Modem China Research Articles

Between State and Society, Between Professionalism and Politics: The Shanghai Bar Association in Republican China, 1912–1937

Between State and Society, Between Professionalism and Politics: The Shanghai Bar Association in Republican China, 1912-1937 by Xiaoqun Xu The Shanghai Bar Association (Shanghai lushi gonghui) was one of the urban voluntary associations that came into existence in the tremendous outburst of popular activism following the outbreak of the 1911 Revolution and the founding of the Republic of China in 1912. Unlike many urban associations that had existed before or appeared after the revolution, the Shanghai Bar Association (SBA) was a professional association (ziyou zhiye tuanti) sanctioned by the Republican government, and therefore a legally established association (jatuan) or public association (gongtuan).1 The Shanghai Bar Association did start out for professional purposes. As the government regulations on lawyers during this period explicitly prohibited bar associations from undertaking matters other than those relating to judicial affairs, most of the Shanghai Bar Association's activities were directed at professionalization of lawyers and the institutionalization of the rule of law and judicial independence in the country. Yet, if professionalization per se was an apolitical goal, the demand for the rule of law and judicial independence often challenged the practices of the authorities and thus assumed political meanings. Furthermore, if the demand for the rule of law and judicial independence could be defended as judicial issues and therefore professional concerns for lawyers, the same could not be said of actions directed at national politics and the government's foreign policies. It was into these two areas, however, that the Shanghai Bar Association found itself being drawn in the 1920s and 1930s. This historical experience deserves attention, as it will enhance our understanding of the state -society relationship in Republican China.2 In the past fifteen years or so, the state-society relationship has been one of the central issues in the study of modem China. While social scientists are interested in the post-Mao reforms and the attendant developments in statesociety and central-local relations, historians have paid a great deal of attention to the rise of local elite activism in the late Qing and the Republican period.3 Scholars have little disagreement on the empirical evidence of local elite activism during the period, but they disagree on whether this development should be Twentieth-Century China, XXIV, NO.1 (November 1998): 1-29 2 Twentieth-Century China interpreted as the rise of civil society/public sphere.4 As Heath B. Chamberlain has summarized, scholars have generally dealt with the dilemma in applying the Western-derived concept to the Chinese scene in three ways: "to alter the concept to fit the landscape; to look for changes in the landscape to fit the concept; or to drop the concept entirely."5 This essay does not attempt to take one of the three positions by theorizing about civil society. Rather, with the Shanghai Bar Association as a case in point, I choose to study concrete forms various social groups adopted and specific avenues they pursued to interact with state in the Republican era. What we find is a symbiotic dynamics in a complex, evolving process of state-society interaction, in which state and society were mutually dependent and interpenetrated; legitimacy and authority on either side often contingent and contested; and private, group, and public interests and purposes overlapping and negotiated. To grasp the complexity of these relationships, let us pose a key question: Who represented the state at various points of time, say between 1912 and 1927 (the Beiyang period)? As we shall see, the state in the Beiyang period, especially in the post-Yuan Shikai years, was not a static, monolithic entity, but a fluid, shifting, and even multiple one, one that could be defined separately, negotiated with simultaneously, and ignored partially or temporarily by various societal actors at different times. To some extent it is the actions of social groups that defined the legitimacy of the state and the reach of state power. At the same time, society was not a static entity with fixed boundaries either. Social space was contested and earned by societal actors in their interaction with the state whose reach they helped to define. This was especially true of the newly emerging professional groups. As far as the Shanghai...

The Nationless State: The Search for a Nation in Modern Chinese Nationalism

The history of modem China, in the round, is recounted as a struggle for national reunification and liberation traced through the rise and fall of successive state formations in the imperial, early Republican (1912-27), Nationalist (1928-49) and Communist periods. What lends continuity to this history from one regime to the next is the motif of a unitary state reconstituting itself from the rubble of a disintegrating empire. Continuity derives as well from an implicit identification of the unitary state with the nation on whose behalf the state is presumed to act: the ideal of the unitary state is linked with the idea of a national people firstly in the story of their common struggle and secondly in the assumption that the one, the state, 'represents' the other, the nation. The nation is presumed to be as continuous as the hoary ideal of the unitary state itself despite the relatively recent vintage of the concept of the nation in China, despite the equally recent genesis of the idea that the state should represent anything at all, and despite the

Chine Moderne et Sinologie

La notion, à première vue si banale, d'« histoire de la Chine moderne » est en réalité grevée d'ambiguïtés. La question qui sera posée ici est la suivante : que peut signifier la notion de modernité aux yeux d'un historien du monde chinois pour qui ce dernier ne saurait être envisagé autrement que dans la longue durée, et dans un dialogue permanent avec les autres cultures ?L'historique des enseignements du Collège de France —l'institution à laquelle fut d'abord soumis le présent essai — révèle qu'aujourd'hui encore les intitulés des chaires dites d'« orientalisme » sont très rarement contraints dans les limites d'une « époque », ancienne, moderne, ou toute autre.

The Discourse of Race in Modem China

The Discourse of Race in Modem China

The Chinese Race-Nation

The Chinese Race-Nation

Hsu, The Rise Of Modern China

It has been more than twenty years since the first edition of Immanuel C.Y. Hsu's classic text on China's rise since the early Ch'ing dynasty, yet the book has remained almost unchallenged throughout that entire period. In fact, only recently with the publication of Jonathan Spence's The Search for Modern China, did serious students looking for a truly sophisticated and comprehensive overview of modem China even have an alternative.

Libraries and information services in China

After a brief historical introduction to Chinese library and information services, this paper describes their development and current status in modem China. The basic policy is empha sised, of using information as an aid to modernization. The core of the paper is a description of the main elements of the Chinese system of information, that is coordinated by ISTIC (Institute of Scientific and Technical Information of China), and of the system of libraries. There follow discussions of staff training and of the prospects of automation. The article is based on the personal experience of the author, who has been on the ISTIC staff for many years.

<sc>odoric y. k. wou</sc>. <italic>Militarism in Modem China: The Career of Wu P'ei-Fu, 1916–39</italic>. (Studies of the East Asian Institute, Columbia University.) Dawson: Australian National University Press; distributed by Archon Books, Hamden, Conn. 1978. Pp. 349. $22.50

Journal Article odoric y. k. wou. Militarism in Modem China: The Career of Wu P'ei-Fu, 1916–39. (Studies of the East Asian Institute, Columbia University.) Dawson: Australian National University Press; distributed by Archon Books, Hamden, Conn. 1978. Pp. 349. $22.50 Get access Wou Odoric Y. K.. Militarism in Modem China: The Career of Wu P'ei-Fu, 1916–39. (Studies of the East Asian Institute, Columbia University.) Dawson: Australian National University Press; distributed by Archon Books, Hamden, Conn. 1978. Pp. 349. $22.50. Harold Z. Schiffrin Harold Z. Schiffrin Hebrew University of Jerusalem Search for other works by this author on: Oxford Academic Google Scholar The American Historical Review, Volume 84, Issue 5, December 1979, Pages 1451–1452, https://doi.org/10.1086/ahr/84.5.1451 Published: 01 December 1979

Some Reflections on the Pfeffer- Walder "Revolution" in China Studies

This is my third attempt to produce a contribution to Modem China's Symposium on Mao and Marx. The first hasty reaction to Pfeffer's (1976) onslaught which I submitted in late May, in response to an invitation received in early April, was not published because it reached Los Angeles too long after deadline. Meanwhile, Pfeffer had introduced important substantive changes into his article, as compared to version on which my original comment was based. During summer, I undertook to revise this reply, but finally gave it up as a bad job because I could not find in Pfeffer's piece enough substance to justify serious discussion of issues which I felt readers deserved. At this juncture, Walder (1977) article arrived most opportunely to broaden terms of debate. Although it increases sheer volume of attacks (nearly 35,000 words) to which I am asked by editor to reply in 5,000 words, it does at least provide something you can get your teeth into. Let me now endeavour to do so. Since whole affair started with Pfeffer, it is with Pfeffer that I must begin. He present's his article as an effort to rid himself of insidious influence which my writings, and those of two other representatives of the field, have hitherto exercised on his ideological development. For someone who attaches so much importance to autonomy of superstructure, Pfeffer puts forward a curiously mechanical vision of progress in Western

Christ and China II

Closely aligned with the theme of the passio Christi apud Sinenses is that of the emulation of heroes. Mao led his nation in an extraordinary struggle to reshape the values, attitudes and ideas of an entire people. James Reston, senior editor of the New York Times was astounded by the ‘staggering thing that modem China is trying to do. They’re not trying merely to revolutionize people, and establish a sense of social conscience, but they’re really trying to change the character of these people. The place is one vast school of moral philosophy.’ Many methods pour into this enormous programme of thought-reform: preaching, teaching, wide-ranging techniques of persuasion from the outside, and orgies of self-criticism in which people testify to their conversion away from selfishness and incorrect ideas towards an exalted service of the masses in the name of the party. In all this ideological struggle to practise good deeds, overcome selfishness and reach true equality in a new society, the emulation of heroes (and sometimes of heroines) has emerged as a major means used on a nation-wide scale.I would like to explore this imitation of heroes. It would be silly to speak of it constituting an imitatio Christi apud Sinenses (imitation of Christ among the Chinese). Nevertheless, certain interesting Christological implications may emerge.

Social Enquiries in the People's Republic of China

After a period of vigorous growth in the 1930S and 1940s, sociology as an academic discipline in China ceased to exist soon after the establishment of the People's Republic. During a brief period of free expression in 1957, some of the former sociologists sought a place for sociology within the framework of socialism. Their attempt failed as they tried to link the revival of sociology with the political vision of creating an effective opposition party of intellectuals. Though professional and institutional sociology does not exist, other forms of social inquiry are carried out in contemporary China. The first area of research involves some former sociologists and anthropologists in the study of national minorities and emigrant Chinese communities. The second area includes social and historical studies of four institutions—the family, the factory, the village, and the communes-which have been conducted as part of a popular campaign to instil revolutionary consciousness among the masses. The third area consists of the survey research carried out mainly by party cadres to formulate, implement, and evaluate policies. These forms of social inquiry are mainly shaped by the political pre-occupations in contemporary Chinese society, namely, the `contradictions' of `rightist conservatism and leftist adventurism', `democracy and centralism', and `redness and expertness'. The demise of professional sociology also testifies to the shaky institutional roots that the group of western-trained intellectuals had in modem China.

The Peasant Movement in Hunan

The peasant movement in during 1926-1927 is well known by scholars interested in modem China; it has been described in detail in Mao Tse-tung's famous article, on an Investigation of the Peasant Movement in Hunan (1965: 23-59).1 Scholarly works on the subject, however, are few, although many works concerning the peasant movement in Kwangtung are available. This article is an attempt to study some aspects of the movement such as its background and origin and the peasants' political and economic demandsmatters to which Mao's Report paid little attention. I will be concerned mainly with two elements of the peasant movement in Hunan: the peasants' tendency to be spontaneous, and the relationship between this tendency and the policy of the prevailing political power toward the peasants. In Hunan, the peasant association movement, a modern type of peasant movement, started in 1923 under the leadership of a few Communists and rapidly spread over the province after the middle of 1926, when the. National Revolutionary Army occupied the province. By July 1927 membership in the peasant associations in amounted to over 4,500,000, about one-half the total membership of all the peasant associations in

Modem China and Traditional Chinese Medicine. A Symposium Held at the University of Wisconsin, Madison.

Modem China and Traditional Chinese Medicine. A Symposium Held at the University of Wisconsin, Madison.

Book Reviews

Journal Article Book Reviews Get access GUENTER B. RISSE, ed. Modem China and Traditional Chinese Medicine: A Symposium held at the University of Wisconsin, Madison. Springfield, Ill, Charles C Thomas, 1973. 167 pp., $ 8.95. JOHN Z. BOWERS, M.D. JOHN Z. BOWERS, M.D. President Josiah Macy, Jr. Foundation, One Rockefeller Plaza New York, New York 10020 Search for other works by this author on: Oxford Academic PubMed Google Scholar Journal of the History of Medicine and Allied Sciences, Volume XXIX, Issue 3, July 1974, Pages 353–355, https://doi.org/10.1093/jhmas/XXIX.3.353 Published: 01 July 1974

Peasant and Communist in Modem China

Research Article| October 01 1961 Peasant and Communist in Modem China: Reflections on the Origins of the Communist-led Peasant Movement Donald Gillin Donald Gillin Search for other works by this author on: This Site Google South Atlantic Quarterly (1961) 60 (4): 434–446. https://doi.org/10.1215/00382876-60-4-434 Cite Icon Cite Share Icon Share Facebook Twitter LinkedIn MailTo Permissions Search Site Citation Donald Gillin; Peasant and Communist in Modem China: Reflections on the Origins of the Communist-led Peasant Movement. South Atlantic Quarterly 1 October 1961; 60 (4): 434–446. doi: https://doi.org/10.1215/00382876-60-4-434 Download citation file: Zotero Reference Manager EasyBib Bookends Mendeley Papers EndNote RefWorks BibTex toolbar search Search Dropdown Menu toolbar search search input Search input auto suggest filter your search Books & JournalsAll JournalsSouth Atlantic Quarterly Search Advanced Search The text of this article is only available as a PDF. Copyright © 1961 by Duke University Press1961 Article PDF first page preview Close Modal You do not currently have access to this content.

RIVER STRATEGY : A PHASE OF THE TAIPINGS' MILITARY DEVELOPMENT 1

The Taiping Insurrection which lasted for fifteen years (I850-I865) is one of the most significant rebellions in the history of modem China; its military activities extended almost through the entire area of China Proper. As claimed by one author, 20,000,000 persons perished 2. Its influence upon the Imperial government was profound and far-reaching. The predominance of the Chinese in the administration of the Empire, the reorganization of the tax and finance systems, and the establishment of the new military system, are some of the consequences of the rebellion 3. So important was the Taiping Insurrection that many authorities have recently devoted study to the various aspects of the period in which it developed. Few authorities, however, have emphasized the significance of the control of river communications by the Taipings in their military activities. It is the purpose of this paper to discuss the important bearing of controling water communications on the rise and fall of the movement. In discussing the Taipings' naval strategy, one should not be misled by the idea that the Taipings possessed the type of modern fleet which could bombard a city from a distance. It was only after I854 that the Taipings had a fleet which consisted of different types of fighting vessels for appropriate functions during naval operations. The Taipings' river fleet consisted merely of boats-passenger and freight-seized from the owners during the course of the military campaigns 4.

New Lamps for Old. An Interpretation of Events in Modem China and Whither They Lead. By Anatol M. Kotenev. (Shanghai: North-China Daily News and Herald, Ltd., 1931. pp. 371.)

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