Organizer: Xin Zhang, Indiana University
Our understanding of the past is shaped by concerns and developments in the present. In roughly the past decade rapid economic changes in the People’s Republic, the political maturation of the Republic of China on Taiwan, and the nature of their developing economic and political relationship, among other trends, have begun to stimulate new ways of envisioning the course of twentieth century Chinese history. Interpretations of periods, movements, developments, and trends that had become accepted standards have begun to be called into question.
This panel uses three different approaches to explore historiographical issues and raise crucial epistemological concerns. Professor Zhang’s paper explores two of the most important theories that have informed Western historians’ understanding of modern China, the concepts of modernization and the public sphere. In the end, he questions the validity of these Western theories for analyzing Chinese developments but points to an epistemological dilemma if they are not used. Professor Wong investigates the problem in using Western analytical categories to understand China. His paper outlines some possible strategies for reframing what studies of Chinese historical change should expect from social theory and how explaining change in Chinese history can contribute to revising social theory. Professor Fewsmith examines Chinese historiographical trends, showing how interpretations of crucial twentieth century developments and events have evolved in ways that challenge both the standard Chinese and standard Western interpretations. Taken as a whole, the papers underscore the relativity of the shifting historiographical sands at century’s end but also point to the exciting potential for new ways of envisioning the Chinese past.
Explaining Change in Chinese History and the Expectations of Social Theory
R. Bin Wong, University of California, Irvine
This paper examines three ways in which social theory is challenged to provide explanations of historical change in China: (1) explaining dynamics of change for phenomena without easy European analogues, e.g., several Neo-Confucian social and political practices; (2) using categories defined in three overlapping ways—as categories generated first within European history, then transformed and applied within Chinese history, and finally conceptualized more generally by analysts, e.g., explaining political changes associated with "citizenship"; (3) sorting out the contingent connections among different large clusters of change, e.g., the linkages between economic growth and changing political ideologies and institutions. Identifying what is difficult to explain provides a context for evaluating what has been easier to understand. The paper concludes by outlining some possible strategies for reframing what studies of Chinese historical change should expect from social theory and how explaining change in Chinese history can contribute to revising social theory.
Modernization Theory, Public Sphere Debate, and the Western Dilemma in Studying China
Xin Zhang, Indiana University
Recent discussions among Western historians on the study of Chinese history have given rise to such terms as the "China-centered approach" (Paul Cohen), "paradigmatic crisis" (Philip Huang), and "disjuncture/hegemony in the contemporary historiography of modern China" (Arif Dirlik). These discussions arise from the fundamental struggle of those in the Western world to understand China. The basic dilemma of Western scholars is that their entire system of discourse when analyzing China is bound by Western concepts, terminologies, and analytical constructs while the object of inquiry is non-Western. Can this dilemma be overcome? Are there alternatives to being caught continuously in the struggle?
This paper uses two examples in the past historiography on China, modernization theory, at its height several decades ago, and the more recent public sphere debate, to highlight the dilemma. It will explore the context for the rise and decline of modernization theory; and it will show that the chief problem with the theory—its development from a Western historical context—also remains the central problem of the public sphere debate. While the field of Chinese study has made considerable headway moving away from a Western-centered approach, the paper will address the question of whether a "China-centered" approach is obtainable from the vantage points of both Western and Chinese historiographies.
Trends in Contemporary Chinese Historiography: Reconstructing the Past and Challenging Conventional Wisdom
Joseph Fewsmith, Boston University
Over the past few years, Chinese historiography has evolved in new directions that both challenge the historical narrative favored by the Chinese Communist Party and the received wisdom in the West. In the 1980s, the late nineteenth century’s "foreign affairs movement" (yangwu yundong), for example, was reinterpreted in positive fashion with reform figures Kang Youwei and Liang Qichao revived as enlightened modernizers. This reworking of Chinese history accorded rather well with both the political needs of the Chinese government and with conventional interpretations of Chinese history in the West. However, in the 1990s, the failure of the 1890s reforms, have come to be seen by some Chinese historians as more the result of ill-advised and overly hasty actions by the leaders of that movement than the traitorous hand of the Empress Dowager and her conservative colleagues. Similarly, the need for the 1900 Revolution, previously a sacred cow in both PRC and Taiwan historiography, has come under question, and the role of the May Fourth Movement has become controversial, not just for its advocacy of science and democracy, but for its radical rejection of China’s Confucian heritage.
These new trends in Chinese historiography appear to stem not only from disillusionment with the old Marxist narrative but also with a major new effort to reconstruct China’s modern identity, and effort that comes as much from trends toward "globalization" as it does with the decline of Marxism-Leninism. In combing their two pasts for new understands, Chinese historiography seems as likely to challenge Western scholarship as it does to undermine the Chinese Communist Party.