SCIENCE, MEDICINE, AND CONFUCIANISM IN THE MAKING OF CHINA AND SOUTHEAST ASIA — LIM BOON KENG AND THE OVERSEAS CHINESE, 1897–1937

Abstract

AbstractHistorians have argued for the importance of Japan and the United States in shaping the trajectory of science and medicine in Republican China, especially in the regions of North China. This article argues that another understated group of individuals—Overseas Chinese—were influential in leading institutions of Western medicine in China, as well as sharing the latest science knowledge they acquired in the West to audiences in China and Southeast Asia. An example was Lim Boon Keng, a doctor born in Singapore and educated at Edinburgh, who came to lead the first department of health in the Republican government as well as Xiamen University in pre-war China. Chinese reformers as Sun Yat-sen, Tan Kah Kee, Liang Qichao, and Kang Youwei were attracted by Lim’s medical expertise as well as his active participation in the reform movement in Southeast Asia, and invited Lim to participate in the development of medicine and politics in China proper. In addition, Lim’s unique blending of a historical view of ...