Chiang Kai-shek's March Twentieth Coup d'Etat of 1926

1968 ◽  
Vol 27 (3) ◽  
pp. 585-602 ◽  
Author(s):  
Tien-Wei Wu
Keyword(s):  
Mainland China ◽  
Chinese History ◽  
The West ◽  
Coup D'etat ◽  
Modern Chinese ◽  
Modern Chinese History ◽  
The Subject ◽  
Controversial Nature

In his review of Mr. Chiang Yung-ching's Bo-lot'ing yü Wu-Han cheng-ch'üan [Borodin and the Wu-Han Regime], Professor C. Martin Wilbur has said that “the Chung-shun Gunboat Incident of March 20, 1926, is treated hastily and categorically, simply as a plot of the Communists involving Wang Ching-wei. This is, of course, a delicate subject.” Because of the highly controversial nature of the event, as it involved Chiang Kai-shek and the Communists, no serious and scholarly study on the subject has ever been undertaken in either Mainland China or Taiwan. Historians in the West are generally interested in the event because it was pivotal to Chiang's ascendancy, and Chiang's career is a part of modern Chinese history. Except for the study of the Soviet advisers' view on the Incident, a thorough investigation of the various aspects of the event and all the parties concerned is still wanting.

scholarly journals Purloined letters: History and the Chinese Maritime Customs Service

2006 ◽  
Vol 40 (3) ◽  
pp. 691-723 ◽  
Author(s):  
ROBERT BICKERS
Keyword(s):  
Central Core ◽  
Modern China ◽  
Chinese History ◽  
The West ◽  
Modern Chinese ◽  
Modern Chinese History ◽  
Treaty Ports ◽  
Purloined Letters ◽  
China Coast

For John King Fairbank the establishment of the foreign inspectorate of the Chinese Maritime Customs Service was a key symbolic moment in modern Chinese history. His landmark 1953 volume Trade and Diplomacy on the China Coast culminates with the 1854 Inspectorate agreement, which, he argued, ‘foreshadowed the eventual compromise between China and the West—a joint Chinese and Western administration of the modern centers of Chinese life and trade in the treaty ports’. Without the CMCS, he implied, there could be no modern China. It was the ‘the institution most thoroughly representative of the whole period’ after the opening of the treaty ports down to 1943, he wrote. By 1986 he was arguing that it was the ‘central core’ of the system. ‘Modernity, however defined, was a Western, not a Chinese, invention’, he claimed, and Sir Robert Hart's Customs Service was its mediator.

In Search of a Master Narrative for 20th-Century Chinese History

2006 ◽  
Vol 188 ◽  
pp. 1070-1091 ◽  
Author(s):  
Susanne Weigelin-Schwiedrzik
Keyword(s):  
20Th Century ◽  
Cultural Revolution ◽  
Mainland China ◽  
Positive Sign ◽  
Chinese History ◽  
Loss Of Control ◽  
Master Narrative ◽  
Modern Chinese ◽  
Modern Chinese History ◽  
China Today

Since the Yan'an Rectification Campaign the Communist Party of China has dominated the interpretation of modern Chinese history. With its 1981 resolution it renewed its claim, but a close look at official and unofficial publications on 20th-century Chinese history reveals its loss of control. There is no longer a CCP-designed master narrative of modern Chinese history. This article uses the case of the Cultural Revolution to show how much post-1949 history is contested in mainland China today. It argues that the CCP is unable to impose its interpretation of the “ten years of chaos” on society. Instead many divergent and highly fragmentized views circulate in society, and there is no overwhelmingly acceptable view on this period of post-1949 history. While this is a positive sign of diversification, it leaves unsatisfied both inside and outside observers who hope that the Chinese people might eventually come to terms with their own troublesome history.

Urban Mass Movement: The May Thirtieth Movement in Shanghai

1979 ◽  
Vol 13 (2) ◽  
pp. 197-216 ◽  
Author(s):  
Hung-Ting Ku
Keyword(s):  
Mass Movement ◽  
The Other ◽  
Chinese History ◽  
Modern Chinese ◽  
Modern Chinese History ◽  
The Subject ◽  
Source Materials

The May Thirtieth Incident which occurred in Shanghai during 1925 has been regarded by the Chinese as one of the most important events in modern Chinese history, and the incident has been called ‘Wu-san Ch'an-an’ (the May 30th Tragedy) ever since 1925. Yet only a few studies in the Western languages deal with such an important event. Among those few studies, two of them concentrate on the role of labor in the movement, and the other after collecting a lot of source materials decides to add a subtitle, ‘an outline’, to recognize the vastness and complexity of the subject without making much effort to analyze or discuss the movement.

Recent Studies of Modern Chinese History

1996 ◽  
Vol 30 (2) ◽  
pp. 225-269 ◽  
Author(s):  
Hans van de Ven
Keyword(s):  
Twentieth Century ◽  
Public Service ◽  
Chinese History ◽  
Cambridge University ◽  
Recent Scholarship ◽  
Modern Chinese ◽  
Modern Chinese History ◽  
Western Scholarship

Some time ago the Commonwealth and Overseas History Society of Cambridge University asked me to provide an overview of recent scholarship on modern Chinese history. What follows is a written version of this ‘public service’ lecture aimed at non-specialist historians. It discusses Western scholarship on China from the eighteenth until the twentieth century.

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