The Center for American Studies was established to conduct research on matters related to the United States as part of broader area studies. After World War II, the United States was able to capitalize on favorable postwar conditions and opportunities to become the world’s preeminent power. During the subsequent Cold War, the United States assumed leadership of free and democratic countries. Most democratic countries not only followed the military and political leadership of the United States internationally, but endeavored to better understand the cultures of the ascendant power. Taking the United States as the main research object thus become an emerging academic field in its own right. For instance, Japan had already been promoting American Studies as early as 1910. Beginning in the 1950s, countries in Europe, American continents, Asia, and Oceania, and even countries hostile to the United States, including the Soviet Union and its satellites, such as Yugoslavia, invested in American Studies. Although South Korea did not begin to conduct American studies until the 1960s, its academic efforts developed rapidly. In this way, American Studies soon became a major area of study in the field of international relations. In Taiwan, American Studies developed relatively slowly due to a puzzling failure to recognize the crucial role the United States played in the various transformations of the Republic of China. With military support and economic assistance from the United States, the Northern Expedition of 1928 was a success, and eventually victory in the Second Sino-Japanese War was achieved. When the Nationalist Party lost Mainland China to the communists after the Chinese Civil War, the loss of popular support was a major reason for its defeat, but U.S. disappointment in, and subsequent abandonment of the Republican cause was also an important factor. After the R.O.C. government withdrew to Taiwan, its survival owed much to military and economic assistance from the United States. And yet, the concept, “Knowing America, Understanding America,” was seldom taken seriously. The origins of American Studies in Taiwan may be traced to the contributions of the late senior statesman and President of Academia Sinica, Dr. Wang Shi-chieh (1891-1981). As someone with rich experience on foreign affairs, Dr. Wang realized the importance to Taiwan— then an isolated island—of cultivating positive diplomatic relationship with other nations, especially the United States. As President of Academia Sinica, he actively promoted academic cooperation between the Republic of China and the United States. Academia Sinica and the National Academy of Sciences (NAS) of the United States jointly established “Committees on Sino-American Science Cooperation” in 1964. Although the Committees were affiliated with Academia Sinica, they had to prepare independent budgets. 1. The Center for American Studies 1972-1974 Dr. Wang Shi-chieh In the Beginning: The Origin and Evolution of the Institute of European and American Studies 2
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