‘“Thinking the Republic of China”: An International Symposium’

Abstract

In the summer of 2021, scholars working in seven different countries gathered online to hold a series of seven different forums, each dedicated to discussing one aspect of National Tsinghua University professor Rur-bin Yang’s upcoming scholarly monograph Thinking the Republic of China (Forthcoming). The forum engaged with the following questions: what are the ideals of the Republic of China (roc)? How can one understand the meaning of the roc in relation to both the longue durée of imperial Chinese history and its once ideological adversary the People’s Republic of China? How can one historically evaluate the accomplishments of the roc in its post-1949 guise as a state-in-exile on the island of Taiwan? Has the combination of Confucian humanism and liberal constitutionalism imagined by early architects of the roc been realised in Taiwan, and do these ideals still have meaning for the larger Chinese world as a whole?