The First Contact between Chinese and Western Historians in the Cold War: a Probe into the Leiden Conference on Sinology                                             Chen Huaiyu

In 1955, the Eighth Conference of Young Western European Sinologues was held in Leiden, the Netherland. Newly founded People’s Republic of China dispatched Jian Bozan and Zhou Yiliang to participate this conference on invitation. It was the first time for the historians from New China to have a direct contact with the Western Sinologues. During the meeting, Jian Bozan not only exchanged ideas with Western European communist scholars such as John Chinnery and Jean Chesneaux, but also developed friendship with American scholars including Frederick Mote. This conference discussed the periodization of Chinese history, the academic freedom in China, the population issue in China, and the issue on who would write Chinese history. Chinese scholars argued that the periodization of Chinese history should be based on Marxist Materialism. John Fairbank was concerned with the population problem in China. During the conference the Western scholars raised some questions with political ideological implications. They accused of the academic freedom in China and became concerned that Hu Shih who played a crucial role might be excluded from being written in history. Jian Bozan and Zhou Yiliang responded to these criticisms by adopting Marxist policy. This paper reveals that the Leiden conference was very important in terms of the direct contact between Chinese and Western scholars. This conference served as an interesting case for understanding the richness and complexity of politicians and academics during the Cold War.