Research Note: Kung Fu Diplomacy During the Cultural Revolution

An advertisement for a “revolutionary opera.” Many such shows were staged during the Cultural Revolution.

The History of Practice vs. The History of an Idea

This post continues an occasional series looking at the ways in which the traditional Chinese martial arts were discussed in the PRC’s propaganda and cultural diplomacy efforts from roughly the early 1950s to the early 1980s.  We have previously seen some newsreel footage of important martial artists during the early part of this period, as well as an English Language article on a critical event in the development of modern Wushu which was staged in 1953. This article is a little different in that it jumps ahead and examines a discussion of the TCMA dating to the final years of the Cultural Revolution.  Published in China Reconstructs (the PRC’s premier Cold War era English language propaganda magazine) it is an important (if somewhat…