Anti-Drug Crusades in Twentieth-Century China: Nationalism, History, and State-Building

Yongming Zhou

Bloomsbury Publishing PLC, 1999 - History - 196 pages

Central to China's identity, drugs have been inextricably linked to every aspect of the country's economy, polity, society, and culture since the early nineteenth century. This book is the first comprehensive study of anti-drug crusades in twentieth-century China. Zhou Yongming addresses the complexity of anti-drug campaigns by examining how modern Chinese nationalism and the needs of state building have shaped the ways in which these campaigns have been carried out.

The author traces the important role that nationalism has played in all of China's anti-drug crusades by providing the motivation, legitimacy, and emotional charge needed for Chinese authorities to take an anti-drug stance. Nationalism has provided a forum for fashioning mainstream anti-drug discourse, interpreting the history of the Opium Wars, and mobilizing the social elite and general public in the cause of drug suppression. Yet to avoid adopting nationalism as a universal concept, the author argues that its complexity and mutability can only be fully appreciated if its multiple forms and meanings in modern China are explored.

At the same time, the author contends that anti-drug campaigns also are closely related to internal politics. He shows that both the Nationalists and the Communists used these campaigns to build state hegemony through mass crusades, nationwide mobilization, and the use of state violence. To achieve its goal, the state often adopted multiple interpretations of the nationalist anti-drug debate and then incorporated them into the state's hidden agenda of conducting anti-drug campaigns.

Drawing on previously unavailable archival sources and personal interviews, the author tells a rich story that will be valuable to Asia scholars and narcotics researchers alike.

Contents

• Introduction: 1
• Nationalism Reform and AntiOpium Mobilization in Late Qing: 11
• Nationalism and the AntiDrug Mobilization of the Shanghai Elite 19241927: 39
• Society versus State NAOA and Opium Policies of the Nationalists 19271934: 61
• The SixYear Opium Suppression Plan and the New Life Movement: 77
• Nationalism Identity and State Building AntiDrug Crusade in the Peoples Republic 19491952: 93
• Facing Drugs Again AntiDrug Discourse in Contemporary China: 113
• A Peoples War without People AntiDrug Campaigns in the 1990s: 131
• AntiDrug Campaigns and Ethnic Minorities in Southwestern China 1950s and 1990s: 149
• Conclusions: 169
• Notes: 175
• Bibliography: 179
• Index: 189

Popular passages

Page 184 - Advisory Committee on Traffic in Opium and other Dangerous Drugs...

Bibliographic information

• Title: Anti-Drug Crusades in Twentieth-Century China: Nationalism, History, and State-Building; Anti-drug Crusades in Twentieth-century China: Nationalism, History, and State Building, Yongming Zhou; G - Reference,Information and Interdisciplinary Subjects Series
• Author: Yongming Zhou
• Edition: illustrated
• Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing PLC, 1999
• ISBN: 0847695980, 9780847695980
• Length: 196 pages
• Subjects: History / Asia / China; History / Asia / General; History / General; Political Science / Comparative Politics; Political Science / Law Enforcement; Psychology / Psychopathology / Addiction; Social Science / Criminology; Social Science / Customs & Traditions; Social Science / General