Mao’s purge of the intellectuals is infamous. Yet today – as Mark Leonard’s new book tells us – things are different. In 2003, the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences in Beijing (whose vice president, Wang Luolin’s grandfather translated Marx’s Capital into Chinese), had 50 research centres covering 260 disciplines with 4,000 full-time researchers. This single institution dwarfs the entire think-tank community in the UK. Meanwhile, the demands thrown up by economic growth mean that Chinese science and technical innovation are fast-paced, and arguably more dynamic than their Western peers. Yet despite this exciting drive to develop ideas and use science to move society forward, some argue that the pre-eminence of managerialism and the neglect of knowledge for its own sake will hold back China’s new intellectual renaissance.
Can ideas flourish when political restraints, from censorship to the lack of civil liberties and democracy, still dominate Chinese society? What impact will scientific and technical dynamism have on allowing new forms of civic and public participation to develop? Is democracy a likely outcome of such a burgeoning growth of ideas, or is intellectual life in China stifled by instrumentalism?
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Professor Alan Hudson director of leadership and public policy programmes, University of Oxford; visiting professor, Shanghai Jiaotong University |
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Mark Leonard author, What Does China Think? ; Executive Director pan-European think-tank, the European Council on Foreign Relations |
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 | Sheila Lewis director, Volanti Consulting |
The response to the Sichuan disaster among China's media, people, and government is a sign of deeper shifts in the country's public culture.
Li Datong, openDemocracy, 2 June 2008China’s transformation from the backward, autocratic economy of just three decades ago is probably the most spectacular and rapid in history. It is inevitable that this extraordinary economic development will have dramatic consequences for Chinese society and politics.
John Lee, The Centre for Independent Studies, 28 May 2008
Bell observes the rituals, routines, and tensions of daily life in China."China's New Confucianism" makes the case that as the nation retreats from communism, it is embracing a new Confucianism that offers a compelling alternative to Western liberalism.
Daniel Bell, Princeton University Press, 1 May 2008
Despite the global interest in the rise of China, no one is paying much attention to its ideas and who produces them. Yet China has a surprisingly lively intellectual class...
Mark Leonard, Prospect, 1 March 2008
An introduction to thinkers that are shaping China's future and a hidden world of intellectual debate that is driving a new Chinese revolution.
Mark Leonard, Fourth Estate, 18 February 2008
