Studies on Republican China in the Federal Republic of Germany

Studies on Republican China in the Federal Republic of Germany by Peter M. Kuhfus Two-Sided History? In 1989, two comprehensive accounts of modern Chinese history were published: China's History in the 20th Century by Oskar Weggel (No. 21 in the bibliography appended; 380 pp. cf. Republican China 14,2 [1989], pp. 137-138), and China and World Society: From the 18th Century through our Times by Juergen Osterhammel (No. 16; 405 pp.). It must be pointed out that the publication of these two books was quite a remarkable event, since overall accounts of modern Chinese history authored by German scholars are comparatively rare, and the most recent one had been published a decade ago. Both books devote approximpf'ely 140 pages to the Republican era: in Weggel' s case, this accounts for five chapters out of eleven, and in Osterhammel's, for ca. four out of sixteen. If the reader finds himself visiting two different countries, this is essentially due to the authors' different perspectives: Weggel creates an inner view of what he deems the Chinese experience, while Osterhammel offers a structural approach to China's encounter with, and gradual integration into, the modern world. Consequently, Weggel composes an almost hermetical, Sino-focused narrative, from the fermenting revolutionary situation around 1911 via the Nanjing Republic to the "Nemesis over the Guomindang." Osterhammel, on the other hand, depicts a China in transformation from an object of the Powers to a victorious revolutionary power, triumphantly emerging in 1949 from (almost all) foreign control. A detailed analysis of the discrepancies and the common features of the two books would be beyond the scope of this brief review. Yet, perhaps their different assessments of the end of Guomindang (GMD) rule over the Chinese mainland can serve as a telling example of their contrasting approaches. Weggel begins by sketching various explanations, as advanced by the CCP, Chiang Kaishek, and Western historians. He then cites four exclusively internal causes for the demise of the GMD: deficient leadership, loss of faith, loss of face, and the incompatibility of the "GMD and Zeitgeist." In Osterhammel' s thirty-page chapter on War and Civil War (1937-1949), however, no such concise analysis is offered; one has to be content with the vague statement that the rapid military victory of the armies of the CCP resulted from its (widely underrated) inner strength and the (unforeseen) weakness of its rival, the GMD. In Osterhammel's account, the main emphasis is on America's failure in China, which he explains through a four-point formula. In addition, he equates the fall of the GMD with a number of "imperial cycles": the cycles of formal empire, informal empire, and preponderant influence are seen to have reached their end- -thus opening the way for a new stage and a different system to come. From this single exemplar, it becomes obvious that Osterhammel' s work is the more complex of the two. Other dimensions of this complexity include a 130-page appendix of (often lengthy) footnotes (as compared to no footnotes in Weggel's book), a multi-page special bibliography, and a sophisticated theoretical-historiographical framework (as compared to a few introductory passages in Weggel's book). Osterhammel's basic criticism is aimed at an artificially divided China: on the one side, the orthodox-Confucian Chinese world, determining the records and self-portraits of the Chinese empire/state; on the other 75 and the historians'jouter view: a Sino-centered and a Euro-centered China as strange twins. These two conceptual worlds existed apart in rigid isolation for a long period. It is only in the last two or three decades that new approaches toward reuniting them into one integrated, assumedly more realistic image have emerged. From such approaches, Osterhammel defines the programmatic framework for his own project. In the introduction, he cautions the reader not to expect a narrative, detailed history of modern china or of Chinese foreign policy. Nevertheless, he announces a two-sided history of relations, a polyphonic recital of the encounter between China and the world and of the antagonistic interplay of forces. The introduction in the book's sleeve even tunes the reader in to a "consequent double...