The planning connection between Clarence Stein and Liang Sicheng in Republican China.

If Liang Sicheng's meeting with the eminent American planner Clarence Stein in 1936 started Liang's career in planning, it would be a significant event in Chinese planning history. No research has yet explored this claim on Stein's influence on Liang or Stein role in introducing American planning ideas and practices to China. To explore this cultural exchange, the author provides a more holistic understanding of their earnest friendship based on the study of archival materials including the Stein Papers at Cornell University and Liang's working diary at Tsinghua University, their own published writings, and the scholarly work on their contributions. This article reports a more complex picture of this exchange and shows that their friendship deepened while Liang was in America during 1946–1947 as Stein inspired Liang and exposed him to various American planning projects. However, in pursuing of a Chinese planning theory, Liang inherited of diverse traditions and did not rely on Stein alone. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]