Academia Sinica
/
Sitemap
/
MH Login
/
中文
關鍵字搜尋
Events
> News
> Academic
About IMH
> Introduction
> Director’s remarks
> Organization
> Advisory board
> Research plans
> Research findings
> Honors
> Admin Staff
People
> Research fellows
> Corresponding Research Fellows
> Adjunct research fellows
> Postdoctoral fellows
> Doctoral candidate fellows
> Research Groups
Activities
Publications
> Historical sources
> Monographs
> Bulletin
> RWMCH
> Conference Volumes
> Other publications
> Hu Shih Publications
> eBooks
> Non-IMH publications
> Search
> Order
Academic exchanges
> List of Partner Institutions
> Visiting scholars
> Life and work
> Visiting scholars program
Resources
> Research Resources Links
> Special displays
> Video
> Picture of the Day
Contact
> Subscribe our RSS
> FAQ
> Contact us
Home
> Publications >
Bulletin
Vol. 124
ISSN：
1029-4740
Date：
2024-6
Softcover：250 TWD
Price：
未出版
Pages：
171
Vol.：
0
Size：
16 K
Other Ordering Methods：
MH
Abstract：
This issue contains three articles: “The Horror of Capital Punishment: Body, Artifact and Sensibility in Chinese Executions by Strangulation and Hanging, 1906–1948,” by Xin-zhe Xie; “On Cao Kun’s Vote-Buying Checks and the Unpaid Salaries of National Assembly Members: A Discussion with Scholar Yang Tianhong,” by Wang Lei; “Japan’s Diverse Use of the Manchukuo Army during the ‘Fifteen-Year War’,” by Zhang Sheng-dong; Research and Discussion: “Recent Trends and Developments in the Study of Manchukuo (1998–2023): From the ‘Imperial Turn’ Onward,” by Lin Chih-hung, Book Reviews: “Zhao Liuyang,
Women, Family and Legal Practice: A Social Legal History since the Qing Dynasty
,” by Hu Ruochen.
Contents
Articles
The Horror of Capital Punishment: Body, Artifact and Sensibility in Chinese Executions by Strangulation and Hanging, 1906–1948
[Abstract]
Xin-zhe Xie
PDF
1
Being the only legal method of the death sentence during the Republican era (1912–1949), execution by strangulation or by hanging has hitherto received sparse attention from scholars. Focusing on this form of execution, the present article is aimed at filling the lacuna and investigates the practice of capital punishment under the humanitarian transformations in modern China. Unlike extant relevant scholarship, which either is mostly concerned with the legislative evolution of the death penalty and convictions or adopts a simplistically teleological view to summarize the penal reforms of the time, this article attempts to reconstruct the practical details of execution by strangulation or by hanging, including the techniques and tools in use. The objective is to understand how China in the first half of the twentieth century construed the interactions between the materiality of tools of execution and the body of both the convicted and the executioner, so as to unravel the underlying mechanism of imagination for the horror of capital punishment. What kind of mutations did such a mechanism undergo while China was “embracing” modernity and facing different cultural meanings respectively endemic to the old and new methods of execution? How did the particular sensibilities provoked by new tools and methods of execution influence the State’s choice of the form of its most severe punishment as well as redefining the relationships among the State, society, and legal violence? This article argues that the transitions from the dual (decapitation and strangulation) to the single system (only strangulation) and from the traditional horizontal strangulation to the British-style method of hanging reflect that apart from the ideal of maintaining the integrity of the corpse, the rapidity of death began to be taken into account to measure the cruelty of the capital punishment form. However, due to the significant similarity in its way of functioning with that of suicidal hanging, the British-style hanging machine, albeit seemingly apt to meet the criteria of corpse integrity and of a rapid death, was object of some criticism, thus providing another explanation, beyond factors of technical or financial order, for the unsuccess of the hanging machine in modern China. At the same time, as the execution by gunshot was subject to a more clearly defined procedure, the anxiety about the damage it might cause to the body withered away, thus making this form of execution an ideal substitute for both strangulation and hanging.
Keyword
：capital punishment, strangulation, hanging, late Qing period, Republican China
On Cao Kun’s Vote-Buying Checks and the Unpaid Salaries of National Assembly Members: A Discussion with Scholar Yang Tianhong
[Abstract]
Wang Lei
PDF
49
In his article published in 2012, scholar Yang Tianhong has argued that checks for 5,000 yuan issued by the Zhili clique in the 1923 Chinese presidential election were consistent with the amounts of unpaid salaries due National Assembly members over the previous years, thereby inferring that the checks were a form of compensation. However, there are errors in the time points and statistical data in the article. After researching the related salary arrears of the period in question, I have found that the situation is considerably more complicated. The amounts of salary arrears of the members vary; therefore, it is not feasible to redress the unpaid salaries with a uniform amount. The so-called compensation was in fact a political bargaining chip between the Zhili clique and anti-Zhili parties, a form of preferential policy beyond compensation via check. The “provisional payment of salaries” 歲費暫行支給方法, introduced at a later date guaranteed to a certain extent the disbursement of wages. But it was not until the eve of the election that the 5,000-yuan checks were finally agreed upon, with a separate budget, a special fund, and a specially appointed person to handle the matter. Furthermore, instead of going through the Congressional Accounting Section 國會會計科, the checks were issued directly from the Cao Kun’s 曹錕 (in office 1923–1924) presidential campaign office and withdrawn at a designated bank. The subsequent rebuttals by the lawmakers who had voted for Cao Kun were thus intended to use, whether intentionally or not, the issue of compensation for unpaid wages to obscure the concept of vote-buying under the pretense of salary arrears.
Keyword
：check amounts, salary arrears, National Assembly, vote-buying
Japan’s Diverse Use of the Manchukuo Army during the “Fifteen-Year War”
[Abstract]
Zhang Sheng-dong
PDF
89
Japan successively raised several collaborationist armies in mainland China and Southeast Asia throughout its overseas expansion during the Fifteen-Year War (1931–1945). This article explores how Japan used these forces by focusing on the Manchukuo Army, which was the first such collaborationist army organized in this period and is viewed as the most heavily controlled and assimilated by Japan, essentially positioning it as a branch of the colonial army. Suppressing anti-Japanese forces and assisting the Imperial Japanese Army in their aggression were naturally entrusted with the Manchukuo Army as a collaborationist army under Japanese control, the former role of which has drawn the most focus of previous studies. However, Japan’s use of the Manchukuo Army in its overseas expansion was not limited to the level of military combat in the narrow sense. In addition, Japan made political use of the Manchukuo Army to mobilize cooperation from local forces, as well as conducting covert operations in its name, training reserve personnel for Japan and Manchukuo through the Manchukuo Army, and even regarding it as a testing ground for controlling other collaborationist armies or reforming the Imperial Army. In other words, the Manchukuo Army played a substantially more diverse role in Japan’s overseas expansion than previously believed. However, some of Japan’s patterns of use of the Manchukuo Army can be generalized to other collaborationist armies, while others are only compatible with the colonized Manchukuo Army. This specifically reflects that the utilization value and role of local collaborationist forces were limited by the nature, namely the degree of penetration of Japanese rule, of themselves and of the Japanese-occupied areas from which they were recruited.
Keyword
：Japan, Kwantung Army, Manchukuo Army, collaborationist army, utilization
Research and Discussion
Recent Trends and Developments in the Study of Manchukuo (1998–2023): From the “Imperial Turn” Onward
[Abstract]
Lin Chih-hung
PDF
121
This article attempts to summarize developments in the study of Manchukuo over the past quarter century. Since the 1990s, influenced by the end of the Cold War and changes in historiographical thought, research on Manchukuo has shown significant progress. First, scholars have cast off the shadow of war and reapplied studies of empire and imperialism to understand the relationship between Manchukuo and Japan. In the twenty-first century, scholars have been inspired by postcolonial theory and used the relationship between knowledge and power to examine “colonial modernity,” which has led to more diverse perspectives on the status of Manchukuo. Second, scholars have considered the influence of fascism on Manchukuo, such as the activities of the Russian Fascist Party within its borders and the “technocracy” advocated by Japanese reformist bureaucrats. Finally, continuities across time and space have also come to the fore, including the examination of ethnic relations in literary history and cultural studies as well as regional interconnections with East Asia, which have extended on into historical experiences of the “post-Manchukuo” period.
Keyword
：東北亞、滿洲國、日本帝國主義、法西斯意識形態、文化和認同
Book Reviews
Zhao Liuyang,
Women, Family and Legal Practice: A Social Legal History since the Qing Dynasty
Hu Ruochen
PDF
165
Return