I spoke with someone recently who was talking about an organization called the “Institute of Chinese Culture” that was set up in DC after WWII. He said he had just seen it mentioned in passing in an article, but couldn’t find it mentioned anywhere else. I’m curious, though, if anyone knows what it was, or how I could find out. I’m intrigued.
Was it a KMT/ROC outfit? What was its purpose? Why doesn’t it exist anymore?
Are you talking about the “Taipai Economic and Cultural Representative Office”? After we recognized the PRC in the seventies, it was no longer cool for us to maintain official diplomatic relations with Taiwan. However, it was totally cool for us to set up cultural and economic ties with them, and for them to do the same with us. They set up an office in DC - I used to live near there, actually. Note the URL: 首頁 - 駐美國台北經濟文化代表處 Taipei Economic and Cultural Representative Office in the United States
Positively not an embassy.
Thanks, Mr. Excellent, but I’m definitely not talking about that. I’m quite familiar with TECRO. However, I did assume that it had been something like the Taiwan Research Institute, which was something like a KMT lobbying group in the US under Lee Teng-Hui. I’m not getting the impression that that’s what the ICC was though.
Since posting this, I’ve looked through the Washington Post archives and found bits and pieces from a number of different articles about what the ICC was. It was founded by Cardinal Paul Yu-Pin to foster relations between “China” (read ROC). It gave scholarships, provided Mandarin classes, and put on cultural events.
I don’t know when it closed, though. One would think that it did when the US changed its diplomatic recognition.