French "China Center" And Research On Contemporary China (1958—)

French "China Center", its full name is "Modern and Contemporary China Research Center"(Centre d’etudes sur la Chine moderne et contemporaine). Established in1958as the "Contemporary China data Center", Jacques Guillermaz who is known as the pioneer of contemporary China research in France, he is the creator of this small library. The establishment of "Contemporary China data Center" in France stand for the symbol of a new discipline’s birth:contemporary China Research. Afterwards, in more than50years of development,"China Center" change little by little from a pure data center to be the most important modern and contemporary China research agency in France. The Center becomes a real basecamp for organizing modern and contemporary China research.We will write the paper in this way:China Center’s history will be mainly discussed. As the principle line of the dissertation, we will follow up the development of "China Center": the background of establishment, the beginning period, the preliminary period (1958-1976), the Golden age (1976-1996) and the period of prosperity (1996-). We will also pay attention to the research "environment":the change of the social background in France and in the world, the various academic trends, the roles of the pioneers, the founder and the successors in the research field, their academic carriers, theirs thoughts on scholarship..In the thesis, we hope to write China Center’s history which is more than50years old. But we can’t find the necessary documents in China. So we went to France in2010and stayed for3months in Paris to do a literature search. We have perusal into all documents and archives about "China Center". At the same time, we interviewed some important China researcher. With great effort, we hope to show our theme French "China Center" and Modern and Contemporary China research in France as follows:Chapter I Presentation of the dissertation:Why we choose the theme? What we have been preparing for the study? How we make a preliminary sketch? Etc. And in the end, we attempt to define some important concepts.Chapter II The Analysis of the background of the rise of Contemporary China Research in France. We will discuss the topic from three aspects:social and political factors, academic theories, China research agencies and researchers.Chapter III The main aim of this part is to show the background of the establishment of "China Center" and its early development. And we will discuss the decisive roles of three outstanding scholars (Fernand Braudel, Jean Chesneaux, Jacques Guillermaz) in the early stage of China Center’s development.Chapter Ⅳ Tracking study of the medium term development of Contemporary China research in "China Center" and in academic fields.Chapter Ⅴ The Gold Age of "China Center" under the leadership of Professor Lucien Bianco. In this part, we will also give some details and information on the state laboratory "Interdisciplinary Research of Contemporary China". And we will talk about four French famous professors as intellectual leaders in contemporary China Research and their achievements.Chapter Ⅵ We will expose in this chapter the foreground and background of the establishment of "Modern and Contemporary China Research Center", to show how they organize the teaching and research work as well as academic activities in the new center. And we will also talk about the principal and four other French Contemporary China research agencies.Chapter Ⅶ The final part and conclusion of the dissertation. As us, the French contemporary China research shows some characteristics of academic achievement. And we want to sum up and expound the results.