A Comparative Study Of Hu Shi And Zhang Junmai Liberal Ideology

As one of the essential political thoughts in modern Chinese history, liberalism has a great impact on the formation and development of democratic values. Hu Shi and Zhang Junmai, known as typical representatives of two different factions of Chinese liberalism, both played an important role in the spread of it.There are a lot of commons between Hu and Zhang’s liberalism thoughts, like they both pay much attention to the protection of human rights; both of them emphasize the significance of constitution in democratic politics; both approve to implement the reforms through gentle and gradual approach instead of violent revolution, so that government can be reformed positively. But they differ in the aspect of liberalism implementation:according to Hu, who claimed to not to talk about politics in two decades, more efforts should be put to the remoulding of liberalism thoughts of citizens, while Zhang Junmian zealously organized new political parties and established constitutions, hoping to realize the liberalism through political ways.Due to the limitation of intellectuals’thoughts as well as the modern Chinese circumstances, neither Hu’s "Liberalism in minds", nor Zhang’s "Liberalism in actions" did work out eventually. Despite of this, we still research on these liberalistic scholars and their theories today, for the reason that they advocate liberalism should be a universal society attitude: The liberty of the people is inviolable, and personal liberal rights should be guaranteed by governments and laws, all of which have great reference value for our political civilization construction today.