The dawning of the historical age of the Liu-kiu Kingdom began with her entering into tributary relations with Ming China in 1372 AD. Thereafter Chinese envoys went there often, but owing to the lack of written records, Chinese people in general knew very little about the kingdom before 1534, the year in which commissioner Chen K’an’s （陳侃） report on his Liu-kiu mission appeared. Nevertheless, through reports of Korean ship-wreck survivors and Japanese traders who sent the former home from Liu-kiu, the Korean Government collected much information about the island kingdom. From these records we know that the boundary between Liu-kiu and Japan was situated on the isle of Woh-sher（臥蛇）, much further north than now, which means that Liu-kiu at that time was larger than today. We know also that the island kingdom had mutual trade with Hakta（博多）, but her relations with Satsuma（薩摩） were tense. The reports show that the people of the kingdom’s southern islands, the Yaeyama Islands（八重山群島）, still lived in a state of primitive society, while those of Yonagumi Island（與那國島） which is close to Taiwan, were just in the preliminary period of pottery age civilization. Customs of the people of outer islands and the outside areas of Shuri and Naha, the capital and trade port, as well as the way of living of a young king and his mother could not be found in Chen K’an’s report which paid more attention to Sino-Liu relations, especially those ceremonial items.

     This article discusses Chiang-hsueh activities of Yang-ming scholars and their relationships with Late-Ming society and culture. It investigates the complexity of the scholars’ moral discourse and the multiple intellectual developments that arose from their moral instructions. First, I summarize key characteristics of their moral discourse through a detailed description of its promotion of the twin ideas that “the sage is the same as everyone,” and “sage learning is simple and easy,” and its emphasis on family morals in everyday life, as well as its opposition to the contemporary fashion of pursuing novelty and loftiness. Secondly, by focusing on three aspects of their efforts in moral cultivation, their attitudes toward moral development through speech and discussion, and their ways of moral expressions, I single out paradoxes in their moral messages and contradictions between their words and deeds, with a view to pointing out how diverse possibilities, even contradictory ones, could be derived from their moral cultivation and persuasion.

     When the Ch’ing Dynasty (the Aisin Gurun) was in the process of establishing itself in the area of Liao-tng, it was for the first time visited by two Tibetan lamas in the persons of Orlug Darqan Nangsu Lama and B-a Lama(Bay-a Ba Lama, >B-a Lama, >Be Lama, ?-1637). These two Lamas were masters of Tibetan Buddhism, and had a religious brotherhood relationship between them. They came from the Qorcin and co-founded Tibetan Buddhism in the Ch’ing Dynasty. The Nangsu Lama died three months after his arrival (between the 22nd day of the fifth month and the 22nd day of the eighth month of the sixth year of Abkai Fulingga / A. D. 1621), and the B-a Lama was to be regarded as the actual founder of Tibetan Buddhism in the Ch’ing Dynasty. Previously, and during the years of 1615-1617, the Nangsu Lama had already been invited twice to deliver a sermon at the ‘nadan amba miyoo’ in East Hetu-ala. This was because the Nangsu Lama was one of the Genggiyen Han’s (Nurgaci’s) friends. The Genggiyen Han had high respect for this great Lama and promised to build him a Sheli Tower (Buddhism Pagoda) in accordance with his will. This tower was to be consecrated by his younger religious brother (‘emu sajin i deo’), the master B-a Lama. Because of the long-term war at that time, the tower and temple were not constructed immediately, instead only a small temple was first built for provisional use. Later at the instance of the B-a Lama, the tower and temple were finally built in the fourth year of the Sure Han (A. D. 1630), and the B-a Lama was appointed as the master of this temple. With the B-a Lama, the Ch’ing Dynasty started to have a religion which included the Buddha-dharma-sangha, which is to say that Tibetan Buddhism was founded within the Ch’ing Dynasty. This paper aims to look at the history and activities of the B-a Lama and their influence on the Ch’ing Dynasty in the course of establishing Tibetan Buddhism in the Aisin Gurun.

     Besides these activities of establishing Tibetan Buddhism, the B-a Lama was mainly responsible for political and diplomatic affairs of the Han (Qayan / Huangdi). As an important political figure, the B-a Lama (1) conducted peace negotiations with the Ming Dynasty, (2) looked after the Daiming Gurun’s capture of Chang Ch’un (1565-1641) who refused to surrender to the Daicing and urged him to serve for the Daicing at San-guan Miao in Mukden (Sheng-Jing), and (3) participated in national affairs concerning Mongolia. The Ch’ing Dynasty might have benefited from the B-a Lama’s experiences with Tibet and Mongolia in working out its own policies to manage Tibet and Mongolia. When the B-a Lama died in 1637, he was buried in the Tower Garden of the orlug Darqan Nangsu Lama in Liao-yang. In brief, in the light of careful research of the B-a Lama’s activities, this paper tries to convey the conditions and character of Tibetan Buddhism in the period of its first establishment in the Ch’ing Dynasty.

     Taking Liang Qichao’s introduction of Kant to China as an example, this paper examines how Chinese intellectuals in the early 20th century made use of Japanese literature to understand Western civilization. In 1903, Liang wrote “The Doctrines of the Greatest Philosopher in Modern Times--Kant” drawing on Nakae Chomin’s Japanese translation of the French scholar Alfred Fouillee’s Histoire de la philosophie. How did Liang translate Nakae’s “kanto” into “kangde”? Did he faithfully copy Nakae’s image of Kant? Or did he distort it to some extent? Furthermore, how did Liang interpret and evaluate Kant?

     According to my comparison, Liang’s article about Kant is very selective. He did not translate Nakae’s discussion of Kant’s philosophical method or his discussion of Kant’s attitude toward art. In addition, Liang barely touched on Kant’s ideas about God. Liang was especially concerned with Kant’s ideas about ethics and politics, which were relevant to his larger nationalistic project.

     Liang not only introduced Kant’s ideas in his own way, but also linked them with Chinese thought and evaluated them by Chinese standards. From his evaluation of Kant, one can see that Liang affirmed Buddhism, Wang Yang-ming’s Neo-Confucianism, and Tan Sitong’s ideas centering around ren (benevolence), but criticized Zhu Xi’s and Zhang Zai’s philosophical outlook. From Liang’s perspective, Kant’s strength was that some of his concepts were similar to the Buddhist idea of zhenru (bhutatathata, absolute fundamental reality), Wang Yang-ming’s idea of liangzhi (spontaneous moral knowing) and Tan Sitong’s idea of ren, and thus on the one hand having the merit of linking metaphysics with moral philosophy, and on the other hand showing the transcendental nature of the “true self.” Yet for Liang, Kant’s shortcoming was that, although he understood the “true self,” he failed to understand both the linkage between the “little self (xiaowo)” and the “greater self (dawo)” and the ideal of “saving all living beings” in Buddhist philosophy.

     Two points can be drawn from the above discussion. 1. To some extent, Liang misunderstood Kant. For example, he equated Kant’s “true self” with Wang Yang-ming’s liangzhi and ignored the differences between them. 2. Liang’s criticism of Kant from the Buddhist perspective revealed fundamental epistemological differences between himself and Kant. Kant tended toward “epistemological pessimism,” doubting the possibility of knowing the ultimate nature of things, and emphasizing that the soul is not a known existing entity. Liang, on the other hand, tended toward “epistemological optimism,” holding that Buddhism provides a full understanding of morality and its ontological basis.

     Liang’s way of discussing Kant indicates that, in Liang’s thought, Western, Japanese, and Chinese intellectual elements are “combined with one another in an unbalanced way.” It is like a mosaic with pieces from Kant, Alfred Fouillee, Nakae Chomin, and various Buddhist and Confucian thinkers.

     Any national assembly election is bound to be one of the important indicators of a democratic system. The Chinese people have tried to build up their own democratic political system since the late Qing Dynasty and during the Republican years and four national assembly elections were held with this political aim in mind. The first one was called in 1910 Zizheng Yuan, in which just fifty percent of the representatives came from the provincial assemblies, which were in turn established through a nation-wide election; the second one took place in 1913, just two years after the Revolution of 1911, in which a national assembly was formally established by an election; the third one followed in 1918, it was called the New Assembly, or sarcastically, the Anfu Assembly; and the fourth one appeared in 1947, and it was the national assembly under the Nationalists.

     As this writer has already made separate studies of the first and second assemblies, this paper is trying only to make a brief survey of the third election, the New Assembly. Attention is concentrated on the organization, the process of voting and the result of ballot casting. The interactions between parties and factions have also received, to a certain extent, some observations and analysis. This writer has found that bribery was one of the most serious single defects in the course of election. This seems to be a vice also plaguing many other countries on the way of their political struggle for democracy. As to the question “ is corruption related to a political culture?”, a comparative discussion has been attempted briefly here. In addition to those variables referred to above, elitism is employed to grapple with the intellectual background of the representatives which was both traditional and modern in the period of China’s transition.

     There are five sections in this paper. Sect. 1 describes how the Chinese Communists were able to infiltrate TsingHua University. The Communists’ infiltration revolutionized the students’ attitude toward political movement outside campuses. This was the main cause that made TsingHua University students leaders of student movements in the nation.

     Sect. 2 shows that the involvement of TsingHua University students in the September Eighteenth Anti-Japanese Aggression demonstration which occurred throughout China in 1931. Though these student parades were basically patriotic in nature, they escalated the feeling of nationalism to such a degree of no return that the Communist infiltrators were provided with an excellent opportunity to develop their organizations in the universities.

      Sect. 3 shows that it was the TsingHua University leftwing students who, in order to rescue the Communists from being eliminated, took the initiative to organize students in Peking to demonstrate on December the Ninth of 1935, and to urge the Government to fight against the Japanese invaders. In so doing, the students pushed the National Government into a dilemma.

     Sect. 4 describes the political struggles between students and professors, and those between the leftwing and rightwing students. These political struggles caused turmoil on the TsingHua University campus.

     Sect. 5 shows that the students rushed into extremes forcing the Government to fight immediately against the Japanese, which led to the Sian Incident and the Sino-Japanese War. This War gave the Chinese Communists an excellent opportunity to develop and to become strong enough to overthrow the KMT Government. In my final analysis, the December Ninth Student Movement was patriotic in name only. It was harmful to the nation in reality.

     Kuo Mo-jo was a famous leftist intellectual and pioneering Chinese Marxist historian, and his “Chia-shen San-pai-nien-chi”(Commemoration of the 300th Anniversary of Chia-shen Year) written in 1944, represented one of the conflicts in the cultural sphere between the Nationalist and the Communists during the 1940s.

     In this paper, the author first tried to show the political context of “Chia-shen” and the reasons why Kuo wrote it, and then describe the positive and negative responses it generated. Treating “Chia-shen” especially as a historical discourse, an attempt was made to explain how it was transformed to become one of the ideological weapons for the “cheng-feng” movement(the Rectification movement) by Mao, the leader of the CCP. Finally, the author evaluates the academic value and the intellectual context of “Chia-shen”.

     The author puts forward the view that, by using “Chia-shen” as a case study, we can find that as the interaction between historical discourse and political reality is complex, historians have to be careful in dealing with their relationships.