Taiwan's “Cultural Renaissance”: A Preliminary View

The China Quarterly

Volumn 43, Issue , 1970, Pages 81-99

  Tozer, W ^a  

^a NONE

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EID: 84971936886     PISSN: 03057410     EISSN: 14682648     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.1017/S0305741000044751     Document Type: Article

References (59)

1. Kenneth Starr, “Cultural Problems on Nationalist Taiwan,” France-Asie / Asia, Vol. XVIII (September-December 1962) passim.
2. Chiang’s Speeches for 1966, p. 102. See also “ Symbol of Chinese Cultural Revival,” FCR, Vol. XVI (December 1966), pp. 19–22.
3. Free China Weekly (FCW), 20 November 1966. According to the FCW's version, Wang Yun-wu, a Senior Advisor to the President, made the proposal. All other official sources give the version below.
4. The tao t’ung, variously defined as the orthodox succession of the torch-bearers of the truth, or the tradition of the sages, was supposedly handed down from the Emperors Yao, Shun, Yu, T*ang, Wen, and Wu, the Duke of Chou, Confucius and Mencius. Chiang has included Sun Yat-sen in the tao Fung, and Chiang’s followers have added his name to the list. See Wang Meng-yuan, Chungrhua wen-hua fu-hsing yun-tung chiang tsai (Chinese Cultural Renaissance Movement Basic Materials) (Taipei, 1967), p. 6.
5. The tao t’ung, variously defined as the orthodox succession of the torch-bearers of the truth, or the tradition of the sages, was supposedly handed down from the Emperors Yao, Shun, Yu, T*ang, Wen, and Wu, the Duke of Chou, Confucius and Mencius. Chiang has included Sun Yat-sen in the tao Fung, and Chiang’s followers have added his name to the list. p. 3; Chung-yang jih-pao (Central Daily News) (CDN), 13 November 1966.
6. Chiang’s Speeches for 1966 p. 98.
7. “ Culture, Science and Education,” FCR, Vol. XVII (January 1967), p. 78.
8. CDN, 29 July 1967. The latter source implies that the meeting was spontaneously organized by the participants, who also took the initiative in forming the Council. The FCW, however, names Dr. Milton Hsieh (Hsieh Jan-chih), Deputy Secretary General of the Kuomintang, as the director of the preparation committee for convening the meeting. 22 “Culture, Science and Education,” FCR, Vol. XVII (Septezber 1967), pp. 87-88; “Regulations governing implementation of the Chinese cultural renaissance movement,” FCR, Vol. XVIII (February 1968), p. 79.
9. CDN, 29 July 1967, pp. 28-80; (March 1968), pp. 72–76.
10. (February 1968), pp. 78–79.
11. The Chinese Youth Corps was founded on 31 October 1952 as a supplementary branch of the government’s educational structure. According to the China Year-book, “ It is a youth organization dedicated to the task of helping young people in their intellectual development and mobilizing and training them for national recovery and reconstruction.” (Chang Tsun-chuan et al. (eds.), China Yearbook 1965–66 (Taipei, 1966), p. 476). In practice, the organization is used by the Kuomintang to control the youth of Taiwan.
12. “ Regulations governing implementation of the Chinese Cultural Renaissance,” FCR, Vol. XVIII (March 1968), p. 73.
13. CDN, 11 October 1967; “Culture, Science and Education,” FCR, Vol. XVIII (December 1967), p. 68.
14. Based upon statements made to the author during a visit to the Cultural Bureau on 5 July 1968.
15. Taiwan interview, section 2. See also the “ Regulations governing implementation of the Chinese Cultural Renaissance,” which calls for the rewriting of the operas (FCR, Vol. XVIII (March 1968), p. 74).
16. The term is used here in its broadest sense, that is, to refer to the intellectual and cultural revolution that occurred in China between approximately 1915 and 1922. For the most comprehensive work on the subject see Chow Tse-tung, The May Fourth Movement (Cambridge, Mass., 1960). See also Wm. Theodore De Bary et ah, Sources of Chinese Tradition, Vol. II (New York, 1964), pp. 151–195.
17. Hu Shih is probably the best known of the modern Chinese intellectuals. His efforts to promote die use of pai-hua (the vernacular) sparked the literary and cultural movement of the 1920s. Hu has been and remains, even after his death, an anathema to the Chinese traditionalists. See Howard L. Boorman and Richard C. Howard (eds.), Biographical Dictionary of Republican China, Vol. II (New York: Columbia University Press, 1968), pp. 167–174.
18. Originally a Buddhist scholar, Liang was converted to Confucianism. He believed that world civilization could be reconstructed on Chinese civilization and condemned the westernizers. He opposed both the Kuomintang and the Communists. For a recent account of Liang’s views, see Wen-shun Chi “ Liang Shu-ming and Chinese Communism ”, The China Quarterly No. 41 (January-March, 1970).
19. European intellectuals, like Euken, Bergson and many others, believed that World War I was a manifestation of the bankruptcy of western civilization; therefore they looked to the East for wisdom to correct western shortcomings (Chow, The May Fourth Movement, p. 328).
20. Chang Chun-mai was a leading supporter of Liang Ch’i-ch’ao’s ideas and movements. He has worked for the establishment of constitutional government in China since the early 1900s. See Boorman and Howard (eds,), Biographical Dictionary of Republican China, Vol. I, pp. 30–35. Chang started the debate on “science and metaphysics ” when he insisted upon the need for metaphysics as the basis for a genuine philosophy of life. He was opposed by a large number of writers, including Hu Shih, who attacked metaphysics and defended science. In the end the latter group, as far as majority opinion was concerned, won (De Bary et al., Sources of Chinese Tradition, Vol. II, pp. 172–173).
21. Hu Shih et al., Hu Shih yii Chung hsi wen-hua (Hu Shih and the Chinese and Western Cultures) (Taipei, 1967), pp. 127–131. See also De Bary et al., Sources of Chinese Tradition, Vol. II, pp. 192–194.
22. See Boorman and Howard (eds.), Biographical Dictionary of Republican China, Vol. I, pp. 206–211.
23. Chen Li-fu, Philosophy of Life (New York, 1948), pp. 115–116.
24. J. A. Lefeuvre, S. J., “ Confucian and Scientific Humanisms in Modern China,” Journal of the China Society, Vol. V (1967), p. 63.
25. FCR, Vol. XV (March 1962), pp. 39–41. See also Hu Shih et al., Hu Shih and Chinese and Western Cultures, pp. 261–266.
26. Li Ao Wen-hua lun-chan tan-huoiu (A Survey of the Controversies on Culture) (Taipei, 1965), pp. 2–3.
27. Mei Wen-li, “ The Intellectuals on Formosa,” The China Quarterly, No. 15 (July-September 1963), p. 72.
28. John Deeney, S. J. and Jean Lefeuvre, S. J., Arts, Literature, Philosophy in Taiwan (Hsinchu, 1968), p. 26; Melvin Gurtov, “Recent Developments on Formosa,” The China Quarterly No. 31 (July-September 1967), pp. 85–86. According to Gurtov, the journal’s defence of freedom of speech was also a factor in its suspension (p. 86).
29. Chiang Kai-shek, China's Destiny and Chinese Economic Theory, translated with commentary by Philip Jaffe (New York: Roy Publishers, 1947), pp. 98 and 203 (cited hereafter as China's Destiny).
30. See Boorman and Howard (eds.), Biographical Dictionary of Republican China, Vol. I, pp. 319–338.
31. De Bary et al., Sources of Chinese Tradition, Vol. II, pp. 136–137.
32. Chiang Kai-shek, “ Some Reflections on My Fiftieth Birthday,” contained in Hsiung Shih-i, The Life of Chiang Kai-shek (London, 1948), p. 374.
33. Clarence Burton Day, The Philosophers of China (New York, 1962), p. 219.
34. O. Briere, Fifty Years of Chinese Philosophy, 1898–1950, trans. L. G. Thompson (London, 1956), p. 59.
35. Mary C. Wright, “ From Revolution to Restoration: The Transformation of Kuomintang Ideology,” Far Eastern Quarterly, Vol. XIV (August 1955), p. 517.
36. Samuel C. Chu, “ The New Life Movement, 1934-1937,’ unpublished manuscript, Columbia University, 1957, p. 106; Pichon Y. Loh, “ The Politics of Chiang Kai-shek: A Reappraisal,” Journal of Asian Studies, Vol. XXV (May 1966), p. 443. Loh calls Chiang a “ reform traditionalist ” and believes that his “ notion of a modernized China on a Confucian Foundation,” as expressed in the New Life Movement, could have become a useful bridge between the traditionalists and the westernizers.
37. Chu, “The New Life Movement,” p. 10.
38. China's Destiny, pp. 167–172.
39. Chow, The May Fourth Movement, pp. 344–345.
40. Chiang Kai-shek, “ Reorganization of the Cultural Heritage and Improvement of the National Character,” China Weekly, 16 June 1952.
41. See Kenneth Starr, “ Cultural Problems on Nationalist Taiwan,” France-Asie / Asia, Vol. XVIII, passim.
42. George K.C. Yeh, “Address,” Chinese Culture, Vol. II (March 1959), p. 179.
43. Chiang Kai-shek, “Report to the National Assembly,” FCR, Vol. X (March 1960), p. 71.
44. “Chronology” FCR, Vol. X (May 1960), p. 65.
45. Chiang's Speeches for 1966, p. 47.
46. “Culture, Science and Education,” FCR, Vol. XVIII (August 1968), p. 64.
47. Interview, section 3, 15 July 1968.
48. Essays on the Cultural Renaissance Movement, p. 18.
49. Deeney and Lefeuvre, Arts, Literature, Philosophy in Taiwan, p. 25. See also Lefeuvre, “ Confucian and Scientific Humanisms in Modern China,” Journal of the China Society, Vol. V, pp. 61–76.
50. Deeney and Lefeuvre, Arts, Literature, Philosophy in Taiwan, p. 25.
51. Interview with Lefeuvre, 22 August 1968.
52. Deeney and Lefeuvre, Arts, Literature, Philosophy in Taiwan, pp. 26–27.
53. Mancall (ed.), Formosa Today, p. 28.
54. See Mei, “The Intellectuals on Formosa,” The China Quarterly (July-September 1963), pp. 65–66.
55. Deeney and Lefeuvre, Arts, Literature, Philosophy in Taiwan, pp. 6–7. 89 p. 9.
56. China's Destiny, p. 210.
57. De Bary et al., Sources of Chinese Tradition, p. 136.
58. Chiang Kai-shek, “ Youth Day Message, March 29, 1968,” FCR, Vol. XVIII (May 1968), p. 76.
59. Starr, “Cultural Problems on Nationalist Taiwan,” France-Asie/ Asia, Vol. XVIII pp. 557–559.