{"title":"Chiang Kai-shek’s Politics of Shame: Leadership, Legacy, and National Identity in China by Grace C. Huang (review)","authors":"Patrick Fuliang Shan","doi":"10.1353/tcc.2022.0034","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1353/tcc.2022.0034","url":null,"abstract":"","PeriodicalId":42116,"journal":{"name":"Twentieth-Century China","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.6,"publicationDate":"2022-09-10","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"46283341","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"From Disillusioned Returned Youth to Party Propagandists: Rural Educated Youth and their Involvement in Rural Clubs in Southeast Shanxi, 1961–1965","authors":"Yidan Ren","doi":"10.1353/tcc.2022.0032","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1353/tcc.2022.0032","url":null,"abstract":"Abstract:In the period from 1961 to 1965, the Chinese Communist Party forced a vast number of rural educated youth to return to their countryside homes. Despite the party’s initial expectations, they had trouble readjusting to rural life. This merited political attention, as the scheme was associated with the party’s aim to cultivate revolutionary successors at the grassroots during the Socialist Education movement. The party therefore attempted to make use of the rural club, a popular cultural entity in the Chinese countryside, to transform the disillusioned rural educated youth into qualified grassroots propagandists. However, such transformation should not be understood as a mere top-down initiative. As this article demonstrates, rural educated youth enthusiastically participated in rural clubs. By leveraging their identity as simultaneously rural and educated, they proved themselves the ideal vehicle for ideological conditioning in the countryside, which enabled them to bargain with the party for upward mobility.","PeriodicalId":42116,"journal":{"name":"Twentieth-Century China","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.6,"publicationDate":"2022-09-10","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"47771149","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"World History and National Identity in China: The Twentieth Century by Xin Fan (review)","authors":"K. Ren","doi":"10.1353/tcc.2022.0035","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1353/tcc.2022.0035","url":null,"abstract":"The study of the politics and intellectual stakes of historical production has long been an important subfield in modern China studies. Xin Fan’s World History and National Identity in China is a valuable and unique addition to this literature. On the one hand, it shares the approach of recent studies in focusing not only on the politics of historical writing but also on the structural changes in the education system, the formation of academic disciplines, and the rise of modern print culture.1 On the other hand, this book spans the entire twentieth century and places its emphasis not on the historiography of China but on the development of world history (世界史 shijie shi) as an academic field from the late Qing to contemporary China. Furthermore, in using sources such as autobiographies, correspondence, and, importantly, archived personnel files and declassified secret reports, it sheds empathetic light on the “agency of non-Western world historians in writing history based on the lived experiences of some of the most significant Chinese world historians” (10). In the opening chapter, Fan locates the origins of modern Chinese world-historical writing in the late Qing, connecting long-standing Neo-Confucian and statecraft interests in compiling geographical knowledge of foreign realms to recent changes in the New Policies period under a reformed education system. This shift is evidenced in the work of Zhou Weihan (周维翰 1870–1910), a Changzhou scholar and physician, whose An Outline of Western History (西史綱目 Xishi gangmu), published in 1901 through the translation-oriented Shanghai press Jingshi wenshe (經世文社), represented a new temporally focused approach to world history. Instead of idealizing past epochs such as the Three Dynasties period like many other late Qing intellectuals, Zhou applied universal categories to his comparative analysis of ancient European and Chinese societies, while he held onto Confucian notions such as human nature (性 xing) in an “attempt to embrace the belief in a common humanity in overcoming the differences between the East and West” (48). For Fan, Zhou’s seemingly cosmopolitan approach would serve as both a standard and a challenge for later generations of Chinese scholars whose study of world history proceeded under vastly different professional and political circumstances. Professionalization, print capitalism, and the shifting priorities of Republican and wartime China serve as the context of chapter 2. Here, Fan focuses on Western-educated “returned students” who became university professors and practicing world historians. Although Chen Hengzhe (陳衡哲 1893–1976), who was notably the only renowned woman","PeriodicalId":42116,"journal":{"name":"Twentieth-Century China","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.6,"publicationDate":"2022-09-10","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"47513792","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"The Suicide of Miss Xi: Democracy and Disenchantment in the Chinese Republic by Bryna Goodman (review)","authors":"Ling-na Ma","doi":"10.1353/tcc.2022.0018","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1353/tcc.2022.0018","url":null,"abstract":"","PeriodicalId":42116,"journal":{"name":"Twentieth-Century China","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.6,"publicationDate":"2022-04-27","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"49293264","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Unspeakable Ecology: Eco-Science and Environmental Awareness Through Thick Inquiries, 1910S–1980S","authors":"Y. Meng","doi":"10.1353/tcc.2022.0022","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1353/tcc.2022.0022","url":null,"abstract":"Abstract:In identifying the modern origin of ecological studies, scholarship on \"ecological civilization\" (shengtai wenming) should have engaged with the fundamental question, that is, What are the modern and contemporary modes of our ethical, political, and economic relationship with coexisting nonhuman species and the planet Earth? Or, more definitely, Can or cannot the possibility of that coexistence be conceived in modern and contemporary terms? This paper draws critical attention to the fact that the cultural and conceptual formation of ecology (shengtai), a distinctly modern historical invention, generates more inquiries than answers. Questioning the possibility of speaking about ecology from within the politics of Green rhetoric, this paper engages the contested ethical and epistemological principles that constituted the foundation of ecological knowledge as well as the conceptual orientations to ecology in China from the 1910s to the 1980s.","PeriodicalId":42116,"journal":{"name":"Twentieth-Century China","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.6,"publicationDate":"2022-04-27","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"47574151","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Two Approaches to Writing the Cultural Revolution","authors":"Yan Bo","doi":"10.1353/tcc.2022.0028","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1353/tcc.2022.0028","url":null,"abstract":"Abstract:Two approaches to writing the history of the Cultural Revolution have been adopted in two recent books. While Alessandro Russo interprets the Cultural Revolution as a reexamination of Communism happening only in the upper echelon, Dong Guoqiang and Andrew G. Walder document exclusively how the Cultural Revolution unfolded at the bottom level of Chinese society. This essay questions the applicability of Russo's approach and calls for a combination of the two approaches to achieve an enhanced understanding of China's Cultural Revolution.This essay discusses the following works. Dong Guoqiang and Andrew G. Walder. A Decade of Upheaval: The Cultural Revolution in Rural China. Princeton Studies in Contemporary China. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2021. 225 pp. Hardcover ($95.00), softcover ($29.95) or e-book. | Alessandro Russo. Cultural Revolution and Revolutionary Culture. Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 2020. 351 pp. Hardcover ($104.95), softcover ($28.95), or e-book.","PeriodicalId":42116,"journal":{"name":"Twentieth-Century China","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.6,"publicationDate":"2022-04-27","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"48378848","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Top Secrets Revealed: The Political Ambitions of China's Last Emperor, 1933–1937","authors":"Jian-hua Yuan","doi":"10.1353/tcc.2022.0024","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1353/tcc.2022.0024","url":null,"abstract":"Abstract:Using the documentation of secret meetings recorded by Hayashide Kenjirō, \"Genpi kaiken roku,\" this article analyzes the political ambitions of the last emperor of China, Puyi. The image of a puppet clings to Puyi, the leader of Manchukuo, as does the opinion that he planned to utilize the Japanese to revive the Qing dynasty. I challenge these notions. This article deems Puyi a more ambitious and autonomous individual who primarily identified with Japan's imperial projects in China Proper. Chronologically analyzing Puyi's conversations with the Kantō Army's four supreme commanders between 1933 and 1937, I argue that Puyi's desire for autonomous power and a lack of good information from the outside world motivated his support of Japan's expansion in China and prompted him to identify Manchukuo's interests with Japan's. Puyi frequently influenced Manchukuo's policies, confirming that his political role was more prominent than many have imagined.","PeriodicalId":42116,"journal":{"name":"Twentieth-Century China","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.6,"publicationDate":"2022-04-27","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"42526197","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Making the \"Good Government\" with the \"Good People\": Collaboration Between General Wu Peifu and Endeavor Intellectuals, 1920–1922","authors":"V. Guo","doi":"10.1353/tcc.2022.0023","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1353/tcc.2022.0023","url":null,"abstract":"Abstract:This article examines the collaborative project between Wu Peifu and a group of prominent intellectuals led by Hu Shi at Peking University to create a \"Good Government\" (Haozhengfu) between 1920 and 1922. Challenging the conventional historiography that has either exaggerated the antithesis between warlords and intellectuals or studied them as two separate groups with little social, political, and ideological overlap, this article argues that the Good Government movement is a tangible testimony to their active and constructive ideological engagement and to their intensive networking, through which their social and cultural capital was quickly converted into political power and impact. Even when their collaboration broke down due to their different views on federalism, Wu Peifu's political thoughts still formed an integral part of the prevailing ideological commitment toward the Good Government.","PeriodicalId":42116,"journal":{"name":"Twentieth-Century China","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.6,"publicationDate":"2022-04-27","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"47679118","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Listening to the Enemy: Radio Consumption and Technological Culture in Maoist China, 1949–1965","authors":"Yu Wang","doi":"10.1353/tcc.2022.0025","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1353/tcc.2022.0025","url":null,"abstract":"Abstract:Drawing from a substantial body of government archives and internal reports from mainland China, the United States, and Taiwan, this article examines how daily transnational and technological communication practices among the masses impacted the making of political culture in Maoist China. The article begins with an overview of the pervasiveness of listening to enemy radio—the overseas radio stations unsanctioned by the government of the People's Republic of China (PRC)—followed by an in-depth analysis of the historical legacies, ideological and cultural rationales, and structural deficiencies that contributed to that popularity. It then explores how local radio users' responses and active reaching out to enemy radio stations in the 1950s and 1960s prompted the competing geopolitical powers facing off across the Taiwan Strait to adjust their government policies. Ultimately, this article argues that listening to enemy radio as a technological counterculture was instrumental to the making of socialist subjectivity, arising from the populace's appropriation of the strategic interplay between the PRC government and its Cold War rivals.","PeriodicalId":42116,"journal":{"name":"Twentieth-Century China","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.6,"publicationDate":"2022-04-27","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"42794342","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}