Projects - China Dream-Chasers

China's Dream Chasers is a collection of very recent texts penned by Chinese intellectuals from across the ideological spectrum.  They have been chosen, edited, and translated by David Ownby.  The context is framed by China's spectacular rise to great power status, the West's seeming decline, particularly since 2008, and the remarkable presidency of Xi Jinping.  These events came together to suggest to Chinese intellectuals that China's "century of humiliation" was finally truly over, and that China would shortly return to its rightful place at the center of the world.  This would be the achievement of Xi Jinping's "China Dream."

Yet what kind of state, culture, or civilization China would be remained an open question; the "China Dream" was at best aspirational, at worst sloganistic.  Each text in this collection attempts, in its own way, to provide content for Xi's "China Dream," or criticizes the projects advanced by others.  To my mind, these texts are marked by a particular audacity and a particular energy.  Many of the ideas expressed will be uncongenial to many readers, but these are the ideas that have captured the attention of China's most prominent establishment intellectuals in the 2010s.

The volume is under consideration for publication by Cambridge University Press.

At present, the following texts are slated to be published:

New Confucians

Chen Ming, “Transcend left and right, unite the three traditions, the new party-state :  a Confucian interpretation of the China Dream”

Gan Yang, “Unifying the Three Traditions” (Preface)

Jiang Qing, “Only Confucians Can Make a Place for Modern Women”
 
New Left

Wang Shaoguang, “Traditional Moral Politics and Contemporary Concepts of Governance”

Wang Hui, “The Economy of Rising China and its Contradictions”

Jiang Shigong, “Philosophy and History:  Interpreting the ‘Xi Jinping’ Era through Xi’s Report to the 19th Congress of the Chinese Communist Party”
 
Liberals

Gao Quanxi, “The Political Maturity of Chinese Liberalism”

Xu Jilin, “Modern Politics is Live and Let Live”

Ge Zhaoguang, “If Horses Had Wings :  The Political Demands of Mainland New Confucians in Recent Years”

Qin Hui, “Dilemmas of 21st Century Globalization:  Reasons and Solutions with a Critique of Piketty’s Twenty-First Century Capitalism”