From Democracy to Bureaucracy： The Baojia in Nationalist Thought and Practice, 1927-1949

In the 1939 New County Reforms, the Nationalist government made the baojia system the lowest level of self-government in the country. This decision was the result of more than ten years of discussion among Nationalist administrators and writers who were searching for a tutelary system to train the people in their political rights in preparation for constitutional rule. In the 1920s and 1930s, Nationalist writers claimed to be following Sun Zhongshan＇s （Sun Yat-sen） philosophy by reinventing the baojia as a form of democracy. Harkening back to a reimagined national past, they ＂discovered＂ that the imperial baojia was not a system of local control, but a traditional model of bureaucratically-designed local self-government. Nationalist writers dovetailed this new baojia with Sun Zhongshan＇s philosophy in order to rationalize its position as the foundation of the Three Principles of the People State. Once philosophically legitimized, Nationalist writers endorsed the baojia as a top-down bureaucratic system that would transform the political, social, and economic life of the country; it would become the core political unit of their state-making and nation-building projects. In so doing, the baojia came to represent the Nationalists＇ deeply-held belief in the power of human agency to create state institutions capable of entirely remaking society and transforming the nation.     

PEOPLE IN THE BARKOR STREET：PALBAR,AN OLD MANIN SHARSASUALLEY

According to local custom in Lhasa, people refer to the area around the Jokhang Temple as ＂Barkor Street＂. ＂Lhasa＂ is ＂the Buddha＇s land＂ in Tibetan. In the hearts of Tibetan people, the Jokhang Temple is one of the most holy places because a statue of the twelve-year-old Sakyamuni is enshrined and worshiped there. Every year, the temple attracts many Tibetan Buddhist monks and disciples come from far away and pay homage to the Buddha. As time passed, the area of Barkor Street around the Jokhang Temple has become the busiest district in Lhasa. Eight alleyways extend out from the Barkor Street. Here the old citizens of Lhasa reside, and this is where Lhasa＇s unique economy, national culture, traditional craftsmanship and local Tibetan customs and practices flourish.     

Bosker,Bianca, Original Copies： Architectural Mimicry in Contemporary China

The discovery and recognition of the value and potential of a society＇s ＂low culture＂ often require an outsider＇s eyes. During the Meiji period, while Japanese elites were immersed in the ink painting of literati tradition （bunjinga）, visiting Europeans were fascinated by the cheap and popular ukiyo-e prints, which had the earthly pleasure-the floating world-as the main subjects and were considered vulgar by serious scholars and artists of the time. In contemporary China,     

The Urban “Cultural Nexus of Power”： Intellectual Elites in Shanghai and Beijing, 1900-1937

In the decades before the full-scale war with Japan in 1937, a robust series of institutions connected the bourgeois with intellectuals （which included professionals and journalists, as well as academics） in Shanghai. Collectively, these institutions can be understood as forming an urban ＂cultural nexus of power＂ that allowed non-state actors to effectively control aspects of Shanghai＇s political life. This bourgeois-intellectual alliance was not inevitable; no similar bonds existed between these same two groups in Beijing. It was forged in Shanghai due to the city＇s unique historical position as a Treaty Port and its dynamic economy, which included an extensive structure of private higher education and a market-based publishing industry. Unlike the rural ＂cultural nexus of power＂ originally described by Prasenjit Duara, this urban nexus grew stronger during the political and economic changes of the early twentieth century. War and revolution in the 1930s and 1940s, however, destroyed the connections between the bourgeoisie and the intellectuals, ending the vibrant urban environment they had created.     

Smith,Aminda M., Thought Reform and China＇s Dangerous Classes Reeducation,Resistance, and the People

Aminda M. Smith＇s bold and thought-provoking first book examines the reeducation of China＇s ＂dangerous classes＂ in the 1950s, using the process of thought reform to study how the new party-state answered the following question ＂What makes a vast population of heterogeneous individuals into the Chinese People？＂ （p. 11）. With an array of primary source materials including government documents from the Beijing Municipal Archive,     

History,Culture, and Politics： On Historical Formation and Identity Dilemmas of ＂China＂

This lecture is concerned with some historical issues of ＂China,＂ ＂territory, culture＂ and ＂identity＂ that are placed against the background of politics, culture and scholarship in contemporary China. I want to draw attention to the question of how historians understand and interpret ＂China.＂ It addresses the following questions. First, where did the idea of ＂China＂ come from？ and how did it become a topic of scholarly research？ What kind of dilemmas does ＂China＂ confront in its current condition and historical interpretation？ Second, how do various new historical theories and methods in international academic circles enrich our understanding of ＂China＂？ Third, how does China＇s history and reality challenge the theories of ＂empire＂ and ＂nation-state＂？ Fourth, is it possible to write ＂East Asian history＂？ Does ＂national history＂ prove still effective in describing China or East Asia？     

China＇s Contested Capital： Architecture,Ritual, and Response in Nanjing

After over a decade of civil war, the Nationalists under Chiang Kai-shek established something of a national government in 1928. This marvelous book explores how they built up Nanjing as China＇s new capital city over the following decade. Musgrove argues that the Nationalists＇ city planning, public building architecture, mausoleum of Sun Yat-sen and other memorials, and new state rituals all promoted the new government＇s legitimacy, even though that government remained relatively weak and divided. In line with more favorable views of the ＂Nanjing Decade＂ that have come to replace an earlier generation of historiography, Musgrove believes that the government＇s accomplishments in building up Nanjing were real and significant, albeit limited.     

Onstage Rumor,Offstage Voices： The Politics of the Present in the Contemporary Opera of Li Yu

Much scholarly work on the literary culture of the early Qing dynasty has focused on notions of memory, trauma, and nostalgia. In contrast, this essay investigates the ＂contemporary operas＂ （shishi xiqu） of the seventeenth-century Suzhou playwright Li Yu to argue for the importance of the notion of＂the present day.＂ How is this notion of the present day given dramatic form in Li Yu＇s operas and what implications does this interest in the contemporary have for the broader cultural scene of the early Qing dynasty？ This paper will answer these questions by investigating one dramatic technique favored by Li Yu： the inclusion of snippets of rumor and ＂news＂ reports into the play. By including such contemporary media reports, Li Yu not only generates a constantly evolving sense of the present, he also projects this sense of immediacy beyond the fiction of the stage into the ＂reality＂ of the audience, creating a form of opera eminently suited for both reflecting and producing local Suzhou activism, as evidenced in Li Yu＇s most famous work, Qing zhong pu （Registers of the pure and loyal）, a work chronicling the popular Suzhou protests of the mid-1620s and Wanli yuan （Reunion over ten thousand miles）, which stages the dissolution and reintegration of family and empire right after the fall of the Ming.     

Li,Huaiyin, Reinventing Modern China： Imagination and Authenticity in Chinese Historical Writing

Li Huaiyin＇s new book deals with the dialectic and competing processes ofwriting the history of ＂modem China＂ in China during the past century. Li presents the writing of history as a literary genre that has produced multiple narratives in different periods, narratives that corresponded to or were instigated by particular socio-political （especially political） circumstances of the protagonists of his story. In general, Li depicts these narratives as ＂romantic,＂ ＂optimistic,＂ or ＂pessimistic,＂ based on two major conflicting paradigms （or ＂grand narratives＂--Li often uses ＂narrative＂ and ＂paradigm＂ interchangeably）： ＂modernization＂ and ＂revolutionary.＂     

Abstracts

Structural Features and Expressions of Five-Character Poem in Western Jin： Also on Differences between ＂Weizhi＂ and ＂Jinzao＂
Ge xiaoyin （p. 1）
The most significant change of the five-character poem in Western Jin, compared with Han and Wei dynasties, was diversifications in chapter structure and Symmetry in words. Structure changes of the five-character poem in Western Jin which started in the Wei Dynasty drove the poetry out of the single scene of Han＇s poety and be able to organize different time and space scenes more freely, elaborating the scenes, event progress or mentalities completely. These may be the reason West Jin＇s poetry was called cumbersome rhetoric, but also the reason the capacity of the five-character poem was expanded greatly, which was the very stage of five-character poem from Han and Wei to Jin and Liu Song dynasties.     

Defiant Retreat： The Relocation of Middle Schools to China＇s Interior, 1937-1945

This study focuses on the migration of middle school students to the interior of China after the Japanese invaded in 1937. It argues that the Guomindang （GMD） central government was generally successful in handling the 500,000 displaced students, making substantial efforts to monitor, register, educate, and provide training for them, as well as establishing government-run ＂national middle schools＂ during the war. Meanwhile, the GMD also exerted a strong influence on course curriculum, instructing educators how to implement the Three People＇s Principles and other party doctrines in classrooms. These processes expanded the state＇s hand in secondary education and allowed the GMD to include refugee students and schools in its wartime narrative of progress, praising the students＇ patriotic participation in defying the Japanese occupiers and their contribution to ＂national reconstruction＂ （jianguo）. However, there were still many challenges. Refugee students, teachers, and principals forcibly converted Buddhist temples into schools and clashed with local monks, farmers, villagers, and even the GMD military. With schools merging and moving inland, relocation also provided opportunities for unscrupulous administrators and teachers to exploit the situation for themselves, as government reports reveal many cases of corruption in the wartime schools.     

Policy Blending,Fuzzy Chronology,and Local Understandings of National Initiatives in Early 1950s China

This article proposes the concept of policy blending to improve our understanding of the densely interactive quality of political initiatives in early 1950s China. Using three cases studies, I argue that policy blending, defined as the process by which previous political experiences shaped the implementation and interpretation of those subsequent to them （sometimes in ways contrary to the government＇s intentions）, occurred frequently during this period, to the extent that people＇s understanding of the first years of Chinese Communist Party rule cannot be separated from this phenomenon. Using examples from marriage registration, the Marriage Law and the national discussion of the 1954 draft Constitution, I advance the historiographical argument that the early 1950s should not be demarcated by, or taught mainly with reference to, ＂temporally encapsulated＂ policies with clear beginnings and ends （i.e., policy ＂a＂ occurred in year ＂b,＂ followed by policy ＂c＂ in year ＂d＂）. Rather, policies seeped into each other, producing a blurry--but sometimes accurate--＂impression＂ of state power. I further suggest that the concept of policy blending can be helpful in understanding subsequent political initiatives as well.     

Chinese Socialism as Vernacular Cosmopolitanism

This paper follows the life of an idea, a fundamental concept in modern Chinese intellectual life： socialism. It explores this idea as an alternative form of Chinese cosmopolitanism, drawing from Pheng Cheah＇s identification of two kinds of Chinese cosmopolitanism： mercantile and revolutionary. If part of what we mean by cosmopolitanism is the local use of an external, or international, or otherwise ＂independent＂ （relative to local power and practice） ideology or discourse to promote an agent＇s sense of social good at home and connection to the world, then the ways that socialist thought, ideology and praxis have been employed in China in the twentieth century constitute one such strain of cosmopolitanism. Shehuizhuyi （socialism） meant related but significantly different things to Chinese in the twentieth century. This essay argues that Chinese socialism can be viewed as a version of vernacular cosmopolitanism through two examples： Wang Shiwei in the 1940s and Deng Tuo in the 1960s, as well as the discourse of Pan-Asianism before and after the Mao era. Chinese socialism was as much a terrain of debate and contestation about what it means to be ＂Chinese and modern＂ as it was a shared vocabulary and set of aspirations. All along it has been able to play the role of cosmopolitan thought for some influential Chinese thinkers and doers--connecting China to the world in order to pursue universal values.     

Female Workers,Political Mobilization,and the Meaning of Revolutionary Citizenship in Beijing, 1948-1950

After entering Beijing in January 1949, the Communist Party immediately sent cadres to local factories in order to mobilize female industrial workers into a women＇s movement and to establish the idea of ＂revolutionary citizenship.＂ The Party wished to nurture this idea in both the local political arena and in women＇s lives inside and outside the factories. This article demonstrates that a host of factors defined revolutionary citizenship, including party directives, choices in revolutionary strategy, cadres＇ interpretations of directives and their own initiatives, and workers＇ reactions to mobilization. It was in this complex mix of mobilization, women＇s strategies to protect and advance their own interests, and the politics of group representation in the revolution, that female workers came to understand the meaning and impact of revolutionary citizenship and the shape of labor-state relations in the emerging socialist China.     

Stepping into the Public World： Cases of Guixiu Philanthropic Activities in Late Qing China

This article explores the of certain elite women during late little-known public philanthropic activities Qing China. By examining contemporary newspapers, it traces the new development of women＇s philanthropic engagement and further analyzes two cases, one on disaster relief and the other on women＇s education, to illustrate the issues, controversies and achievements that went along with women＇s philanthropy. It demonstrates how philanthropy, a traditionally-sanctioned field for women＇s activism, legitimatized women to move out of domestic seclusion and reposition themselves in the public sphere in a crucial transitional era when for ＂good women＂ to appear in public was something hotly debated, and how through philanthropic opportunities some were able to engage with political affairs. The broad social impact of their initiatives suggests the continued importance of traditional elite women during China＇s transition to the modern era; it challenges some of our previous notions, which often unthinkingly accepted the verdict of ＂New Women＂ that those who did not embrace their path to modernity were parasitic, unproductive, and backward. By looking carefully at philanthropy, the article reveals fascinating issues and rich details of women＇s public activities that previous historical narratives have often overlooked. It helps to understand how reconfigured traditions became essential components of modernity in the development of modern Chinese gender roles. It also adds a gender perspective to the burgeoning historiography on Chinese philanthropy.     

In the Wake of Political Intervention： British Hong Kong and the Lingnan Macroregion

This article attempts a preliminary exploration of the intraregional cohesion and division between British Hong Kong and the Lingnan macroregion. A deliberately overlooked locale in Skinner＇s macroregional model, Hong Kong developed from a periphery zone on the far eastern outskirt of Lingnan in its precolonial days to a thriving metropolis at the end of British rule. The transformation of British Hong Kong attests to the economic fundamentals of intraregional cohesion. More significantly it highlights the decisive power of political intervention, underestimated in Skinner＇s approach, which brought enduring changes to the shape as well as the internal and external relations of the macroregion.     

Pankenier,David W., Astrology and Cosmology in Early China.＂ Conforming Earth to Heaven

While David Pankenier has since the early 1980s made outstanding contributionsto the scholarship of ancient Chinese cosmology, astrology, and their politico-cultural consequences with his many fruitful articles, this is his first single-authored monograph incorporating major discoveries and insights accumulated over the decades. The book is groundbreaking, not only in the sense that the particular topic is examined with unprecedented intensity and profoundness, but also because it provides ＂an introduction to diverse aspects of an understudied field＂ （p. 5）, making the frameworks, terminologies and sources of early astral sciences in China more accessible.     

New Books

Selected Works of the Literature of China＇s Ethnic Minorities in the New Era： Tibetan Volume （Vol. 1 ＆ 2） As part of the ＂Literature of China＇s Ethnic Minorities＂ project, China Writers Association compiled and edited ＂Selected Works of the Literature of China＇s Ethnic Minorities in the New Era＂. The Tibetan Volume （two books） is one of the first 10 volumes published. It contains three sections： fiction, prose,     

From Academic Nitpicking to a =New Culture Movement＇： How Newspapers Turned Academic Debates into the Center of ~May Fourth＂

Abstract In early 1919, people like Hu Shi and Chen Duxiu were regarded as members of an ivory-tower ＂academic faction＂ （xuepai）, embroiled in a debate with an opposing ＂faction.＂ After the May Fourth demonstrations, they were praised as the stars of a ＂New Culture Movement.＂ However, it was not obvious how the circle around Hu Shi and Chert Duxiu was associated with the May Fourth demonstrations. This link hinged on the way in which newspapers like Shenbao reported about the academic debates and the political events of May Fourth. After compartmentalizing the debating academics into fixed xuepai, Shenbao ascribed warlord-political allegiances to them. These made the Hu-Chen circle look like government victims and their ＂factional＂ rivals like the warlords＇ allies. When the atmosphere became hostile to the government during May Fourth, Hu Shi＇s ＂faction＂ became associated with the equally victimized May Fourth demonstrators. Their ideas were regarded as （now popular） expressions of anti-government sentiment, and soon this was labeled the core of the ＂New Culture Movement.＂ The idea and rhetoric of China＇s ＂New Culture Movement＂ in this way emerged out of the fortuitous concatenation of academic debates, newspaper stories, and political events.