UNESCO–China cooperation on Fundamental Education, 1945–1950: between geopolitics, idealism of post-war global governance, and Chinese nationalism

The “Fundamental Education Programme” was the first flagship education project of the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO). To forge this project for post-war reconstruction and development, UNESCO managed to mobilize a global humanitarian network, drawing on the experience of education-driven development projects in China, such as the Mass Education Movement and the Rural Reconstruction Movement. UNESCO Fundamental Education aimed not only at educational reconstruction but also at comprehensive social engineering in less economically developed countries, many of which were still colonies at this time. This essay places the initiative of UNESCO Fundamental Education in the historical context of semi-colonial China, where foreign humanitarian activism played an important and yet understudied role. Semi-colonial China faced multiple challenges of post-war reconstruction, peace negotiations, state-building, a looming civil war, and burgeoning Cold War tensions. This essay argues that the formulation, discussion, and implementation of the UNESCO Fundamental Education Programme was deeply entangled with nationalism, geopolitical forces, and longer traditions of Western humanitarian activism. The piloting and ultimate failure of UNESCO Fundamental Education in China demonstrates the complexity, dilemmas, and limitations of liberal interventionism and “soft” or “cultural” forms of international conflict management in conflict-ridden societies.