Institute of Pacific Relations
To promote greater knowledge of issues, the IPR supported conferences, research projects and publications, and after 1932 published a quarterly journal Pacific Affairs.
After World War II, charges that the IPR was infiltrated with Communists led to Congressional hearings and loss of tax exempt status.
The New York-based effort was organized by Edward C. Carter, after graduating from Harvard in 1906, joined the Student Volunteer Movement with the YMCA in India, then worked with the Y in France during World War I.
After the war he joined The Inquiry, a liberal Protestant commission with a flavor both genteel and militant which organized conferences and publications on labor, race relations, business ethics, and international peace.
Wilbur argued that a new organization devoted to Pacific affairs would fill a gap not addressed by East Coast foreign policy groups.
Time Magazine called Carter, Wilbur, and The Inquiry a "strange and motley crew", a "little band of élite and erudite adventurers.
"[citation needed] Some in the American State Department and Navy opposed discussion of Pacific affairs, fearing that it might interfere with strategic planning at a time when Chinese and Japanese nationalism were on the rise.
Marxist analysis, such as that brought by Wittfogel, was considered by some to add a powerful tool for understanding Chinese history, but Stalin's interest was scarcely limited to discussions and theories.
[5] The IPR sponsored other important scholarly excursions into Asian history and society: R.H. Tawney's long memo for the 1931 Conference was published as his Land and Labor in China (1931); a Marxist analysis of geography by Chi Ch'ao-ting; the collaboration between Lattimore and Wittfogel which used an eclectic array of approaches including Arnold Toynbee, Ellsworth Huntington, and Karl Marx to develop a social history of China.
One scholar noted that the non-official nature of these meetings meant that officials and influential leaders could join in the fray in an ostensibly private capacity, which "gave the I.P.R.
As part of IPR's lasting impact in the region, the conferences helped to focus on the political and social developments within Japan after the war, especially the question of whether to abolish the imperial throne.
Some have suggested that Carter left the Secretary General position in late 1945 because of pressure from the European council leaders due to his increasingly outspoken anti-colonialism.
The first major criticism of the Institute was a wartime study by dissident IPR member Alfred Kohlberg, an American who had owned a textile firm in prewar China.
After finding what he believed were Communist sympathies in IPR, in particular Frederick Vanderbilt Field, Kohlberg first wrote to other members of the Board, published an 80-page report, then launched a publicity campaign against the Institute.
[11] Among IPR staffers claimed to be Communists or collaborators with Soviet intelligence agents were Kathleen Barnes, Hilda Austern, Elsie Fairfax-Cholmely, Chi Chao-ting, Guenter Stein, Harriet Levine, Talitha Gerlach, Chen Han-seng (a member of the Sorge spy ring),[12] Michael Greenberg (named as a source in 1945 by defecting Soviet courier Elizabeth Bentley), and T.A.
Bisson, and Owen Lattimore were active in IPR and claimed that they had worked to turn American China policy in favor of the Chinese Communist Party.
[14]: 223–225 Elizabeth Bentley testified that NKVD spy chief Jacob Golos warned her to stay away from the IPR because it was "as red as a rose, and you shouldn't touch it with a 10-foot pole.
"[14] The IPR lost its tax-exempt status as an educational body in 1955, when the Internal Revenue Service alleged that the Institute had engaged in the dissemination of controversial and partisan propaganda, and had attempted to influence the policies or opinions of the government.
[16] By the mid-1950s, the IPR was facing other challenges – notably the development of well-funded centers for Asian Studies at major American universities such as Harvard, Yale, Berkeley, Michigan and Columbia.
[23] The American Council published two periodicals of their own, a fortnightly journal Far Eastern Affairs and the biweekly Imparel, a mimeographed summary of the news issued by the San Francisco Bay Region Division.
