Editor’s Note

Editor's Note In the November, 1988 (Volume XIV, Number 1) issue of Republican China, Arthur Waldron reported on the cooperative study of Sino-Western universities as discussed at a March, 1988 meeting at Sichuan University. Now, Arthur reports, further research on the subject is being funded by the Henry Luce Foundation. Details of the grant, which are Peproduced here from the February 20, 1989 issue of the Princeton Weekly/Bulletin, will interest many of our readers: J Princeton University has received a $180,000 grant from the Henry Luce Foundation, Inc. to research the history of Westernsponsored education in China before 1949. Arthur Waldron, assistant professor of history and East Asian studies, will direct the project. "The fact that research on a once-sensitive topic can now be undertaken in China is a powerful indication of just how much the intellectual an.d political climate there has changed since Mao Zedong died in 1976," states Waldron. "In particular, it's a sign that a reexamination is underway of the whole concept of imperialism , which has been basic in both Chinese politics and historiography ." He adds, "Rethinking the role of foreign sponsored insti tutions is a way of approaching the larger question of China's relationship to the outside world. At a time of inward change and outward opening in China, these are key issues." Most of the grant money will be spent in China, according to Waldron. Some will support an effort to gather archives dispersed during the Cultural Revolution, some for interviews of alumni and some to underwrite work by Chinese Scholars. The centerpiece of the program will be a series of three international conferences, the first of which is to take place in June 1989 at Huazhong Normal University in Wuhan. Visits by Chinese scholars to the United States will also be sponsored in connection with the project, through stipends from the United Board for Christian Higher Education in Asia. ...