G Xu

Networking Through the Y: The Role of YMCA in China’s Search for New National Identity and Internationalization

For the Chinese the 2008 Beijing Olympic Games was a milestone in their country’s history. The Games meant international recognition and the emergence of a strong China. China’s participation in World War I was another crucial event in modern Chinese history. The May 4th Movement and the founding of the Chinese Communist Party were, to a great extent, directly linked to the aftermath of the Great War. Surprisingly, the Young Men’s Christian Association (the Y) played an important role in both events. By examining the Y’s involvement in both cases, I will attempt to provide a fresh look at China’s century-long obsession with internationalization and a new national identity. By internationalization I mean the ways in which the Chinese actively engage in and are engaged by the international system, by organizations, ideas, forces, and trends; it was a process that compelled China to associate with the outside world and the international system. As I have argued elsewhere, “Internationalization was driven by shifts in the flow of social, intellectual, economic, ideological, and cultural resources between China and the wider world, as well as by new Chinese interest in foreign affairs and their position in the world.” (Xu 2011b, p. 19)

Historical Memories and China”s Changing Views of East Asia

The use (or misuse) of history for political purposes is not a Chinese specialty. Almost every country in the world does it.1 Even Americans, who are not known for their historical memories, will on occasions use historical arguments. Whenever they contemplate military intervention in a Third World country, an obsession leads them into debate whether it will become another Vietnam.2 The Japanese also use history for their political purposes, as discussed below. The list can go on. But nowhere is the use of history—both remembering and forgetting—more apparent than in current Chinese discussion about the Asia Pacific War with Japan and the status of Taiwan in the world today.