Defiant Retreat: The Relocation of Middle Schools to China’s Interior, 1937–1945

Abstract

This study focuses on the migration of middle school students to the interior of China after the Japanese invaded in 1937. It argues that the Guomindang (GMD) central government was generally successful in handling the 500,000 displaced students, making substantial efforts to monitor, register, educate, and provide training for them, as well as establishing government-run “national middle schools” during the war. Meanwhile, the GMD also exerted a strong influence on course curriculum, instructing educators how to implement the Three People’s Principles and other party doctrines in classrooms. These processes expanded the state’s hand in secondary education and allowed the GMD to include refugee students and schools in its wartime narrative of progress, praising the students’ patriotic participation in defying the Japanese occupiers and their contribution to “national reconstruction” (jianguo). However, there were still many challenges. Refugee students, teachers, and principals forcibly converted Buddhist temples into schools and clashed with local monks, farmers, villagers, and even the GMD military. With schools merging and moving inland, relocation also provided opportunities for unscrupulous administrators and teachers to exploit the situation for themselves, as government reports reveal many cases of corruption in the wartime schools.