Ming-Qing Studies in Japan: 1986

Abstract

In his notes from the Ming History Conference held in Tangkouzhen, Huangshan city, Anhui in October 1985, Mori Masao (Mindai shi kenkyū; 14) describes how lively discussion was sparked by Li Wenzhi's analysis of the extended duration of Chinese feudal society. The question was raised concerning the responsibility of Ming historical studies to eludicate this issue, especially because feudalism as a remnant of the past remains present in socialist China even as that nation presses ahead with the Four Modernizations. The conventional theory in the People's Republic holds that, through the abolition of feudal landholding during the land reform campaigns and the establishment of peasant landownership, the traditional structure of rural control was completely transformed. However, this theory is a purely political principle. The task of actually understanding the nature of the rural power structure on the basis of regional and historical variations has yet to be carried out thoroughly.