User:PaintWoodSt/Draft2
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
The Debates over Eastern and Western Cultures was a debate in China during the New Culture Movement, which aimed to compare and contrast the Eastern cultures, including those of China and India, and Western cultures.[1] The debates was initiated by the first issue of La Jeunesse in 1915 and became inactive by the end of Northern Expedition in 1927. During the debate, there were over a thousand articles authored by hundreds of people debating about how to develop Chinese culture and society.[2] The debates provide a variety of definitions and scopes of the Chinese culture. Wang Yuanhua, one of the major spiritual leaders of liberal intellectuals in China,[3] describes that the debates "pioneered cultural studies in China."[4] During the debates, socialism became widely spread and accepted in China, converting Chinese thought leaders, including Chen Duxiu and Li Dazhao, to socialists.[5] Since there was no clear conclusion reached, the debates re-emerged between those supporting to perserve traditional Chinese culture and those supporting full westernisation of China in the 1930s.[5] The debates were further continued in Taiwan in 1962, by Hu Shih and his student Li Ao.[6] The topics in the debates were re-discussed in mainland China in the 1980s and 2010s.[7][8]