In China, Ancient History Kindles Modern Doubts (original) (raw)
World|In China, Ancient History Kindles Modern Doubts
https://www.nytimes.com/2000/11/10/world/in-china-ancient-history-kindles-modern-doubts.html
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- Nov. 10, 2000
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November 10, 2000
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Everyone here knows that Chinese civilization has 5,000 years of uninterrupted history, a truism proudly repeated by schoolchildren and President Jiang Zemin alike. But as serious scholars have long conceded, hard proof of the first 2,000 years is missing.
Today, scholars announced the results of an urgent government-sponsored research program that -- using ''the superiority of socialism to develop a multidisciplinary approach'' -- has filled in key gaps in the ancient record of China's first kings and dynasties. The project, which mobilized more than 200 scholars for five years, has been hailed for shedding light on the murky origins of Chinese civilization. But it has also raised questions about the role of nationalism in scholarship.
Ample evidence does exist of early cultures in the Yellow River Valley, where legend holds that the Chinese language and imperial system took form under a mythical Yellow Emperor 5,000 years ago. But no firmly documented chronology of rulers, reigns and conquests -- of the sort that exists for ancient Egypt and Mesopotamia -- actually goes back beyond 841 B.C.
''This has been a major regret for Chinese history and world history,'' said Li Xueqin, a prominent historian, today at a news conference to disclose the results of the project.
Mr. Li, the project's director, was certainly understating the despair that many scholars and officials have felt about the history problem. China is a country obsessed with its past, as a source of national worth and an explanation for every foible.
Mr. Li announced that the Xia-Shang-Zhou Chronology Project, named for the three early dynasties under study, ''has been able to solve a series of longstanding questions about early Chinese civilization.'' He said the project had yielded the most reliable time line yet for these dynasties, the earliest of which is said to date back more than 4,000 years.
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