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THE MODERN ARCHIVES and special collections

Hoover Institution on War, Revolution and Peace

Hoover Institution Archives longevity 1 THE MODERN CHINA ARCHIVES

The Modern China Archives and Special Collections

Ramon H. Myers Senior Fellow Emeritus, Hoover Institution and Consultant to Hoover Archives

Kuo Tai-chun Research Fellow, Hoover Institution THE MODERN CHINA ARCHIVES 2 3 THE MODERN CHINA ARCHIVES

The Modern China Archives and Special Collections the Republic of China (ROC), to help preserve the vast historical records In 1899, twenty-five-year-old and his wife, Lou Henry, held in that party’s archives in , . As the longest-enduring were living in Tientsin, China, where he was the comanager of the political party in , the KMT was China’s premier revolutionary party Kaiping mines. It was there that Hoover first began to study Chinese until it was defeated in 1949 by Communist Party forces and forced to language and history. In 1907 Hoover helped Stanford University relocate in Taiwan. The historic Hoover agreement provides for micro- historian Payson Treat buy books about China, especially its history, and filming the official party records, which will stay in Taiwan, along with a in 1913 Hoover donated six hundred such books, some very rare, to preservation copy. A use copy will be made available in the Hoover Stanford University. In 1919 Hoover’s interest in foreign affairs inspired Archives. him to establish the Hoover Institution Library and Archives. After When Chinese in the United States and Taiwan, including the National World War II with luck and good timing, Chinese and non-Chinese Women’s League in Taipei, learned of the KMT-Hoover cooperative public servants, military officers, engineers, journalists, scholars, and the project, they too agreed to have their materials preserved in the archives. like began donating their private papers and other materials to the (The Soong family began donating its materials to the Hoover Institution Hoover Institution, where they were to be preserved and made available Archives in 1973, followed by additional papers in April 1980 and again to interested readers. The papers of T. V. Soong are one of many preemi- in the spring of 2004.) nent collections. Americans involved in China, such as General Albert Those donations helped create the Modern China Archives and Special Wedemeyer and General Joseph Stilwell, also donated their papers to the Collections. These special collections are now being integrated with the Hoover Archives. China-related material accumulated since 1919. (Trade press materials, In 2003 the Hoover Institution on War, Revolution and Peace signed an such as published vernacular Chinese books and serials, were transferred agreement with the Chinese (KMT), or Nationalist Party of from the Hoover Archives to the Stanford University Libraries in 2002.) THE MODERN CHINA ARCHIVES 4 5 THE MODERN CHINA ARCHIVES

The Hoover Institution’s In April 2004, T. V. Soong’s Modern China Archives and (Soong Tse-ven) family granted Special Collections permission to the Hoover Archives The Hoover Archives collects three to open nineteen file boxes that types of materials: First are gifts had been previously closed to the of private papers in perpetuity public. These new materials through deed of gift, such as the contain transcripts of high-level papers of T. V. Soong (mentioned discussions between Soong and above), an official in the National leaders of the Allies in Washing- government from 1928 to 1949. ton, D.C., between 1941 and 1944; Second are private papers on loan more than five hundred telegrams to the archives (through deposit between T. V. Soong and Chiang agreements with terminal dates), Kai-shek; and countless letters and such as the diaries of Chiang Kai- memoranda between Soong and shek and Chiang Ching-kuo. Third other individuals, both high and are agreements to collaborate on low. Also included is T. V. Soong’s the preservation of records outside private journal, which gives details the United States, such as the of the Sian (Xian) incident, during KMT-Hoover agreement to pre- which Soong and his youngest serve that party’s archival materials sister, May-ling Soong (Chiang in Taipei, Taiwan. Kai-shek’s wife), went to Sian The historical documents being in December 1936 to negotiate acquired by the Hoover Institution Chiang’s release from Chinese bring us into the inner world of warlords and the Communists. Chinese and Taiwanese leadership In December 2004 Elizabeth thinking, including difficulties Chiang deposited in the Hoover resolving their conflicting beliefs Archives the handwritten diaries of and why they chose conflict Chiang Kai-shek and Chiang Ching- over peace. kuo (father and son and former

After the Sian incident, during which Chinese warlord Zhang Xueliang kidnapped Chiang Kai-shek, the warlord apologized. Chiang, however, on December 27, 1936, writes in his diary that, after returning to , Zhang forced him to reform the government and showed no remorse for the kidnapping. THE MODERN CHINA ARCHIVES 6 7 THE MODERN CHINA ARCHIVES

nineteenth century against the In this memorandum from Manchu dynasty and the rise of General Joseph Stilwell to T. V. Soong, dated December 23, 1942, the KMT, including its struggle to Stilwell criticizes the Chinese unify and modernize China, Expeditionary Force in India. (T. V. culminating in the party’s defeat Soong papers, Box 62) and subsequent move to Taiwan in 1949. KMT records during the next half century reveal presidents of the ROC) until a suit- how the party reinvented itself able presidential library can be built to build a productive market in China. For the first time in economy, establish an electoral Chinese history, we have a firsthand democracy, and improve the lives record of the most powerful indivi- of Taiwan’s people. duals in government ruminating The materials mentioned above about their political life and the add to an already impressive col- great events of their times. (These lection of personal papers received diaries are on loan for preservation in the past half century by the purposes and must be screened Hoover Archives, including those prior to opening.) The archives also has an agree- Opposing the Chiang Kai-shek’s confidential dispatch to Madame Chiang and T. V. Soong, March 12, 1943, ment with Madame Cecilia Koo, (Zhongguo Funiu Fangong Kang- describes President Roosevelt’s reflections about improving Sino-American military coopera- chair of the National Women’s Er Lianhehui). In 1996 this tion. (T. V. Soong papers, Box 64) League of the Republic of China in organization was renamed the Taipei, where Hoover will micro- National Women’s League of the the KMT signed an agreement of , former premier of film its documents and special Republic of China. The new whereby the Hoover Institu- the ROC government and former materials. This remarkable organi- organization not only promoted tion would microfilm the three commander of that country’s zation, originally founded by talented women but helped million odd documents of the Ministry of Defense, and distin- Madame Chiang Kai-shek in 1934 thousands of women describe their party archives, provide an original guished cabinet minister Wei and called the Women’s Committee individual and family lives. Those microfilm copy to the KMT, and Yung, many of whose papers of the New Life Movement, writings thus document a history retain a copy at the institution; describe the reforms that took promoted women’s education and of Chinese women in a society that both sides also agreed to digitize place in the ROC government social reforms. In 1950 Madame was making the transition from the records and make a copy between 1984 and 1988. Other Chiang’s organization merged with imperial rule to modernity. available to readers. The KMT papers include those of Chang the new Joint Women’s Association In 2003, the Hoover Institution Archives contains records of the Chia-ngau, a banker, founder of for Anti- and and the party archives section of revolutionary struggles in the late the Bank of China, and public THE MODERN CHINA ARCHIVES 8 9 THE MODERN CHINA ARCHIVES

servant; Fu, a KMT high- and East, in understanding divided level official; Wang Zuorong, China, as China’s growing power economist and public servant; and importance are challenging James Wei, senior journalist; the U.S. government to cooperate Ruan Yicheng, secretary general in unprecedented ways with the of the KMT; and many others. (To examine those collections, In November 1953, Madame Chiang Kai-shek consult the reference archivist in (near left) escorted Patricia Nixon, wife of then the archives.) U.S. vice president , on a tour of the Hua-Hsing Orphanage, founded by the The creation of this core col- National Women’s League of the Republic of lection coincides with a growing China. (National Women’s League Archives) scholarly interest, in both West

In early 1945, Madame Chiang Kai-shek appeals to Chinese women to contribute to the war of resistance against Japan. (National Women’s League Archives)

People’s Republic of China. Great divided China resolve their differ- changes have also occurred within ences and not repeat the tragedies Taiwan, especially during the past of the twentieth century? To help fifteen years. Thus, in both Chinas, answer that question, scholars new forces are changing beliefs and researchers can call on the and institutions. Modern China Archives and Thus, the salient question is, Special Collections of the Hoover Can today’s leaders and elites in Institution Archives. THE MODERN CHINA ARCHIVES 10 11 THE MODERN CHINA ARCHIVES

Modern China’s History: Will It Be Repeated? In November 1894, Sun Yat-sen established the Xinzhonghui in Honolulu, which began his revolu- China, the world’s oldest and tionary career. In this mansion, situated in Hono- largest civilization, began in 1900 lulu and owned by Li Chang, an overseas Chinese, the revolutionaries took the oaths that made them to transform itself because it members of the Xinzhonghui. feared being dismembered by the new foreign powers. In 1911, the revolutionary KMT party spear- however, China was in turmoil headed the founding of Asia’s first and warlords were taking control Chiang Ching-kuo writes in his diary on November 3, 1945, that he has been negotiating republic, the Republic of China of its many provinces. In 1928, a with the Soviets for the return of Northeast China to the Republic of China. (ROC). Several years later, revitalized KMT, supported by a THE MODERN CHINA ARCHIVES 12 Chiang Kai-shek writes in his diary in June 1948 that 13 THE MODERN CHINA ARCHIVES the Kuomintang had failed in China, not because of external enemies but because of disintegration and rot from within. THE MODERN CHINA ARCHIVES 14 15 THE MODERN CHINA ARCHIVES

China by tightening its control over the ROC. Just as China’s modernization had begun, however, imperial Japan seized the provinces of Northeast China, expanded its claim on other Chinese territories, and in July 1937 provoked a war with China that did not end until August 15, 1945. No sooner had peace been declared than the civil war between the KMT and the communist-led forces erupted throughout the country. Within four years, communist forces had defeated the Nationalist govern- ment, founded the People’s Republic of China on October 1, 1949, and driven the remains of the defeated Nationalist govern- ment to Taiwan. Two other events also helped to produce the divided China that authoritarian political party, many exists today. The first came in 1947, In August 1950, immediately after the outbreak of the , General Douglas Chinese leaders who had studied when Chiang Kai-shek held a MacArthur flew to Taipei to meet with Chiang Kai-shek. This photo was taken at Chiang’s residence in near Taipei. in Japan, America, and national election that elected more dreamt of a Chinese democracy. than three thousand National Like the KMT’s founding father, Assembly members. In 1948 that new army, defeated a coalition of During the next ten years the the cosmopolitan and revolution- body ratified the Nationalist northern warlords and established created a ary Sun Yat-sen, these leaders government’s new constitution and the Nationalist government and its democratic constitution, estab- wanted to meld the creative, liberal chose new leaders for the new capital at Nanjing, only a two-hour lished a modern military force, and thinking of the West with the best republic. In 1949, Chiang, and train ride from , the built a new society, economy, and traditions and ideas of the Chinese. officials still loyal to him, took that country’s greatest commercial- polity unlike any in China’s past. Motivated by lofty ideals, the KMT constitution to Taiwan, hoping urban center. Although led by a revolutionary, leadership tried to modernize that, if the new Republic of China THE MODERN CHINA ARCHIVES 16 17 THE MODERN CHINA ARCHIVES

survived, the constitution would PRC, each claiming to represent a Taiwan and cobbled together an munist Chinese leaders, believing govern Taiwan and have de jure reunified China. To prevent alliance of friendly states, from that socialism was the wave of the control over mainland China. The communist China from transform- Japan to , to block future, yearned to build a socialist second event came in June 1950, ing the Asia-Pacific into a communist China’s influence in the China dominated by a command when communist North red sea, the U.S. government sent region. The in the Far economy and governed by a one- attacked . The United economic and military aid to East had begun. party state controlled by a small States responded by sending its Meanwhile, Mao Zedong chose group of leaders loyal to the Seventh Fleet to the Taiwan Strait, to “lean toward the Soviet Union” charismatic Mao Zedong and his resulting in the Korean War. In August 1950, the Kuomintang Central Reform rather than normalize relations ideals. The Chinese Communist Committee held its first meeting, during which These two events conspired to with the United States. The com- Party (CCP) immediately began Chiang Kai-shek expressed his determination to bring forth a China made up of learn from the party’s defeat in China. trying to match a new legal system two regimes, the ROC and the with its collective life so that the CCP could control Chinese society. In Taiwan, Chiang Kai-shek and his son, Ching-kuo, built a new KMT and began transforming and modernizing Taiwan province. The leaders of divided China and their supporting elites adhered to different doctrines: in Taiwan they relied on Sun Yat-sen’s Three Princi- ples of the People; on the mainland they applied the thoughts of Mao Zedong and other leading Marxist- Leninist revolutionaries.

Here Chiang Kai-shek describes his reforms for the Kuomintang and the Republic of China two weeks before reassuming the presidency in Taipei. Worried that he might repeat the failures of the past, he was determined to reform the military, economic institutions, and the Kuomintang. THE MODERN CHINA ARCHIVES 18 19 THE MODERN CHINA ARCHIVES

Confidential guidelines for KMT person- nel and party management from the Central Execu- tive Commit- tee, April 17, 1950. (KMT Central Reform Committee Archives, 6.41–96)

The KMT’s great achieve- and humiliation, demonstrated Lee Teng-hui, who had assumed promoted Taiwanese , ments were creating a productive that a Chinese society could the ROC presidency and the role and the KMT began to splinter market economy, establishing reform, modernize, and change for of KMT chairman after Chiang into factions. Local nationalism direct elections for local and the better. Ching-kuo died in January 1988, also intensified after 1996, when central government leaders, and In 1986 the democratic began to dismantle the KMT. A direct elections for president were investing in education. For the process promoted by the KMT new era had begun. held for the first time in Chinese first time, Chinese people had and President Chiang Ching-kuo Within a decade, Lee had history. In 2000, a divided KMT the opportunity to enhance their gave rise to an opposition party, destroyed the détente between lost the presidential election. skills, study abroad, and live in the Democratic Progressive Party Taiwan and mainland China, and Political power now passed to an urban culture. The ROC (DPP). Then, in a strange develop- Taiwan–mainland China rela- the DPP, whose leaders promised regime, rebounding from defeat ment, the Taiwanese KMT leader tions worsened. Lee’s actions also to cleanse Taiwan of Chinese influ- THE MODERN CHINA ARCHIVES 20 21 THE MODERN CHINA ARCHIVES

After Chiang Ching-kuo became premier of the Republic of China, he writes in his diary (August 16, 1975) of wanting to eliminate selfishness and promote the public good.

ence and withdraw from the orbit better life. But achieving that task of mainland China’s civilization was difficult. Government leaders and culture. The DPP claimed that were hard-pressed to manage rapid Taiwan was a sovereign state and urban development, and the new thus would intensify its efforts to market economy created winners participate in the United Nations but also more losers. The scarcity of and normalize relations with all energy, water, and land worsened. states, including the PRC. The continuing divided China The KMT had envisaged a reuni- problem worsened because of fied China based on the cardinal Taiwanese nationalism and separa- principles of Sun Yat-sen, but new tism, as well as endless friction with visions energized the DPP and the United States and Japan. other parties. The DPP’s promotion Yet the Communist Party initi- of an independent Taiwan was ated a modernization drive similar strongly opposed by the PRC, to that promoted by the KMT in whose leaders, still dedicated to the 1930s, before Japan destroyed China’s reunification, threatened China’s hopes. Borrowing poli- to use force if Taiwan opted for cies from the Taiwanese econo- independence. mic miracle, the party called for In mainland China tumultuous establishing special economic changes were also occurring. zones in its coastal provinces, After Mao died in 1976, mainland combining foreign investment and China’s leaders abandoned his idea technology with cheap, disciplined that only class struggle could build Chinese labor, and promoting socialism and redefined socialism lower taxation and state assistance as promoting market forces and to expand exports and imports. developing society’s productive A burst of economic development powers. In the next quarter century, occurred, first in the coastal a younger, more-educated genera- provinces, creating considerable tion of leaders promised the people wealth there, and then, after that the party’s authoritarian 2000, extending into the hinter- governance could bring them a land provinces. THE MODERN CHINA ARCHIVES 22 23 THE MODERN CHINA ARCHIVES

In this diary entry of December 4, 1975, Chiang Ching-kuo reflects on the world economic crisis, especially currency and price stability and inflation.

In the since 1990 rapid changes have altered the dynamics of political, economic, and social change. In Taiwan one group favors Taiwanese nationalism and separation from China. Another believes that the people can preserve modernization gains and reunify with the mainland. Still another prefers to wait and see, reluctant to accept any changes to the status quo. The leaders and elites of mainland China, meanwhile, claim that Taiwan is part of China and that China’s reunification is inevitable, but they are willing to wait as long as Taiwan’s population supports the status quo and rejects secession. If these two sides cannot reconcile and support for independence grows in Taiwan, the prospects for conflict across the Taiwan Strait are high. This powerful, new China wants peace; its economy needs trade and investment for growth and foreign trade. Meanwhile, the world tries to accommodate this modernizing China. The significance of the Hoover Institution’s Modern China Archives and Special Collections is that, for the first time, a large collection of primary historical materials reveals what China’s and Taiwan’s leaders and elites thought about the great problems of their times, how they endeavored to solve them, why they failed to cooperate with each other, and why building a government and appropriate institutions to unify China, protect China’s national security, and modernize China were and are difficult to achieve. THE MODERN CHINA ARCHIVES 24

Mailing address Parking Elena S. Danielson There are two parking lots on Galvez Street Associate Director, Hoover Institution, and that accept currency, coins, or credit cards. Director of Library and Archives On Saturdays all campus parking, except Hoover Institution handicapped spaces, is available without Stanford University charge to visitors. A campus parking map is Stanford, 94305-6010, USA available online at www.hoover.org/hila. Tel (650) 723-3563 Users with disabilities Fax (650) 725-3445 The Hoover Institution Archives is accessible www.hoover.org/hila to wheelchairs via a ramp from Crothers Way E-mail (behind the Herbert Hoover Memorial Build- [email protected] ing and , between the Herbert [email protected] Hoover Memorial Building and Green Library); Orientations, which are available for Stanford there is an elevator just inside the front door students and faculty, can be tailored to of the building. For more information, please special interests. call (650) 723-3563 or send your request to [email protected]. Maps of Hours Stanford University and vicinity are available Monday through Friday, 8:15 a.m. to 4:45 online at www.hoover.org/hila. p.m. (closed for holidays; call for details) Archival holdings are brought from the stacks Public catalogs to the room at 9 a.m., 10:30 a.m., Collection-level descriptions are available on 11:30 a.m., 1:30 p.m., and 3 p.m. the Stanford University online public access catalog Socrates (see Hoover Institution Directions Archives). Registers and other finding aids are The Hoover Institution Archives is located also available for most collections. Photocop- on the courtyard level of the Herbert Hoover ies of finding aids, subject lists, and new Memorial Building at the intersection of accession lists can be purchased by mail from Serra and Galvez Streets on the campus of the reference archivist. Copyright © 2005 by the Board of Trustees of the Junior University Stanford University. Stanford University is All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a located approximately 35 miles south of Hoover Institution Archives finding aids More than 1,000 finding aids to collections retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, San Francisco and 20 miles north of San Jose. photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without written permission of the publisher. From 101, exit Embarcadero west (Stanford in the Hoover Institution Archives can be University). Embarcadero becomes Galvez found online, at http://sunsite2.berkeley.edu/ The Hoover Institution on War, Revolution and Peace, founded at Stanford University after crossing El Camino Real. From 280, exit cgi-bin/oac/hoover; additional ones are being in 1919 by Herbert Hoover, who went on to become the thirty-first president of the United States, is an interdisciplinary research center for advanced study on domestic Page Mill east; left on El Camino Real (82); added as they are produced. Most of these and international affairs. The views expressed in its publications are entirely those of left on Serra to Galvez. For more information finding aids were encoded by a team at the University of California, Berkeley, as part of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the views of the staff, officers, or Board of (including public transportation) visit www. Overseers of the Hoover Institution. stanford.edu/home/visitors/directions.html. its EAD Project, which is now the Online Archive of California. The goal of the project Hoover Institution Press Publication is to provide a prototype union database of Manufactured in the United States of America finding aids to archival collections in all nine Design by Tobi Designs University of California campuses as well as a few off-campus institutions, including those First printing, 2005 at the Hoover Institution Archives. 12 11 10 09 08 07 06 05 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1 www.hoover.org