Science, medicine, and Confucianism in the making of China and southeast asia - Lim Boon Keng and the overseas Chinese, 1897-1937

Historians have argued for the importance of Japan and the United States in shaping the trajectory of science and medicine in Republican China, especially in the regions of North China. This article argues that another understated group of individuals-Overseas Chinese-were influential in leading institutions of Western medicine in China, as well as sharing the latest science knowledge they acquired in the West to audiences in China and Southeast Asia. An example was Lim Boon Keng, a doctor born in Singapore and educated at Edinburgh, who came to lead the first department of health in the Republican government as well as Xiamen University in pre-war China. Chinese reformers as Sun Yat-sen, Tan Kah Kee, Liang Qichao, and Kang Youwei were attracted by Lim's medical expertise as well as his active participation in the reform movement in Southeast Asia, and invited Lim to participate in the development of medicine and politics in China proper. In addition, Lim's unique blending of a historical view of Chinese Science and reformist notions of Confucianism help legitimate his participation as a credible Chinese intellectual. Together with other Overseas Chinese such as Wu Lien-teh and Robert Lim, they were influential in leading institutions of medicine across the country in Manchuria, Beijing, Kunming, and Xiamen in the first half of the twentieth century. Lim Boon Keng, in particular, promoted programs in science and medicine as well as the study of Confucianism during his tenure as the President of Xiamen University from 1924 to 1936. However, May Fourth intellectuals such as Lu Xun criticized Lim Boon Keng's programs as conservative, authoritarian, and anti-humanities. Even though Lu Xun and other intellectuals soon eventually left Xiamen because of their disagreements with Lim, the university became a leader in the instruction of science and engineering. In sum, this article argues that the medical history of twentieth-century China should include the narrative on the Overseas Chinese bringing scientific knowledge and individuals to China, supplementing the Western ideas, people, and resources that came to China via Japan.