Chinese Studies

Sources from the School of Oriental and African Studies and the British Library, London: 1793-1980. With documents encompassing events from the earliest English embassy to the birth and early years of the People’s Republic, this resource collects sources from nine archives to give an insight into the changes in China during this period.

A collection of rare pamphlets from Cornell University Library’s Charles W. Wason Collection on East Asia from c1750-1929 as well as secondary resources, including scholarly essays, an interactive chronology, mini guides, and editors’ choices from the collection.

East India Company offers access to a unique collection of India Office Records from the British Library, London. Containing royal charters, correspondence, trading diaries, minutes of council meetings and reports of expeditions, among other document types, this resource charts the history of British trade and rule in the Indian subcontinent and beyond from 1599 to 1947. Our library has access to the following modules: Module 1: Trade, Governance and Empire, 1600-1947; Module II: Factory Records for South Asia and Southeast Asia, 1595-1830; Module 3: Factory Records for China, Japan and the Middle East; Module 4: Correspondence: Early Voyages, Formation and Conflict; Module 5: Correspondence: Domestic Life, Governance and Territorial Expansion; and Module 6: The Board of Commissioners: Establishment of the Board.

This collection consists of two major components. One is the digitized version of the original personal papers of Satow and the other is transcripts, recently-made, for all the Satow's diaries and travel journals.

This collection reproduces the six principal MID files relating exclusively to China for the period 1918 to 1941 (general conditions, political conditions, economic conditions, army, navy, and aeronautics). Also includes documents created by other U.S. Government agencies and foreign governments from the records of the Military Intelligence Division.

Offering formerly restricted British government documents consisting of diplomatic dispatches, letters, newspaper cuttings, maps, reports of court cases, biographies of leading personalities, summaries of events, and diverse other materials.

"Documents include correspondence from the American Chamber of Commerce of Shanghai (September 1940); discussions calling for protection of American newspapers in China prior to United States entry into the war; letters to Sumner Welles, undersecretary of state; documents noting 'unfavorable comments made by Japanese-controlled press ... concerning foreigners and policies of the United States and Great Britain' (June 1941); the correspondence of Everett F. Drumright, American consul (August 1942); samples of 'Chinese Communist publications' supplied by the Embassy at Chungking under cover of dispatches (June 1943); among many other unique holdings. Topics include the wartime relations between the United States and China, with emphasis on China's military position and U.S. efforts to give military assistance; U.S. Army analysis of military operations; U.S. interests regarding Kuomintang-Communist relations and negotiations; and efforts to provide technical assistance to China and to facilitate greater cultural cooperation between the United States and China."

FBIS Daily Reports, 1941-1996 constitutes a one-of-a-kind archive of transcripts of foreign broadcasts and news that provides fascinating insight into the second half of the 20th century. Many of these materials are firsthand reports of events as they occurred. Digitized from original paper copy and high-quality microfilm, this definitive online collection features full-text transcripts from Africa, Asia and the Pacific, China, Eastern and Western Europe, Latin America, the Middle East and the Soviet Union.

All the activities of the multinational Far Eastern Commission (FEC), which oversaw the postwar governing and reconstruction of Japan, are fully documented in this publication.

An American sinologist and college professor, Owen Lattimore (1900–1989) traveled extensively and did research throughout China, Manchuria, Mongolia, and Chinese Turkistan. From 1938-1950, he served as director of the Page School of International Relations at Johns Hopkins. In 1950, Senator Joseph McCarthy accused him of being a Soviet espionage agent. A senate committee exonerated him later that year. In 1952, he was indicted on seven counts of perjury on the charge that he lied when he told a Senate internal security subcommittee earlier in 1952 that he had not promoted Communism and Communist interests. In 1955, the Justice Department dropped all charges against him. Most of the material in this file relates to Lattimore's leftist sympathies and catalogs how he became a victim of McCarthyism.

The Amerasia Affair was the first of the great spy cases of the postwar era. Unlike Alger Hiss or the Rosenberg cases, it did not lead to an epic courtroom confrontation or imprisonment or execution of any of the principals. The Amerasia Affair sheds light not only on debate as to who "lost" China, Soviet espionage, McCarthyism, and the loyalty program, but also on the bureaucratic intricacies of anti-communism in Washington.

This module consists of two major series of records: CIA Research Reports from 1946-1976 and records collected by Raymond Murphy on Communism in China and Eastern Europe from 1917-1958. Beginning in 1946 with reports of the CIA’s predecessor, the Central Intelligence Group, CIA Research Reports reproduces over 1,500 reports on eight areas: Middle East; Soviet Union; Vietnam and Southeast Asia; China; Japan, Korea, and Asian security; Europe; Africa; and Latin America. This series deals with international questions and biographical reports, offering profiles of relatively unknown leaders. The Murphy Collection provides information on war recovery efforts, international aid, and the formation of countries and substantial information on the Chinese Communist Party.

Records of the Joint Chiefs of Staff in the Early Cold War contains the formerly classified and secret proposals that, when approved by the president, became the military and foreign policies of the United States. These records cover the early years of the Cold War, focusing on the threat of Soviet expansion, Europe and NATO, the Chinese Civil War, the Korean War, the beginnings of the nuclear arms race, and the Arab-Israeli conflict and other developments in the Middle East, especially regarding Middle East oil and Iran.

Spanning approximately 5,000 pages across more than 250 folders, these documents focus mainly on Communist China's political relations with other nations, especially the United States. Also included here are political affairs documents on Tibet and Mongolia.

This digital collection reviews U.S.-China relations in the post-Cold War Era, and analyzes the significance of the 1989 Tiananmen Square demonstrations, China's human rights issues, and resumption of World Bank loans to China in July 1990.

A collection that explores and provides historical background to more than thirty key worldwide border areas, including: U.S. and Mexico; the European Union; Afghanistan; the Levant; Turkey; The Congo; Argentina; China; Thailand; and others.

This database includes approximately 250,000 records from 清宫内务府造办处档案, 清宫瓷器档案, 清代陈设档案, 清代御制诗文全集, 秘殿珠林, 石渠宝笈, 清代陈设秘档静明园卷, and 颐和园档案陈设档收藏卷.

Including contracts, ledgers, tax, official documents, legal documents, medical documents, examination documents, family documents, religious documents, family genealogies, theater documents, letters, and daily encyclopedias.

Historical legal archives for thousands of cases in various types of Jiangjin District, Sichuan Province, China from 1911 to 1949. Including archives of debt disputes, tenancy disputes, sales disputes, property disputes, marriage disputes, violation of tax law, theft, fraud, smoking and drug addiction, family disputes, and other criminal and civil disputes.