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   from the issue of April 7, 2005

     
 
Coble leads the way in China, Japan research

 BY TOM HANCOCK, UNIVERSITY COMMUNICATIONS

Being something of an outsider has proved beneficial for Parks Coble.

 
Parks Coble
 Parks Coble

Delving into China and that nation's history-rich relationship with Japan, Coble - who has no heritage with either country - has provided objective research. For his unique look into the politics of the two Asian powers, Coble received an Outstanding Research and Creative Activity Award - the highest for research that the NU system confers.

"How can you say anything about Chinese and Japanese history when you are neither? In some ways it's an advantage because you have an outside view," Coble said. "You aren't emotionally connected... I think it gives you a distance that is helpful."

Coble researches the political history of modern China. He focuses especially on the relationship between business and government. Under Chairman Mao, from 1949 to 1976, private business was eliminated. But in the reform era since 1978, capitalism has returned. A watershed event occurred in July 2001, when business owners were allowed to become members of the Communist party. The tension between private enterprise and the Communist government, however, continues to be a lively one, Coble said.

Coble also focuses on the relationship between China and Japan in the period of 1931 through 1945, when Japanese imperialism in China was a source of conflict between the countries.

"Even today it is still a touchy, emotional issue for both sides," Coble said. "Even at the political leadership level, when visitors go from one country to the other, it is a topic of great conversation and concern."

The conflict had not been studied other than through diplomacy and foreign affairs, Coble said. It had not been looked at from the viewpoint of the huge effect on domestic politics in China. It was a key issue for China in the same way terrorism has become a key issue in the United States, Coble said.

Prior to the 1980s, Coble said, it was difficult to complete research on 20th century China.

"When I did my dissertation I could not go to China. There were no diplomatic agreements or other ties," Coble said. "When I finished it in 1975, Mao was still alive and almost every major university in the country was closed because of the cultural revolution."

Many historians in China during the cultural revolution were working in labor camps and were not permitted to work on projects related to the history of the Communist party, Coble said. Since the Chinese weren't working on it, not much was getting done. And most Japanese historians avoided the issue of imperialism, Coble said

"All of my research has been dictated by the ways sources have opened up," Coble said. "The last book I've written, Chinese Capitalists in Japan's New Order: The Occupied Lower Yangzi, 1937-1945, required access to Chinese archive records of Chinese businesses in 1930s and 1940s. It couldn't have been done until the 1990s. It depended on the business records in Shanghai becoming available."

Upon Coble's arrival in Lincoln in 1976, Mao was still alive. There was no academic activity in China, no open business opportunities and no foreign trade. The economy was impoverished.

"If someone had told me that 30 years later China would be an engine of global economic growth, and the largest recipient of overseas investment, I wouldn't have believed it," Coble said. "The academic and political environment is still not entirely open, but the progress has been remarkable."

In his first book, The Shanghai Capitalists and the Nationalist Government, 1927-1937, Coble took a political stance that countered what Mao had said. It was difficult to say that in China. A way around the press restrictions is to translate foreign books that comment on important issues.

This also affected the release of Coble's second book, Facing Japan: Chinese Politics and Japanese Imperialism. 1931-1937, which dealt with Zhou Enlai, one of the heroes of the Communist movement, in a way that was previously not permissible in China.

Overall, Coble said his research has had a positive effect on his teaching.

"It's part of the fabric of my teaching," Coble said. "I don't see a big gap between teaching and research," he said.

And, UNL students benefit from learning about the current political and business climate in China.

"Parks is an outstanding classroom teacher," Kenneth Winkle, history chair and one of Coble's nominators for the award, said. "Undergraduates benefit because of his expertise in all of Chinese history. Graduate students study under Parks and do cutting-edge research in Asian history and international relations. They go out with their Ph.Ds and teach, carrying Parks' influence."

Coble is the fifth member of the history department to win an ORCA award.

"It says a lot about the quality of the research, as well as the teaching that we do here every day," Winkle said.


GO TO: ISSUE OF APRIL 7

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