Notes on Robert Culp, Articulating Citizenship

Culp, Robert. Articulating Citizenship: Civic Education and Student Politics in Southeastern China, 1912-1940. Harvard University Asia Center, 2007.

I'm not sure where I first heard of this book, but it turned out to be very useful for thinking about my own project on Taiwan in at least two ways. One way was expected--Culp takes a close look at some of the secondary school language textbooks used in China during the period under investigation, which was something I wanted to see in order to think about how I am discussing elementary-level language textbooks in Taiwan. Culp notes a change from the earlier Republican era production of textbooks, which allowed for a range of political and social perspectives to be presented, to the post-1927 period, during which 

the Nationalist government quickly promulgated regulations requiring submission of textbooks for approval. ... Detailed curriculum standards coupled with regular review of textbooks and increasing institutional oversight led to a progressive standardization of textbooks over the course of the Nanjing decade. (p. 50)

The earlier textbooks, as Culp points out, included readings on social issues from a variety of perspectives, such as "Zhou Zuoren's descriptions of utopian socialism, Cai Yuanpei's anarchist writings on integrating work and study, Hu Shi's calls for individual autonomy, and empirical analyses of social inequalities" (p. 140). This range of perspectives was replaced after 1927 by "readings that celebrated the Nationalist Party, called for party and state guidance in gradual processes of social leveling and reform, and promoted an ideal of young people's dedicating themselves to national development and social service" (p. 148).

Culp also includes examples of student writings published in student publications to show how they were taking up the ideas expressed in their textbooks during those different periods. I'm having less success finding student writings for my project, though I have come across some. Hopefully, I'll be able to find some more examples as I continue to work on this.

The other way in which the book is useful is that it reminds me of the necessity to connect what the KMT  was doing with education in martial law era Taiwan with what it had developed in Republican China. What did the Nationalists bring over to Taiwan in terms of their literacy and civic education beliefs and practices, and how did they adapt that to the context of postwar Taiwan? How much and in what ways did they see the Taiwanese students as similar to and different from the students on the mainland? 

These are some of my thoughts about the book right now--here are a few reviews of the book that I came across, if you want more detail about Culp's arguments:

• Borthwick, Sally. Review of Articulating Citizenship: Civic Education and Student Politics in Southeastern China, 1912–1945. Harvard Journal of Asiatic Studies, vol. 69 no. 2, 2009, p. 443-450. Project MUSE, doi:10.1353/jas.0.0028. 
• Liu, Jennifer. Review of Articulating Citizenship: Civic Education and Student Politics in Southeastern China, 1912–1942. China Review International, vol. 18 no. 2, 2011, p. 179-182. Project MUSE, doi:10.1353/cri.2011.0047.
• Tsin, Michael. ROBERT CULP. Articulating Citizenship: Civic Education and Student Politics in Southeastern China, 1912–1940. (Harvard East Asian Monographs, number 291.) Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Asia Center. 2007. Pp. xvi, 382. $49.50., The American Historical Review, Volume 113, Issue 5, December 2008, Pages 1500–1501, https://doi.org/10.1086/ahr.113.5.1500 
• Weston, Timothy. Review of Articulating Citizenship: Civic Education and Student Politics in Southeastern China, 1912–1942. The Journal of Asian Studies, vol. 68, no. 1, 2009, pp. 260–61. JSTOR, http://www.jstor.org/stable/20619685. Accessed 28 July 2023.

Notes on Roger T. Ames, “Thinking through Comparisons"

Ames, Roger T. “Thinking through Comparisons: Analytical and Narrative Methods for Cultural Understanding.” Early China/Ancient Greece : Thinking Through Comparisons, edited by Steven Shankman and Stephen W. Durrant, SUNY, 2002, pp. 93-110.

I think Ames' primary point here is to distinguish the western approach to philosophical inquiry (analysis) from the Chinese approach (narrative). He argues that western approaches to philosophical understanding attempt to define what things are: "the reality behind appearance, the univocal aspect behind the many instances, the literal behind the metaphorical, the root meaning behind the history of a term's usage" (105). He suggests that language is also understood in this way--"words--our repositories of cultural interests--are a currency that on investigation are expected to yield up etymologies that not only reveal their particular historical careers, but more fundamentally bring to light their ostensive root meanings--their essential and literal definitions" (106). [There's a sense in which he does this when writing earlier about the "lineage called Confucianism" and remarks that "[i]n the Chinese language, 'the world' is shijie 世界, literally the succession of 'generational boundaries' conjoining one's own generation to those who have come before and to the generation that will follow this one" (103); my question about mentioning this is whether he's not applying a western kind of analysis to a Chinese term. Do modern Chinese people think of shijie in these terms? What is the value (for today) of this kind of "literal" definition?]

In contrast to the way that western philosophy analyzes its object, Ames argues that "the classical Chinese tradition begins with the assumption that the human being (or better, the human 'becoming') is something that one does rather than what one is; it is how one behaves within the context of the human community rather than some essential endowment that resides within one as a potential to be actualized" (106). [This reminds me of a thought that I had years back when I was looking at Tunghai University's labor education system; I had read an article about it that argued that Labor Education could help students zuo ren 做人--this idea of learning to zuo ren seemed to me to be a kind of rhetorical education in the sense that students were learn a kind of action or way of being as part of a community.] 

One point that Ames makes in the chapter concerns the "porous nature" of Chinese thought (particularly Confucianism, but I think this could be broadened--in fact, he wonders at the end of his essay whether we should be calling that narrative of Chinese thought Confucianism or Chineseness [108]). He suggests that this porousness is what has enabled Chinese thought to absorb and sinocize (sinicize?) outside philosophies such as Buddhism, etc. As part of this, he writes that "any reference to Chinese 'democratic' ideals introduces terrible equivocations: the promotion of seemingly individualistic values in the absence of Western notions of the individual, autonomy, independence, human rights, and so on" (102). This of course makes me immediately wonder what Ames would think of the democratic development of Taiwan (to the extent that Taiwan can be considered a "Chinese" society, which is of course a subject of passionate debate). I'll have to see if he has given his perspectives on this point. 

Dennis Kwok talk at Northeastern University

Dennis Kwok (郭榮鏗), who is a visiting scholar at Northeastern, participated in a conversation with Professor Mai'a Cross today entitled, "The Rise of China, the Fall of Hong Kong, and the Implications for the Taiwan Strait." In case you're not familiar with him (I wasn't), he was one of the founding members of the Civic Party in Hong Kong and was in HK's Legislative Council (LegCo, which I finally learned how to pronounce--with a soft "g") from 2012 to 2020. He was forced out of LegCo in 2020, after which he left Hong Kong. He is called a scholar in exile and says he currently has no plans to return to Hong Kong. 

He gave what I thought was a fairly modest/humble narrative of his own changing perspective on the fate of Hong Kong over the years, admitting that when he started out as a moderate democrat, he hoped, like many people, that "one country, two systems" would work for Hong Kong. Like many others, he said he didn't know quite what to make of Xi Jinping when Xi took over China--Xi's father was a reformer, so people were hopeful that he would be a reformer, too. The events of 2014-present changed Kwok's mind, and he doesn't have much optimism now for Hong Kong or for China. His only point of optimism: "I believe that authoritarianism simply doesn't work. ... Humans want to be free." 

About Taiwan, he warned, "You'd better take it seriously" when Xi indicates he won't leave the Taiwan issue to the next generation of Chinese rulers. Citing Kevin Rudd, Kwok called Taiwan "the holy grail" of CCP politics. It's Xi's political legacy. Kwok said that he has gone to many conferences and meetings where Taiwan is discussed, and the key question that no one asks is, "What do the Taiwanese people want?" They're the ones who are going to be doing the fighting. (I've seen this written a lot, like by writers like New Bloom founder Brian Hioe, but somehow hearing it said out loud 讓我紅了眼眶...) He said that the most painful lesson Hongkongers learned was through the events leading up to and including the National Security law. People should have protested 30 years ago, he said, when the British signed Hong Kong over to the PRC. You can't rely on outsiders to defend you. You have to defend yourself. This reminded me of the preface to Chen Rong-cheng's 1973 translation of Formosa Betrayed, where Chen wrote, ｢人不先自救，誰會救我？｣. The more things change, ...

George H. Kerr, Luis Kutner, and the Chiang Ching-kuo assassination attempt case

I've been reading through some of George Kerr's correspondence concerning the legal issues surrounding the defense of Peter Huang (黃文雄) and Cheng Tzu-tsai (鄭自才), who were arrested for the attempted assassination of Chiang Ching-kuo in New York in 1970. Taiwanese independence advocates in the US hired Luis Kutner, a famous Chicago human rights lawyer, to defend the two. 

When Kerr learned about how much the World United Formosans for Independence (WUFI) was paying Kutner (a $17,000 retainer fee and $3,000 per month plus travel), he was disturbed and wondered if Kutner was just trying to profit off of the situation. He also expressed concern that Kutner seemed to want to use the trial "as a platform for loud charges against the KMT and the Nationalist government and elite" (Kerr to Lung-chu Chen [陳隆志], Jun. 14, 1970). He felt that Kutner wanted to grandstand at WUFI's--and potentially Huang and Cheng's--expense. 

Lung-chu Chen tried to reassure Kerr about Kutner; in a June 30, 1970 letter, he praised Kutner as "a genius noted for successfully handling 'impossible' cases" and someone "who inspires confidence." Chen felt that Kutner's idea of a class action lawsuit against the KMT was novel and that Kutner was "courageous; he is probably the last person the Chinese Nationalists can bribe or intimidate." 

Kerr continued to express serious doubts, particularly on the two points mentioned above: the monetary cost (he felt that if Kutner was so passionate about taking on the KMT, he should do it pro bono) and the great risk that a legal fight against the KMT would do to Huang and Cheng's defense (July 1, 1970). 

By October, WUFI was struggling to continue payments to Kutner. In a letter sent Nov. 23, 1970, Ron Chen (陳榮成) told Kerr that WUFI had terminated their contract with him. 

All of the foregoing (except for the items hyperlinked) come from letters contained in Su, Yao-tsung (蘇瑤崇), et al., ed., Correspondence by and about George Kerr. 228 Peace Memorial Museum, 2000, vol. 2. In my searching for more information about Luis Kutner, I came across a lot, including a report on Kutner released by the FBI saying that 

on 11-3-70 Chinat [Nationalist Chinese/KMT] Ambassador to U.S. advised Bureau representative in strict confidence that Kutner has approached Chinat Embassy offering his services to the Chinats despite the fact that he is currently attorney for WUFI and is defending Peter Huang and CHENG Tzu-tsai, attempted assassins of Chinat Vice Premier CHIANG Ching-kuo, 4-24-70, New York City. Chinat Ambassador stated he is still uncertain of Kutner's motives in such an offer but believes Kutner is only opportunist interested in financial gain.

I'm not sure when WUFI terminated his contract, so I can't tell if Kutner's attempt to offer services to the KMT was revenge for that, or if (even worse) he just wanted to make money off of both sides. Either way, it sounds like Kerr was right to be wary about him.

[There's a lot more that could be said about the CCK assassination attempt and its aftermath, but my main focus here is on the Kerr/Kutner/WUFI connection.]

Hsin-i Sydney Yueh, "Beyond Cultural China: The Representation of Taiwan in US-based Speech Communication and Journalism Research"

Number five in an occasional series of summaries of articles related to communication practices in Taiwan.

Yueh, H.-i. S. (2020). Beyond Cultural China: The representation of Taiwan in US-based speech communication and journalism research. International Journal of Taiwan Studies, 3, 292-320, DOI:10.1163/24688800-00302006

Things are still busy, but I'm in the mood to read and summarize Hsin-i Sydney Yueh's article on how American articles in the fields of communication studies and journalism represent Taiwan. Yueh points out in the beginning the relative lack of speech comm and journalism participation in Taiwan Studies, as evidenced by a low number of communication-related topics at the annual North American Taiwan Studies Association (NATSA) conference. As she also notes, "while American speech communication and journalism education heavily influences communication education in Taiwan, it seems that Taiwanese communication gains little attention in the United States" (p. 293).

Yueh begins with a historical survey of early articles in speech comm and journalism about "Free China," and then moves on to introduce the two main scholarly organizations in the US that are devoted to Chinese communication: the Chinese Communication Association (CCA) and the Association of Chinese Communication Studies (ACCS), both of which are affiliated with the National Communication Association (NCA). They appear to be more distinguished by their disciplinary foci (CCA is mostly made up of scholars in journalism and mass comm, whereas ACCS has more of a speech comm focus) than by any geographical or political division. As she points out, both of them appear to hold a "Greater China scholarly framework" (p. 296). 

Yueh goes on to do a quantitative description of Taiwan-focused research published in journals published by the Association for Education in Journalism and Mass Communication (AEJMC), the International Communication Association (ICA), and the NCA, finding a total of 72 articles published across 47 journals between the 1950s and 2010s. Furthermore, those 72 articles represent the work of 52 scholars. Over half of the articles used quantitative methods, and 23 used a qualitative approach. 

She continues by looking at the themes of the articles, finding the most popular to be topics such as newspapers, freedom of speech, public relations and advertising, government media control, electronic media, gender representation in the media, audience perception of the news, new media and social media user behavior, Taiwanese people's acculturation in the US, and political participation and elections (p. 304). (Evidently some articles contained more than one of these themes.)

When discussing how Taiwan has generally been represented in these studies, Yueh notes, 

Unlike anthropologists in the 1980s, who started considering the ontological status of Taiwan (Simon, 2018), the assumed route of understanding traditional Chinese culture through Taiwan is a less debated issue in speech communication and journalism studies. The CCA and the ACCS seemed to establish a strong Greater China framework that can be extended and connected to the Taiwan-based Chinese Communication Society (CCS) and the PRC-based Communication Association of China (CAC) (Kim, Chen & Miyahara, 2008). (p. 306)

As evidence of this "Greater China Framework," Yueh cites an article that alternates between calling Taiwanese people "Taiwanese" and "Chinese" and another that refers to "Chinese in Taiwan" (p. 307). She also reveals some of her own struggles explaining her "national, cultural, ethnic, and linguistic identities to an academic audience" (p. 307). But, as she points out, even if Taiwan is considered in the disciplines of journalism and communications to be part of "Greater China" or "Cultural China," it is still marginalized in the scholarship: 

In any recent edited book comprising ten or more chapters that is concerned with communication phenomena or journalistic practices in cultural China, it would be common to see only one chapter or no chapters about Taiwan (for example, see Lee, 2000; Wu, 2008). (pp. 307-308)

Therefore, she argues, the idea that Taiwan should represent or be studied as part of "Cultural China" should be abandoned: "Starting from recognising ... [Taiwan's] ‘marginality’ on the world map ..., scholars can find new theoretical routes and opportunities to represent Taiwan in communication and journalism research" (p. 308). Her next section introduces quantitative and qualitative communication and journalism scholarship on Taiwan that suggests ways in which Taiwan can be more properly foregrounded and moved out of the Greater China framework.

She also points out problems with how Taiwan has figured in intercultural and international communication research that has sought to provide East Asian alternatives to Western theories of communication. She critiques some studies that are classified as "bottom-up" research for being simply "literature reviews of Chinese communication or Chinese history and culture," and proposes that "Taiwan can provide a bottom-up solution in terms of decolonising both Western and Chinese perspectives on international and intercultural communication" (p. 312, emphasis mine).

While some of her sources are rhetorical studies, I wanted to zero in on the field of rhetoric a little more, so I did a quick and unscientific survey of published rhetoric articles about Taiwan and presentations at the Rhetoric Society of America biennial conferences that focused on Taiwan, and there wasn't much. Between 2004 and 2018, there were five presented papers at RSA about Taiwan, two of them by yours truly (my count might be off since, besides my own papers, I only counted papers that included "Taiwan" in the title). 

There are even fewer articles about rhetorical practices in Taiwan that have been published in rhetoric journals based in the US. Stephen John Hartnett has written or co-authored several articles published in Rhetoric & Public Affairs, Journal of International and Intercultural Communication, and The Quarterly Journal of Speech, taking a rhetorical perspective on China's foreign and domestic affairs, but his mentions of Taiwan are generally as an obstacle to US-China relations or as, from China's point of view, an internal issue (and often, Taiwan shows up in a list of other countries or territories that have issues with China, like Tibet, Vietnam, the Philippines, etc.). One notable exception is a 2020 article co-authored by Hartnett that examines public memory related to the February 28, 1947 Incident. (Yueh cites this article; I'll have to summarize this article later on.)

Yowei Kang and Kenneth C. C. Yang have written in The Howard Journal of Communications about "The rhetoric of ethnic identity construction among Taiwanese immigrants in the United States" (2011), which I'll add to my collection of articles I need to review. Otherwise, there isn't that much out there in the field of rhetoric. 

In 2006, I had a manuscript based on a 2005 conference paper (itself based on a 2001 graduate seminar paper) entitled "Naming Taiwan" rejected by the QJS--it had problems, I'm sure, but I was surprised to read one of the criticisms that complained that this manuscript about Taiwanese presidential inaugural addresses didn't tell the reviewer anything important about American presidential inaugurals (!?). 

Fortunately, in 2014, Hui-ching Chang and Richard Holt published a book with Routledge entitled Language, Politics and Identity in Taiwan: Naming China, that in part analyzes the rhetoric of presidential inaugurals. Yueh cites this book, along with some of their articles. It's notable, though, that the book is part of Routledge's "Research on Taiwan" series rather than a communications series, and that only two of the four journal articles from them that she cites were published in communications journals. (I'm not faulting them for this--it could be evidence of the difficulties of publishing about Taiwan in communication journals. One of the articles, "Taiwan and ROC: A critical analysis of President Chen’s construction of Taiwan identity in national speeches, 2000–2007" was published in a journal called National Identities.)

At any rate, I've been thinking recently of something Jenna Cody said about the need to help put Taiwan more in the spotlight: 

This is also a call to all of you, my readers (yes, all twelve of you). Look at what you already do — your life, your career, your field — and figure out how you can contribute to Taiwan that way. What soft power impact can you have, in your respective fields?

Besides noting that if she has 12 readers, that's at least twice as many as I have, I resonate with her call, even with all of my concerns about making sure I don't become a "self-appointed ally" or a "white savior." I guess that's why I'm doing this series on communications studies articles about Taiwan--to inform myself as well as the five or so people who might be reading these posts. 

"Confronting Disinformation: A Conversation with Audrey Tang"

I'm drowning in work right now, plus having to monitor my son's remote schooling. (Though I have to admit watching his teacher at work this way has given me even more appreciation for both the struggles of schoolteachers and the public school system here!)

Anyway, I managed to attend a virtual webinar with Audrey Tang about a week ago (I think it was then--everything is such a blur anymore). I just got an email from Harvard's Shorenstein Center on Media, Politics and Public Policy, which hosted the event, that included a link to Tang's talk, so I thought I'd include it here rather than try to decipher my hurriedly-taken notes (Tang talks really fast!):

These days, it's hard to be optimistic about democracy (especially after last night's debate), so I appreciate having been given the chance to hear some good news...

Update: See also this article on Tang. "Taiwan’s digital czar Audrey Tang shows how to improve democracy like it’s a technology."