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The purpose of this paper is to examine the key domestic conundrums which led to the possibility of rapprochement between Canada and the People’s Republic of China (PRC).

Adopting a “low politics” approach which emphasizes on individual actors and domestic issues that led to Sino–Canadian rapprochement, this paper draws from both primary and secondary sources which include archives and various historical documents to examine domestic socio-political and economic factors that led to the improved relations between the two states.

Sino–Canadian rapprochement was, on the one hand, the result of an increase in liberal activism and intensive socio-political change during the Quiet Revolution in Quebec (where public opinions mattered for federal party leaders) as a consequence of the collapse of ultra-conservative and anti-communist policies under the Duplessis era. Meanwhile, the PRC’s worsening economic situation as a result of the Cultural Revolution and Sino-Soviet tensions of 1968 placed China in a desperate situation to seek foreign aid. With the emergence of Pierre Trudeau’s era and Zhou Enlai’s diplomatic expertise, a further dialogue emerged which subsequently led to the normalization of relations in 1970.

Usually Canadian scholars studying China regarded 1970 as the watershed in Sino–Canadian relations, but this paper is going to illustrate that even two years before the diplomatic rapprochement, a turning point had already occurred which is 1968.

The Communist Party of China represents a distinctive philosophy of leadership, one in which it tries to present itself as the key promoter of Chinese style modernity and the national mission to become a great, rich, and powerful country again. Contemporary Chinese leaders however have to operate in a territory laden with historic issues, with huge administrative responsibilities, and with challenges of mobilizing and gaining support from a vast, complex, and often fractious public. This chapter looks at the various ways leaders in China have tried to fulfill these often contradictory demands, while also attempting to remain true to their core ideological beliefs at a time when the country is undergoing rapid economic and social transformation.

The development of library science is discussed within four main phases: US influence before 1949; Soviet Union influence 1949‐1965; diplomatic segregation from the West 1966‐1976; and the influence of the developed countries 1977‐1991. The effects of the Cold War on Chinese politics and so on librarianship are indicated and discussed and the influence of the Cultural Revolution, and recovery after it, analysed.

For Leftists engaged in the study of political economy during the 1960s and 1970s, Cuba and China held particular promise as postrevolutionary states working to construct systems of production and distribution which were predicated on solidarity and mutuality, rather than on the exploited and alienated labor upon which capitalism depended. Against the claim that the desire for individual material gain was irreducibly a part of the human experience, China and Cuba offered the possibility of – in the parlance of the time – a “new man”: a political subject whose motivations were in alignment with a socialist economy rather than a capitalist one.

Based on research in multiple archives, this paper explores efforts on the part of radical economists in the United States – including the Marxists at Monthly Review, the young academics who founded the Union for Radical Political Economics (URPE), and a handful of older Left-Keynesians – to witness Third World experiments in nonmaterial incentives firsthand. What have often been dismissed as pseudo-religious “pilgrimages” were, in reality, voyages of discovery, where radicals searched for the keys to develop a sustainable, rational, and moral political economy.

While many of the answers that radicals found in Cuba and China were ultimately unsatisfying, Third-World experiments in moral incentives serve as a powerful example of “solidarity in circulation” during the “long 1960s,” and as an important reminder that attempts to keep social science research free of political contamination serve to reify disciplinary norms which are themselves the product of the political culture in which they were formed.

The purpose of this paper is to inform individuals that the looting and destruction of Iraq's cultural heritage was an attack on the rich culture of humanity itself.

Published works, both recent and ranging back to the middle of the twentieth century, such as articles, books, Congressional Bills/Parliamentary Acts, and United Nation reports were examined. By reviewing various pieces of literature and legislation, this paper reveals the long and difficult road to preserving a nation's cultural heritage.

In the wake of the USA's and coalition's invasion of Iraq in 2003, Iraq's National Library and Archives, National Museum, and other significant cultural heritage sites were pillaged by looters and thieves. This paper discusses the response by librarians and archivists to the destruction of Iraq's historical collections and the actions taken. The safeguards, which have, over time, developed to preserve a nation's cultural identity, were not enforced during or after the invasion of Iraq. This paper examines a few examples in the twentieth century of nations' repositories that were purposely destroyed.

This paper identifies key pieces of legislation and events that will allow individuals to comprehend to the fullest the danger to libraries and museums from modern warfare.

It is said that one of the first recorded libraries of any magnitude was that of the Imperial Chou dynasty at Luoyang in the modern province of Henan in the 7th century BC, although the existence of libraries in China can be traced back to the Shang Dynasty about 500 years earlier. There is indeed said to be some positive evidence of documentation activities also going on in the 12th Century BC, since there are records of seismic activity dating from that time. Some three hundred years after this ‘first’ library, however, the infamous act of ‘Burning the Books’ took place. This was carried out on the orders of Shih Huang Ti — the self‐styled ‘First Emperor’ of the Ch'in Dynasty as a result of a petition from his First Minister to eradicate all earlier teachings. Not only did they condemn those who did not hand over their books, to forced labour on the Great Wall for four years, but also buried alive several hundred scholars who were suspected of knowing the books so thoroughly that they could reiterate their contents from memory. This act of ‘Burning the Books’ repeated itself of course during the Cultural Revolution as to a certain extent did a 20th century, although not necessarily much more humane, process of burying alive take place. The emperor was said, however, to have preserved copies in the Imperial Library, and especially those dealing with divination, pharmacy, medicine, agriculture and arboriculture. He also might, to perhaps stretch a point a little, have been said to have been involved in the documentation world, since he was apparently responsible for a wide range of standardisation including the track gauge of chariots — possibly to help him get the dimensions of the Great Wall right (from some parts of the Great Wall I saw however, a mountain goat would have problems let alone a horse and chariot).

The China threat is the first and most obvious answer when it comes to the question of threat perception in Taiwan, but the issue encompasses much more. The ruling elite for years considered the subject population a threat, for example, and even the nature and severity of the China threat varies greatly depending on an individual’s identification. How do those who identify as Taiwanese see the consequences of an attack from China? There is a very different threat perception among the Taiwanese population, who view annexation by China in much the same way as their Mainlander counterparts would see annexation by Japan, for example. Persons self-identifying as Taiwanese do not view themselves as being culturally the same as the people across the Taiwan Strait, having grown apart from them (in a cultural sense) over the past 120 years that they have been separated. Moreover, after Taiwan’s long history of being colonized by one alien power after another – from the Dutch and Spanish, to Koxinga, and then the Manchu dynasty; by the Japanese; and finally by the KMT (for being colonized is how many Taiwanese perceive the ROC period) – finally the inhabitants of the island have the opportunity to chart their own future, and enjoy a newfound sovereignty and identity separate from that of any colonizing power: thus the prospect of being colonized by China is anathema, and therefore a much greater existential threat for them than for Mainlanders.

Against the background of China’s long cultural history, this article provides a Western view of Chinese libraries in the 1990s, including efforts to practise more “open door librarianship”. It surveys the national library system, the National Library of China, public libraries, research libraries, ISTIC, universities and colleges, school libraries and professional associations and LIS education in China.