China’s Ideas And Theories On International Relation In The Republican Period

With the help of historical materials and published researching papers during the period of the Republic of China, the author presents the theory spectrum of International Relation Studies, and reviews the research achievement and Chinese characteristics in the Republic of China.In the early 20 th century, the naissance of International Relations, as one of disciplines of social science in the west, influenced China’s intellectual community. The rising of research institutions, professional courses in universities, academic journals showed the formation and development of International Relation studies in China. The Chinese scholars have made fruitful achievements in International Relation studies at that time. Their research includes International Relation theory, the history of International Relation, foreign policy studies and many other aspects. These results, however, for a long time were ignored by the researchers. The author has gathered 265 books about International Relations studies from National Library of China and the library of Jinan University. Those books were published between 1910 s to 1940 s, and form the database of this research. Using the methods of literature interpretation and content analysis, it shows the diversity of thoughts and theory spectrums, which includes methodological problems, peace study and the evolution of the international society.It finds that the idealism, realism and Marxism theories had appeared in Chinese International Relation studies in the first half of 20 th century. The formation of theoretical spectrum was affected by the spread of western academia during the same period, the China’s international status and practices in the international system, and China’s traditional cultural and historical experience. The contents of International Relation studies reflect the diffusion and internalization of western knowledge and the relevant international norm in early modern China on the one hand. One the other hand, those reflect the universal concern of Chinese intellectuals during the Republic of China. And in particular, Chinese intellectuals at that time also came up with the characteristic thoughts and theories of international relations based on the reality of China’s international status, traditional Chinese philosophies and the historical experience.