Curriculum Design and National Identity Construction during the Anti-Japanese War: Focus on Relevant Chiang Kai-Shek's Personal Orders

A discussion of Chiang Kai-Shek's education policies with Zhengwei Liu of Zhejiang University.

Speaker: Zhengwei Liu, Zhejiang University, China

After the Nanjing National Government was established in 1927, the Kuomintang (KMT) gradually increased the supervision of education. Cai Yuanpei, Jiang Menglin and Wang Shijie, who were affiliated with Peking University (aka the Beida School), were appointed to the Ministry of Education. Guided by the liberal spirit, they promoted the New Education, and stood against political education. Significant achievements were made during this time. However, after the September 18th Incident (the Mukden, or Machurian, Incident) in 1931, the KMT was faced with a national crisis. Chiang Kai-shek appointed KMT high officials, Zhu Jiahua and Chen Lifu, as the Ministers of Education to help deal with the crisis. The new ministers set out to confine New Education, which was established in 1922 and within the framework of American-style education. Thus, liberal education was suppressed.

As the Lugouqiao Incident broke out in 1937, signaling the start of the Sino-Japanese War, Chiang Kai-shek took advantage of the political turbulence as well as the League of Nations investigative report on the September 18th Incident to criticize the New Education, advocated by pro-American intellectuals. Chiang intended to reconstruct Chinese cultural tradition with Confucius ethics while strengthening political education. On the one hand, Chiang urged the Ministry of Education to implement the partisan (party) discipline system in all universities, secondary and primary schools. On the other hand, he made nine personal orders to Chen Lifu, the Minister of Education, dictating that the Ministry of Education should place special emphasis, in the curriculum design, on traditional ethics, history, geography, farming, politics, war, education and science. Some of the required knowledge was already included in the courses, and some was incorporated into the school education through complementary courses and textbooks. Chiang’s curriculum was different from those of liberal intellectuals such as Carsun Chang, Qian Mu, Fu Sinian and Gu Jiegang who were intimately aware of the political crisis. Chiang’s attempt to construct the national identity saw no limits as it directly impacted education, opposed the trends of the New Education and deviated from the constitutional ideal of the KMT.

Refreshments: Light refreshments