The Chinese Academy of Social Sciences

The Chinese Academy of Social Sciences (CASS) is the nation-wide comprehensive unit in which research in the humanities and social sciences in the People’s Republic of China (PRC) is concentrated. The scope of research includes: economics, political and social studies, international relations and the humanities. ,~,1though the CASS consists of 32 institutes, 2 centres, a post-graduate school and a publishing house, with a total staff f of 5,000(1), the social sciences and humanities have not been regarded highly in the PRC.(2) This means that, with the exception of subjects such as business administration, law and economic sciences, that have an important bearing on the success of the &dquo;Four Vtodermsations&dquo;policies, little money is made available for social science research. Before the founding of the PRC in 1949, only three institutes were involved in social science research in China, i.e. the Institute of History and Philology and the Institute of Sociology in Nanjing, and the Institute of History in Beijing (then: Peip’ing). Total research personnel amounted to less than 100 researchers. During the Yan’an-period (1936-1944), the Chinese Communist Party (CPP) established a Central Academy in Yan’an, but this institute, small in size, was mainly devoted to historical and philosophical research. In 1955, the Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS) set up the predecessor of the CASS in the form of the Department of Philosophy and Social Sciences. This Department consisted of 15 institutes, specialising in, a.o., philosophy, history, economics, literature, law, ethnology and world economics, with a research