Kuomintang Government Research Articles

Expansion and Restriction: Divergent Paths Towards Modernizing Family Laws in Japan and China, 1868–1930

Abstract Before their encounters with Western powers in the nineteenth century, Chinese and Japanese societies were deeply embedded in traditional family systems that formed the backbone of their social structures. However, with the onset of legal modernization, these nations adopted nearly diametrically opposed strategies for reforming their customary family laws. Primarily, Japanese legal reformers under the Meiji regime bolstered the family’s authority and emphasized its political role. In stark contrast, the Chinese legal reformers during the late Qing and Republican periods curtailed family authority and diminished its significance. While the modernization of family laws in Japan and China has been the subject of scholarly research respectively, the differences between the two countries and the reasons behind their distinct approaches have not been adequately explored. This Article seeks to fill this gap. Through a comparative analysis of the legislative histories of both countries, this Article argues that their divergent paths stemmed from differences in the historical functions of family systems and the modern political contexts encountered by legal reformers during the period of legal modernization. In Japan, the family system was historically politically connected with the state, and the Meiji regime solidified its control over this system through modern codification efforts. Consequently, Meiji political elites saw the integration of the populace into the new absolutist imperial regime as advantageous, leveraging the political loyalty of families to achieve this. In contrast, the Chinese family system had become politically disconnected from the state by the late imperial era. In the aftermath of the Republican Revolution, the Guomindang regime navigated a landscape of rival political forces that significantly challenged its authority. Political elites aimed to dismantle customary family laws to weaken the traditional family system, which they viewed as a threat to governmental centralization and societal unity. They also sought to project a modern, liberal image to garner wider political support.

Hybrid Baihua 白話 as a Third Space: East Asian Anticolonial Writing in Modern China

After the colonial invasion of East Asia, numerous Koreans, Vietnamese, and Japanese went to China and began a long anticolonial struggle. During this period, they chose to write and communicate in a fourth language, Baihua 白話, for anticolonial purposes. While writing in Baihua, they brought the grammar and word order of their mother tongues into Baihua, creating “Korean-style vernacular Chinese,” “Japanese-style vernacular Chinese,” and “Vietnamese-style vernacular Chinese.” The emergence of these hybridized Baihuas is related to the anticolonialists’ cooperation with the Kuomintang government, the oppression of the Kuomintang government, and the authority of Literary Sinitic and Baihua. As a form of subversion of and resistance to the authority of Literary Sinitic and Baihua, the hybrid Baihuas thus constructed served as an anticolonial third space.

The Early Development History of the Relationship between Taiwanese Nationalism and Chinese Nationalism

This article aims to sort out the historical context of the first eighty years of the emergence and development of Taiwanese nationalism and explore the relationship between Taiwanese nationalism and Chinese nationalism. Taiwanese nationalism originated during the Japanese occupation. The unequal rule of the Japanese colonial government on the Taiwanese islanders united the Taiwanese people and formed an ideological community. At the same time, the Japanese government brought modern political concepts and environment to the island of Taiwan, providing fertile soil for the development of nationalism. During the Japanese occupation, Taiwan's nationalism was China's nationalism. The people of Taiwan identify with the cultural and ideological traditions of the Chinese nation and hope to return to the embrace of the motherland. However, the Kuomintang government's violent and corrupt rule over the Taiwanese people after liberation greatly disappointed the islanders. They gradually realized that the Kuomintang government was backward and that Taiwan could no longer become part of mainland China. After the February 28th Incident, Taiwanese nationalism further developed. Unlike Chinese nationalism, the Taiwanese formed a new nation of political and cultural self-determination.

Limited Coercive Power: How to Complete Taiwan's Land Reform under the Authoritarian System

In transforming modernization in developing countries and regions, the primary problem is social integration, and the key to integration is land reform. This paper uses the process tracking method to explore the land reform in Taiwan after the war. In terms of initial conditions, Taiwan belongs to the agricultural society. After the war, it got rid of Japan's colonial rule and then embarked on the authoritarian development modeled by the Chiang Kai-shek government. The Kuomintang regime in Taiwan began to institutionalize as early as the mainland period. After returning to Taiwan, the government can maintain high independence and establish a systematic communication channel with the grassroots society, with the landlord as the leading class. In the reform process, the Kuomintang regime had a strong ability to act and promote cooperation between landlords and finally achieved a more thorough land reform. Therefore, for developing countries, because the situation they are facing is different from that of the previously developed countries, having solid political authority and further improving the level of institutionalization on this basis is an essential condition for successful land reform.

Propaganda of Mainland China and Taiwan Toward Overseas Chinese in Southeast Asia During 1950s

In the early stage of the People’s Republic of China, both the People’s Republic of China (PRC) and retreat of Kuomintang (KMT) tried their efforts to win the overseas Chinese immigrants’ support through a series of foreign policies and legislation activities. Since its establishment, the PRC had constantly increased its efforts to promote its political influence and emotional connections among Chinese immigrants overseas. To this end, the PRC government had adjusted its political policies during the land reformation. On the other side, KMT government tried to contain its counterpart’s political influence among these immigrants and to restrict the monetary funding flowing back to Chinese mainland. In fact, the relevant KMT policies not only were impractical in action but also had caused a series of tension and concerns in major countries at Southeast Asian. In this paper, we analyze documentary records kept from British Foreign Office and conduct a comparative assessment between the PRC and KMT’ s foreign policies targeting those Chinese immigrants in Southeast Asian and propose political options and diplomatic strategies to deal with such situation. Our study intends to explore foreign policy options available in Chinese and British foreign policies toward Chinese oversea immigrants residing in Southeast Asia.

Rent Reduction in Hunan and Government-Gentry Conflicts after the Victory in the War of Resistance against Japan

Abstract After the victory in the War of Resistance against Japan, the rural economy of Hunan province was in decline. In southern provinces, where per capita arable land was minimal and the proportion of tenant farmers considerable, the tenancy system was notably harsh. In 1945, the Guomindang government implemented a one-year rent reduction policy in the recovered territories. However, due to real difficulties, Hunan province postponed its implementation until 1946 and again enacted a rent limit protection policy for tenants in 1947. Nevertheless, with the establishment of the Hunan Provincial Senate in 1946, provincial senators, representing local gentry interests, engaged in a conflict with the rent reduction ordinance put forth by the Hunan provincial government. The conflicting understandings between the two sides about the relationship between the existing system and rent reduction led to an impasse in the legislative process. Eventually, due to the provincial government’s compromises, the rent reduction ordinances were repeatedly revised and ultimately became hollow in substance. At the grassroots level, seeing this situation, implementation was delayed, turning the ordinances into mere paper decrees. Throughout this process, the tenant farmers, deceived by the landlords, resented the government, and the credibility of the Guomindang government was gradually depleted.

A Political Historical Examination of the Tianhu Embankment Case at Dongting Lake (1937–1949)

Abstract Water disputes between Hunan and Hubei provinces persisted from the late Qing Dynasty to the Republic of China, and the Tianhu Embankment case stands as a representative conflict between the two provinces concerning lake and river management. The dispute originated from the construction of embankments by people from Hunan in the Datong Lake, a sub-lake of Dongting Lake. People from Hubei argued that the embankments significantly reduced the flood storage capacity of Dongting Lake and that river floods would directly inundate the riverside counties. On the contrary, people from Hunan argued that the construction of the Tianhu Embankment did not hinder water management and that the key to solving the problem of water disasters lay in dredging rivers and not in destroying the fertile farmland that tens of thousands of people relied on for survival. From 1936 until the collapse of the Guomindang government’s rule on mainland China, a dispute lasting over a decade unfolded over the issue of dismantling the Tianhu Embankment. Both provinces used various tactics, such as leveraging local interpersonal networks, creating public opinion through news media, and using “people-oriented” rhetoric. This issue was frequently mentioned in official correspondences between the Executive Yuan of the Guomindang government and the two provinces. Numerous high-ranking officials from both provinces were involved in the dispute, and it even escalated to the point where Chiang Kai-shek had to intervene. Though the case remained unresolved for a long time, it was temporarily concluded at the end of 1947 with the symbolic dismantling of nine outlets in the major dikes of the Dongheng East Islet and the Orphan Embankment. However, these outlets were soon refilled by people from Hunan, making the case an unresolved legacy of the Guomindang Government on the mainland. Reviewing the development and outcome of this case, the Guomindang Government always appeared as a conciliator in the dispute, but ended up yielding ground and making a muted exit. The helplessness and impotence that the Nationalist Government displayed in resolving this problem vividly illustrate its weak governance capability.

The Qingdao Pattern and U.S.-Chinese Crisis Management: The KMT, the CCP, and the U.S. Marines in Qingdao during the Chinese Civil War (1945–1949)

Abstract After the Second World War ended in 1945, the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) tried to seize Qingdao, a major port city on the Shandong Peninsula. The landing of U.S. Marines there foiled the CCP's attempt. With the support of the Kuomintang (KMT)—the CCP's main enemy—the U.S. Marines stayed in Qingdao throughout the civil war in China, from late 1945 to mid-1949. Drawing on archival sources from China, the United States, the former Soviet Union, Great Britain, and Japan, this article explores CCP-KMT-U.S. interactions regarding the presence of U.S. Marines in Qingdao. The KMT-CCP civil war influenced—and was influenced by—the presence of the Marines in Qingdao. The KMT government depended on the U.S. Marines for security, whereas the CCP, opposing the U.S. presence, took a tough propaganda stance but remained cautious in its actions. The United States ultimately decided to withdraw the Marines to avoid overt involvement in the Chinese civil war. This type of triangular engagement influenced the future pattern of Cold War confrontations among the three parties.

“State Involution” Revisited: An Analysis of the Reformulation of Townships in Huangyan County, Zhejiang, 1946–1947

Abstract The theory of “state involution,” first proposed by Prasenjit Duara, has been used to explain the expansion of power of the modern Chinese state. However, some scholars argue, on the basis of regional studies, that the concept of state involution was at most only applicable to North China and did not pertain to the practice of the Guomindang regime, which had built a complete administrative system down to the grassroots level. In 1946, Zhejiang province decided to reduce the number of townships to cut fiscal expenditures. With Huangyan county as a regional case, we investigate the implementation of the policy of reducing the number of townships and find that the theory of state involution is still applicable to explaining grassroots politics in Zhejiang under the Guomindang, showing that the theory has a wider range of applicability than some scholars believe. The development of state involution in this period is closely related to the governance capacity and patterns of the Guomindang regime at the grassroots level. It is thus inappropriate to see just the establishment and expansion of a grassroots administrative system as a sign that state involution had been overcome.

Study of Chiang Kai-shek's Foreign Policy during the Anti-Japanese War

Around 1903' s, China faced the huge threat of Japan's full-scale invasion of China and the serious struggle against Japanese aggression. The "two-pronged" policy of unremitting struggle against Japan and seeking international assistance has become the focus of Nanjing National Government headed by Chiang Kai-shek. The Soviet Union had made great efforts to aid China, but because of Chiang Kai-shek's anti-Soviet policy and Britain and France's war in Europe, Chiang Kai-shek only hoped for the support of the United States. In 1938, after the negotiation between China and Britain on the British loan to China failed, Chiang Kai-shek decisively adjusted his wartime foreign policy, recalled Wang Zhengting, who was not very popular with the United States, reused pro-American people, and appointed Hu Shi, a famous international scholar with high prestige, as ambassador to the United States. As the only legitimate government in China at that time, the Chinese Kuomintang government, in addition to establishing the national anti-Japanese national united front on the basis of Kuomintang Communist cooperation in politics, cooperated militarily with the front battlefield of the Kuomintang and the battlefield behind the enemy opened and led by our party to jointly resist the enemy and fight against the Japanese aggressors. In terms of diplomacy, the Kuomintang government also actively carried out diplomatic activities and sought assistance from the international community to support China's cause of anti-Japanese war.

The Role of the 88th Independent Infantry Brigade in the Anti-Japanese War

The 88th Independent Infantry Brigade in the Far East is the only unit in the history of the Communist Party of China and the history of the Chinese Communist Army that was reorganized into the Soviet Army. In the operation of the Soviet Army dispatching troops to the Northeast of China, the teaching brigade of Northeast Anti-Japanese United Army entered the Northeast as an advance force to perform some special tasks such as guidance, translation, reconnaissance, military representatives of the Soviet garrison and so on. In addition, in accordance with the instructions of the CPC Central Committee, the teaching brigade of Northeast Anti-Japanese United Army competed with the Kuomintang regime for the actual control of the Northeast under extremely perilous conditions, and quickly completed the «Three Constructions» (Party Construction, Army Construction, and Political Construction), which made an exceedingly special contribution to the victory of the Anti-Japanese War and the liberation of the Northeast by the CPC.

The initial period of the sino-japanese war 1937-1939

The article provides political assessments of the attitude of German military specialists to the processes of the initial period of the Sino-Japanese War. The authors are based on previously little-known documents from the Central Archive of the Ministry of Defense of Russia, some of these documents are put into circulation for the first time. The article reflects the struggle of ideologies on the territory of China during its military clash with Japan. The authors, based on German documents, show the harsh anti-communist nature of Japanese policy in the occupied Chinese territories, and also address the problem of Japanese chauvinism in the late 1930s. The complexity of relations between the Japanese military and representatives of the political and economic elites of China at the initial stage of the Sino-Japanese War led to the support of the Chinese bourgeoisie for the Kuomintang regime, which weakened the position of Chinese collaborators. The article shows the failure of the strategy of the Japanese occupation authorities aimed at splitting the Chinese society. The article reflects the role of Alexander von Falkenhausen at the initial stage of the Sino-Japanese War. The authors highlight the issues of strategic miscalculations of the Japanese high command and shortcomings in the strategy of Chiang Kai-shek.

Pages from the History of the Democratic League of China in the Late Republican Period

This article concerns the origins, development and activities of one of the oldest Chinese democratic parties — the Democratic League of China from its inception to the formation of the People's Republic of China in 1949. New documents and materials discovered in the Russian State Archive of Socio-Political History, in particular, the Bulletins of the Information Bureau of the Central Committee of the All-Union Communist Party of Bolsheviks on foreign policy issues, shed light on little-studied questions about the role and place of this democratic organization in the Chinese revolution. Under patriotic slogans, the Democratic League united in its ranks both non-partisan public figures and political parties and groups with various views, from nationalist to pro-communist. Despite the diverse political composition of small parties and groups, the league turned into a coalition trying to find a “third way” between the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) and the ruling Kuomintang party. The growing authoritarianism of the Kuomintang leader Chiang Kai-shek and the implementation of pro-Japanese policies by the Kuomintang members undermined the foundations of the national anti-Japanese united front and undermined the war of resistance. These circumstances repelled the country's patriotic forces from the Kuomintang. The Kuomintang's suppression of the democratic movement led to a reorientation of the Democratic League's policies. The League publicly announced cooperation with the CCP until the complete collapse of the reactionary Kuomintang government, for democracy, peace and independence of the country. The work of the Democratic League helped to unite the broad groups of the population into the patriotic movement for a new China. After the formation of the People's Republic of China, at the suggestion of Mao Zedong, the league was preserved, its leaders received posts in the government. Currently, members of the Democratic League are mainly engaged in cultural and educational work.

태평양전쟁 초기 중국의 팽창주의와 미국의 한반도 신탁통치 결정(1941~1943)

After the outbreak of the Pacific War, the importance of China on the Asian battlefield had greatly increased as Britain and the U.S. were on the defensive. The Kuomintang government took the opportunity of China’s rise in international status to try to dominate the issues regarding the independence of Asian colonies so as to ensure China’s leadership in Asia after the War. With regard to Korea, Chiang Kai-shek actively sought a commitment to Korean independence and recognition of the Provisional Government of the Republic of Korea in Chungking by the Great Allied Powers, with the primary purpose of preventing the development of Soviet-supported Korean group in postwar Korea. BR The U.S. policy toward Korea, in the earlier stages of the War, was gradually developed in response to these demands from China. Considering China’s active demands in Korea, the U.S. agreed to Korean independence but refused to recognize the Provisional Government of Korea. The consideration of Soviet interests was the main reason why the U.S. refused. The U.S. thought that the Soviet Union also had significant geographical and historical interests in Korea and therefore believed that the Soviet Union would not be absent from the post-war negotiation table on the Korean issue. In late 1942, Chiang took advantage of the serious crisis in the Soviet Union during the Battle of Stalingrad to make more aggressive demands to Roosevelt to exclude the Soviet Union from the Korean issue. Chiang’s positive attitude toward the Korean issue alerted the U.S. to Chiang’s territorial ambitions for postwar Korea. This concern of the U.S. over Chiang’s expansionism added urgency to the decision of international trusteeship over Korea.

대만 한류 전개 과정과 특징

Korean Wave in Taiwan has been developed in earnest since 2000. Korean Wave in Taiwan did not happen in a short period of time. Since the 1960s, cultural exchanges have taken place in earnest, and the accumulated exchanges were named Korean Wave after 2000. Thus, this study goes beyond a cross-sectional study limited to after 2000, and expands its point to after the Imperial Japan’s forced occupation period. Research on Korean Wave in Taiwan has been intermittent so far. However, previous studies have been focused on Korean Wave research in the 2000s. Previous studies can be divided into two main categories. One is on the Korean Wave phenomenon, and the other is on the impact of Korean Wave on Taiwan. Information on the Korean Wave boom that occurred in the 2000s can be provided through previous studies so far. However, research on Korean Wave before the 2000s has not yet been conducted. It was melodramas such as “Love Me Once Again” and “The One Love” that became the origins of Korean Wave in Taiwan. After the diplomatic severance in 1992, until the early 2000s, many human and material exchanges were blocked for political and diplomatic reasons, but Korean cultural contents were consumed underground even when the diplomatic relations were cut off. The first purpose of this study is to examine the trajectory of Korean Wave and its meaning in Taiwan from the mid- 1940s to the 1980s. The second purpose is to examine the characteristic phenomena and causes that Korean Wave is not widely spread and is stagnant although it has maintained a stable popularity in Taiwan. This study will help to broadly understand Korean Wave in its historical and cultural context, and also give a chance to read information about Taiwan’s history and culture and the foundations of the Kuomintang government’s cultural policy.

O vliyanii ubijstva kitajskogo politika i inzhenera Chzhan Shen'fu na situaciyu v Man'chzhurii

On January 16th, 1946, Zhang Shenfu, special commissioner of the Kuomintang (KMT) government for the reception of industrial and mining enterprises in Manchuria, together with his entourage, was murdered at Lishizhai Station near Fushun on their train back to Shenyang. The KMT played on this issue in the newspapers for it happened in the Soviet sector, lambasting the Soviet Union and the Chinese Communist Party (CCP). The CCP, on the other hand, used print media as a tool to expose the fact that the KMT newspapers had incited the masses to demonstrate against the Soviet Union and the CCP. The Zhang Shenfu incident mirrored the complex conflicts of interest between the Soviet Union and the CCP. and the KMT.

Securing Taiwan: Separating the Two Sides of the Taiwan Strait in Japan’s China Policy

ABSTRACT From the early 1950s to the early 1970s, Japan adhered to a policy of “Securing Taiwan” to safeguard its national interests and security. This policy was intended to protect Taiwan from China’s annexation and keep it in the Western bloc. In this article, I illustrate how conservatives in Japan pursued the policy both before and after its normalisation of diplomatic ties with Mainland China in the early 1970s. After the signing of the San Francisco Treaty in 1951, some in Japan began looking for opportunities to convince the Kuomintang regime in Taiwan to give up its claim to represent all of China and accept its true status as the ruler of Taiwan and the Penghu Islands. Securing Taiwan became one of Japan’s strategic goals and entailed separating politics from the economy in its foreign policy towards China. When Sino–Japanese diplomatic relations were restored in 1972, Japan denied the claim of Taiwan (the Republic of China) to represent all of China by recognising the Mainland (the People’s Republic of China). At the same time, Japan demanded that China recognise Japan’s right to maintain economic and cultural exchanges with Taiwan, so that the Securing Taiwan policy could be continued in the new era.

20세기 초 서양 학문·사상의 중국적 변용 - 陶行知의 生活敎育을 중심으로 -

This is a study on Tao Xingzhi the most active and free-spirited public educator during the period of Guomindang government in Nanjing. Xiaozhuang(曉莊) School, Shanhai-gongxuetuan(山海工學團), and Yucai(育才) School that he ran represented the education dissemination movement that were far from Guomindang’s education policy. Therefore, this study examines Tao Xingzhi’s Life Education Theory and Mass Education Movement from the perspective of transformation and sinicization of the western sciences and thoughts.<BR> Tao Xingzhi as an educator and anti-Japanese activist showed his devotion to the public, creativity for education, and enthusiasm and actions to save his nation. He was ideologically based on democracy and nationalism, and emphasized real actions and directivity toward the public rather than ideological pursuits. The Life Education Theory was suggested as an educational model for China’s rural area by unifying Dewey’s pragmatism and Wang Yangming’s knowledge-action unity. Specifically, he pursued that “teaching, learning, and practice are combined into one,” which sought to match knowledge and labor in life. This was realized within Xiaozhuang School’s rural education movement and Shanhai-gongxuetuan’s and Yucai School’s education dissemination movement. Throughout the process, ‘Yiyouzhi(藝友制)’ and ‘Little Teacher System(小先生制)’ were set as main educational methods. Yiyouzhi was derived from apprenticeship, and Little Teacher System was the real practice of the way in which one learns a thing and then transmits it to others.<BR> During the Second Sino-Japanese War, Tao Xingzhi was very active for the anti-Japanese movement. He thought that the national liberation and the people’s liberation were not separable, so he was very much interested in educating farmers and laborers and strived for freedom of speechㆍpublicationㆍassemblyㆍassociation. He criticised Nanjing Government’s educational policy, but did not deny customs and ethics, and Goumintang itself. He overcame traditional education, and propelled Mass Education Movement depending on Life Education Theory which he transformed the pragmatist education into China’s circumstance.<BR> Tao Xingzhi did not put individual freedom and equality ahead of national security. Nevertheless, he showed an educator’s perception that he did not give up the minimum indispensable freedom directly related to human survival and creativity. He was both ideologically and politically unbiased. He was, however, a China-first pragmatic educator who was interested in any ideology for the survival of the people and the revival of the nation.

The Soviet–Japanese Neutrality Pact of April 13, 1941: China's response

The subject of this research is response of the government, political parties, and society of the Republic of China to signing the Neutrality Pact between the USSR and Japan on April 13, 1941 &amp;ndash; one of the crucial bilateral agreements of the World War II, which entailed fundamental changes to the Far Eastern international system. The Soviet-Japanese Neutrality Pact negatively affected the relations between the Soviet Union and the Republic of China. The goal of this work is to objectively assess the impact of the Soviet-Japanese Neutrality Pact of April 13, 1941 upon the domestic and foreign policy of the Chinese government, as well as further development of the Sino-Soviet relations. The novelty of this work consists in the fact that based on the poorly studied Russian and foreign documentary materials, the author examines the questions that have been rarely touched upon within the Russian historiography, such as: China&amp;rsquo;s response to conclusion of the Neutrality Pact between the USSR and Japan; its effect upon Sino-Soviet relations. The conclusion is made that the Soviet-Japanese Neutrality Pact of April 13, 1941, which marked the most difficult moment of the Sino-Japanese War, was a psychological blow to China. The position of the Kuomintang government was ambivalent: on the one hand, it refrained from the public anti-Soviet propaganda; while on the other hand, used dissatisfaction of China&amp;rsquo;s population to enhance pressure on its major political opponent &amp;ndash; China&amp;rsquo;s Communist Party. Therefore, the Sino-Soviet relations in general did not experience severe problems; however, the internal split in the Chinese society has worsened, which substantially undermined the formation of Second United Front.

Analysis on the Supplies Raising and Transportation of the Eighth Route Army Office in Chongqing

The second cooperation between the Kuomintang (KMT) and the Communist Party of China (CPC) contributed to the establishment of Eighth Route Army offices in various places. As an office established in the KMT-controlled area, the Chongqing office’s one key assignment was to request military pay and supplies from the Military Commission of the KMT Government, to seek assistance from international friends and overseas Chinese, and to procure and transport military and medical supplies, which played a helpful role for our army’s logistics supply.