WWI and the post-war reconstruction of the world order allowed the Chinese intellectual community to reimagine the world. The Esperanto movement gained traction in China in the aftermath of WWI, with Lu Xun and Zhou Zuoren translating works by the blind Russian poet Vasili Eroshenko, who became a symbol of cosmopolitanism. This chapter, set against the backdrop of the 1911 Revolution, and the aftermath of WWI, and through the example of Esperanto, explores the cosmopolitan and national currents in early twentieth-century China. While Cai Yuanpei, influenced by anarchism and Confucian cosmopolitanism, championed mutual aid as a pathway to global unity, Lu Xun remained skeptical, emphasizing the necessity of competition and evolution for national survival. They used Esperanto as an intermediary to translate and promote literature from small and oppressed nations and highlighted the struggles of oppressed nations and the complexities of liberation in a postcolonial world.