BUILDING THE NATION THROUGH WOMEN'S HEALTH: MODERN ...

(1927-1937), the Nationalist government created and supported various modern medical and
public health enterprises, though implementation was still difficult because of the fragmented
political nature of the country. During this time, the Guomindang were fighting the Communists
and, later, the Japanese, especially between 1937 and 1949 when the country was embroiled in
both civil war and the Second Sino-Japanese War. China’s resources were often too scarce to
devote to developing modern medicine.
My focus then is on the period between 1911 and 1937, because this era was the essential
introductory phase of medical modernizing efforts on local and national levels. Prior to this time,
the Qing dynasty had attempted to change a few aspects of their government in fits and starts, but
it was not until the end of the dynastic system that plans to really change society and politics got
underway. The invasion of China by Japan in 1937 halted much of these efforts, and so my
study ends there. The sources for this period, like government documents, sometimes overstate
the success of the programs. Although the plans may have never been realized because of social,
financial, and political restraints, much of the post-1949 development followed precisely the
same path. The ideology behind the modern midwifery movement was already set by 1937. Arif
Dirlik’s description of the sources he used in his study of the New Life Movement may be
applied here: “Though these sources exaggerated the movement’s accomplishments and must be
used with caution in assessing its impact on Chinese society, their distortions are something of an
advantage in the present analysis, which stresses the expectations of the movement over its
actual accomplishments.” 43 Similarly, the plans for maternal and child health that local and
national governments enacted, especially during the Nationalist era, signify modernizing, nation-
building ideologies and the vision of a new China.
43 Arif Dirlik, "The Ideological Foundations of the New Life Movement: A Study in Counterrevolution," Journal of
Asian Studies 34, no. 4 (1975): 948.
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