DOCSLIB.ORG

GJAA Vol.6 Chinese Nationalism and Neo-Maoism.Pdf (131Kb)

Total Page：16

File Type：pdf, Size：1020Kb

Download full-text PDF Read full-text
GJAA Vol.6 Chinese Nationalism and Neo-Maoism.Pdf (131Kb) Blanchette | Chinese Nationalism and Neo-Maoism Interviews Chinese Nationalism and Neo-Maoism An interview with Jude Blanchette China’s increasing assertiveness on the international stage has been accompanied by a rising tide of popular nationalism, which finds its clearest expression in social media. However, Chinese nationalism is not monolithic. The term enfolds distinct groups with diverse politics. To understand the complexity of Chinese nationalism, the Journal invited Jude Blanchette, the Freeman Chair in China Studies at the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS), to share his insights on neo-Maoism and the state of leftist politics in China. Journal: How did you become interested in China and what led you to focus on the neo-Maoist movement? Blanchette: I first became interested in China as an undergraduate student, when I had to choose a place to study abroad. I chose China on a lark, but it was one of the best decisions I have ever made. I spent a year there from 2001 to 2002 studying Chinese. My focus on the neo-Maoist movement began in 2011, when Bo Xilai was the party secretary in Chongqing. He had started this movement of red revivalism, which had the “Sing Red, Strike Black” campaign, and I noticed groups of younger online neti- zens [on neo-Maoist] websites, celebrating not only Bo Xilai’s campaign, but [also] openly supporting Mao Zedong. They were historical revisionists who were looking at issues that I thought were well-settled, like the Great Leap Forward and the Cultural Revolution, and saying, “actually, things were not that bad.” I just thought this defied so much of what I thought about China. I thought [China] was apolitical, that everyone is just focused on economic livelihoods, that they had given up on politics. [Yet] in the year 2011 [there were] people celebrating a figure that I thought, as an American, was like Hitler or Stalin. Journal: Can you situate neo-Maoism within the wider context of leftist politics in China? Blanchette: Neo-Maoism is a strain of leftist politics. There is a spectrum of various Volume 6 | 2020 [93] Interviews leftist diagnoses of problems in China, and one of the more famous ones is the New Left, which includes figures like Wang Hui and Wang Shaoguang. Neo-Maoism is a more conservative, more statist, leftist political perspective. There are also leftists who are anarchists. So I would say this is a very conservative statist version of leftism. Unfortunately, it is one of the only versions of leftism that is allowed in China. These have to be state-supporting versions of leftism, not radical critiques of China’s political economy. Journal: What are some key insights you present in your recent book, China’s New Red Guards: The Return of Radicalism and the Rebirth of Mao Zedong? What are the implica- tions for neo-Maoism today? Is the movement still active? Blanchette: There is only one core insight for me, which is that political debate is still very much alive in authoritarian China. Even though we look at China as being fairly quiet or monolithic politically and [assume] that everything political comes from the Chinese Communist Party, [my research] was a reminder to me that underneath that exterior of stability is a roiling debate about the future of China. That is very natural, that is what happens in every country. I think I had just assumed after the 1989 Tiananmen Square protests, especially after 1992 when Deng Xiaoping tells everyone, “we are done debating,” that the debate ended, but in fact it was very much alive. So, that is the most important insight I take out of the book. I do not actually think [neo-Maoists have] much of an implication for China because the movement has really shifted in its importance over the past several years. It has been caught up, like so many other civil society movements, in the general crackdown on the public square. Neo-Maoism, as an organized movement, does not mean nearly as much as it did during its peak under Bo Xilai, when we thought this was actually a shadow government being built. The ideas that neo-Maoists represent, however, are very important. Neo-Maoists are essentially the visible manifestation of a set of beliefs, and those beliefs, in many ways, are shared by the current leader, Xi Jinping, who is [more open in supporting] China’s past. As Xi Jinping said, “we cannot negate the Mao-era, and we cannot negate the Deng Xiaoping-era, they are both part of our story.” For a long time it had seemed like the General Secretary or the party leadership wanted to ignore the Mao era. It was an inconvenience; it was something dangerous you had to deal with. Xi Jinping is much more comfortable trying to promote certain elements of the Mao period. Not all elements, but certain elements of it. I think there is much in Xi Jinping, in how he articulates his world view, the role he sees for the Chinese Communist Party, and the role he sees for the state economy, that many neo-Maoists would support. So I think the types of ideas that neo-Maoists represent is still very important and alive, even if, as an organized movement, [they] have lost some of that import. Journal: Are there any other examples of grassroots expressions of ideas like those that animate neo-Maoists? [94] Georgetown Journal of Asian Affairs Blanchette | Chinese Nationalism and Neo-Maoism Blanchette: The best example of this is student Marxist groups, which have of course had a difficult time, but were organic expressions of what I would say is Marxist class analysis on China. For a country which is nominally socialist, communist, and Marxist, [class analysis and diagnosis] this is exactly how you would expect students to think of the world. Obviously, the movement has been shut down. But again, that is another indication that this is going to be a recurring theme in China. You will always see individuals rise up to try to help their fellow citizens, in this case, through bringing to bear Marxist analysis on deep structural problems. But also, as Deng Xiaoping said, the real danger for the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) is on the left. These are the individuals who can challenge the Party on its own ideological grounds. So, I think we are going to continue to see that this be a problem. Journal: In your book, you mention that after the 1989 Tiananmen Square protests, China launched a massive patriotic education campaign aiming to inculcate Chinese youth with national pride and party loyalty. Given this historical precedent, do you believe it is possible to rebrand nationalism and a patriotic education curriculum for the youth in Hong Kong? Blanchette: Yes and no, unhelpfully. I think the premise of the question is, Hong Kong youth are really quite savvy, and is any of [this propaganda] going to stick? I would say that Chinese youths in the early 1990s were also very savvy. They were not stupid. They were not brainwashed. They had just come through a decade of pretty remarkable levels of cultural openness and awakening. You watch something like He Shang [River Elegy, a 1988 Chinese documentary critical of Chinese traditional culture] and you can see the extraordinary sophistication with thinking about China and its place in the world, but patriotic education still had an impact. Patriotic education does not necessarily mean that you completely buy what [the Chinese authorities are saying]. It essentially gives citizens a reference point for what is safe; the permissible bounds of discussion. In that case, it is very successful. It demarcates acceptable from non-acceptable. If you put in place a patriotic education campaign in Hong Kong, undeniably you would see an erosion, eradication, or constriction of the public square. There would be a more limited set of ideas which would be discussed. The Chinese Communist Party has been very clear about what is “correct historical interpretation.” That is why in 1981, they came out with a historical resolution. It was essentially to say to everybody that there is no need for debate, this is the correct line. You can discuss history around this correct line, but this is the right line. So I think it would be to some extent effective. Journal: Do you think patriotic education campaigns would be successful in Hong Kong today given that the 2012 protests were sparked by Beijing’s efforts to change the syllabus? Does Beijing still have a chance to do it again? Volume 6 | 2020 [95] Interviews Blanchette: Yes, I do think so. The first patriotic education [campaign] went into effect after the 1989 Tiananmen Square protests. That was not a particularly peaceful time either. You had a broad swath of Chinese society that had just come from a really trau- matic period where they were expressing great dissatisfaction with the level of political and economic control the party put in place. This is precisely why the party felt that the patriotic education campaign was so important. In terms of effectiveness, will we find that in a year the whole of Hong Kong starts following the party line? No. Of course not, but I do not think that is the only definition we should have for success. Now there is a tactical issue, which is if I were the Chinese Communist Party, would I put into place a patriotic education campaign right now? The answer is no. However, there is undoubtedly a pretty firm decision in Beijing that we have lost the Hong Kong youths.
Load more

Recommended publications
  • Who Set the Narrative? Assessing the Influence of Chinese Media in News Coverage of COVID-19 in 30 African Countries the Size Of
    Who Set the Narrative? Assessing the Influence of Chinese Media in News Coverage of COVID-19 in 30 African Countries The size of China’s State-owned media’s operations in Africa has grown significantly since the early 2000s. Previous research on the impact of increased Sino-African mediated engagements has been inconclusive. Some researchers hold that public opinion towards China in African nations has been improving because of the increased media presence. Others argue that the impact is rather limited, particularly when it comes to affecting how African media cover China- related stories. This paper seeks to contribute to this debate by exploring the extent to which news media in 30 African countries relied on Chinese news sources to cover China and the COVID-19 outbreak during the first half of 2020. By computationally analyzing a corpus of 500,000 news stories, I show that, compared to other major global players (e.g. Reuters, AFP), content distributed by Chinese media (e.g. Xinhua, China Daily, People’s Daily) is much less likely to be used by African news organizations, both in English and French speaking countries. The analysis also reveals a gap in the prevailing themes in Chinese and African media’s coverage of the pandemic. The implications of these findings for the sub-field of Sino-African media relations, and the study of global news flows is discussed. Keywords: China-Africa, Xinhua, news agencies, computational text analysis, big data, intermedia agenda setting Beginning in the mid-2010s, Chinese media began to substantially increase their presence in many African countries, as part of China’s ambitious going out strategy that covered a myriad of economic activities, including entertainment, telecommunications and news content (Keane, 2016).
    [Show full text]
  • Xi Jinping's War on Corruption
    University of Mississippi eGrove Honors College (Sally McDonnell Barksdale Honors Theses Honors College) 2015 The Chinese Inquisition: Xi Jinping's War on Corruption Harriet E. Fisher University of Mississippi. Sally McDonnell Barksdale Honors College Follow this and additional works at: https://egrove.olemiss.edu/hon_thesis Part of the Political Science Commons Recommended Citation Fisher, Harriet E., "The Chinese Inquisition: Xi Jinping's War on Corruption" (2015). Honors Theses. 375. https://egrove.olemiss.edu/hon_thesis/375 This Undergraduate Thesis is brought to you for free and open access by the Honors College (Sally McDonnell Barksdale Honors College) at eGrove. It has been accepted for inclusion in Honors Theses by an authorized administrator of eGrove. For more information, please contact [email protected]. The Chinese Inquisition: Xi Jinping’s War on Corruption By Harriet E. Fisher A thesis presented in partial fulfillment of the requirements for completion Of the Bachelor of Arts degree in International Studies at the Croft Institute for International Studies and the Sally McDonnell Barksdale Honors College The University of Mississippi University, Mississippi May 2015 Approved by: ______________________________ Advisor: Dr. Gang Guo ______________________________ Reader: Dr. Kees Gispen ______________________________ Reader: Dr. Peter K. Frost i © 2015 Harriet E. Fisher ALL RIGHTS RESERVED ii For Mom and Pop, who taught me to learn, and Helen, who taught me to teach. iii Acknowledgements I am indebted to a great many people for the completion of this thesis. First, I would like to thank my advisor, Dr. Gang Guo, for all his guidance during the thesis- writing process. His expertise in China and its endemic political corruption were invaluable, and without him, I would not have had a topic, much less been able to complete a thesis.
    [Show full text]
  • Xi Jinping's Address to the Central Conference On
    Xi Jinping’s Address to the Central Conference on Work Relating to Foreign Affairs: Assessing and Advancing Major- Power Diplomacy with Chinese Characteristics Michael D. Swaine* Xi Jinping’s speech before the Central Conference on Work Relating to Foreign Affairs—held November 28–29, 2014, in Beijing—marks the most comprehensive expression yet of the current Chinese leadership’s more activist and security-oriented approach to PRC diplomacy. Through this speech and others, Xi has taken many long-standing Chinese assessments of the international and regional order, as well as the increased influence on and exposure of China to that order, and redefined and expanded the function of Chinese diplomacy. Xi, along with many authoritative and non-authoritative Chinese observers, presents diplomacy as an instrument for the effective application of Chinese power in support of an ambitious, long-term, and more strategic foreign policy agenda. Ultimately, this suggests that Beijing will increasingly attempt to alter some of the foreign policy processes and power relationships that have defined the political, military, and economic environment in the Asia- Pacific region. How the United States chooses to respond to this challenge will determine the Asian strategic landscape for decades to come. On November 28 and 29, 2014, the Central Chinese Communist Party (CCP) leadership convened its fourth Central Conference on Work Relating to Foreign Affairs (中央外事工作会)—the first since August 2006.1 The meeting, presided over by Premier Li Keqiang, included the entire Politburo Standing Committee, an unprecedented number of central and local Chinese civilian and military officials, nearly every Chinese ambassador and consul-general with ambassadorial rank posted overseas, and commissioners of the Foreign Ministry to the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region and the Macao Special Administrative Region.
    [Show full text]
  • Framing International Education in Global Times
    View metadata, citation and similar papers at core.ac.uk brought to you by CORE provided by Scholarship@Western Western University Scholarship@Western Education Publications Education Faculty 2019 Framing International Education in Global Times Paul Tarc Western University, [email protected] Follow this and additional works at: https://ir.lib.uwo.ca/edupub Part of the Education Commons Citation of this paper: Tarc, P. (2019). Internationalization of Education as an Emerging Field of Study? A Conceptualization of International Education for Cross-domain Analyses. Policy Futures in Education, 17(6), 732-744. Framing International Education in Global Times – WORKING PAPER by Paul Tarc, PhD [email protected] International education (IE) is a complex and historically-inflected term, which means that its meanings and uses shift in relation to larger geopolitical, economic and social conditions. Indeed, the ebb and flow of IE somewhat mirrors or follows the larger historical conditions of conflict, war, resolution, nationalisms, internationalisms and protectionisms as energized by the most powerful nation-states and blocs. In the 20th Century, in parallel with internationalist and peace movements, IE gained traction in the aftermath of large-scale war. One of the most radical institutional expressions of internationalism for its time—the League of Nations—emerged in the 1920s in the wake of the devastation and unresolved animosities of the First World War. The creation of the League of Nations and the International Labour Organization in Geneva Switzerland, produced the conditions for the birth of what is now considered the longest-running international school, the International School of Geneva. The next period where internationalism and international education peaked in the 1960s and early 1970s occurred, again, in the decades following a ‘world war’ with the reconstruction of Europe and the decolonization of European empires.
    [Show full text]
  • Answer: Maoism Is a Form of Communism Developed by Mao Tse Tung
    Ques 1: What is Maoism? Answer: Maoism is a form of communism developed by Mao Tse Tung. It is a doctrine to capture State power through a combination of armed insurgency, mass mobilization and strategic alliances. The Maoists also use propaganda and disinformation against State institutions as other components of their insurgency doctrine. Mao called this process, the ‘Protracted Peoples War’, where the emphasis is on ‘military line’ to capture power. Ques 2: What is the central theme of Maoist ideology? Answer: The central theme of Maoist ideology is the use of violence and armed insurrection as a means to capture State power. ‘Bearing of arms is non-negotiable’ as per the Maoist insurgency doctrine. The maoist ideology glorifies violence and the ‘Peoples Liberation Guerrilla Army’ (PLGA) cadres are trained specifically in the worst forms of violence to evoke terror among the population under their domination. However, they also use the subterfuge of mobilizing people over issues of purported inadequacies of the existing system, so that they can be indoctrinated to take recourse to violence as the only means of redressal. Ques 3: Who are the Indian Maoists? Answer: The largest and the most violent Maoist formation in India is the Communist Party of India (Maoist). The CPI (Maoist) is an amalgamation of many splinter groups, which culminated in the merger of two largest Maoist groups in 2004; the Communist Party of India (Marxist-Leninist), People War and the Maoist Communist Centre of India. The CPI (Maoist) and all its front organizations formations have been included in the list of banned terrorist organizations under the Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act, 1967.
    [Show full text]
  • FROM MAOISM to TROTSKYISM -Reprinted from WORKERS VANGUARD, No.1, October 1971
    iii PREFACE The Communist Horking Collective originated tvhen a small group of Ivlaoists came together in Los Angeles to undertake an intensive investigation of the history of the communist movement in order to develop a strategy for the U.S. ,socialist revolution. Its study of the essentials of Stalinist and Maoist theory led the CWC to the inescapable conclusion that the theory of IISocialism in One Country" is in irreconcilable opposition to revolutionary internationalism. The consolidation of the CWC around Trotskyism and its systematic study of the various ostensible Trotskyist international tendencies was culminated in the fusion between the CWC and the Spartacist League in September 1971. The brief history of the Ct'lC which appeared originally in the first issue of Workers Vanguard (see page viii) alludes to the splits of the CWC's founding cadre from the Revolutionary Union (RU) and the California Communist League (CCL). To convey the genesis of this process, we have included a number of forerunner documents going back to the original split from the CPUSA on the 50th anniver­ sary of the October Revolution. The original resignation of comrade~ Treiger and Miller began the "floundering about for three years ••• seeking in Mao Tse Tung Thought a revolutionary al ternati ve to the revisionists." Treiger went on to help found the CWC; fUller con­ tinued to uphold the dogmatic tradition and declined to even answer the "Letter to a IvIao~_st" (see page 30). Why the Critique of "Tvw Stages"? The lynchpin on which all variants of the fJIaoist "t"t'lO stage" theory of revolution rest--whether applied to the advanced countries or to the colonial world--is collaboration with the ruling class or a section of it during the initial "stage." Early in its develop­ ment the CWC had rejected the conception as it was applied to the Un1 ted States, but believed it remained applicable to the col'onial revolution.
    [Show full text]
  • The Danger of Deconsolidation Roberto Stefan Foa and Yascha Mounk Ronald F
    July 2016, Volume 27, Number 3 $14.00 The Danger of Deconsolidation Roberto Stefan Foa and Yascha Mounk Ronald F. Inglehart The Struggle Over Term Limits in Africa Brett L. Carter Janette Yarwood Filip Reyntjens 25 Years After the USSR: What’s Gone Wrong? Henry E. Hale Suisheng Zhao on Xi Jinping’s Maoist Revival Bojan Bugari¡c & Tom Ginsburg on Postcommunist Courts Clive H. Church & Adrian Vatter on Switzerland Daniel O’Maley on the Internet of Things Delegative Democracy Revisited Santiago Anria Catherine Conaghan Frances Hagopian Lindsay Mayka Juan Pablo Luna Alberto Vergara and Aaron Watanabe Zhao.NEW saved by BK on 1/5/16; 6,145 words, including notes; TXT created from NEW by PJC, 3/18/16; MP edits to TXT by PJC, 4/5/16 (6,615 words). AAS saved by BK on 4/7/16; FIN created from AAS by PJC, 4/25/16 (6,608 words). PGS created by BK on 5/10/16. XI JINPING’S MAOIST REVIVAL Suisheng Zhao Suisheng Zhao is professor at the Josef Korbel School of International Studies, University of Denver. He is executive director of the univer- sity’s Center for China-U.S. Cooperation and editor of the Journal of Contemporary China. When Xi Jinping became paramount leader of the People’s Republic of China (PRC) in 2012, some Chinese intellectuals with liberal lean- ings allowed themselves to hope that he would promote the cause of political reform. The most optimistic among them even thought that he might seek to limit the monopoly on power long claimed by the ruling Chinese Communist Party (CCP).
    [Show full text]
  • Frantz Fanon and the Peasantry As the Centre of Revolution
    Chapter 8 Frantz Fanon and the Peasantry as the Centre of Revolution Timothy Kerswell Frantz Fanon is probably better known for his work on decolonization and race, but it would be remiss to ignore his contribution to the debate about social classes and their roles as revolutionary subjects. In this respect, Fanon argued for a position that was part of an influential thought current which saw the peasant at the center of world revolutionary struggles. In The Wretched of the Earth, Fanon argued that “It is clear that in the co- lonial countries the peasants alone are revolutionary, for they have nothing to lose and everything to gain. The starving peasant, outside the class system, is the first among the exploited to discover that only violence pays.”1 This statement suggests not only that the peasant would play an important part in liberation and revolutionary struggles, but that they would be the sole revolu- tionary subjects in forthcoming change. Fanon’s attempt to place the peasant at the center was part of a wider cur- rent of thought. This can be seen in the statement of Lin Biao, one of the fore- most thinkers of Maoism who argued, “It must be emphasized that Comrade Mao Tse-tung’s theory of the establishment of rural revolutionary base areas and the encirclement of the cities from the countryside is of outstanding and universal practical importance for the present revolutionary struggles of all the oppressed nations and peoples, and particularly for the revolutionary struggles of the oppressed nations and peoples in Asia, Africa and Latin America against imperialism and its lackeys.”2 It was this theorization that “turn[ed] the image of the peasantry upside down,”3 especially from Marx’s previous assessment that peasants constituted a “sack of potatoes”4 in terms of their revolutionary class-consciousness.
    [Show full text]
  • The Nepalese Maoist Movement in Comparative Perspective: Learning from the History of Naxalism in India
    HIMALAYA, the Journal of the Association for Nepal and Himalayan Studies Volume 23 Number 1 Himalaya; The Journal of the Article 8 Association for Nepal and Himalayan Studies 2003 The Nepalese Maoist Movement in Comparative Perspective: Learning from the History of Naxalism in India Richard Bownas Follow this and additional works at: https://digitalcommons.macalester.edu/himalaya Recommended Citation Bownas, Richard. 2003. The Nepalese Maoist Movement in Comparative Perspective: Learning from the History of Naxalism in India. HIMALAYA 23(1). Available at: https://digitalcommons.macalester.edu/himalaya/vol23/iss1/8 This Research Article is brought to you for free and open access by the DigitalCommons@Macalester College at DigitalCommons@Macalester College. It has been accepted for inclusion in HIMALAYA, the Journal of the Association for Nepal and Himalayan Studies by an authorized administrator of DigitalCommons@Macalester College. For more information, please contact [email protected]. RICHARD BowNAS THE NEPALESE MAOIST MovEMENT IN CoMPARATIVE PERSPECTIVE: LEARNIN G FROM THE H ISTORY OF NAXALISM IN INDIA This paper compares the contemporary Maoist movement in Nepal with the Naxalite movemelll in India, from 1967 to the present. The paper touches on three main areas: the two movemems' ambiguous relationship to ethnicity, the hi stories of prior 'traditional' m obilization that bo th move­ ments drew on, and the relationship between vanguard and mass movement in both cases. The first aim of the paper is to show how the Naxalite movemem has transformed itself over the last 35 years and how its military tacti cs and organizational· form have changed . I then ask whether Nepal's lvla o­ ists more closely resemble the earli er phase of Naxali sm , in which the leadership had broad popular appeal and worked closely with its peasant base, o r its later phase, in which the leadership became dise ngaged fr om its base and adopted urban 'terror' tactics.
    [Show full text]
  • Freedom on the Net 2016
    FREEDOM ON THE NET 2016 China 2015 2016 Population: 1.371 billion Not Not Internet Freedom Status Internet Penetration 2015 (ITU): 50 percent Free Free Social Media/ICT Apps Blocked: Yes Obstacles to Access (0-25) 18 18 Political/Social Content Blocked: Yes Limits on Content (0-35) 30 30 Bloggers/ICT Users Arrested: Yes Violations of User Rights (0-40) 40 40 TOTAL* (0-100) 88 88 Press Freedom 2016 Status: Not Free * 0=most free, 100=least free Key Developments: June 2015 – May 2016 • A draft cybersecurity law could step up requirements for internet companies to store data in China, censor information, and shut down services for security reasons, under the aus- pices of the Cyberspace Administration of China (see Legal Environment). • An antiterrorism law passed in December 2015 requires technology companies to cooperate with authorities to decrypt data, and introduced content restrictions that could suppress legitimate speech (see Content Removal and Surveillance, Privacy, and Anonymity). • A criminal law amendment effective since November 2015 introduced penalties of up to seven years in prison for posting misinformation on social media (see Legal Environment). • Real-name registration requirements were tightened for internet users, with unregistered mobile phone accounts closed in September 2015, and app providers instructed to regis- ter and store user data in 2016 (see Surveillance, Privacy, and Anonymity). • Websites operated by the South China Morning Post, The Economist and Time magazine were among those newly blocked for reporting perceived as critical of President Xi Jin- ping (see Blocking and Filtering). www.freedomonthenet.org FREEDOM CHINA ON THE NET 2016 Introduction China was the world’s worst abuser of internet freedom in the 2016 Freedom on the Net survey for the second consecutive year.
    [Show full text]
  • The Chinese Liberal Camp in Post-June 4Th China
    The Chinese Liberal Camp [/) OJ > been a transition to and consolidation of "power elite capital­ that economic development necessitated further reforms, the in Post-June 4th China ism" (quangui zibenzhuyr), in which the development of the provocative attacks on liberalism by the new left, awareness of cruellest version of capitalism is dominated by the the accelerating pace of globalisation, and the posture of Jiang ~ Communist bureaucracy, leading to phenomenal economic Zemin's leadership in respect to human rights and rule of law, OJ growth on the one hand and endemic corruption, striking as shown by the political report of the Fifteenth Party []_ social inequalities, ecological degeneration, and skilful politi­ Congress and the signing of the "International Covenant on D... cal oppression on the other. This unexpected outcome has Economic, Social and Cultural Rights" and the "International This paper is aa assessment of Chinese liberal intellectuals in the two decades following June 4th. It provides an disheartened many democracy supporters, who worry that Covenant on Civil and Political Rights."'"' analysis of the intellectual development of Chinese liberal intellectuals; their attitudes toward the party-state, China's transition is "trapped" in a "resilient authoritarian­ The core of the emerging liberal camp is a group of middle­ economic reform, and globalisation; their political endeavours; and their contributions to the project of ism" that can be maintained for the foreseeable future. (3) age scholars who can be largely identified as members of the constitutional democracy in China. However, because it has produced unmanageably acute "Cultural Revolution Generation," including Zhu Xueqin, social tensions and new social and political forces that chal­ Xu Youyu, Qin Hui, He Weifang, Liu junning, Zhang lenge the one-party dictatorship, Market-Leninism is not actu­ Boshu, Sun Liping, Zhou Qiren, Wang Dingding and iberals in contemporary China understand liberalism end to the healthy trend of politicalliberalisation inspired by ally that resilient.
    [Show full text]
  • Chinese Politics in the Xi Jingping Era: Reassessing Collective Leadership
    CHAPTER 1 Governance Collective Leadership Revisited Th ings don’t have to be or look identical in order to be balanced or equal. ⃺ڄ Maya Lin — his book examines how the structure and dynamics of the leadership of Tthe Chinese Communist Party (CCP) have evolved in response to the chal- lenges the party has confronted since the late 1990s. Th is study pays special attention to the issue of leadership se lection and composition, which is a per- petual concern in Chinese politics. Using both quantitative and qualitative analyses, this volume assesses the changing nature of elite recruitment, the generational attributes of the leadership, the checks and balances between competing po liti cal co ali tions or factions, the behavioral patterns and insti- tutional constraints of heavyweight politicians in the collective leadership, and the interplay between elite politics and broad changes in Chinese society. Th is study also links new trends in elite politics to emerging currents within the Chinese intellectual discourse on the tension between strongman politics and collective leadership and its implications for po liti cal reforms. A systematic analy sis of these developments— and some seeming contradictions— will help shed valuable light on how the world’s most populous country will be governed in the remaining years of the Xi Jinping era and beyond. Th is study argues that the survival of the CCP regime in the wake of major po liti cal crises such as the Bo Xilai episode and rampant offi cial cor- ruption is not due to “authoritarian resilience”— the capacity of the Chinese communist system to resist po liti cal and institutional changes—as some foreign China analysts have theorized.
    [Show full text]