Abstract: The conceptual transformation of “economics” has long been intertwined with Westernization and Europeanization in modern China. However, neither is a simple borrowing nor a natural evolution of Chinese traditional economics. The transformation is obviously featured by the sociocultural context of saving China and the influence from aboriginal economic thoughts. Various renditions of “economics” in modern China resonate with the transformational complexity. Although “jingji”, originating in China and being reintroduced from Japan, has been dominating economic discourse since then, Yan Fu's translation “jixue” for “economics”, on one hand, has been giving prominence to the social and disciplinary orientation in Western economics. In this paper, the author tries to posit Yan Fu's jixue within dual stratifications to set “economics” as a discipline in the late 19th and early 20th century, and further to reveal the initial formation of economic discourse in modern China.

Key words: jixue, economic concept, transformation