Sinological Shadows: The State of Modern China Studies in the U.S.

Abstract

Although the People's Republic of China is not a major world power, it is a major problem for the world, and a major problem for U.S. foreign policy. Obviously, our statesmen cannot deal with China without a good understanding of China's current policies and political trends, which in turn depends on an adequate understanding of China's history and society in modern times. Yet it is doubtful that our scholars have achieved such an understanding, much less suggested reliable guidelines for the layman in and out of government. As a result, President Carter's recent decision to normalize relations with Beijing was made without a clear public discussion of the price he proposed to pay Beijing for normalization, and the U.S. today still lacks a clear sense of how far to go either in pursuing friendship with Beijing or in developing its commitment to the security of Taiwan. Between 1958 and 1970 nearly $41 million was poured into our institutions of higher education in support of Chinese studies. Has this investment paid off to produce high quality scholarship and a corps of reliable China experts? No. Few of the American-born scholars working on modern China have a strong grasp of the Chinese language, able both to speak it well and to read works from different genres. Few avoid the misunderstandings that arise from restricting their training to a compartmentalized subfield. Many study the politics or doctrine of the Communists with little grasp of China's intellectual and political tradition aside from some textbook generalizations, even though the Chinese figures they study have all been exceedingly conscious of this tradition. Conversely, those scholars immersed in the complexities of the tradition are seldom able to make their insights meaningful and accessible to those concerned with the issues of the modern period.