Economic Teaching of Chiang Kai-shek: Political Assessments and Academic Interpretations (Part 2. A Critical Look through the Prism of Soviet Political Economy)

The paper examines the problems of perception of the content of Chiang Kai-shek’s book «Chinese Economic Teaching» (1943), shaped by political approaches and academic context. Soviet scholars of China’s modern history viewed Chiang Kai-shek’s book through the prism of Soviet political economy. The terminological substitutions made («goods» instead of «things», «money» instead of «wealth», «needs» instead of «wants») were largely due to the influence of the English edition, which offered interpretations of traditional Chinese concepts in terms of Western economics. The attempt to dock with the conceptual apparatus of Soviet political economy demonstrated the complexity of the transition between different systems of academic discourse and became an example of the emergence of misunderstanding due to the belonging of researchers to different scientific paradigms. Chiang Kai-shek’s political views remain alien to contemporary China. However, official calls for the synthesis of Marxism with the best traditions of Chinese culture created positive preconditions for an interested rethinking of his judgments on the specific features of Chinese economic thought.