Detail-Based Analysis in the Study of Land Reform: A Methodology for Studying Modern Chinese History

I use “procedure,” rather than “resulting,” files in local archives to re-interpret the politics of China’s Land Reform. I demonstrate that, at the time, China’s rural population was not divided into landlords, rich peasants, middle peasants, poor peasants, and tenant peasants. Instead, the “rich tenant peasant” was an essential group to understand the land ownership and relations among the different groups. Furthermore, the existence of “one field with two owners” indicates that the land ownership in rural China was much more complicated than the dichotomous framework advocated by the Chinese Communist state. I discuss the methodological implications of my findings.

The Improvement of the Effectiveness of Teaching of The Outline of Chinese Modern History

The Outline of Chinese Modern History is not only an important history course, but also an ideological and political course, which has an important influence on higher education. Teaching effectiveness is an important criterion to assess the degree of curriculum realization. It is difficult to achieve the effectiveness of the teaching of the Outline of Chinese Modern History, which requires the teaching of historical facts, historical logic, historical law and historical views. We should pay active attention to the realization of the effectiveness of ideological and political education in higher education under the background of economic transformation and increasing international fluctuations. Based on this, this study will take the teaching effectiveness of the Outline of Modern Chinese History as the object, based on the analysis of teaching effectiveness and the relevant theories of the Outline of Modern Chinese History, to summarize the problems and focus on the analysis in the improvement of the effectiveness of the curriculum.

A Decade of Upheaval

This book chronicles the surprising and dramatic political conflicts of a rural Chinese county over the course of the Cultural Revolution. The book uncovers a previously unimagined level of strife in the countryside that began with the Red Guard Movement in 1966 and continued unabated until the death of Mao Zedong in 1976. Showing how the upheavals of the Cultural Revolution were not limited to urban areas, but reached far into isolated rural regions, the book reveals that the intervention of military forces in 1967 encouraged factional divisions in Feng County because different branches of China's armed forces took various sides in local disputes. The book also lays bare how the fortunes of local political groups were closely tethered to unpredictable shifts in the decisions of government authorities in Beijing. Eventually, a backlash against suppression and victimization grew in the early 1970s and resulted in active protests, which presaged the settling of scores against radical Maoism. A meticulous look at how one overlooked region experienced the Cultural Revolution, the book illuminates the all-encompassing nature of one of the most unstable periods in modern Chinese history.

Western-Educated Chinese Christian Returnees, Nationalism, and Modernity: Comparison Between the Pre-1949 Era and the Post-1978 Era

For more than 100 years, China has seen waves of students and scholars heading overseas and studying in the West as well as the concomitant returning waves. This study draws on information obtained from secondhand documents and firsthand field studies to analyze and compare two returning waves involving the complex dynamics of globalization/indigenization of Christianity in China. The first returning wave began in the early 1900s and lasted until 1950, in which many went overseas because of their connections with Western missionaries. The second returning wave is currently occurring following the study-abroad fever after 1978, in which many were exposed to the proselytizing endeavor of overseas Chinese Christian communities and eventually converted to Christianity before returning to China. The article compares the following themes in relation to these two groups of Christian returnees: their negotiation with their religious identities upon the return, perceptions on the meaning of Christianity to themselves and to China, their transnational religious networks, and potential implications to the glocalization of Christianity in China. Consequently, it involves the following topics that are important throughout the modern Chinese history: modernity/religion paradox, East–West interaction in relation to Christianity, contributions of Western-educated professionals to China, glocalization of Christianity in China, and complex internationalist/nationalist interaction.

Conclusion

Ever since the concept of press freedom was first introduced into China during the late-Qing dynasty, Chinese perceptions of the function of a free press have frequently changed. This research has shown that the social and cultural context shaped the unique interpretations of press freedom in China and impacted the extent to which it was realized in modern Chinese history. There were numerous problems that permeated the history of press freedom in China, problems that continue to influence the experience of press freedom in China today. This chapter concludes by exploring the theoretical and contemporary implications of the conceptual history of press freedom in China.