The history of Esperanto in early twentieth century China has been strongly – though not exclusively – linked with anarchism. This article looks at the origins and early phases of China’s Esperanto movement in Tokyo and Paris and at its groups of supporters and critics and their arguments for or against Esperanto, to support the claim of a strong connection between Esperanto and anarchism in China (and incidentally in all of East Asia).
The history of Esperanto in China was for long periods closely linked with anarchism. This article surveys the connection in the years up to 1920, and sets out to show which groups used which arguments to agitate for Esperanto, in order to throw light on the complexity of the relationship between language and politics in China, especially in the first half of the twentieth century.
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The first step towards…
Albert Einstein, The Common Language of Science