Documentary Collections on Republican China

X•CUMENTARY COLLECTIONS ON REPUBLICAN CHINA :~ Martin W.lbur, vt here I wish to call atte~1tion to unusual documentary materials held in the 11. J{are Book and Manuscript Library of the University. Most of these materials were Jlcquir'~~d ~a part of the Oral History effort. Most are unique in the Western world · and ce.. tainly more easy of a..;cess than the vast documentary collections on' the Mainland and in Taiwan. Curators in the Manuscript Reading Room (833 Butler Library) have a variety of inventories, indices, and card files to assist the researcher. What follows describes only briefly the main holdings of interest to modern China specialists, listed alphabetically. Chang Fa-k'uei Collection. General Chang allowed his interviewer, Miss Julie How, to microfilm many documents dating from 1935 to 1948 that he had brought to Hong Kong, and others dating from his activities in retirement there. They are closed until his death. The General gave a set of less sensitive papers to Columbia, and our Project purchased others through one of his associates. The first set of these open papers is a folder of twenty-two items, mostly letters dating from 1945 to 1948 from a n11mber of American wartime commanders in China and others associated with him, such as General Claire L. Chennault, General Harwood c. Bowman, his principal American adviser, and Admiral Willard A. Kitts. There are also several manifestoes by "Third Force" political organizations in 1952 and 1954. Of considerable interest is a set of 30 documents from a "Conference to Examine the Operations of the Fourth War Zone" which General Chang commanded, and dating from January,1945 after the Japanese had driven Chang's forces from Kweilin and Liuchow the previous November during the Ichigo Campaign. There are operational reports, some with maps, presented by three army groups and five corps under General Chang's command as well as his own speech appraising the defeat. Another long document is a draft manuscript on the history of the Fourth War Zone's operations prepared after the SinoJapanese War by the staff of Chang's Canton headquarters. As post-war Director of the Generalissimo's Headquarters at Canton. Chang Fa-k'uei apparently had responsibility for Hainan Island. which was to become a Special Area. There is a collection of papers. mostly dating 1947, dealing with plans for the administration of the island , the take-over of former enemy property, and economic development proposals. Finally there is a collection of Japanese investigations of Hainan, with maps, and wartime Japanese plans for development of the island, as well as a number of Japanese published administrative reports concerning Taiwan. Ch'en Kuang-fu Papers. Mr. K.P. Chen gave to Columbia two collections of his papers, one to be opened upon his death, the other ten years later. Those now open. numbering an estimated 3,000 items in sixty-seven folders, relate to his official participation in international financial negotiations from 1936 to 1942 (see BDRC, II, 195-96) and his currency stabilization efforts up to 1948. There are also files on the Universal Trading Corporation (1938-58). the Foreign Trade Comnission (1939) 1 the Burma Road (1939-40). and other matters in which Mr. Chen was officially involved. A detailed inventory serves as a guide to the papers, which are in Chinese and in English. Mr. Chen kept his papers carefully. As one example, the files on the Silver Mission in 1936 are chronologically arranged and seem complete, They include Minister of Finance H.H. Kung's letters of instruction, Chen's diary and memoranda, many telegrams to and from Kung and Alfred Sze. Chinese Minister in Washington, who took part in the transactions, notes on negotiations with U.S. Treasury Secretary Henry Morgen- 12. thau and other American officials, finan agreements, and reports of the Mission's successful completion. Other files are equally interesting, particularly for the wartime and post-war years, when Mr. Chen recorded his observations on inflation, corruption, and declining morale. In 1947-48 he was.a member of the State Council and an adviser to Chiang Kai-shek, and he provides an insider's view. In July 1986 a second...