Writing about the Past, an Act of Resistance

2019 ◽  
pp. 21-42
Keyword(s):  
Communist Party ◽  
Chinese Communist Party ◽  
The Internet ◽  
Official Publication ◽  
Xi Jinping ◽  
The Third ◽  
The Past ◽  
On Line ◽  
Historical Truth ◽  
Historical Accounts

Since taking power in 1949, the Chinese Communist Party has consistently tried to enforce a monopoly on the writing and interpretation of history. However, since 1998 individual initiatives have increased in the field of memory. Confronting official amnesia, victims of Maoist movements have decided to write their versions of history before it is too late. This chapter presents a typology of these endeavours. Annals of the Yellow Emperor (Yanhuang chunqiu), an official publication, enjoyed some freedom to publish dissenting historical accounts but was suppressed in 2016. With the rise of the internet, unofficial journals appeared that were often dedicated to a specific period: Tie Liu’s Small traces of the Past (Wangshi weihen) published accounts of victims of the Anti-Rightist movement for almost a decade before the editor was arrested; Wu Di’s Remembrance (Jiyi) founded by former Red Guards and rusticated youth circulates on line. The third type is the samizdat: targets of repression during Mao’s reign recount their experience in books that are published at their own expense and circulated privately. Most of these “entrepreneurs of memory” are convinced that restoring historical truth is a pre-requisite to China’s democratization. Since Xi Jinping came to power, they have suffered repression.

scholarly journals Beijing's Policies for Managing Han and Ethnic-Minority Chinese Communities Abroad

2012 ◽  
Vol 41 (4) ◽  
pp. 183-221 ◽  
Author(s):  
James To
Keyword(s):  
Interest Groups ◽  
Ethnic Minority ◽  
Communist Party ◽  
Chinese Communist Party ◽  
Cooperative Groups ◽  
National Interests ◽  
Political Actors ◽  
The Past ◽  
Vast Network ◽  
Powerful Interest

The overseas Chinese (OC) form a vast network of powerful interest groups and important political actors capable of shaping the future of China from abroad by transmitting values back to their ancestral homeland (Tu 1991). While the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) welcomes and actively seeks to foster relations with the OC in order to advance China's national interests, some cohorts may be hostile to the regime. In accordance with their distinct demographic and ethnic profiles, the CCP's qiaowu ([Formula: see text], OC affairs) infrastructure serves to entice, co-opt, or isolate various OC groupings. This article summarises the policies for managing different subsets of OC over the past three decades, and argues that through qiaowu, the CCP has successfully unified cooperative groups for China's benefit, while preventing discordant ones from eroding its grip on power.

Otolaryngology and the Internet

1996 ◽  
Vol 115 (1) ◽  
pp. 123-131 ◽  
Author(s):  
Michael Rothschild
Keyword(s):  
Clinical Medicine ◽  
Neck Surgery ◽  
Academic Departments ◽  
The Internet ◽  
Extensive Experience ◽  
The Past ◽  
National Organizations ◽  
On Line ◽  
Cultural Entity ◽  
Technical Terms

During the past 25 years, the Internet has grown tremendously. Starting as four academic computers linked by the Department of Defense, it has become a major technical and cultural entity that is accessible to millions of persons outside the realm of government and academia. The field of medicine has been well served by this telecommunications system, in which many applications have been developed to assist in research, clinical medicine, and education. More recently, resources of specific interest to otolaryngologists have been implemented at various academic departments and national organizations. This review is intended to simplify the Internet for otolaryngologists who do not have extensive experience in computers or telecommunication. The Internet is described in basic, minimally technical terms, and specific examples are provided of ways that on-line resources can be used in the practice of otolaryngology-head and neck surgery.

Mao, Tibet, and the Korean War

2006 ◽  
Vol 8 (3) ◽  
pp. 15-33 ◽  
Author(s):  
Michael M. Sheng
Keyword(s):  
Communist Party ◽  
Chinese Communist Party ◽  
Korean War ◽  
Mao Zedong ◽  
Chinese Leader ◽  
People's Republic Of China ◽  
Republic Of China ◽  
The Past ◽  
The Korean War ◽  
The Chinese Communist Party

In October 1950 the Chinese leader Mao Zedong embarked on a two-front war. He sent troops to Korea and invaded Tibet at a time when the People's Republic of China was burdened with many domestic problems. The logic behind Mao's risky policy has baffled historians ever since. By drawing on newly available Chinese and Western documents and memoirs, this article explains what happened in October 1950 and why Mao acted as he did. The release of key documents such as telegrams between Mao and his subordinates enables scholars to understand Chinese policymaking vis-à-vis Tibet much more fully than in the past. The article shows that Mao skillfully used the conflicts for his own purposes and consolidated his hold over the Chinese Communist Party.

A Law Unto Itself: Chinese Communist Party Leadership and Yifa zhiguo in the Xi Era

Modern China ◽  
2018 ◽  
Vol 44 (4) ◽  
pp. 347-373 ◽  
Author(s):  
Susan Trevaskes
Keyword(s):  
Communist Party ◽  
Legal System ◽  
Chinese Communist Party ◽  
Power Relations ◽  
The Political ◽  
Xi Jinping ◽  
Party Leadership ◽  
The Law ◽  
Key Aspects

This article explores the political significance of “governing the nation in accordance with the law” 依法治国 ( yifa zhiguo) in the Xi Jinping era. It examines party statements and propaganda about the necessity of exercising party leadership over all key aspects of law-based governance, particularly the politico-legal system. The aim is to understand the strategic need for yifa zhiguo as part of the ideological repertoire of the Xi leadership. The argument is that yifa zhiguo is essentially an ideological and strategic message about power relations under Xi and the capacity of the party to withstand various threats to its credibility and thus ultimately to bring about the nation’s and party’s rejuvenation.

Contesting the past on the Chinese Internet: Han-centrism and mnemonic practices

2019 ◽  
pp. 175069801987599
Author(s):  
Yi Wang
Keyword(s):  
Digital Technology ◽  
Historical Narratives ◽  
Cultural Changes ◽  
Nationalist Movement ◽  
Online Groups ◽  
Authoritarian State ◽  
The Past ◽  
Historical Truth ◽  
Historical Accounts

Digital technology has brought critical changes to mnemonic practices in China, such as the empowerment of social groups to discover previously underrepresented historical accounts and produce alternative historical narratives. This article examines the mnemonic practices of Han-centrism, a type of ethnic and cultural nationalist movement based on the Chinese Internet. It analyzes how Han-centrist netizens reinterpret national history through their efforts to rediscover forgotten historical narratives of glory and trauma. It suggests that digital technology in China facilitates the emergence of online groups that are dedicated to the struggle for “historical truth” and social-cultural changes, motivated by a crisis of identity. Their mnemonic practices may be partly tolerated by the authoritarian state under some conditions. However, given China’s complicated and conflictual history, such online groups can easily turn the Internet into a battlefield of nationalism. This article highlights the confusion and contestation of memory and identity in contemporary China and the role of digital technology in the long battle.

To Utopia and Back: A Cycle in the History of the Chinese Communist Party

1981 ◽  
Vol 87 ◽  
pp. 407-439 ◽  
Author(s):  
Stuart R. Schram
Keyword(s):  
Communist Party ◽  
Chinese Communist Party ◽  
The Past ◽  
Look Back ◽  
The Future ◽  
History Of ◽  
The Chinese Communist Party ◽  
Sixtieth Anniversary

On 1 July 1981 the Chinese Communist Party celebrated the sixtieth anniversary of its foundation. To mark this occasion, the Party itself issued a statement summing up the experience of recent decades. It seems an appropriate time for outsiders as well to look back over the history of the past 60 years, in the hope of grasping long-term tendencies which may continue to influence events in the future.

The Anticlimax of an Ill-starred Sino-American Encounter

2001 ◽  
Vol 35 (1) ◽  
pp. 217-244
Author(s):  
XIXIAO GUO
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Communist Party ◽  
Chinese Communist Party ◽  
North China ◽  
Pacific War ◽  
The Third ◽  
The Pacific ◽  
History Of ◽  
The Chinese Communist Party ◽  
Communication Lines

Late 1946 was a time of anticlimax in the history of Sino-American relations. For four years since the outbreak of the Pacific War, thousands of American servicemen had been in China rubbing shoulders with the Chinese. When victory finally came, more United States troops (mainly the marines of the Third Amphibious Corps) poured in, and the Chinese hailed them as heroes. In less than a year, however, as hostilities between the Kuomintang (KMT) and the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) closed in, the Americans were caught in the crossfire. Along the communication lines in North China, armed clashes between US and CCP forces escalated; in the cities, anti-American rallies became daily occurrences. The Chinese now became hostile to its erstwhile allies; wherever US servicemen went, they received boos from the locals. The rupture seemed to be irreversible: US forces started to evacuated, George Marshall, the presidential envoy to China, also ended his yearlong mediation, thus bringing the extraordinary intercourse between the two nations to an anticlimactic conclusion.

China’s Rule of Law Dilemma

2016 ◽  
Vol 08 (04) ◽  
pp. 38-43 ◽  
Author(s):  
Yongnian ZHENG ◽  
Wen Xin LIM
Keyword(s):  
Communist Party ◽  
Rule Of Law ◽  
Chinese Communist Party ◽  
Legal Reform ◽  
The West ◽  
The Past ◽  
The Chinese Communist Party ◽  
Do So

China’s rule of law took an ugly turn in less than a year after the legal reform was announced. The country detained lawyers on 9 July 2015. The Chinese Communist Party seems to have inherited the "Rule of Man" from the past and acts like an "organisational emperor". While it took the West a few centuries to build its system of rule of law, it will take China even longer to do so.

The Life and Afterlife of Yaa Asantewaa

Africa ◽  
2007 ◽  
Vol 77 (2) ◽  
pp. 151-179 ◽  
Author(s):  
T. C. McCaskie
Keyword(s):  
Historical Record ◽  
Leadership Role ◽  
African Women ◽  
The Internet ◽  
National Elections ◽  
The Third ◽  
The Past ◽  
Run Up ◽  
European Colonialism ◽  
Queen Mother

AbstractThis article is about Queen Mother Yaa Asantewaa (c. 1830s–1921) ofEdweso (Ejisu) in Asante, locally famous in tradition for her supposed leadership role in the last Anglo–Asante conflict (1900–1), and now internationally celebrated as an epitome of African womanhood and resistance to European colonialism. The article is in three parts. The first part examines the historical record concerning Yaa Asantewaa and sets this within the conflicted context of Edweso–Kumase relations before, during and after her lifetime. It also considers her role in the 1900–1 war and the nationalist constructions placed on that role by later Asante and other Ghanaian commentators. The second part examines the politics of the celebrations held in Asante in 2000 to mark the centenary of the last Anglo–Asante war and to honour Yaa Asantewaa for her part in it. Discussion here is concerned with the struggle between the ruling Asante elite and the Rawlings government in Accra to take possession of Yaa Asantewaa's reputation and to define and reinterpret it for contemporary political purposes. This was also a significant and revealing episode in the run–up to the Ghanaian national elections of 2000, in which J. A. Kufuor's Asante–based NPP finally ousted Rawlings's NDC which, in various incarnations, had ruled Ghana for twenty years. The third part examines the recent and ever–growing afterlife of Yaa Asantewaa in the age of globalization and the Internet. Attention is paid in particular to the constructions placed on her by Americans of African descent and to cultural expressions of her present status as, perhaps, the most famous of all pre–colonial African women. Finally, Asante reactions to the internationalization of Yaa Asantewaa are considered. In general, and using the case of Yaa Asantewaa, this article sets out to show that in Asante – as elsewhere in Africa – history is a continuous and vivid presence, constantly fought over, reworked and reconfigured to make the past serve new needs and aspirations.

Into the Trap of Strengthening State Capacity: China's Tax-Assignment Reform

2000 ◽  
Vol 164 ◽  
pp. 1007-1024 ◽  
Author(s):  
Pak K. Lee
Keyword(s):  
Communist Party ◽  
Chinese Communist Party ◽  
Gross National Product ◽  
Central Government ◽  
Central Committee ◽  
Revenue Sharing ◽  
The Third ◽  
Fiscal System ◽  
Comprehensive Reform ◽  
Responsibility System

The Third Plenum of the 14th Central Committee of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) in November 1993 decided in principle for a comprehensive reform of central-provincial fiscal relations. Soon after the Plenum, the central government announced that the new fiscal system, known as the tax-assignment system (fenshuizhi), would be implemented nation-wide in 1994. With the aim of providing adequate revenues for government, particularly the central government, by revamping central-provincial revenue-sharing arrangements, the reform is to “[change] the current fiscal contractual responsibility system of local authorities to a tax assignment system …” and to “gradually increase the percentage of fiscal income in the gross national product (GNP) and rationally determine the proportion between central and local fiscal income.”

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