Archaeology has a long history in traditional China where it served as the handmaiden of history, lexicography and geography, as well as preserver of art and literature. References to ancient material remains are common in the early Chinese literature. In the early fifth century b.c. Feng-hu-tzu, presumably after a study of early implements, proposed a four-stage sequence for the ancient period, each characterised by a weapon made of stone, jade, copper and iron, respectively. The grand historian of the second century B.C., Ssu-ma Ch'ien, made special efforts to visit as many ancient sites and monuments as possible to substantiate his records. In the second century a.d. Hsü Shen compiled a dictionary of 10,516 characters, many of which were drawn from ancient bronze and stone inscriptions. In the sixth century Li Tao-yuan wrote his commentaries on the Book of Rivers, which was fully documented with archaeological data. Throughout the ages many important discoveries were recorded and large numbers of ancient art objects and literature preserved. By the twelfth century Chinese archaeology had become a specialised subject, known as Chin-shih-hsueh, literally, a study of bronze and stone objects. A vast literature began to accumulate, reaching its height in the last two centuries.

In terms of Western political science or military doctrine it seems somewhat irrational that the leaders of Communist China should refer to great powers as “paper tigers.” It appears even more illogical that they should call atomic bombs “paper tigers,” especially when they themselves place the highest priority on the development of a nuclear capability. Yet, since the first Chinese nuclear explosion on October 16, 1964, the official Communist Press has again referred to the United States, Great Britain and the “revisionists” (both Khrushchev and the present leaders of the Soviet Union) as “paper tigers.” This same metaphor has also been applied to “imperialism” and “all reactionaries,” as well as to nuclear weapons, air-power and sea-power.

China had a system of medicine long before the advent of scientific medicine in the West. The first book about it, the Su Wen Nei Ching, was written about 300 B.C., and its detailed description of some medical phenomena cannot be surpassed even today. Despite the fact that much of the terminology is metaphysical, this traditional system of Chinese medicine is at the same time very much down to earth, being largely the result of minute observations. Consequently the symptoms of many diseases are much better described in traditional Chinese textbooks than in their modern scientific Western counterparts. Reading the Chinese books indeed opens up a new vista to a Western doctor, transforming the small range of obvious symptoms he learned at a Western medical school into a vast panorama of interconnected phenomena. It would seem that, with his reliance on laboratory procedures, the Western doctor may have been gradually losing this art of close observation; perhaps it is only artists who retain it today.

Historical writing in China today, whether by scholars who are members of the Communist Party, or academic writers who are not themselves Communists, has paid scant attention to the long period of time which may be called the Chinese Middle Ages, roughly from A.D. 316, the date of the partition of north and south following the nomad invasions, down to the end of the Sung Dynasty in A.D. 1278. This period of nearly a thousand years is considered by the Communist philosophy of history to be “feudal” and no real change in the social structure is supposed to have taken place under the long succession of “feudal” dynasties. Compared with the important transformation of ancient “slave society” to serf-owning feudalism, which is considered to have been completed somewhat before the Han Dynasty came to power, this long interim of feudalism drags on until, with the Ming, the first signs of nascent capitalism are to be detected, ushering in the still more dramatic events of imperialist aggression, revolution and the final triumph of the Communist Party. The scheme is not Chinese; it was borrowed, or adopted, from the Russians, who in turn seem to have based it upon a reference of Marx, contained in one of his letters, to the view that the general progression from primitive society to slave-owning monarchies, and then to feudalism, appeared to be a law of history. It may well be that this scheme is roughly applicable to several Western societies, but it is very hard to thrust Chinese history onto this procrustean bed—and still make sense of it.

In the journal Hsien-tai Fo-hsueh (Modern Buddhism), September 1959, there appeared a long article entitled “Lun Tsung-chiao Hsin-yang Tzu-yu” (“A Discussion Concerning Freedom of Religious Belief”), by Ya Han-chang, which was originally published in the official Communist ideological journal Hung Ch'i (Red Flag), 1959, No. 14. Appearing as it did in Red Flag it is justifiable to conclude that the views expressed in it represented the accepted Communist attitude toward religion. In this article, Ya wrote that the basic policy of the Chinese Communist Party and the People's Republic of China is to “recognise that everyone has the freedom to believe in a religion, and also that everyone has the freedom not to believe in a religion.”

One of the striking contrasts between a Communist revolution and one of the “nationalist” variety lies in the differing attitudes held by the revolutionary elites towards the traditional culture. Nationalist leaders tend to come to power with a vague commitment to restore the values of the traditional society in a modern context; yet a good deal of their energy in the early years of nation-building is expended trying to relate cherished cultural doctrines to the often incompatible demands of modernisation.

China was the second country in the Buddhist world to have a Communist government. The first was Mongolia. But Mongolia was isolated both geographically and by its form of Buddhism (shared only with Tibet). Chinese Buddhists, on the other hand, had been building closer ties with their brethren in South-East Asia for more than half a century. Their form of Buddhism was less remote from South-East Asian forms and they felt the same need as South-East Asian to fit Buddhism into a national revival.

The “Socialist education campaign” now in full swing in China was recently commended by Premier Chou En-lai in his report to the National People's Congress as being “of great revolutionary and historic significance.” Such campaigns are no novelty in Communist China. The student of Chinese affairs might indeed be tempted to see in the renewed effort of 1964–65 the lastest manifestation of a recurring phenomenon, for the new campaign bears many features common to post movements and at present at any rate does not promise to be so dramatic in its revelations or as severe in its measures as the Hundred Flowers of 1957. But earlier campaigns such as the Three and Five “Antis” were mainly to eradicate specific errors and failings which were often a part of the old China. Attacking corruption, tax evasion, bureaucracy, etc., these movements, harsh as they were, could be represented in principle as a necessary process in cleaning up and modernising the corrupt social structure of the past. It is true that they were accompanied by a wealth of Party jargon, and were a serious stage in the development of a Communist society, but they dealt largely with the problems of the pre-Communist era. The Hundred Flowers period, although directly concerned with the rectification of ideological mistakes, was still a movement of stern reaction to the bourgeois tendencies of the past. In contrast, the Chinese leaders seem now to have to deal with errors arising from the system which they themselves have created.