Political Movements in China

We have to think of this impact principally in terms of revolution; in terms of industrial revolution, the economic revolution which accompanied it, and the nationalist revolution which changed the form of government in China and the thinking of the articulate elements of the Chinese people with regard to the form of government. We have to think of evangelical Christianity coming into China as a social revolutionary force, breaking down indigenous social habits, particularly attacking the family system -plural marriage, concubinage, and other family institutions. And finally, we have to think of an intellectual renaissance, a product of the other revolutionary movements, a product of Western educational processes, either directly through mission schools in China, or indirectly through returned students who had studied in Europe and the United States, or even more remotely, through the newspaper and the radio and the motion picture. This intellectual renaissance broke down the conception of intellectual regionalism. It attacked dialects and produced for the Chinese people the ideal of a single spoken language for the whole country, and of a written language which is in relationship to the spoken language as written English is in relationship to spoken English in this country. To these revolutionary movements must finally be added the force which came out of Russia, the revolutionary force of communism

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