Between Separation And Reunion:Three Ideological Trends In Modern China And Their Mutual Relations

Radicalism, Conservatism and liberalism constituted three ideological trends in modern China. They were separate schools of thought, and each had its own basic value and schematic design. However, they had pluralistic synchronic cultural ecology, shared the same reciprocal ideological frameworks, concentrated on similar issues such as nationalism standpoint, criticism of modernity, a yearning for socialism, a dream to achieve national revival. This thesis examines the complicated interrelationship of these three modern ideological trends. It is my purpose that by looking at the interactive mode of these three ideological trends, we can get an accurate understanding on how to deal with the relationship between the main-stream ideology and other social thoughts under current situation.This thesis is divided into five chapters as the following.The first chapter is the introduction of this thesis, in which there are three parts. The first part summarizes racialism, conservatism and liberalism active in modern China, and their on-off relationships as well. It is my belief that these three trends constituted a tripartite value system and used to launch many ideological and cultural debates because of their different cultural orientation. They shared the same ideological frame and similar ideas, and therefore, they absorbed and drew lesson from each other, and sometimes, even transformed from one trend to another. The second part summarizes and rethinks the academic history on these three ideological trends, and makes a comment on the debates and research by the academic circles on several basic issues such as the year when they were launched, their stages of development, genres, schools and the evaluation. I put forward my own views on these issues. In the third part, I offered the method and the academic importance this thesis has.The second chapter examines the development of modern liberalism in China. I analyze the different types of modern liberalism in China and its evolutional pattern. In fact, from the perspective of its theoretical origin, modern liberalism in China can be divided into westernized and local one. From the perspective of problematic domain, it can be divided into political liberalism, cultural liberalism and economic liberalism. While when we look at this issue from the perspective of politics, we have action liberalism which was interested in participating state affairs directly and ideational liberalism which refused to participate state affairs directly. Action liberalism can be divided into interventional and forming party, the former not only accepted and tolerated the government, but also integrated into it, while the later took the opposite stand by forming new party and taking "the third road". Ideational liberalism can be divided into "participating in state affairs" type which was interested in participating in state affairs by whipping up public opinion and starting newspaper and alienation type which kept distance from politics. Modern liberalism took place mainly in political and cultural domains, while economic liberalism was relatively weak.In this chapter, I choose Yan Fu, Hu Shi and Yin Haiguang as exponents. I focus on On Liberty translated by Yan Fu in1903, Our Politics published by Hu Shi in1922and Agenda of Chinese Democratic Group Alliance published by Chinese Democratic Group Alliance in1941to examine three kinds of political liberalism and their evolution. These three kinds of political liberalism were enlightenment liberalism which concentrated on enlightenment of thoughts with Yan Fu as an exponent, liberalism hovering between culture and politics which was interested in participating in state affairs with Hu Shi as an icon and action liberalism focusing on participating in politics with the middle course in1940s e. Indeed, by scrutinizing this, it is possible to see the evolution of liberalism in modern China.In this chapter, I also analyze the development of modern economic liberalism. In late Qing dynasty, Yan Fu and Liang Qichao used to introduce and express their positions against government intervention. They advocated allowing unrestrained freedom and therefore, let the market play a role. While in the republican period, it was common that liberalists were very interested in individual emancipation, individualism, democratic and human rights, but they kept silent on such core ideas as free competition, market economy and private property rights. They supported political and cultural liberalisms, however, they did not choose liberalism in economic domain. They tended to implement planned economy, controlled economy and socialism. Modern liberalism in China started with advocating free competition and the policy of non-interference, but ended in advocating controlled economy and socialism which were opposite to economic liberalism.The third chapter focuses on modern conservatism and radicalism in China. I mainly examine modern cultural conservatism by analyzing "one paradigm","two shifts" and "three texts". It is my belief that "western material-----Chinese spirit" is the typical schema for comparing Chinese and western cultural liberalism. And modern cultural conservatism experienced two turns:the first was from Kang Youwei to Liang Suming, from democracy and science emphasized by western learning to the mind-nature philosophy advocated by Confucianism. The second was from Liang Suming to Mu Zongsan, it turned from inward mind-nature philosophy to democracy and science. I examine the evolution of cultural conservatism by looking at three typical texts which are The declaration of the cultural construction of China’s standard published by ten professors on January10th,1935, To inform the world declaration for Chinese culture by four professors on the New Years Day in1958and Jia Shen Cultural Declaration signed by Xu Jialu in September,2004.As for radicalism, I highlight cultural radicalism during the May Fourth Movement period. The cultural radicalism represented by Chen Duxiu criticized traditional culture strongly, while it suspected modern western civilization strongly too. It shared such common characteristics as being against tradition strongly with the cultural liberalism represented by Hu Shi. The difference between them lied in their attitudes towards westernization. It is important to point that this cultural radicalism did not totally repudiate traditional culture, though it was against tradition.The fourth chapter introduces the common framework of these three ideological trends and their overlapping consensus. The three ideological trends shared a lot in common, such as pluralistic synchronic cultural ecology, the same and complementary ideological framework, the similar issues which were overlapping, the similar ideological tendency and the similar concerns. One of the biggest similarities was their appeals for national prosperity and rejuvenation. Besides, they were all modern trends of thoughts with the demand of completing modernization transformation and accepting modernization. However, they showed different characteristics in expressing their appeals. These three ideological trends were all affected by traditional way of thinking. They showed deep love to traditional culture, including radicalism and liberalism which were against tradition strongly. They showed their inclination for socialism. They had Wu-Xu thoughts as their common ideological origin.In the fifth chapter, I turn to examine the distinctive features of the three ideological trends and their reciprocal transmission. I analyze and compare the representatives’discourses features, concept and their cultural attitudes by highlighting the May fourth movement discourse, national idea and their individual reports. The three ideological trends interpreted the significance of May fourth movement, and therefore, formed three kinds of different interpretation system. Radicalism focused on explaining " significance of May fourth movement" from the political perspective, and this "political scheme" and "revolutionary scheme" transformed into "evolutionary scheme" and "modernized scheme" along with the advancement of our reform and opening up; Liberalism highlighted cultural change and individual emancipation, and therefore, formed enlightened interpretation system which praised the New Culture Movement, but belittled the importance of student movement. Conservatism approved the pathway of New Culture Movement, but opposed its radical anti-traditionalism.This thesis also analyzes liberalism, socialism and Neo-Confucianism and their thoughts for national construction by focusing Hu Shi, Chen Duxiu and Liang Suming. They had such common concept as constructing modern sate based on nationalism. However, there were differences in their thoughts for national construction. Hu Shi, Chen Duxiu and Liang Suming used to yearn for western constitutionalism and western modern state system, but Hu Shi had been insisted on that the nation-building goal should be based on achieving constitutionalism. Chen Duxiu at first yearned for constitutional democracy, but later he changed his mind to deny it, at last he reaffirmed constitutional democracy. Liang Suming took an indifferent attitude towards constitutional movement in the late1920s, and designed a kind of non-constitutionalism democracy. They had different proposition on how to construct modern state. Chen Duxiu advocated to found a state by revolution, while Hu Shi and Liang Suming held different opinions, they proposed to build a country in a peaceful way. Hu Shi believed that a constitutional government could start anytime and anywhere, Liang Suming held that constitutionalism could only be achieved in the future. Hu Shi, Liang Suming and Chen Duxiu chose three different pathways for nation construction respectively, Hu insisted that saving the nation should start from saving yourself, Liang advocated building a society for nation, while Chen supported "seizing power from them".I also compare and analyze the major figures’ cultural attitudes in these three ideological trends by focusing on Qu Qiubai, Hu Shi and Liang Suming’s narratives. It is possible for us to see from their narratives that they had the common sense of crisis, including their experience of national suffering, family and individual suffering, however, they all survived the suffering. They all paid attention to problems in life and in society, hovered between academic and politics, between "entering" and "outing" secular life. By contrast, the conservatives highlighted problems in life and ideological and cultural construction, they hoped to reconstruct Chinese people’s attitudes towards life, and therefore, to achieve national rejuvenation by moral reconstruction and cultural renaissance. The activists focused more on social problems, they had a call for social change by "direct action" and "entire reconstruction", including practicing social change, and ideological remolding as well. The liberalists also concerned with social problems, but they held that to save the nation should start with saving yourself. Their choice was political salvation or enlightenment values, radical revolution or gradual improvement. They also had to decide which was better between the new and old social ideological trends. How to look at traditional culture, western culture and socialist civilization was also the main issue for them to deal with.My conclusion is that modern thinkers’thoughts were complicated and changeable due to the situation. Sometimes they tended to be conservative, but sometimes they tended to be radical, these two trends were sometimes overlapping. Radicalism, liberalism and conservatism in modern China were relatively separate ideological trends, but they were not completely opposite to each other. There were both opposition and dialogues, both dominant boundaries and obscure zones between each other. They adjusted themselves constantly. On the one hand, they tried to counterbalance each other, on the other hand, they inspired, revised and supported each other.