Modern Chinese Intellectual History

This article delves into the nexus of nostalgia, memory, and visuality by examining the images, objects, and events surrounding Yuan Kewen's remembrances of his father, Yuan Shikai, and their family estate in Huanshang. It also considers Zhang Boju's remembrance of his interactions with Yuan Kewen as another layer of historical memory. Phenomenological analysis of the act of remembering, especially in the work of Edward Casey, will be shown to yield rich insights when applied to China's early twentieth-century Republican culture. Surviving fragments-poems, anecdotes, photographs, and paintings-replete with sensuous and affective images of the past become the loci of memory in which these historical figures lived. Lamentation and reminiscence are also conducted through performance of historical dramas whose gestures of mourning and remembrance allowed Yuan to cultivate feelings of perpetual nostalgia through personal artistic expressions. The act of remembering became symptomatic for Yuan, Zhang, and to a large extent the entire generation of literati who experienced drastic social-political changes in the twentieth century.

In this first critical study of Zheng Guanying's career, cultural milieu, political and economic thoughts, as well as his spirituality, Guo Wu steers us into examining Zheng Guanying as a hybrid product of the late Qing treaty port culture, professionalism, and tradition, and he illuminates the contribution that this Chinese merchant made in the social and political transformation of China into an urban, commercial environment. This book is also valuable because there is an even greater dearth of research on the cultural environment of Zheng and his spirituality. First, he was a comprador merchant by profession and not a leader of political and intellectual movement, although it was the latter position that drew attention to him in past decades. Second, he was a committed modernizer but also avid practitioner of Daoism, which was then dismissed by researchers as conservative and superstitious. Third, he was more a moderate reformist than a political radical. In addition, the book covers the urbanization of China and the urban cultural space. It also reveals how Zheng's migration and sojourning between Guangdong and Shanghai shaped the formation of his reformist ideas in response to China's late-nineteenthcentury national crisis as well as how he upheld Daoism as his fundamental ideology to maintain national identity and pursue self-salvation. This comprehensive study of such a critical figure in China's political and social history is an important book for all collections in Chinese studies.

Everybody is talking about China now. The competition between China and the Western world is not only about economic growth, technological advancement, and military strength. What is ultimately at stake is a key theoretical question: Can China's political traditions and current practices (such as one-party meritocracy) offer a legitimate and desirable alternative to the ideal of liberal democracy? This course aims to approach this question through the lens of intellectual history and political theory. Attention is given to how Chinese thinkers since 1895 have conceived of China's place in the world, how they have used Western political ideas to transform China, how they have creatively transformed Chinese traditions to meet the challenge of modernity, and, most importantly, how they have advanced political ideals that claim to be able fix the problems in the West (such as imperialism and capitalism). We will also learn how Western thinkers are responding to the challenge from China. The first half of the course covers foundational texts in Chinese intellectual history from 1895 to the Maoist Era. The second half is about political thinking in contemporary China. No prior knowledge about China, Chinese, or political theory/philosophy is required.

In this article, I offer a provisional analysis of the philosophical semantics of " wisdom " in the thought of the New Confucian thinker Tang Junyi. I begin by providing some pointers concerning the concept of wisdom in general and situating the discourse on wisdom in comparative philosophy in the context of the later Foucault's and Pierre Hadot's historical investigations into ancient Graeco-Roman philosophy as a mode of spiritual self-cultivation and self-transformation. In the remainder of the paper, I try to describe and think through what Foucault identifies as a " Cartesian moment, " in which self-knowledge becomes the ultimate precondition for the ethico-spiritual project of " caring for the self, " in Tang's approach of wisdom. In the course of my argument, I outline the complex relation between his vision of a renewed Confucian mode of religious practice on the one hand and his philosophical presuppositions concerning the transcendental status of subjectivity and the reflexivity of consciousness on the other. Keywords Tang Junyi, wisdom, New Confucianism, modern Chinese philosophy, transformative knowledge, philosophy as a way of life

Consistent with its growing economic, political and military might, China wants due recognition by and engagement with the global community of nations. This aspiration is complicated by the fact that Chinese political leaders and intellectuals continue to struggle with how "Chinese values" fit with "universal values", and whether there is a single global modernity or whether there are multiple modernities and multiple-perhaps competing universal values. In this paper I examine how some prominent Chinese philosophers are engaging with these issues, despite the fact that in 2013 the topic of "universal values" was prohibited as a discussion topic in universities on the mainland.

The papers in this research dialogue section are the product of a project that examines intellectual life in China since the 1990s-chiefly the efforts by academic public intellectuals to rethink China's past, present, and future in light of the excesses of Mao's revolution, the challenges emerging from reform, and the rise of China to the status of world economic power. Chinese scholars, having benefited from China's openness to the world and the relative relaxation of political pressure in China (until recently), have much to say about China and the world that merits our attention. Through creative collaboration between Chinese and international scholars, the articles collected here explore that intellectual public sphere since the late 1990s. The articles were written in Chinese by young PRC scholars and rendered into English through 'collaborative translation' teams that pair these Chinese with non-Chinese scholars based in Canadian universities. The net result, grounded on repeated conversations and revisions, is not a simple translation but a co-production of knowledge about China that aims to capture the discourse of Chinese scholarship in a way to make it meaningful to anglophone readers. The articles themselves are not traditional surveys of academic scholarship. Rather they map significant areas of an intellectual world and the arguments within it. Three widely accepted intellectual streams of thought (sichao 思潮) organize these soundings: liberals, New Left, and New Confucian. These reports explore connections between and diversity within and beyond each.

華文課本是華文敎育的根本。課本所帶來的權威和穩定，不僅是學科知識，還是集體認同，尤其是華敎發展史上第一套中學華文課本，考察編寫者的構思是最重要的目的。馬來亞獨立時代的華文課，除了《華文》選讀，討論也應該延伸到《中國文學史》《中國文學故事》二書，方能精確把握華文課即是文學課的特徵。本文的任務不是為華文敎學或撰寫敎科書提出複雜的結論，相反地至少提出一個疑問：五八年華文課究竟有甚麽讓人懷念？文學史與文學故事相互配合的模式有何敎學啓發？可是本文並不是單純的發思古之幽情，而是暢其旨趣之餘，提出述學與時代，觀念與敎授，如何進行意義構建，使得華文三書涵容晚清五四以來的學術視野，呈現深邃而廣博的知識。同時，課本所隱含思維批判的力度，也需要讀者沉潛反覆，才能對南來文人此中關涉複雜的背景，有一通盤的理解。這樣一套最通行敎科書的誕生，意味著獨立之初華文敎育處於轉型時期，故駁雜而元氣淋漓，值得闡發精蘊，細推其中關節。


關鍵詞：中國文學；華文課本；馬來亞獨立；南來文人


一、前言
二、作者與體例
三、時代精神：從朱子的大學到蕭遙天的中學
四、觀念與疑古
五、起源論與文學史陰影
六、文學說故事

In the twenty-first century, a growing number of "traditionalist Confucians" in Mainland China have been using Confucianism to justify authoritarian political arrangements as alternatives to constitutional democracy. In the face of this challenge, "progressive Confucians" argue that they can provide authentic Confucian justifications for constitutional democracy, and can counter traditionalist Confucians purely on Confucian terms by providing better interpretations of the Confucian tradition. This article argues that progressive Confucians may not be able to win the debate with their traditionalist rivals because they cannot defend their interpretations of Confucian texts as superior to rival interpretations, and because an endless debate on Confucian interpretation unwittingly diverts social critics' attention from more urgent political issues in China, most notably political oppression. A better strategy, I argue, is for progressive Confucians to step out of the interpretive debate with the traditionalists and provide extra-Confucian reasons about the need to establish a constitutional democracy in the Chinese context.

The present issue of The Journal of Asian Studies is dedicated to problems linked to the specific features of Chinese modernization, as viewed through the lens of Modern Confucianism. It contains selected contributions from the international symposium, Contemporary Confucianism and Chinese Modernization, Reykjavik, 7–8 September 2013, which was organized by Geir Sigurðsson, in cooperation with the Northern Lights Confucius Institute and the Chinese Studies  department of the University of Iceland.
Modern Confucianism arose China at the edge of the previous century and was later developed further by theorists from Taiwan, and, to a lesser degree, from Hong Kong. Unlike the People’s Republic of China, where Confucianism was considered to be the “ideology of outdated feudalism” and therefore silenced (at least formally) until the 1980s, in Hong Kong and Taiwan, both of which were defined by post-colonial social discourses, a number of intellectuals began  opposing the growing Westernization of their societies already in the 1950s. Due
to the multilayered cultural, national and political situation in Taiwan, intellectuals from that country played an important role in developing this new philosophical current from the very outset.

Li Zehou, one of the leading Chinese theorists of the current Confucian revival, has had a great impact not only on Chinese, but also on global theories of ethics, humanism, aesthetics and philosophical anthropology. The present paper focuses on his views on Chinese modernization which, like those of the Modern Confucians, are grounded on the belief that Chinese modernization cannot be equated with Westernization. The author compares Li’s thought with the works of this current and offers a general evaluation of the specific features of Li Zehou’s philosophical system, focusing on his attempts to upgrade Marxist theories and to re-evaluate traditional Chinese and, especially, Confucian philosophy. The paper casts a critical light on a number of problems linked to the intercultural methodology that underlies this approach. Despite the very problematical nature of attempting to synthesize ideational systems that are rooted in different referential frameworks, the author reveals the innovative nature of Li’s philosophy and its significant contribution to contemporary philosophical debate at the global level.

As an idealist form of realism, or realist form of idealism, the system of ‘All-under-Heaven’ (tianxia 天下) seeks to find a rational and optimal solution to the problem of political conflict. However, it does not purport to offer the promise of universal happiness for all. Rather, this system envisages the possibility of another world; one of peace, general security, and civilizational vigor. In this sense, it is radically different from various proclamations of ‘the end of history’. The following aspects of the notion of tianxia are particularly worth emphasizing: firstly, ‘All-under-Heaven’ is not a utopia at all, but rather an ideal that can actually be realized. Secondly, the goal of a politics of tianxia is to resolve the problem of conflict by transforming hostility into hospitality, thus offering a
new conception of politics beyond the struggle for power. Thirdly, the vision of ‘All-under-Heaven’ is grounded in three constitutive concepts, namely the ‘internalization of the world’, relational rationality, and ‘Confucian Improvement’, which together constitute
a politics capable of transforming hostility into hospitality

The present issue of the journal Asian Studies is dedicated to Li Zehou, one of the greatest contemporary Chinese philosophers. It was compiled as a part of the
celebration of his 90th birthday, which will take place on June 13 2020.
This special issue is mainly the result of a special panel on Li Zehou’s ethics, which was held on October 16th 2018 in the scope of the 3rd Biennial Conference of
the World Consortium for Research in Confucian Cultures (世界儒學文化研究聯合會). The conference, which took place at the Hong Kong Polytechnic University
(香港理工大) in celebration of the 10th year anniversary of the Faculty of the Humanities, was deemed a great success by all the attendees. The panel on Li Zehou’s ethics was also well-received, for it included several highly relevant presentations and led to several highly lively discussions on this interesting and important topic.

The 20th century in China was marked by struggles to implement social changes that would on one hand enable the state to reinforce its national, political and economic strength, while on the other hand bridge the gap between Western modernity and Chinese tradition. A large role in the quest for a modern China was played by Chinese intellectuals after the Revolution of 1911, namely the May Fourth Movement which included both Mainland and overseas communities. The social revolution was followed by literary movements which embodied the rise of individual intellectual consciousness. One of the main concerns of the authors was whether there is any use in attempting a revolution or individual political engagement in a society which is based on a strong collectivist tradition and an ideology that presupposes constant change. A logical step in dealing with this issue was rejecting all tradition and adopting either completely new ideologies, or ideas from the West. However, any social change, although based on individual action, would have to be implemented onto the nation as a whole, which meant that it could only be grafted onto the existing worldview. Also, the intellectuals were aware that completely rejecting the past might weaken the state’s national strength. This meant that modern individuality and revolution had to be considered in light of the traditional view on society and change.
In this paper we consider the use of literature as a vessel for social change in China between the two World Wars. Through the interpretation of Western ideas, literature and characters in Chinese writing, we examine the way authors attempted to balance the Western individualist ideals with the Chinese collectivist ideology. We focus on essays and literary works written by prominent Chinese intellectuals in their attempt to find the best possible way to raise awareness for the need for social change. We explore the methods used to convey social issues, while also discussing the actual value and effect of writing as a mode of instigating social change through individual action. The interpretation of Western theories and concepts in the Chinese context is also considered, especially the application of the Western idea of female emancipation onto the idea of the general liberation of individualism. The results of these intellectuals’ struggles are interpreted in the context of the formation of modern individuality in China, which represents an exemplary model of a Western notion with Chinese characteristics – an approach that was later used for the adoption of other ideas and ideologies from the West.

This chapter investigates the tension between the moral and the sociopolitical positions in Confucian discourse primarily through the writings of the mainland Confucian scholar Chen Lai 陈来 (b. 1952), a philosopher based at Tsinghua University. However, it also connects Chen Lai’s writings with the work of Tu Wei-ming 杜维明 (b. 1940), the “Boston Confucian” who is perhaps the most famous exponent of “New Confucianism” (xiandai xin rujia 现代新儒家, dangdai xin rujia 当代新儒家, or dangdai xin ruxue 当代新 儒学). The reason behind this choice is that Tu Wei-ming played a prominent role in the debates in the United States, as well as in introducing the debates in a mainland Chinese context. In addition, the two scholars were intellectually related: Chen Lai studied with Tu Wei-ming twice. However important the connection between both scholars is, looking at Chen Lai’s writings per se offers us a valuable insight into debates on Confucianism in the light of changes in mainland China specifically. This chapter focuses on Chen Lai’s writings from the 1990s because significant discussions on New Confucianism took place in mainland China during this period following the seventieth anniversary of the May Fourth Incident and the demonstrations on Tiananmen Square in 1989. Additionally, this chapter incorporates analyses and critiques from before and after the 1990s, as well as writings by other scholars, in an attempt to extend the discussion and to ponder the fate of Confucianism in the twenty-first century. This chapter raises the question whether Confucianism can function in two opposite roles. Can it be an antidote against the ills of capitalism and the de-humanization inherent in modernization on the one hand, and a driving force of East Asian capitalism on the other? To some Chinese scholars (including Chen Lai and Tu Wei-ming), the contradiction between the two opposite roles of Confucianism does not seem to be problematic. More interestingly, they tend to speak of the two roles of Confucianism as if they are mutually supportive. In a final section, some possible explanations as to why both Tu Wei-ming and Chen Lai do not perceive any contradiction between the two types of rationality will be explored further.

Written and compiled in commemoration of the centenary of Russell’s visit to China (1920-1921), the anthology Bertrand Russell’s Visit to China: Selected Text on the Centenary of Intercultural Dialogues in Logic and Epistemology offers a focused account of reception of Bertrand Russell and his thought in China. Set in the time of Russell’s stay in China, the selection of texts revolves around the initial reception of Russell as a person, philosopher, and scientist in Chinese intellectual world. As a retrospective anthology concerned with the reception of Russell’s thought in China, the work is comprised both of translations of articles and essays written by Chinese intellectuals and other public figures at the time of his visit there, as well as a few contemporary studies analysing the reception and propagation of Russell’s ideas in China in the abovementioned period. Following a general introduction to Russell’s visit in China, the subsequent sections of the anthology cover a wide spectrum of original documents and secondary studies, including the welcome addresses, reports from the Russell Study Society established in late 1920 in Beijing, introductions to Russell’s philosophical thought and, in the main part, interpretations of Russell’s humanistic thought, mathematical logic and epistemology by two Chinese contemporary philosophers, Zhang Shenfu and Zhang Dongsun. The section on Zhang Shenfu explores his earliest relationship with Russell’s philosophy and his notion of mathematical logic, whilst the section on Zhang Dongsun aims at casting some light on his critical reading of Russell’s logicism on the one hand and the disparities between their models of structural perception on the other. As such the anthology provides a unique insight into the intertwined influences of Russell’s humanistic, philosophical, and logical thought on the Chinese intellectual landscape in the aftermath of the May Fourth events. This volume of the Studia Humanitatis Asiatica series was edited by Jan Vrhovski and Jana S. Rošker. The foreword was contributed by Vera Schwarcz, a professor emerita at Wesleyan University and Hebrew University of Jerusalem.

Tschen Yinkoh had played a key role in the development of Tangutology, while his contribution in Tangut studies has not been fully combed and elucidated by the current scholarship.At the beginning of the 20th century, with the discoveries of a large number of Tangut literatures，modern Tangut studies became popular in many countries. Chinese scholars, including Luo Zhenyu and his sons, took the lead in participating. During his studies abroad, Tschen Yinkoh studied philology and oriental ancient languages, including Tangut. After returning to teach, he provided Zhu Xizu and others with international studies on Tangutology. In 1929,the National Library of Peiping rescued massive Tangut literature，Tschen participated in reviewing the collection, conducting preliminary research, and published two papers. Although he had not continued relevant research since then, his vision and methods are of great significance. In addition, Tschen also trained his student Wang Jingru to devote himself to the emerging Tangutology and to communicate with the international academic community. Wang gained international reputation for Chinese scholarship and became the founder of modern Tangutology in China.

二十世纪末，中国思想界最重大的事件是自由主义与新左派的大论战。在这次论战中，伯林的政治哲学为自由主义阵营提供了丰富的思想资源，因此，伯林一度成为中国思想界炽手可热的学术明星。二十一世纪初，随着自由主义与新左派之争的落幕，中国的施特劳斯学派强劲崛起。与之相应的是，伯林的影响力日渐式微，而施特劳斯瞬间成为学界新宠。然而，二十年后的今天，曾经如日中天的施特劳斯也逐渐淡出了公众的视野。在这样的时刻，我们如何评价伯林和施特劳斯呢？伯林和施特劳斯的著名论战跟中国语境到底有什么关联呢？我们如何在自由主义与施特劳斯学派之争的背景下考察伯林与施特劳斯之争呢？

二十年来，中国思想界最有影响力的思想流派是施特劳斯学派。施特劳斯学派的标志性思想是批判自由主义。施特劳斯本人明确指出，著名的自由主义者伯林是自由主义危机的典型代表。因为伯林的自由主义抛弃绝对主义，走向了相对主义。在施特劳斯看来，自由主义的致命病症正是源于它所感染的相对主义病毒。在这个意义上，伯林与施特劳斯的思想纷争实际上是自由主义阵营与施特劳斯学派之争的缩影。然而，自由主义阵营尚不足以回应施特劳斯学派的挑战。因此，本文将提出一种新的方式来回应施特劳斯学派的批评。本文的观点是，伯林的自由主义所主张的不是相对主义，而是多元主义，因此，施特劳斯学派的自由主义批评是错误的。

The study of intellectuals constitutes a vibrant intersection of political sociology, sociology of knowledge, sociology of intellectual life, and sociological theory. Influential scholars such as Karl Mannheim, Zygmunt Bauman, Pierre Bourdieu, and Michel Foucault have enriched the social-historical understanding of intellectuals in modern societies; and more recently, the New Sociology of Ideas (NSI) has extended this endeavour with studies of social scientists and humanities scholars in Western countries. This thesis, however, documenting the intellectual trajectory of Shen Yuan (沈原, b. 1954) since the 1960s, is the first empirical study of a Chinese social scientist as a public intellectual produce within the sub-field of the NSI. It explains how Shen negotiated an authoritarian regime to become a public intellectual. In order to
explore such a process, this study demonstrates the importance of attending to the way Shen sees and defines himself as an intellectual. Following Gross’s theory of Intellectual Self-Concept, the research shows that the key to understanding the making of Shen as a public intellectual is to study the Chinese sociologist’s changing intellectual identity, from problematic Marxist during
the 1980s and 1990s to public sociology after 2000. To trace Shen’s intellectual trajectory, this research utilized original interviews with Shen Yuan and several of his students in Beijing, and primary sources including Shen’s publications. While employing various interpretative tools, including Gross’s intellectual self-concept, Bourdieu’s field and habitus, and Watson’s dual concepts of orthopraxy and orthodoxy, the research makes two conceptual contributions to the
sociology of intellectual life: both archived identity and conceptual literacy hone an analytical understanding of the development and work of public intellectuals.

The notion of modernity is a concept which doubtless helped to form contemporary societies, and in this regard, China is no exception. If we want to historically
evaluate the Chinese attempts at establishing a “typical Chinese” philosophical
basis for modernization, we need to consider the context of the questions linked
to Hobsbawm's and Ranger’s (1995) concept of “invented traditions”. In other words, we must consider to what extent are the “past” intellectual “traditions”
based on historic assumptions, and to what extent are they merely a product of the
(ideological and political) demands of the current period. An important consequence of the current trans-nationalization of capital is that, perhaps for the first
time in modern history, the global mode of production appears as an authentically
universal abstraction that is no longer limited to its specific historical origins in
Europe. Hence, the narrative of modernization is no longer an exclusively European one, and for the first time non-European societies are also making their own
claims on the history of modernizationSpecial issue on China's Modernization

Huang Guliu’s The Story of Shrimp-ball has long been read as a local Cantonese story about 1940s Hong Kong. This essay offers an alternative reading by placing it within the context of “threshold nationhood.” This historical period straddles the time when the War of Resistance against Japan (1937-45) was drawing to a close and civil war was imminent, and when the disintegrating Nationalist Party was yielding to the would-be government of the Chinese Communist Party. In order to clarify the unsettled linguistic and historical context of this “threshold nationhood,” this essay explores two language movements that were contemporaneous with Shrimp-ball: the Chinese Latinization Movement and the Topolect Literature Movement.

As this essay will show, the Latinization Movement—which sought to Latinize Cantonese along with other non-Mandarin topolects—would potentially contribute to the Topolect Literature Movement in Hong Kong. Central to the practice of Latinization is the creation of alphabetized words. On one hand, topolect literature writers would have contributed to exploring the grammatical standing of these newly created alphabetized words if they had tried to use Cantonese Latinization in literary production. On the other hand, Cantonese Latinization would have contributed to codifying the ways of writing Cantonese so that topolect literature writers would not have to use different Chinese characters to write the same Cantonese expressions. The Latinization of Cantonese and the development of a Cantonese literary language had the potential to be mutually beneficial.

Even though both the Chinese Latinization Movement and the Topolect Literature Movement supported the communist causes of mass literacy, mass enlightenment, and mass literature, these two movements remained unaligned. This essay argues that this misalignment articulates the fundamental challenge that China faced in its transformation into a modern nation. How can mass literacy, mass enlightenment, and mass literature be organized around the language of a nation divided by class, geography, and language? After examining the Latinization Movement and the Topolect Literature Movement, this essay will analyze how Shrimp-ball offers a contingent and provisory solution to the fundamental challenge that China faced.

This article argues that Eastern and Western Cultures and Their Philosophies adopts an ambiguous attitude vis-à-vis the relation between tradition and modernity, incorporating both traditionalist and anti-traditionalist attitudes with an at-times reconciliatory approach to tradition and modernity. This ambiguity, it is argued, can be seen as representative of historical tensions the text set out to resolve.

A close reading--in the spirit of Koselleck’s history of concepts (Begriffsgeschichte)--of Maoist texts on 态度 (taidu) or "attitude" in the context of May Fourth and post-Mao debates about this political concept. The Chinese case compared with contemporary Western scholarship on emotions in political theory. This essay is part of Dr. Leigh Jenco's project on "Chinese thought as global theory."