Abstract:

Since the first half of the 20^th century, the academic community of the Republic of China had compiled the bibliography of overseas sinology under the dual circumstances of national crisis and academic transformation. In the period of the Republic of China, Chinese scholars compiled and published 50 bibliographies of overseas sinology and translated 13 bibliographies of overseas sinology compiled by foreign scholars. A careful reading of these bibliographies will find that there were three aspects worth paying attention to: firstly, the compilers or translators were scholars from different research fields; secondly, the compiled bibliographies focused on studies related to transportation between China and foreign countries, as well as research on China’s borderlands; thirdly, Japanese writings of sinology made up the majority of them. This kind of compilation was caused by the inherent needs of academic development on the one hand, and the cultural sovereignty struggle and the national salvation mission of the times— “competing with outsiders” and “saving the country through scholarship”— on the other. Today, the construction of a systematic catalog of world Chinese studies serves as the foundation for a comprehensive understanding of Chinese studies abroad, as well as an important pathway to present “academic China” to the world. This is also an important step to bring the “Sinology Center” back to China and establish a self-reliant knowledge system in China.

Key words: period of the Republic of China, bibliography of overseas sinology, compilation