Republican Studies in Taiwan, 1981: Report on the “Conference on the History of the Republic of China.”

PAGE 16 initially in alliance with the Ibn-Sa 'ud family. The Egyp-tian Al-Ikhwan Al-Muslimun, "The Muslim Brethren," was a more sophisticated political movement among the students and urban dwellers in Egypt to revivify Islam and Egyptian society, and to defeat the Western powers. It is likely that the latter was the model forMa Bufang and Ma Buqing. (18) Mentioned only in Chinese sources, this group clearly combined a modernist "scientific" outlook with strong influence from the Muslim world. See Luo Xianglin, "Zhongguo xibei di Huijiao paibie,'' Chan~ !~kan No. 43 (March, 1975), and also Yang Zibuo, cited above. (19) George F. Andrew, !he£~~~~~~ ~qrthw~st ~hi~~ (London: China Inland Mission, 1921), pp. 59-60. This attack is also mentioned in several Chinese sources. Republim Studie.§. i!l 1_aiwa!!.L l~l.:.. Report Q!1 the "Conference .Q.!l _!he !!_istorr .Q! ~.he B~ubli£ .Qi £hina~ Lloyd Eastman. University of Illinois To comprehend the origins of the Conference on the History of the Republic of China, convened in Taipei on August 23-28, 1981, one must realize the importance which Chinese attach to history as a legitimizer of a political regime. "To destroy on~'s state," goes a Chinese saying, "you must first eliminate its history" (~A "-. .i. rJI,~· f, -t :K. t._). In 1979, the historical community in Taiwan was shaken by the ·news that Peking had launched a large-scale project of research and publishing on the history of the Republican Period. A Communist history, authorities in Taiwan £eared, would be filled with distortions, would thereby deceive r·eaders, and would as a consequence have far-reaching political consequences . Taiwan must, therefore, forestall the invidious effects of the Communists' historical offensive by preparing its own version of the history of the period. This conviction sparked intense debate over the question of how Taiwan should respond to the Communist challenge. Should agencies of the National Government themselves prepare an official history of the period? Should private individuals undertake the task? Or should teams of private scholars, perhaps funded by government money, do the research and writing? ( 1) In the wake of this debate, official circles i~ Taiwan adopted a multi-faceted approach to counter the Communist challenge. Although I am not privy to the institutional arrangements, it appears that the Ministry of Education is the agency responsible for overseeing t1~. Kuomintang's historical counterattack. The Ministry is, on the one hand, sponsoring the preparat 'ioz_; of a massive History .Q! !i~tism.al Construction 2! ~he £gin~ ,E~ublic (ia #;j' ev ~ Jt f!W t->. This project has been divided into five chronological periods, with about twenty contributors writing on each period. The five divisions of this project, and the general editor of each, are: 1) The 1911 Revolution-- Lu Shih-ch'iang, director of the Institute of Modern History, Academia Sinica. 2 ) The Pe i- y an g , or War1 or d Pe r i od - - L i Yun-h an , ass is tan t d ire ct or of the Tang-s hih-h ui. PAGE 17 3) The Nanking Decade -- Chiang Yung-ching, director, Institute o= Historical Research, Cheng-chih University. 4) The War of Resistance -- Hsu Lang-hsuan, assistant director of the Tang-s hih-h ui. 5) Taiwan, 1949-present -- Huang Chi-lu, director, Academia Hist orica ( TJ1 't.. ,t'f;). Grand though the ambitions of this project are, several of the contributors to whom I spoke are pessimistic about the probable quality of the project. They are working under severe time constraints (the projected deadline for completed manuscripts, I believe, is in the latter part of 1982), and thus there is little time available for fresh research. Many of the contributors, moreover, are regarded, even in Taiwan's historical circles , as Kuomintang polemicists and apologists. And it is thought to be exceedingly unlikely that the Ministry of Education will publish research that somehow reflects unfavorably upon the Kuomintang or the National Government . A second locus of activity in this official Nationalist endeavor to prepare a history of the Republican period is the Tang-shih-hui, or the Central Commission on Kuomintang History. Head of the Tang...