Chinese Studies Overseas

Abstract

The interdisciplinary field of area studies focusses on a physically bounded or socio-politically constructed community, combining a theoretical and often comparative approach to its social, economic, and political structures and cultural systems on the one hand, with an examination of people's lives in their contexts on the other. I would propose within the field of Chinese studies to include Taiwan and Hong Kong as well as People's Republic of China. There has been a mistaken tendency among many Sinologists to perceive Taiwan and Hong Kong as marginal contributors to the authenticity and tradition of Chinese culture. Chinese studies scholars therefore tend to identify themselves exclusively with the study of "mainland" China. From the Beijing regime's point of view, both Hong Kong and Taiwan are geographically peripheral but politically and culturally integral parts of China. At the same time, the definition of cultural authenticity and marginality in China is still controversial and therefore a theoretical study of "marginality" itself is equally important in the field. As research in PRC was prohibited at an early stage of the revolution, these two conventionally peripheral regions have been the most representative objects for theoretical studies of Chinese society and culture for the past forty years.