On the question of Rutherford being influenced by Hong, I have not thought of that possibility.
But here is a possible chinese influence on the once common slogan of the JWs - The New World Society. I wrote this sometime back.
The New World Society - back in the early 1950's the WTS started to use that term to describe the organisation of Jehovah's witnesses. I have not searched their literature to find the earliest use. However, in 1942 a book was released at the assemblies of that year, entitled "The New World Society". This was the first WTS book that did not reveal the author's name. Rutherford was still alive when planning for that book may have started, in any case it appears that Franz was ghost writing a lot of Rutherford's writing before Rutherford's death, so Franz may have written this book, perhaps as others, at the direction of Rutherford. BTW, I had a copy of the New World once. I found it rather unreadable.
Not too many years later the term started cropping up everywhere. Assemblies, A WTS translation of the Bible, labelled, "The New World Translation", a 1954 movie called, "The New World Society in Action". Another movie in 1956, entitled, "The Happiness of the New World Society" and in 1955, the Marley Cole hagiography, "Jehovahs Witnesses - The New World Society".
And then almost as suddenly the term was dropped and disappeared from use among Jehovah's happy people.
The term captured my imagination. It seemed to sum up our hopes and dreams of spreading the good news of the New World, across the globe and of a great throng of witnesses marching together, thru the imminent chaos of the armageddon, to emerge triumphant on the other side of the Armageddon storm and finding ourselves with millions of other survivors, under the clear blue skies of the triumphant kingdom of Jesus Christ.
One would think that this was an easy term to find in the bible, but not so. A few writers of the Bible make reference to a 'new heavens and a new earth', but one can only turn it into 'a new world society' by ignoring the basic meaning of the terms in Hebrew and Greek.
Such memories are part of my life, so it was with a sudden intellectual jolt that i saw in a text book I was using recently, a reference to, 'the anarchist new world society' (Spence, J.D., 'The Search for Modern China', 2nd edition, p 257.)
This 'anarchist new world society', had been founded in Paris, according to an essay by Ole Fossgard, by "a group of Chinese anarchists in Paris (who) established the Xin Shijie She (New World Society), which started the publication of the journal Xin Shiji (New Era) in 1907."
( http://www.hf.uio.no/ikos/forskning/forskningsprosjekter/chineseindividual/sub-projects/subopf.html )
Of course, there was also Aldous Huxley's "Brave New World" published in 1931, which has a different emphasis, but the Chinese use of the term preceded Huxley's book by some 20 years.
iI seemed a long stretch from a group of anarchist, Chinese students in Paris in that first decade of the 20th century, naming themselves, 'the New World Society' to the1953 mass assembly of witnesses, where Nathan Knorr called the witnesses, "the New World Society". But I wondered whether there could be a connection. So I set off to see if there was a connection. And, I soon found that it was possible to make a (possible) connection.
In the first decade of the 20th Century, under the guidance of Pastor C.T. Russell, the leadership group spent a lot of time in Europe, including Paris. These transatlantic trips were made on a frequent basis. J.F. Rutherford was often included in those journeys.
It is not beyond the realms of possibility that Rutherford could have heard of the term ' the New World Society' and used that term within the leadership enclave at Brooklyn. Both Russel and Rutherford were well aware of trends and happenings in the world of mankind. It was part of being aware (on the watch) for the "sign" of Christ's return.
Note this comment (from wikipedia) on the European Arnachist movement, such comments may well have attracted the attention of the WT leadership
Quote:
Comparison with European Anarchists .
The Paris and Tokyo groups were unanimous in their condemnation of Confucianism and in their advocacy of a social transformation. Although the European anarchist movement advocated social transformation, the Chinese anarchists stand out because of the primary importance they placed on the abolition of the old culture. European anarchists reserved some of their harshest critiques for Christianity, seen as one of the three pillars of authoritarianism, along with capitalism and the state. Chinese anarchists declared all-out war against Confucian culture, which they saw as a form of social control roughly analogous to western Christianity in its hegemonic penetration of society and proscription of social norms.
( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anarchism_in_China )
Note the 3 areas of authoritarian society attacked by European anarchists: the church, capitalism and politics. Now go to any of Rutherford's books from the 1920s and 1930s. Books like Vindication I, II and III and Light I and II and review the illustrations that adorn the books. Often the same three figures appear in cartoon-like drawings - bloated capitalists, dissolute religious figures and slimy politicians, all in lurid color, and all these figures often manipulated by a threatening cartoonish devil. The thrust of the message of hope is of a better future when greedy capitalists, lying priests and dishonest politicians have been vanquished from the earth.
I doubt that we are going to get access to WTS files anytime soon to, search for evidence of a connection between this group of Chinese Anarchists and Jehovah's happy people, but a connection does seem possible.
So did Joe Rutherford commit the term 'the New world Society', to memory one night over a few bottles of good French wine, as the HQ visitors and local witnesses talked about world events in Paris, France over a wonderful Parisian dinner? And later tell Franz to use it the book
It may have been.