Chinese Cultural Renaissance

The Chinese Cultural Renaissance or the Chinese Cultural Renaissance Movement (Chinese: 中華文化復興運動; pinyin: Zhōnghuá Wénhuà Fùxīng Yùndòng) was a movement promoted in Taiwan in opposition to the cultural destructions caused by the Communist Party of China during the Cultural revolution.^[1]

Movement

Chiang Kai-shek, the then President of the Republic of China who launched the movement on November 1966 - on the 100th anniversary of Sun Yat-sen's birthday - by publicly announcing the official start of the renaissance movement.^[2] It was the Kuomintang's first structured plan for cultural development on Taiwan. Chiang himself was the head of the movement promotion council.^[2] Future president Lee Teng-hui was also involved in the movement and served as the president for the cultural renaissance.^[1]

Chiang announced ten goals:^[2]

1. To improve educational standards and promote family education with an emphasis on the Confucian principles of filial duty and fraternal love
2. To reissue Chinese classic literary works and translate important works with a view toward disseminating Chinese culture abroad.
3. To encourage the creation of new literary and art works that are relevant to contemporary society and informed by the ideals of the cultural renaissance
4. To launch the government planning and construction of new theaters, opera houses, auditoriums, and art galleries, as well as stadiums throughout the country, and to improve existing facilities.
5. To utilize all mass media for the promotion of the cultural renaissance with an emphasis upon encouraging good customs and morals.
6. To guide the modernization of national life under the influence of the Confucian Principles of the "Four Social Controls" (propriety, rectitude, honesty and a sense of shame)^[3] and the "Eight Virtues" (Loyalty, filial piety, benevolence, love, faithfulness, justice, harmony and peace), a goal to be achieved with the help of the newly launched New Life Movement.
7. To promote tourism and the preservation of historical relics
8. To increase support for overseas Chinese education, including the publication of newspapers and the promotion of cultural activities abroad.
9. To maintain close ties with foreign institutions and intellectuals, particularly those whose research focuses on China.
10. To revise tax statutes and regulations in order to encourage wealthy individuals, private industries, and businesses to make donations to government-endorsed cultural and educational establishments.

Chinese culture overlap Taiwanese culture

According to Tsiang Yien-si, the purpose of the renaissance movement was to affirm and restore traditional values in Chinese culture to help enrich the spiritual life in a society that was becoming increasingly materialistic. He said that there was never an attempt to unify Taiwanese culture and Chinese culture.^[4]

See also

• History of the Kuomintang cultural policy
• May Fourth Movement

References

1. Wachman, Alan M. [1994] (1994). Taiwan: National Identity and Democratization. M.E. Sharpe publishing. ISBN 1-56324-398-9. pg 274.
2. Guy, Nancy. [2005] (2005). Peking Opera and Politics in Taiwan. University of Illinois Press. ISBN 0-252-02973-9.
3. De Bary, William Theodore; Lufrano, Richard John, eds. (2001). Sources of Chinese Tradition: From 1600 Through the Twentieth Century. Introduction to Asian civilizations. 2 (2 ed.). Columbia University Press. p. 342. ISBN 978-0-231-11271-0. Retrieved 2011-11-05. The meaning of Li, Yi, Lian, and Chi[.] [...] li, yi, lian, and chi have always been regarded as the foundations of the nation [...] they may be interpreted as follows: Li means 'regulated attitude.' Yi means 'right conduct.' Lian means 'clear discrimination.' Chi means 'real self-consciousness.'
4. Rubinstein, Murray A. Bi-Ehr Chou. Bosco, Joseph. [1994] (1994). The Other Taiwan: 1945 to the Present. M.E. Sharpe publishing. ISBN 1-56324-192-7.