ABSTRACT
This chapter examines how “Iron and Blood” – as a term of German provenance – was introduced to China. It traces how Social Darwinism, which was applied as a – seemingly scientific – justification for the use of force in one’s dealings with others, was approvingly applied to the German developmental model. The chapter explores how “Iron and Blood” then turned into a fully essentialised metaphor of the forces of evolution per se. By 1895, China’s intelligentsia had been long aware of Otto von Bismarck and his influential role in German politics. When Xia Zengyou urged his compatriots to make explicit use of “Iron and Blood” in early 1904, he was not voicing a new idea. Similar calls had begun to emerge the year before, when Russian forces, despite an appropriate agreement, had not been withdrawn from Northeast Chinese territories in the spring of 1903.
