New on the site :  Hu Lianhe and Hu An’gang, “How the Nationalities Question is Handled Outside of China.”  This text is somewhat different from our usual fare, which we see as “deep dives” into some of the best work of China’s establishment intellectuals.  Hu Lianhe and Hu An’gang are establishment intellectuals, but their text is closer to an op-ed or a policy proposal than a closely reasoned scholarly argument.  We translate and publish it here because of its connection to contemporary events in China:  the confinement of as many as 1.5 million Uighurs in “re-education centers” in China’s far northwest.  The text says nothing about such centers, but is surely a part of official (and intellectual) efforts to rethink policy on the nationalities question, and as such is a piece of a tragic puzzle many of us are trying to understand.   

We are happy to publish a new article by Qin Hui, "The Battle of Tariffs and Systems in the “North-South” Relationship in the Antebellum United States," which if all goes well will be part of a new Qin Hui book to appear in the coming months.  Enjoy!

New on the site:  Cai Xia, "Advancing Constitutional Democracy Should Be the Mission of the Chinese Communist Party."  The wrinkle here is that Cai was a professor (now retired) at the Central Party School, and develops her arguments out of the tradition of Marxism and Mao Zedong Thought.  Enjoy. 

Happy Year of the Pig!

Just added to the site, another piece by liberal sociologist Guo Yuhua: "The Shadow of 'Chinese Civilization.'"  This is a 2013 interview with the website Gongshiwang to publicize the publication of her book The Narrative of Those Who Suffer:  The History of Ji Village and Those Who Suffer.  Double irony--the book was published in Hong Kong due to its critical stance, and Gongshiwang was closed down by authorities in October 2016.  Thus it would seem that Guo can still speak, but has a hard time being heard.

In a couple of weeks, another essay by Qin Hui.

Happy New Year!

Our first addition to the site this year is a slight departure from what we've published to date.  Tsinghua sociologist Guo Yuhua is an important public intellectual and contributor to discussions of the China Dream, but her "Original Intentions Start with the People" is a blog post critical of Beijing municipal authorities, which was quickly taken down by authorities.  This text thus stands of an example of what can no longer be said publically in China.  The text also signals our intention to begin to address the gender gap in the visible world of Chinese public intellectuals.  Enjoy!   

New on the site, Wang Shaoguang, "Traditional Moral Politics and Contemporary Concepts of Governance," an interview with the journalist Ma Ya conducted in September 2012.  The text provides a good overview of the Wang's work over the past few years defending Chinese democracy from the point of view of the New Left.   

New on the site:  Constitutional scholar Gao Quanxi on "The Political Maturity of Chinese Liberalism," by which he of course means the political immaturity  of Chinese liberalism.  Not as rousing as Qin Hui on globalization and China's "low human rights advantage," but a text that many Chinese liberals see as one of the most important of the past few years.  Enjoy!

Just added to the site:  Qin Hui, "Dilemmas of Twenty-First Century Globalization:  Explanations and Solutions, with a Critique of Thomas Piketty's Twenty-First Century Capitalism".  A rousing liberal tour de force.

​Enjoy!

A couple of news items:  Tim Cheek and I penned a piece on "Making China Marxist Again" that just came out in Dissent magazine.  Our text is largely based on Jiang Shigong's “Philosophy and History:  Interpreting the ‘Xi Jinping Era’ through Xi’s Report to the Nineteenth National Congress of the CCP”

New to the web site this month:  Xu Zhangrun, “China’s Moment in World History:  A 'Chinese Consciousness' Created by the 'China Problem'".  Xu is best known for his essay "Imminent Fears, Immediate Hopes" published this summer.

New on the website this week:  
Xu Jilin, "The New Tianxia:  Rebuilding China's Internal and External Order"

Like Ge Zhaoguang's "If Horses had Wings," Xu's essay is a response to New Confucians and others who insist on the "uniqueness" of China's civilization.  But where Ge attacks Mainland New Confucians head on, Xu attempts a reappropriation of China's tradition for liberal ends.  Enjoy!

Coming soon:  Xu Zhangrun on "China's Moment in World History" and Qin Hui on "Only China Can Save Socialism"