On the Cataloging and Publication of the Archives of the 1911 Revolution

The 1911 Revolution overthrew the rule of the Qing dynasty and founded a republic in China, thus putting an end to the more than 2,000-year-long feudal monarchy; it was a revolution of major importance and was unprecedented in Chinese history. This revolution greatly shook the various classes of Chinese society and attracted the world's attention. Scholars, Chinese and foreign, have made tremendous efforts in the study of this revolution during the past seventy years. There has been such a multitude of treatises that people have lost count of them. If one traces the course of development of the study, one will not have difficulty in realizing that the exploration of many new subjects and the opening of new research areas are often inseparable from the discovery of new historical documents.