Chinese Studies: Primary Sources

Scholarly journals, monographs, statistical publications, government documents, newspapers, dissertations, patents, and other documents published in China.

Scripta Sinica contains over 460 titles and 358,000,000 characters of materials pertaining to the traditional Chinese classics, especially those related to Chinese history. The collection continues to be expanded.

Documents on China, Hong Kong, and Taiwan produced and received by the British Foreign Office from 1919-1980, including diplomatic dispatches, letters, newspaper cuttings, maps, reports of court cases, biographies of leading personalities, and summaries of events.

The online edition of Siku Quanshu spans five thousand years of Chinese history, geography, politics, economics, science, technology, philosophy, and close to 3,500 works with a total of more than 36,000 volumes. The compilation contains large numbers of rare books and manuscripts and is an important tool for East Asian Studies.
On-campus users need to download the Client Program (setup.exe) onto their computers (in Internet Explorer browser on the Windows platform) in order to use the database.

Manuscripts, images, maps, objects, and other archival material related to the trade and cultural exchange between China, North America, and the Pacific in the eighteenth through twentieth centuries.

"This resource brings together manuscript, printed and visual primary source materials for the study of global commodities in world history. The commodities featured in this resource have been transported, exchanged and consumed around the world for hundreds of years. They helped transform societies, global trading operations, habits of consumption and social practices (Adam Matthew)."

"This unique online collection is to provide ... the declassified documentary record about the successes and failures of the U.S. intelligence community in the Far East during the Cold War (1945-1991). Particular emphasis is given to America’s principal antagonists in Asia during the Cold War era: the People’s Republic of China, North Korea and North Vietnam. However, countries such as Japan, Taiwan, Indonesia, Thailand, the Philippines, Malaysia, Singapore and Australia are covered as well (Brill)."

Manuscripts, correspondence, photographs, ephemera, and other historical documents on China in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries.

Pamphlets from Cornell University Library’s Charles W. Wason Collection on East Asia along with scholarly essays, an interactive chronology, mini guides and editors’ choices from the collection.

Letters, manuscripts, diaries, artwork, photographs, and other primary source documents from the eighteenth through twentieth centuries in China.

Archival documents and publications from the Chinese Communist Party.

Note: Only two users can access this database at a time.

Archives and documents from the National People's Congress in China, including both national and provincial meetings.

People's Daily has been "the official voice of the central government of the People's Republic of China for the last 71 years." It provides "the single location where the central government and the Communist Party of China announce their respective policies and disseminate governmental, political, and economic messages to the public and the world (OriProbe)." Notes: Look for the little “click here" on the English introductory page to enter the actual resource. Also, only two simultaneous users are allowed at one time for this database.