (1994, pp. 2-3)
Indeed, since the May Fourth period, Chinese intellectuals have rarely shown toward Chinese culture “warmth and respect” 溫情與敬意, as Qian Mu called for in his Outline of National History 國史大綱. They take it for granted that the dualism between Western culture and Chinese culture is one between advancement and backwardness. Chinese intellectuals’ unflinching and unstoppable determination to abandon Chinese culture has led Zhang Xianglong to lament that “this cultural suicide counts as a spectacle in the world’s history of civilization” (2013, p. 65).
The influence of the colonial mentality is reflected in, among other things, the historiographers’ use of the words “advanced” and “truth” to describe Western culture. For example, Ma regards the translation of Western culture into China as an unequal communication, arguing that
Translation of Western learning in both the period of the late Ming and early Qing and that of the late Qing and early republican China is a communication between the relatively advanced Western culture and the relatively backward Chinese culture. This communication had broken the state of equality and had a very high impact. This is especially true of the late Qing and early republican period. (2006, p. 3)
In particular, Ma highlights the “advancement” of Western culture and “backwardness” of Chinese culture in the late Qing and early Republican period, when Ku conducted his translation activity.
Fang (Reference Fang2005, p. 1) also argues that the three most outstanding translators that he identified (Liang Qichao, Yan Fu, and Lin Shu) greatly helped Chinese people dispense with their backward thought and the massive influx of Western literary works “provides Chinese culture with very advanced object of reference.” While Ma uses “relatively advanced” 相對先進 to describe Western culture (2006, p. 3), as shown above, Fang here goes further to consider it to be “very advanced” 相當先進.
And Li asserts that Chinese culture became increasingly “backward” when China entered its modern phase (2005, p. 3), and praises those who actively learned from the West as “advanced Chinese people” (2005, p. 6) or “advanced intellectuals” (2005, p. 7). Similarly, Wang and Wang label those who actively engaged in translating Western knowledge into Chinese as “advanced figures” (2009, p. 25), “advanced revolutionary intellectuals” (2009, p. 109), or “giants” (2009, pp. 15-16). They point out that these advanced figures or giants constitute the “central figures” (2009, p. 19) of their book. In spite of no explicit description of those who actively learned from the West as “advanced,” Cui and Zhang consider the Chinese intellectuals who began to actively learn from the West in a wholesale fashion after the first Sino-Japanese war as experiencing “a leap in thinking” (2021, p. 36). This means that the advancement–backwardness dichotomy also underpins their writing of Chinese history of translation.
Not only do these historiographers regard the Chinese translators of Western books as advanced people, but also they consider what these translators translated to be truth. Ma claims that these translators “sought truth from the West” (2006, p. 3). Li argues that the translation of different kinds of Western knowledge was “a process of struggling to seek the truth of saving the country” (2005, p. 5). Wang and Wang claim that the translation of Western natural sciences, philosophy, and social sciences “helped China enter a new phase in seeking truth from the West” (2009, p. 25). The word “truth” grants knowledge from the West a status of indisputability and sacredness.
Measured by this advancement–backwardness dichotomy, Ku would be categorized as among the backward people, who turned their back on “truth” because Ku refused to learn from the West. Even when Ku occasionally brought in things from the West, what Ku introduced was devalued. In their discussion of Su Manshu, Cui and Zhang (Reference Cui and Zhang2021) first cite Su’s negative evaluation of Ku’s Chinese translation of the above-mentioned William Cowper’s poem and then point out that the poem in Su’s eyes
has no high value in thinking so it is not worth translating. This is an indirect elaboration on his basic requirement for the translation of foreign literature, that is, an emphasis on the thought encoded in the originals. (2021, p. 68)
In their eyes, what Su valued about the content and thought of the originals is “the idea of revolution and enlightenment” (ibid.). This is why they emphasize that Su deserved a place in the history of translation in modern China. On the contrary, they do not grant Ku a place, since they agree with Su’s comments that the content of the poem that Ku translated is not valuable. Indeed, like mainstream modern Chinese intellectuals, Cui and Zhang are concerned with the aspects of Western civilization that are considered useful for strengthening the Chinese nation.
Not only did Ku refuse to introduce “advanced” ideas to China but also championed the relevance of Chinese culture to the world. If those “advanced” Chinese intellectuals looked up to the West for “truth,” Ku would assert that “truth” is in Chinese culture. Ku aims to show “how the study of the Chinese civilisation can help to solve the problem facing the world to-day, the problem of saving the civilisation of Europe from bankruptcy” (Ku Reference Ku1915, p. 5). In Ku’s opinion, the problems confronting the modern West could be solved with the aid of the Chinese civilization. In short, Ku pins his hopes on the Chinese way of living and governing.
Indeed, Ku’s lifelong intransigence of refusing to introduce “advanced” ideas to China results in his peripheralization as Chinese historiographers aim to include in their translation historiographies the “advanced” people or at least those who at some time introduced “advanced” ideas to China. While those who remained “advanced” all their life undoubtedly occupy a central place, those who became “backward” in their old age, such as Lin Shu, Yan Fu, and Wang Guowei, also enjoyed a decent place because they engaged in introducing “advanced” ideas to China in their prime years. In contrast, Ku was peripheralized because he in all his life not only refused to bring the “advanced” civilization to China but also on the contrary attacked it and promoted Chinese culture, which in the eyes of those “advanced” people are backward and full of fallacy. In his very brief introduction of Ku when elaborating on Wang Guowei’s criticism of Ku, Chen emphasizes that Ku “was very conservative in thinking” (2022, p. 119). It makes sense to take Chen’s emphasis on Ku’s conservativeness as a strong denial of Ku’s value because “conservative” 保守, as Yu (Reference Yu1994, p. 198) points out, is usually viewed as a word of stigma among Chinese people. As we shall see later, Chen, by appropriating Wang Guowei, dismisses Ku as lack of insights.
The century-long trivialization of Ku Hung-Ming
Few thinkers in modern China have been trivialized as much as Ku. This trivialization is inextricably intertwined with what Zhang (Reference Zhang2025a) has dubbed the “eccentricity thesis” in the research on Ku, that is, the ubiquitous understanding of Ku as an eccentric figure. Informed by the “eccentricity thesis,” scholars tend to find Ku’s arguments and behaviors eccentric and be preoccupied in describing and explaining them (see, among others, Du Reference Du2019; Huang Reference Huang1995; Yan Reference Yan2020). I would argue that the trivialization of Ku as an eccentric is such that it has become a “collective unconsciousness” in understanding Ku.Footnote 11 Indeed, while those with colonial mentality naturally find Ku eccentric given his enthusiastic advocacy for Chinese culture, some who dispense with colonial mentality and engage in decolonizing Chinese culture dismiss Ku in no small ways. For example, the philosopher Tongdong Bai, in his book Against Political Equality: The Confucian Case, which aims to construct a Confucian political philosophy as an alternative to liberal democracy, refers only in passing to Ku and labels him as “eccentric” (2019, p. 242). Furthermore, he categorizes Ku as belonging to “pro-Confucianism incompatibility camp, or the fundamentalist camp” as far as the relationship between liberal democracy and Confucianism is concerned (ibid.). This categorization is unfair, since a careful reading of Ku’s works, including his translations, would reveal that Ku does not at all reject such concepts as “liberty” and “democracy” or assume a fundamentalist stance with respect to Confucianism but instead, as Wang (Reference Wang2021) demonstrates, engages with many modern political concepts. And the philosopher Zhang Rulun 張汝倫, who, as we shall see later, is a champion of Chinese culture, in his book Research on Modern Chinese Thought 現代中國思想研究, does not devote a section to Ku but highlights the value of other thinkers by mentioning Ku in passing in a dismissive manner (Reference Zhang2001, p. 413). These Confucianism-sympathetic scholars’ dismissal of Ku speaks volumes about how ingrained the trivialization of Ku is.Footnote 12 I propose that this century-long trivialization of Ku is another factor that has brought about Ku’s peripheralization in the Chinese historiography of translation.
Chen’s discussion of Wang Guowei’s comments on Ku’s translated Zhongyong betrays his influence by this trivialization. Chen first endorses Wang’s accusation of the lack of loyalty of Ku’s translation to the original with contemporary translation theory of equivalence and then writes:
他 [王國維] 還進而批評辜鴻銘缺少歷史的眼光，同時對西洋哲學也無深入的瞭解。…… 王國維此文雖然十分尖刻， “年少氣盛” ；但是，非常精彩。而且，王國維以一哲學家的眼光、 身份來談論譯事，在中國近代譯學史上這還是第一次。(2022, p. 120)
He [Wang] further criticizes Ku for lack of historical insight and deep understanding of Western philosophy. This review by Wang, although very biting, and “young and impetuous”, is very amazing. Moreover, Wang, with his philosophical insight and status as a philosopher, discusses translation; this is the first time in the history of translation in modern China.
This is an uncompromised trivialization of Ku. Chen highly praises Wang’s criticism of Ku as lack of historical insight and deep understanding of Western philosophy.Footnote 13 And he strengthens his dismissal of Ku by highlighting Wang’s status as a philosopher.
However, Chen does not mention the fact that twenty years later when this review was published again, Wang added an apologetic and clarifying addendum, which reads:
此文對辜君批評頗酷，少年習氣，殊堪自哂。案辜君雄文卓識，世間久有定論，此文所指摘者，不過其一二小疵。讀者若以此而抹殺辜君，則不獨非鄙人今日之意，亦非二十年前作此文之旨也。(Reference Wang1925/1997, p. 158)
This quite cutting criticism of Ku testifies to my impetuous youth. I cannot help laughing at myself! Ku’s erudition and excellent insights have long been acknowledged. What is criticized in this article is just one or two flaws. Should the reader dismiss Ku based on these flaws, it would be neither my intention today nor my purpose twenty years ago!
It may be tempting to explain away this addendum as tactical rather than sincere, as Hui Wang (Reference Wang2006, p. 186) does. I would argue, however, two decades is long enough for Wang Guowei as a rigorous scholar and profound thinker to modify his evaluation or make a further clarification. This sounds particularly reasonable if we consider the drastic social, cultural, and political changes that had taken place from 1906 to 1925 in both China and the West. These changes must have influenced Wang’s evaluation of Ku’s translation.Footnote 14 Therefore, I would agree with Yuan (Reference Yuan1991, p. 64) in arguing that this addendum is sincere and means that Wang in general had a positive attitude toward Ku’s translation, and with He (Reference He2019, p. 60) in suggesting that the flow of time (two decades) has eventually made Wang understand Ku’s translation. Most importantly, Wang here acknowledges Ku’s status as a profound thinker.
Moreover, I would argue that Chen had read this addendum and cited from it on a selective basis. First, Chen (Reference Chen2022, p. 119) explicitly mentions that Wang’s review appeared again in the journal The Critical Review 學衡 almost twenty years later. Second, I would suggest that Chen have two casual quotations from Wang. One is Chen’s use of “very biting” 十分尖刻, which bears much similarity to Wang’s “quite cutting” 頗酷 in meaning. The other is Chen’s “young and impetuous” 年少氣盛, which looks very similar to Wang’s “impetuous youth” 少年習氣 in both form and meaning. And the quotation marks that Chen adds to “年少氣盛” make it more convincing to argue that it is an incorrect quotation of Wang’s “少年習氣.” Nonetheless, Chen only cites Wang’s apologetic words but does not mention at all Wang’s high evaluation of Ku’s thinking and his advice that Ku should not be downplayed. I am not implying that this selective citation signifies any flaw of Chen’s integrity. Rather, this shows the powerful influence of entrenched scholarly perspectives on researchers. Indeed, I would argue that Chen refrains from citing the information that would highlight Ku’s status as a deep thinker because he was strongly influenced by the commonly held recognition of Ku as insignificant and unscholarly. Simply put, Chen was deeply influenced by the century-long trivialization of Ku.
Reflections
This research has motivated me to reflect on the politics of translation historiography and the intellectual landscape in contemporary China. While there is often a requirement for neutrality for both translation and history, this research demonstrates that translation historiography is not neutral, deeply influenced by the translation historiographers’ social, political, and cultural thinking on the world in which they live. By writing a Chinese history of translation, they cater to or reinforce, rather than undermine, the dominant narrative that the solution to the national crisis of China is to learn from the West. In this sense, these translation historiographies have not offered alternative ways of understanding modern Chinese history. This is a pity as these translation historiographers have not lived up to the expectation of “translation as an approach to history,” as proposed by the translation historian Christopher Rundle (Reference Rundle2012). Indeed, translation historians are not expected to merely offer case studies that consolidate a widely held thinking on history. Rather, they are supposed to shed new light on history by investigating translation activities in history.
Chinese translation historiographers’ practice highlights the difficulty of staying away from the influence of dominant thinking. Some have aimed for innovation but ended up reinforcing dominant narratives. Cui and Zhang (Reference Cui and Zhang2021), for example, in the preface mention their determination to write a translation historiography in a way that can distinguish it from previous ones. One way is to write about key translators who have not yet investigated. As they explicitly point out, they include Su Manshu, a translator rarely mentioned in previous translation historiographies (2021, p. 68). However, this inclusion still betrays their subscription to the dual meta-narratives and their colonial mentality because the translator was a radical revolutionary, who spared no effort in attacking and indeed demonizing Chinese culture. As Cui and Zhang demonstrate, the translator Su Manshu attacked Chinese culture so much that he makes a character in his Chinese translation of Hugo’s Les Misérables condemn Confucius’s teachings as “teachings for slaves” 奴隸教訓 and disparage Chinese people as “Chinese bastards” 支那賤種 (2021, p. 69). I would argue that, because of their colonial understanding of Chinese culture and Western culture, Cui and Zhang’s impulse of innovation naturally led to the inclusion of Su, a radical iconoclastic figure who relentlessly cursed on Chinese culture. And it comes as no surprise that Ku, who persistently advocated for the vitality and relevance of Chinese culture, was referred to just as a target of criticism, as mentioned earlier, to cast into relief the “greatness” of Su, who was preoccupied in seeking “truth” from the West. I am not criticizing Cui and Zhang for lack of innovation but, by discussing their historiographical writing, emphasize the difficulty with which translation historiographers go beyond dominant narratives. However, the more difficult it is for us to be immune from their influence, the more self-reflexive we need to be.
At the same time, this research draws attention to the wide currency that the century-long dualism between the “advanced” Western culture and the “backward” Chinese culture still enjoys in contemporary China. It provides a window into which we can see the larger intellectual picture in contemporary China. Indeed, colonial mentality is not just upheld by Chinese historiographers of translation but shared by many Chinese intellectuals. Yang et al. (Reference Yang, Xie and Wen2019) point out that the institutionalized social sciences in Chinese education system is a “pilgrimage to the West.” Lin (Reference Lin2021, p. 88) demonstrates that many liberal intellectuals in today’s China have a “beacon complex” or “beaconism,” which he defines as “the idealization of ‘the West’ … as the political and civilizational ‘beacon of light’ for the rest of the World.” According to his distinction between political beaconism and civilizational beaconism, the narration of the West as the embodiment of the advanced culture in the Chinese historiography of translation is a manifestation of civilizational beaconism, which is “an unquestioning admiration and glorification of the presumably ‘advanced’ Western ‘civilization’ that necessitates all of its political achievements and perfections” (ibid.). It is thought-provoking that the dualism is still deeply entrenched in the mind of many Chinese intellectuals, although contemporary China sees many different intellectual narratives in circulation (Wang Reference Wang2005; Cheek et al. Reference Cheek, Ownby and Fogel2020).
Nonetheless, however deep-rooted it is in the mind of Chinese intellectuals, we need to dispense with this colonial mentality, which has caused the “museumization” of Chinese culture, to borrow Joseph Levenson (Reference Levenson1968, p. 160)’s words, a phenomenon that relegates Chinese traditions to inert museum pieces. The philosopher Zhang Rulun (Reference Zhang2017, p. 91) points out that modern Chinese intellectuals rarely consider Chinese philosophy to be as relevant to our times as Western philosophy. They tend to view Chinese culture as a historical legacy rather than acknowledge its role of personal cultivation and socio-political governance in the world in which we are living. This attitude, as Bai points out, has “led to the exile of Chinese thought from the philosophical world” (2019, p. 7). It is high time that we decolonized our understanding of the West and China so that Chinese culture can be viewed as relevant to our own times.Footnote 15
Unless we decolonize our thinking on issues related to China and the West, we will be trapped in a reductive thinking. As Zhang Xianglong points out, one severe consequence of the New Culture movement, which bred and promoted the simplistic advancement–backwardness dualism, is “the disappearance of freedom of deep thinking” (2013, pp. 63–85). I would add that with this disappearance appears an oppressive public sphere, which means that those who think of the relevance of Chinese culture to today’s world are afraid to express their thought. Yu incisively points out:
When lingering on old things, the Chinese usually speak with an apologetic tone. Although not really feeling apologetic, they cannot help but feel too embarrassed to mention their conservativeness or backwardness. Only progress, innovation and revolution are truly valuable existence…. Nowhere in China leaves room for conservatives to express themselves. (1994, p. 198)
This is indeed a form of oppression in the realm of thinking. We should take bravery to dispense with this colonial mentality and begin to evaluate an idea based not on where it is from but on the profundity of the idea itself.
Conclusion
This article casts into relief the inextricable relationship between translation historiography and socio-political thought. I have argued that Ku’s peripheralization in contemporary Chinese historiography of translation is due to the translation historiographers’ subscription to the dual meta-narratives of individual enlightenment and national salvation, their colonial mentality, and the impact of the century-long trivialization of Ku. This means that translation historiography, like any historiography, is not neutral, heavily influenced by the dominant social, political, and cultural narratives of the world in which the historiographers live. The great extent to which Ku is peripheralized reminds us that it is important for intellectuals to keep self-reflexive so as to avoid playing into the hegemony of dominant narratives and dismantle entrenched scholarly perspectives. Indeed, contemporary Chinese historiographical writing of translation has reinforced the entrenched historical viewpoints and failed to provide new insights for historians.
I would like to call for serious engagement with Ku’s translations and his thought on translation in the future revised Chinese historiography of translation. I intend this suggestion to be an echo of the recent proposal by the Chinese translation studies community of rewriting the Chinese history of translation (see, among others, Li Reference Li2024; Xie Reference Xie2019). I would also like to suggest that comparative studies of Ku and other marginalized translators in other postcolonial contexts as well as the Chinese context be carried out in future research.
In this article, I have also called for decolonizing our understanding of Chinese culture. This means that we should dispense with the conceptualization of Western culture as advanced and Chinese culture as backward and recognize the relevance of Chinese culture to our personal, social, and political life. This rings particularly true, considering the political chaos and brutal wars that are now taking place around the world. We need to take seriously non-Western thought, Chinese thought included, with a view to gaining insight into solving the problems facing us today. And only by abandoning the colonial mentality can we recognize the value of Ku, who championed Chinese culture as a solution to the crisis of the modern world. It is time that we no longer trivialized Ku as an eccentric figure but instead began to view him as a serious thinker of relevance to us.Footnote 16
Acknowledgments
I sincerely thank the two anonymous reviewers for their very constructive comments and suggestions, which have greatly improved the quality of this article.
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