The Second Sino-Japanese War, 1937-1945: The Current Status of Research and Publication in the People’s Republic of China, and Prospects and Problems for Foreign Researchers

Resources ~he Second Sino-Japanese War, 1937-1945: The Current Status of Research and Publication in the People's Republic of China, and Prospects and Problems for Foreign Researchers by Peter J. Seybolt This report on the current status of research in the People's Republic of China on the second Sino-Japanese War, 1937-45, is based on discussions that I had recently with three historians at the Institute of Modern History, Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, Tao Wenzhao, Qi Fulin and Wang Jianlang; with Yang Liwen, Professor of History at Beijing University; and with Professors Guo Chuanxi and Xu Youli of Zhengzhou Univesity. It also draws on a paper by Mr. Qi, "Critique of Research on the Sino-Japanese War" delivered in Beijing at the "Academic Conference on the Fiftieth Anniversary of the Outbreak of the War of Resistance Against Japan," June 24-26, 1987, and on bibliographical research. The Conference, one of eight held in the past few years specifically concerned with China's wartime history, is indicative of current interest in that topic. A growing number of Chinese historians regard the war years as a critical era in which the fate of the nation hung in the balance. On one side of the scale was a future of continued foreign domination, economic stagnation, and social disparity; on the othe~ was national sovereignty and the reforms of the "new democratic revolution." Given the perceived importance of the war, it is significant that prior to the 1980s, no books exclusively on the war were published in China. In so far as the war was mentioned at all in the first thirty years after it ended, it was in subordinate conjunction with topics of greater concern to historians in those years. They were, according to Mr. Qi, the history of the Chinese Communist Party and the New Democratic Revolution; the role of the Communists in the war; the creation and development of the Eighth Route and New Fourth Armies; the establishment of base areas; and the rectification and production campaigns in the base area. In other words, the Party was absorbed in conceptualizing its own past and historians were, perforce, preoccupied with legitimizing the new Communist 110 regime. In several works published prior to the Cultural Revolution , however, the war received attention in specialized sections or chapters of books chiefly devoted to other topics. The most important of them, in the opinion of Mr. Qi were: Hu Hu~Jk The Histo~y of the New Democratic Revolution in China (~ ~ .rfJill~fi.J j t X.J#fj_ ). 1950 Hu Qiaomu, Thirty Years of the Communist Party of China (~~ ~~ rlil";~t_~_.f !if ).1952 Rong Mengyuan, A Brief History of Revolution in China in the Past Hun~~e~9;~ars <~_AF;~) rJf/j[_ 5 !if- $/fJ:. II} People's University, ed., In addition to these books by Chinese authors and editors, an important work on the war was translated from Japanesi and published in 1959: The Association for Historical Research of Japan, ed., A History of the (Pacific War ( 8 ;f. }4 JZ_.~-if Jtj & /#J }z JJj J~ t () ' In 1965, on the eve of the Cultural Revolution, 120 articless on the war were published in various journals commemorating the twentieth anniversary of its successful conclusion. It appeared that the war was about to receive the attention now considered its due, when the Cultural Revolution ended virtually all historical research and writing for ten years. Not until twenty years later was there comparable scholarly production. In 1985, the 40th anniversary of the end of the war was greeted by the publication of over 400 commemorative articles. And for the first time since the establishment of the Peoples • Republic, a number of books dealing specifically with the war began to be published in the 1980s. Mr. Qi Fulin categorized those in the following list as the most important among them published by mid-1987. 111 Jiang Niandong, et. al., A History of the Puppet Manzhouguo j ;t ,f, :{ .1~ ;Jq JJ-/ Jl/ J..._ ). 1980. Yi Xianshi, et.al., A History of the September 18 Incident ( !:! Jk ~ q·· ;li - /\ f ~ 1: ). 1981. Cai Dejin, et. al., A Chronicle of the Wang Jingwei Puppet National Government ( 1,$.: ~ f 1 ; J fA 1 ~~ JJ:A'1 j6 f ) 1982. Ma X hong 1 i an I A Discursive History of War of Resistance Against Jordan (_,5 fcfJ1..) ;fJ_, t3 J~- J' Jt-jt_ ). 1983. Gong Guj in, et. al. 1 eds. 1 A Draft Historhtf China's War of Resistance Against Japan