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About the Chinese intelligentsia

Since my return to Germany, I do not read as widely as to China at the time when I was there. But occasionally I come across articles I read with much profit, but to me that I feel impelled to note that here.

on the article by Mark Leonard , executive director of the think tank European Council on Foreign Relations , in the March issue of British magazine Prospect if this is so. Leonard says in the article think his book What does China? , in turn, sums up his nearly five years of experience with the scene of political thinkers in the new China. Some of the following factors, I would like to summarize briefly.

First Leonard outlines the conditions under which a culture of debate in China at all, only kann:

So is the Chinese intelligentsia becoming increasingly open and western? Many of the concepts it argues over--including, of course, communism itself--are western imports. And a more independent-minded, western style of discourse may be emerging as a result of the 1m students who have studied outside China--many in the west--since 1978; fewer than half have returned, but that number is rising. However, one should not forget that the formation of an "intellectual" in China remains very different from in the west. Education is still focused on practical contributions to national life, and despite a big expansion of higher education (around 20 per cent of 18-30 year olds now enrol at university), teaching methods rely heavily on rote learning. Moreover, all of these people will be closely monitored for political dissent, with "political education" classes still compulsory.

portrays Leonard then diverting some of the right and left thinkers in China. "Right" here means: a consistent further market opening while Rückdrängung the public sector. "Links" refers to a position that advocates the corrections of the rampant capitalism in the sense of ecological sustainability and greater social equality. The left wing was apparently under the leadership of Hu Jintao and Wen Jiabao, under the slogan of the harmonious society (héxiéshèhuì 和谐 社会) including the latest, 11 Five Year Plan found expression.

Leonard presents some important issues such as democratization and the export of China's political model pointedly dar. The idea of internal democratization of the party and the gradual democratization of China as a whole has a prominent advocate Yu Keping, who is considered a successor to President Hu. Leonard almost as well as the other items together and sums up: In the long term

, China's one-party state may well collapse. However, in the medium term, the regime seems to be developing Increasingly sophisticated techniques to prolong its survival and pre-empt discontent. China has already changed the terms of the debate about globalization by proving that authoritarian regimes can deliver economic growth. In the future, its model of deliberative dictatorship could prove that one-party states can deliver a degree of popular legitimacy as well. And if China's experiments with public consultation work, Dictatorships around the world will take heart from a model that Allows one-party states to survive in an era of globalization and mass communications.

employs conclusion, Leonard with the question of the threat under the heading China now making the rounds, and comes here to differentiated conclusions:

But while all Chinese thinkers want to Strengthen national power, they disagree on their country's long- term goals. On the one hand, liberal internationalists like Zheng Bijian like to talk about China's "peaceful rise" and how it has rejoined the world; adapting to global norms and learning to make a positive contribution to global order. [...] On the other hand, China's "neocons"--or perhaps they should be called "neo-comms"--like Yang Yi and his colleague Yan Xuetong openly argue that they are using modern thinking to help China realise ancient dreams. [...] The tension between the liberal internationalists and the neo-comms is a modern variant of the Mao-era split between bourgeois and revolutionary foreign policy. For the next few years, China will be decidedly bourgeois. It has decided--with some reservations--to join the global economy and its institutions. Its goal is to strengthen them in order to pin down the US and secure a peaceful environment for China's development. But in the long term, some Chinese hope to build a global order in China's image. The idea is to avoid confrontation while changing the facts on the ground. Just as they are doing in domestic policy, they hope to build pockets of an alternative reality--as in Africa--where it is Chinese values and norms that increasingly determine the course of events rather than western ones.

Und ganz am Ende seines Artikels fasst Leonard zusammen:

China is not an intellectually open society. But the emergence of freer political debate, the throng of returning students from the west and huge international events like the Olympics are making it more so. And it is so big, so pragmatic and so desperate to succeed that its leaders are constantly experimenting with new ways of doing things. They used special economic zones to test out a market philosophy. Now they are testing a thousand other ideas - from deliberative democracy to regional alliances. From this laboratory of social experiments, a new world-view is emerging that may in time Crystallis into a recognisable Chinese model - to alternative, non-western path for the rest of the world to follow.

The whole article can be read here .