ABSTRACT
Tan Sitong (1854–1898) has generally been regarded as a radical exponent of the reform movement of 1898. It was only, however, in the last years of his life that he advocated ideas concerning the people, people’s rights, and people’s knowledge, equality of all men, individual self-determination, legal equality of nations, and the final dissolution of national boundaries. In the “Zhi yan” Tan divided the world into three hierarchically structured geographical-civilizational regions (san qu). The “countries of the Chinese sphere” (Huaxia zhi guo) included China, Korea, Vietnam, and Burma and formed the region of intrinsic civilization. Although Tan pointed in his early writings to the penetration of the world by Western imperialist powers and became aware of the threat to the Chinese sphere from outside, he still saw this historical process from the position of the putative superiority of Chinese civilization which was governed by imaginary cosmic principles.
