The century-long predicament of Chinese constitutionalism lies not in its constitutions, but in the complete absence of social contracts as the legitimizing foundation of any constitution. Although the Xinhai Revolution did not shed much blood, it was carried out very much in a way opposed to the spirit of social contract. In less than two years after the establishment of the First Republic, the ill-fated political cooperation between Yuan Shikai and the Nationalist Party was fatally disrupted. The Treaty of Versailles ignited the patriotic fire overnight and set the stage for Communist ascendance. The frequency analysis of keywords from the Xinhai Revolution to the May Fourth Movement showed that anti-contractual concepts such as revolution, Leninism and socialism had been soaring, and had become a popular trend by 1919, leading to the establishment of the Communist regime in 1949.

This chapter examines some Pan-Islamic and Pan-Asian thinkers who argued that religious values and civilizational discourse needed to be front and center in discussions of political economy. The Pan-Islamic thinkers called for new kinds of economic solidarity among a transnational Islamic community that could promote its interests and values within the world economy. Their proposals included Iranian-born Jamal al-Din al-Afghani’s calls for the collective economic modernization of the Islamic world, the endorsement of specific joint economic projects such as the Hejaz railway by Ottoman sultan Abdulhamid II, and India’s Sayyid Abul A’la Mawdudi’s focus on the need for all Muslims to embrace a new kind of Islamic Economics. By contrast, the Pan-Asian thinker Sun Yat-sen focused on the interests and values of a transnational community that he conceptualized in civilizational terms. Sun argued that Asian countries’ interests and values could be promoted by development-oriented economic cooperation amongst themselves, their collective pursuit of neomercantilist goals, and an alternative tributary model of international economic governance centered on the principle of the “rule of Right.”

This chapter examines the ideas of neomercantilist thinkers from outside Europe and the United States whose thought became well known in various places during the pre-1945 period. Some of them adapted the ideas of neomercantilist thinkers from Europe and the United States in creative ways, including thinkers from Argentina (Alejandro Bunge), Australia (David Syme), China (Liang Qichao), Ethiopia (Gabrahiwot Baykadagn), India (Mahadev Govind Ranade, Benoy Sarkar), and Turkey (Ziya Gökalp). Others developed distinctive neomercantilist ideas without much, or any, reference to neomercantilist thought from Europe and the United States, including figures from Canada (John Rae), China (Sun Yat-sen, Zheng Guanying), Egypt (Muhammad Ali), Japan (Fukuzawa Yukichi, Ōkubo Toshimichi), and Korea (Yu Kil-chun). This latter group of thinkers reveal how the ideas of Hamilton and List did not play the same kind of central role in the emergence of neomercantilist thought that Smith’s played in the growth of economic liberalism. Taken together, all the thinkers described in this chapter reinforce the point that neomercantilist thought was characterized by considerable diversity.

The first half of the twentieth century witnessed the rise of the state sector of the Chinese economy. The rise of the state sector manifested in the development and expansion of central state enterprises and regional state enterprises and resulted from the ideology and policy of the developmental state. This chapter traces the emergence and evolution of the ideology and policy of the developmental state, describes the development and expansion of central state enterprises and regional state enterprises, and addresses the issue of change and continuity across the 1949 divide.

The Sumatra-born revolutionary, Tan Malaka, shared prison time in Hong Kong with Ho Chi Minh. In this chapter we see the then twenty-six-year-old Tan Malaka setting up in revolutionary Guangzhou under Communist International auspices. There, he networked with leading Sun Yat-sen government officials, co-hosted an important Asian trade union conference, and assumed a new role as editor and publisher. Known to Ho Chi Minh from Moscow days, the two would also meet in Guangzhou. Somewhat adrift in the Philippines prior to deportation to China, it could well have been Ho Chi Minh who summoned him to Hong Kong with a view to clarifying the status of the communist movement in Singapore/Malaya in the wake of a failed rebellion on Java. Tan Malaka was treated differently from his Vietnamese counterpart. He was arrested in the British colony, denied legal assistance, did not make a court appearance or gain media attention, although he did evade extradition to his homeland. Tan Malaka bequeathed a rich description of his experience in Victoria Prison and this chapter adds fresh detail on this episode, otherwise little acknowledged in Hong Kong writing.

Chapter 1 focuses on the key role played by Dutch communist and founding member of the Soviet Comintern Henricus Sneevliet (alias Maring) in the founding of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) in Shanghai in 1921. Background is provided on the challenging political and economic circumstances of Republican-era China, and two concepts promoted by Sneevliet with lasting significance for the CCP: the need for a disciplined, Leninist party, and the necessity of allying with the broader Nationalist Kuomintang (KMT) movement, known as the “United Front.” Chinese resistance to Sneevliet’s second concept, led by student activist Zhang Guotao, who advocated the immediate establishment of a dictatorship of the proletariat, was a factor in Sneevliet’s low opinion of the CCP as a viable political party. This contrasts with his favorable impression of Sun Yat-sen and the KMT in the south, which led to a debate in the Comintern over the viability of mass party strategy. Eventually, Chen Duxiu, the Party’s current leader, ordered CCP members to join the KMT, but Sneevliet was replaced by Russian Comintern agent Mikhail Borodin.