2016 Volume 2016 Issue 183 Pages 183_45-183_58
During the early days of the post-WWII era, China (i.e. the Republic of China or ROC) was expected to become a regional “big power” that would help the victorious nations of the war to maintain peace and order in the Far East. But the ROC was unable to play a sustainable role as a rising power due to its defeat in the Chinese civil war. Meanwhile, the Chinese Communist regime (i.e. the People’s Republic of China or PRC)—the new ruler of the Chinese mainland—was somewhat more influential as a newly developing country in the region. But the PRC would not defend the international order supported by Western countries. Both governments thus failed to take on leadership roles under the existing international order immediately following WWII. However, the ROC and PRC had in fact tried to improve their international status via international organizations in the late 1940s through the early 1950s. The United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) is one of the organizations that they used for that purpose. This article argues that the ROC’s cooperation with UNESCO stemmed from a carefully planned strategy aimed at obtaining “status” and “assistance” simultaneously from a highly respected international organization, whereas the PRC’s flexibility in handling its relationship with the organization was motivated by the necessity to gain the recognition of the wider international community. The ROC had successfully persuaded the founding fathers of the United Nations (UN) to stress the importance of cultural and educational cooperation in the UN charter, and it managed to act as a leading Asian cultural power inside UNESCO until the early 1950s. The PRC, on the other hand, lacked a seat in both the UN and UNESCO for more than 20 years after the nation’s establishment. And yet the Communist regime tried several times to gain representation in UNESCO, allowing the organization’s liaison office to remain in China, even after its troops clashed with UN forces in Korea in the early 1950s. Despite the drastic change in China’s domestic politics, UNESCO adopted a consistently positive stance toward China’s cultural and educational reconstruction efforts. The organization endorsed and encouraged the endeavors made by both regimes. It did so not for political or ideological reasons, but because many individuals who were involved in the organization’s enterprises in China deeply believed that cultural and educational exchange should be independent from any domestic or international conflicts caused by the East-West confrontation. It was against this complex backdrop that China made its contribution to the initial development of UNESCO as the world’s largest intergovernmental cultural organization.
