 | Prescriptions for Saving China Sun Yat-sen was born in 1866 in a village near Canton. Beyond a basic education in China, Sun received a Western-style education in Honolulu and earned a degree in medicine in Hong Kong. In 1894, he contacted Viceroy Li Hung-chang to present his ideas for the modernization of China. Rebuffed and frustrated by the slow pace of change, Sun formed the United League, which helped topple the 360-year-old Ch'ing monarchy in 1911. Following his election as provisional president, he resigned to promote railroad development, which he felt crucial to China's modernization. In 1919, as the republic disintegrated under autocratic rule and fighting among regional warlords, Sun again created a political party, the Kuomintang (KMT), to foment revolution. In the early 1920s Sun enjoyed renewed prestige and popularity among students who crusaded against foreign imperialism and supported changes akin to those proposed by Sun. He died in 1925. Julie Lee Wei was born in Shanghai in 1935. She grew up in Hong Kong, China, India, Singapore and Taiwan. After graduation from Taiwan University, she studied English literature at Fordham University and Columbia University. Later she studied at the University of Michigan, where her interests were in Classical Chinese and ancient and medieval Chinese poetry and philosophy. She has worked variously as editor or science writer at University of Michigan, SRI (formerly Stanford Research Institute) and Hoover Institution, Stanford University. In recent years her interests have been in Chinese language, history, and thought. Ramon H. Myers is a senior fellow at the Hoover Institution. He received his PhD in economics from the University of Washington. After joining the Hoover Institution, Myers became a member of the US Wheat Studies Delegation to the People's Republic of China in May-June 1976; served as a consultant to the Food Agricultural Organization, Rome, Italy, from November 1979 to January 1980; and taught as a visiting professor of economics at National Taiwan University, Taipei, Taiwan, in 1990-91. The author of more than one hundred journal articles and book reviews, he was also the associate editor of the Journal of Asian Studies and edited Ch'ing-shih wen-t'i (Studies in Ch'ing History). In 1980, Garland Publishing issued a forty-four volume series that Myers selected and edited entitled The Modern Chinese Economy. Donald G. Gillin was a noted China scholar and former head of the Asian Studies program at Vassar College. Dr. Gillin taught at Vassar from 1968 until his retirement in 1992. He was previously a faculty member at Duke University. A fluent Mandarin Chinese speaker, he was noted for talents as a lecturer and story-teller. His innovative "Hollywood on Asia" course at Vassar at one point drew enrollment of almost 15% of the Vassar student body. An accompanying slide set on images of China in popular media sold more than 700 copies when produced by The Asia Society. Dr. Gillin served as a visiting member of the faculty at the Universities of Michigan and North Carolina, Stanford University, San Francisco State College, Arizona State University and Sir George Williams University in Montreal. He delivered scores of papers and lectures at conferences and symposia around the world, including many meetings of the Association for Asian Studies. He died in 2005. |
