Yang Tianshi: A paragraph about Professor Wang Rongzu's severe criticism of me

Yang Tianshi

The American scholar Tao Han received wide acclaim after publishing his English biography "Chiang Kai-shek and the Struggle of Modern China" by harvard university press. In June 2011, CITIC Publishing Co., Ltd. applied to the General Administration of Press and Publication to publish its Chinese edition. On March 8, 2012, the relevant agencies of the United Front Work Department of the CENTRAL Committee replied that the book "has certain reference value for promoting the study of Chiang Kai-shek, and on the whole, the book has no obvious problems in politics", and agreed to publish it after a small number of revisions. Subsequently, at the warm invitation of CITIC Publishing House, I wrote the preface to the Chinese edition of the book, Chiang Kai-shek and Modern China. Recently, I read Professor Wang Rongzu's "Six Major Issues Worthy of Vigilance in Overseas Chinese History Research", an article that listed Tao Han's book as "Problem Five: A Biography of Reversing Black and White". In the text, Professor Wang Rongzu severely criticized the humble preface, saying: "My old friend Yang Tianshi, a famous Expert on Chiang Kai-shek in China, not only wrote the preface to Tao Han's book, but also praised it as a 'quite powerful biography of Chiang Kai-shek'. Doesn't Brother Yang attach importance to historical materials and historical facts? Looking for the truth? 'Rigorous adherence to academic norms'? Is the Chiang Kai-shek in Tao's book the real Chiang Kai-shek? He also said: Brother Yang is also ashamed to say that Tao's works 'greatly surpass any of the previous works of the same kind', and in Brother Yang's mind, so many biographies of Jiang published in China are actually greatly different books? Should the study of Chiang Kai-shek's right to speak be handed over to Tao Han, an American who is full of mistakes? In fact, Tao Han is not even a professional historian, Chinese can't read it well, but our experts and scholars are so blindly obedient that they can be unsuspecting! ”

Professor Rongzu's criticism is very severe, the outline is very high, and some websites reprint it, and some websites prominently publicize the text that Professor Rongzu criticized me, which forced me to make some explanations about the relevant situation.

Chiang Kai-shek and Modern China

Professor Wang asserted that I had said that Tao's works "greatly surpassed any of the previous works of the same kind", and by extension, I was asked: Over the years, "so many biographies of Jiang published in China have been greatly different?" ”

The original text of the Zha Humble Preface: "Mr. Tao Han's book, taking Chiang Kai-shek as a clue, reveals the complicated relationship between China and the United States in that period, including Taiwan and the United States, and in terms of the exploration and excavation of historical materials and historical facts in this regard, its depth is greatly higher than that of any similar work before it. I think this is the greatest achievement of Mr. Tao Han's book, and it is also his contribution. ”

It can be seen that Tao's contribution lies only in the specific "aspect" of "the complicated relations between China and the United States in that period, including Taiwan and the United States," and in his "exploration and excavation of historical materials and facts" in this particular aspect, not in the whole history of Chiang Kai-shek and all the research involved.

In the text, Professor Rong zu deleted many of my above-mentioned restrictive words and only selected half a sentence, which will mislead the reader and make the reader think that Tao's work has "greatly surpassed" the previous "so many biographies of Jiang published in China". This is a great misunderstanding of my original meaning. According to Professor Rongzu, I have become the only person who swept through all the books and respected only one "Tao", does this not mean that I have completely negated the efforts and achievements of many Chiang Kai-shek researchers since the founding of New China, and pushed me to the opposite side of many Chiang Kai-shek researchers?

In fact, it is certain that "Tao Zhu" is not personally responsible for his contribution to the study of Sino-US relations, and Professor Rongzu himself is one of them. For example, Professor Rong Zu wen said: "The more desirable thing about Tao Han's book is that it only reveals a lot of American secrets. As everyone knows, the so-called "secret" means exclusive secret, which is unknown to everyone. Since Tao Zhu revealed such secrets as "quite a few", it is naturally a contribution higher than that of his predecessors. I point this out and affirm it, why not! What's wrong with that?

It is worth pointing out that when Professor Rongzu severely criticized me for touting "Tao Zhu", he used the term "not ashamed to speak out". This puzzled me. The so-called "unashamed" must be a self-boasting that is divorced from reality. However, the humble preface only talks about Tao's works, and it is certainly only Tao's achievements in studying this aspect of Sino-US relations (including Taiwan-US relations). Anyone who is literate in ink knows that "big talk" is a very emotional word. Professor Rongzu has been writing for a long time, writings and so on, why use such words against me? Did you use the wrong place and object?

Mr. Tao Han was born in the China Section of the US State Department of State and should be an expert in the study of China. In order to write Chiang Kai-shek's book, he not only read a large number of materials, interviewed many people, overcame difficulties, and made use of Chiang Kai-shek's diary, but also consulted the national archives of the United States and the documents of a number of Chinese and American political and military dignitaries preserved in the United States, such as Song Ziwen, Marshall, Stilwell, Wei Demai, and others, and also studied the works of many Western scholars on modern and contemporary Chinese history. Unbelieving,

Consider the following text in the humble order:

I think that Mr. Tao Han was born and grew up on the other side of the Pacific Ocean, there may be some kind of separation between China's history and national conditions, there may be misreading when reading Chinese literature, some narratives and judgments are not necessarily correct, some problems, lack of literature, it is inevitable to rely on speculation, for example, the relationship between Chiang Kai-shek and Zhou Enlai after 1949, and so on.

This passage is written very gently, and there are words in the words, which proves that I have seen and pointed out to the reader the shortcomings and deficiencies of Tao's writings. Professor Rongzu should know that I was invited to write a preface for this book, not a book review, and it was impossible to list the shortcomings of the book one by one and write a close-up.

Chiang Kai-shek is a complex historical figure, as well as a figure with great controversy and a huge disparity in evaluation. Generally speaking, there are three factions, one is the overall affirmation faction, such as the Kuomintang people pointed out by Professor Rong zu, one is the total negative faction, and the other is the merit analysis faction, that is, the chiang kai-shek has merit and merit, and it must be analyzed in detail.

The humble order states:

Chiang Kai-shek, a person of great importance and complicated experience, has always been controversial, and those who respect him have carried them up for nine days, and those who have degraded him have stepped into nine places. That is, in the words of Mao Zedong. At the beginning of the War of Resistance Against Japanese Aggression, Mao Zedong once called Chiang chiang the second "great leader" after Sun Yat-sen in the Kuomintang, but it was not long, and as soon as the War of Resistance was over, Mao Zedong denounced him as a "public enemy of the people." Old Saying Cloud: Cover the coffin. Although Chiang Kai-shek's coffin has long been closed, it is still far from the conclusion, and the controversy may continue for several years; moreover, before the development of history has come to an end and the essence of history has not been fully revealed, some issues may not be concluded, and it is naturally more difficult to reach a consensus.

In this case, what to do? One depends on laying out the facts and being reasonable, and the other relies on a hundred schools of thought. Humble Prologue says:

As the Chinese saying goes: lay out the facts and be reasonable. This should be the case with discussions and debates in daily life, and it should be even more true with historical research. The so-called laying out of facts means that we must proceed from strict and tested reliable historical facts; the so-called reasoning means that on the basis of describing historical facts, we should put forward our thoughts, put forward our viewpoints, and draw conclusions. In this process, the former is the foundation and the fundamental task of historical writings. The historical facts are clearly explained, and they are credible and reliable, and the present, future generations, and even the readers of thousands of generations will draw their own conclusions from themselves.

From this, the humble order is further analyzed and said:

On the whole, this book is written according to the correct principles of laying out the facts and reasoning. You can disagree with this or that point of view of him, but you have to face the historical facts he recounts. Bai Juyi, a great poet of ancient China, wrote when describing music: "Noisy cuts and miscellaneous bullets. "The development of science is similar to this, it is not afraid of debate, nor is it afraid of public noise. In debates, in the discussion and difficulty of different viewpoints, the truth will be revealed and the truth will be revealed. In recent years, many issues concerning China's modern and modern history, as well as about China's history, have been discussed, and new insights have emerged, which is a great phenomenon, a manifestation of academic activity and ideological emancipation, and a manifestation of "a hundred schools of thought contending." Mr. Tao Han's book presents his views on Chiang Kai-shek and his people and the history of modern China from the perspective of a foreigner. He believes that Chiang Kai-shek is a "highly contradictory" figure, talking about his merits, the merits of his character, and also his faults, his faults and shortcomings, and this overall grasp is appropriate, and the dissection of the dichotomy is also desirable.

The reason why I wrote the preface to Tao's work is to advocate this principle of "laying out the facts and reasoning" and the character analysis of the "dichotomy".

Of course, Tao Han may have made an over-evaluation of Chiang Kai-shek, which may not be appropriate, and is also disliked by Professor Rong Zu, who has always criticized Chiang Kai-shek.

I pointed out in the preface: "The views of this book may still be agreed by some readers and opposed by some readers, and two of my old friends in Taiwan's academic circles, one of whom wrote a book review and said yes, and the other who wrote a book review and scolded." It doesn't matter. As long as the author's words are reasonable, the reasons are true, and the reader is open-minded, all kinds of opinions can actually promote our thinking, as our reference and thinking materials on the way to revealing the true appearance and revealing the truth. ”

The author of the "book review scolding" I am talking about here seems to be Professor Rongzu. Now Professor Rongzu insists on his own point of view and continues to "scold", which is naturally possible. While Professor Rongzu continued to "scold" Tao, I was implicated in the preface, and naturally I could do the same. However, to be honest, Professor Rongzu intentionally or unintentionally cut my article, took it out of context, and criticized me bluntly for being "unashamed". However, Professor Rongzu and I have indeed been old friends and friends for many years, and I still admire his spirit of "criticizing mistakes and not avoiding friends".

Mankind has entered the era of building a "community of destiny". The development of a country and a nation's culture must extensively absorb the advanced or strong points in the cultures of other countries and other peoples, and the same should be true of history. Professor Rong Zu issued an article criticizing the "six major issues worthy of vigilance" in overseas Chinese history research, which I have never studied, and compared with Rong Zu brother who is both Chinese and foreign, the distance cannot be calculated, so I cannot discuss such issues with Rong Zu Brother. It is hoped that the academic and publishing circles will continue to adhere to the research and promotion of overseas Chinese historiography, which is by no means to hand over the so-called "right to speak" to foreigners, but to expand the horizon, benefit from many teachers, refer to reference, learn from each other's strong points, and promote the development of Chinese historiography.

Editor-in-Charge: Yu Shujuan

Proofreader: Ding Xiao

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