Worlds Apart: Recent Chinese Writing and Its Audiences (review)

Abstract

104 China Review International: Vol. ?, No. ?, Spring 1994 financial arrangements for the new "unofficial" organs created to handle "diplomatic " affairs, the number ofbranch offices for each group, security arrangements , and a host of other issues. Large or small, the problems were serious and delicate not only because the new arrangement was unprecedented but because it was essential to avoid ruffling the feathers ofthe leadership on both Taiwan and the China mainland. A major controversy emerged in this decade over the Joint Communiqué (August 17, 1982), a controversy that centered on whether this statement deviated from the Taiwan Relations Act. A strong supporter of the Act, Senator Frank Church of the Foreign Relations Committee, explained that the United States would resist the use of force and help Taiwan "to maintain a sufficient self-defense capability" (p. 252). The Communiqué, however, was said by critics to diminish Taiwan's security because oflimitations placed on U.S. arms sales to the island nation. The U.S. government maintained that its position was consistent with the Taiwan Relations Act, explaining that when the People's Republic of China agreed that a peaceful solution to the Taiwan question was its "fundamental policy," the U.S. announced that its arms sales to Taiwan would not exceed in "qualitative and quantitative terms, the level supplied in recent years," gradually reducing the sales and leading to a "final resolution" (p. 340). The controversies over these issues, resulting from the American effort to emphasize a peaceful path toward solving the Taiwan question while advancing the interests ofboth the Republic of China and the People's Republic of China, are evident in these documents, which, in general, have been carefully selected. Researchers engaging in further investigation into U.S.-China relations during this period will be well served by beginning with this volume. Leonard H. D. Gordon Purdue University Howard Goldblatt, editor. WorldsApart: Recent Chinese Writing and Its Audiences Armonk, New York: M. E. Sharpe, 1990. x, 253 pp. $39.95. copyright1994 by University of Hawai'i Press This book is structured in three parts, and the thirteen essays included offer the reader a spectrum of critical and analytical studies by first-rate scholars on contemporary writings from the China mainland, Taiwan, and Hong Kong. Grouped under "Part One: General Studies" are five essays that deal with problems ranging from interpretative strategies to a general survey ofliterary trends. "Part Two: Individual Authors" consists of five essays which address specific issues presented in contemporary drama, fiction, and poetry in these three Chinese communities. Reviews 105 In "Part Three: Reception" there are two essays that focus on English translations ofChinese literature and related issues in translation reception. The appendix essay at the end ofthe book attempts to clarify the concepts ofinterliterary and intraliterary processes involved in the study ofmodern Chinese literature. The essays in this bookwere first presented as papers at the 1986 Schloss Reisensburg conference on "The Commonwealth of Chinese Literature," and thus reflect the emerging comparative and contrastive trends in the study of Chinese writing from different Chinese communities. Scholars who are used to treating literature from the China mainland separately and differently from that ofTaiwan or Hong Kong might be stunned by the proposed dayitong(grand unification ) of Chinese writings under the concept of a commonwealth. This new perspective and new attempt to look at contemporary Chinese writings in a comprehensive way prove to be fruitful because they offer thoughtful insights into the experiences of contemporary Chinese writers in different communities and into the ways they address similar or different problems in the cultural and literary realms. The essays grouped under "General Studies" in Part One are demonstrations of solid scholarship, and in some cases provide a useful frame ofreference for the conceptualization of a commonwealth of Chinese writings. The editor Howard Goldblatt's "Introduction" discusses the major issues raised in the essays, while Joseph Lau's framework article, "Text and Context: Toward a Commonwealth of Modern Chinese Literature," offers an overview of theoretical issues and serves to clarify and define the conceptual framework of such a commonwealth. The reader will especiallybenefit a great deal from Joseph Lau's essay which, in addition to offering an insightful approach to...