This article focuses on the relationship between He Lin and Chiang Kai-shek (Jiang Jieshi) to investigate Chiang’s attitude toward Chinese intellectuals and its influence on their choice whether to stay in the Mainland in 1949, as well as their fate in the Communist thought reform movements of the 1950s. He Lin was noted for his scholarship on Spinoza and Hegel, translations of Western philosophical works into Chinese, and promotion of New Confucian philosophy in the 1930s and 1940s. During the Sino-Japanese War, supporting Chiang’s rule and his philosophy of practice, He Lin belonged to “The Warring States School” and “The School of Thought and Times Magazine” along with such scholars as Lin Tongji, Lei Haizong, Zhang Qiyun, and Qian Mu. The relationship between He and Chiang was based on political and cultural nationalism. He Lin advocated the philosophy of loyalty and criticized both communism and liberalism, and thus was highly praised by Chiang. What is intriguing in He’s life is that in 1949 he decided to stay in the Mainland instead of going to Taiwan with Chiang. He was then subject to thorough thought reform by the Chinese Communists and joined the party at the age of 80. This intellectual change is clearly reflected in the two different editions of his book entitled Contemporary Chinese Philosophy—in the 1945 edition he praised Chiang while in the 1986 edition he criticized Chiang and praised Mao. The case of He Lin indicates the different strategies taken toward intellectuals by Chiang and Mao Zedong and vividly reveals the predicament of Chinese intellectuals in the twentieth century.

     In October 1943, Shen Zonglian replaced Kong Qingzong as the Director of the Mogolian and Tibetan Affairs Commission’s Office in Tibet. Shen’s appointment attracted the attention of political circles in Chongqing, the capital of wartime China, because he was directly appointed by Jiang Jieshi (Chiang Kai-shek) to take on a position that had normally been filled through nomination by the Mongolian and Tibetan Affairs Commission itself.
During Shen Zonglian’s residency in Tibet, the attitudes of Tibetan authorities and monastaries toward Nationalist China became positive. There are four major reasons for this attitudinal change. First, China had become one of the “Big Four” in 1940s. Second, the Tibetan people started to doubt Britain’s capacity to dominate India after having witnessed the rising of anti-British sentiment there. Third, Shen did an excellent job during his residency in Tibet. In contrast to the bureaucratic mentality and Han chauvinism of Kong Qingzong, Shen Zonglian and his team adopted a practical and flexible approach in dealing with Tibetan issues; accepted the existing relations with Tibet; and quickly earned the trust of Tibetan people. Finally, Shen Zonglian used to be on the personal staff of Jiang Jieshi and had Jiang’s full trust and support, which gave Shen considerable autonomy in staffing and budgeting.
Nevertheless, Shen did not made a breakthrough in solving the major Tibetan issues due to the three following reasons. First, the frontier administration under Nationalist rule was not on the right track, suffering from a poor understanding of Tibetan affairs. Second, Tibetan authorities had maintained an equal distance from China and Britain and preserved their autonomy. Third, neither China nor Britain was willing to make any compromises on questions of national interest in dealing with Tibetan issues.

     When the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) launched its nationwide campaign to root out counterrevolutionaries in 1955-56, three major counterrevolutionary cliques (Wang Mingdao, Gong Pinmei, and Ni Tuosheng) were uncovered in Christian and Catholic circles and arrested. Based on historical documents and government archives, this article discusses the origins of the “Wang Mingdao Christian counterrevolutionary clique” and examines how the case was shaped by the interactions of Wang, the Party-state and the Christian Three-self Patriotic Movement (TSPM). Three issues are addressed in this article: first, the intellectual response of Wang during his fights and struggles with the TSPM and CCP; second, the change in the CCP’s policy toward Wang from a soft-line to a hard-line approach, in terms of the relevant political situation; and third, the nature and effect of Wang’s counterrevolutionary clique.

     This essay reviews studies of the history of modern Xinjiang since the 1950s. Both official Chinese historians and Uygur nationalist historians have relied on historical arguments to justify their political demands. The last three decades have witnessed some progress in studies conducted in the Chinese language in Mainland China, but those studies still reflect a certain degree of political influence. Studies in Taiwan are breaking away from anti-communist biases, but, again, face certain new challenges in dealing with how to resist or follow Western historiography and methodology, and how to preserve certain valuable elements of the traditional “guoxue” or Han studies. With their concentration on the issues of identity and conflict from both political and cultural perspectives, English Chinese-studies circles have made some significant achievements in research on Republican Xinjiang and Xinjiang under PRC control; at the same time, Orientalism and counter-discourses have coexisted in these research projects. Finally, this essay shows that studies on the history of modern Xinjiang still follow the old political periodization so that 1911 and 1949 are treated as historical tuning points by most of researchers, yet this results in neglect of the historical continuity of this relatively isolated area.