Research into traditional China at German universities began in the early nineteenth century. It took several decades, however—until after the unification of Germany in 1871—positions at the universities of first Leipzig and then Berlin and Hamburg to be established in order to professionalize traditional China studies. The third and fourth decades of the twentieth century saw a rapid expansion, but Nazi rule between 1933–1945 led to massive emigration of German sinologists. This article looks into the details of this development and the disastrous consequences it had for German sinology. It then proceeds to the new beginnings made after World War II when some emigrants returned to Germany from China. East Germany lost many sinologists, who left the GDR when the Berlin wall was built. The article finishes with the challenges that a politically important China presents to traditional sinology.

The history of French Sinology—that is, of scholarly research on things Chinese by French-speaking authors working from Chinese sources—goes back to the seventeenth century and can be divided into several periods determined in large part by sociopolitical factors, and marked by different approaches and emphases: I propose to describe them as the missionary age (seventeenth–eighteenth centuries); the first academic efflorescence (nineteenth century); the advent of field research and the impact of colonialism and the social sciences (first half of twentieth century); and the postwar era of specialization and internationalization (second half of twentieth century), which marked the end of a certain French domination of Chinese studies in the West.1

This article traces the origins and developments of Chinese studies in Austria. In addition to factors and institutions that were instrumental in the development of these studies, the lives and works of individuals important to this development are revisited, starting with brief remarks on the scholarly interest in China in eighteenth century Austria and on early efforts to obtain Chinese books and Chinese printing types in the nineteenth century. The achievements of individual scholars are examined against the backdrop of their institutional affiliations and their experiences, if any, in China. In addition, the reasons for the delayed institutionalization of Sinological studies at university level are highlighted.

This paper follows the developments in Chinese studies in Moscow and Leningrad–Saint Petersburg during the Soviet and post-Soviet decades. It provides an overview of institutions and key currents in research conducted in these two cities, while also contextualizing the general political conditions under which Sinology existed. The paper examines the ways researchers responded to the ideological requirements placed upon them in the early Soviet period, then outlines the main trends in Chinese studies after the establishment of the PRC and during the Sino-Soviet split, and, finally, traces the continuities and changes of the late Soviet and post-Soviet years. This article provides some information on existing bibliographical publications, conferences, and journals as an aid for following China-related research conducted in Russia. It also demonstrates that, while many problems continue to hamper the development of Sinology in Russia, this field has sound foundations and many promising tendencies.

The earliest pieces of knowledge and research on China in Poland reflected development of Sinological studies in Western Europe. Being located on the sidelines of trade routes through which Eastern ideas and goods reached Western Europe, Poles used to get their information about China mostly from intermediaries: medieval travelers, merchants, and envoys, and since the sixteenth century, letters, writings, and books by Jesuit missionaries. The Poles contributed the very first comprehensive description of Chinese flora, and were important in spreading mathematical knowledge among Chinese scientists. A Pole established Monumenta Serica, still published today, and another Pole applied formal logic to the research of Chinese classical texts for the very first time. Despite all that, regular Sinological research in Poland did not take off until the twentieth century, and even then it was interrupted by political upheaval in Poland and by researchers’ fight either for freedom or with ideology.

The development of Sinology in Australia was contingent upon, and serves as a lens through which to view, a number of transformations to Australian society in the middle decades of the twentieth century, as the country sought independence from the “Mother Country,” Great Britain, and reoriented itself towards Asia. These include Australia's first forays into independent international diplomacy and the introduction of the Ph.D. degree and postgraduate research in the university system—culminating in the first Australian postgraduate work on China in the 1950s. While government support has always been crucial to the enterprise, from the early years until today scholars have defended the Chinese humanities against the utilitarian “national interest” proclivities of governments. Adopting a broad definition of Sinology, one which encompasses post-war trends in “Chinese Studies,” this article surveys the universities that have been important to Sinology, the scholars who worked in them and the ongoing challenges to the discipline.