Liu Qing, "Liberalism in Contemporary China"

Liu Qing, “Liberalism in Contemporary China: Potential and Predicaments”

刘擎, “中国语境下的自由主义：潜力与困境 (Liberalism in Contemporary China: Potential and Predicaments),” 开放时代 [Open Era], 2013: 04, pp. 106-23.

N.B.  This is a partial translation.  The full text is available for purchase as part of the volume Voices from the Chinese Century:  Public Intellectual Debate in Contemporary China, Timothy Cheek, David Ownby, and Joshua A. Fogel, eds., (New York:  Columbia University Press, 2019).

Translation by Matthew Galway (University of California, Berkeley) and Lu Hua (East China Normal University)

​Introduction by Matthew Galway

In this article, Liu Qing (b. 1963), a professor of politics at East China Normal University in Shanghai, explores liberalism’s potential in the Chinese context and examines some of the dilemmas that it has encountered thus far. His thesis is that the preconditions exist for liberalism to thrive in China, but as with other ideological discourses in China today, both native and foreign, there are existing tensions within Chinese liberal thought that must be reconciled before it can flourish. The desirability and feasibility of liberal thought, Liu contends, are based on intrinsic developments in twentieth century China, rather than an ideological program introduced by the West. To formulate this argument, he draws from Canadian philosopher Charles Taylor, making the case that such developments originate from a “social imaginary” that has been produced through China’s historical and social practice. Liu then engages with debates between liberals (Ronald Dworkin, Charles Larmore, John Rawls, Mark Lilla, Xu Jilin), New Confucians (Tu Weiming, Yu Yingshi), and social theorists (Max Weber, Jürgen Habermas), reflecting on liberalism’s plight in the Chinese context.

Liu’s goal is less to provide a survey assessment of the relevant debates between liberals and their critics, and more to reflect on liberalism’s potential development in China and to show that in today’s world it is profoundly difficult to bridge the differences between dissimilar, often conflictual, ideas. One of the major positions that he puts forward in this article is that liberalism is particularly suitable for present-day China. Liu argues that liberalism is more likely than other ideological discourses to satisfy the demands and restrictions of egalitarianism, individualism, and pluralism that have emerged in Chinese society over the past forty years of reform. Liu is nonetheless aware that liberalism has yet to provide sufficient theoretical space and effective ways to respond to transcendental spiritual needs that remain in the Chinese social imaginary. Liberalism, he concludes, must ultimately transcend its limitations of secularization and rationalism to open up to different intellectual traditions at the emotional and spiritual levels.

Liu Qing is professor and chair of the Department of Political Science and director of the Center for World Politics at East China Normal University (ECNU) in Shanghai. He is a well-known younger public intellectual trained in Western political philosophy, political thought, and intellectual history. He is famous for his annual reviews of Western academic and social-political currents, as well as his contributions as a Chinese liberal to the debates over China’s political path. He earned his Master of Arts at Marquette University in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, and PhD in Political Science at the University of Minnesota, Twin Cities, during which time he served as a research associate of the Institute of Culture at the Chinese University of Hong Kong, and deputy editor of the Hong Kong bimonthly Ershiyi Shiji (二十一世纪，Twenty-First Century). Liu is also a member of the Shanghai World History Society, professor at New York University-Shanghai, and research associate of the Institute of Culture at the Chinese University of Hong Kong.
 
Translation

We live in a time of great changes and face many great and complex theoretical questions: How do we understand the problems of present-day Chinese society? How might we find a path for China’s future development? Chinese intellectual circles have formulated many competing perspectives on these questions that draw from different intellectual traditions. At present, three schools of thought (in the broad sense) are most influential: socialism, liberalism, and Confucianism. In the debates over China’s future, each of these schools of thought ought to give its own reasons for why a particular thought tradition and its aims are both desirable and feasible for China’s future development.

This article explores the potential of liberalism in the Chinese context and some of the dilemmas that it faces, offering both an argument in its defense and a critical reflection on it. In contrast to contemporary liberal discourse, the starting point of this paper neither assumes the universality of human nature or civilization, nor presumes that liberalism is superior because it better accords with basic human nature and universal civilization. At the level of theory, a universalist discourse involves complex metaphysical arguments (on which this article does not take a position).  In practice, however, liberalism is often seen as the product of the hegemony of Western knowledge and ideology over China. This article defends a particular form of liberalism by arguing that the desirability and feasibility of liberalism do not originate from an “end of history” teleology, nor from external pressures (the so-called Western model). Rather, the desirability and feasibility of liberalism derive from China’s contemporary social and cultural context and its own historical experience. At the same time, this article reflects on the challenges that liberalism faces in the Chinese context. Instead of examining the specific theoretical principles and propositions of Chinese liberalism (although related), we seek to uncover the relationship between liberalism and contemporary China’s cultural context and to explore the feasibility of and potential challenges to Chinese liberalism. Our ultimate goal is to propose some preliminary thoughts on the possibility of liberalism’s future development in China.