Xu Jilin, a professor in the department of history at East China Normal University, is one of the most well-known liberal voices writing from inside the academic institution in China today. Despite defending positions that are often critical of China's political establishment, Xu is also a nuanced writer who avoids unnecessary provocations and has successfully navigated the academic system. The first collection of his essays in English, expertly translated and introduced by David Ownby, is an eagerly awaited addition to a small body of writings by contemporary Chinese thinkers that has become available for an international readership, and provides a more diverse view of China's intellectual scene.
The collection does not disappoint. It represents an excellent choice of articles (jointly selected by Xu and Ownby) that reflect the breadth of Xu's interests while also coming together as a coherent body of thought re-examining China's political ideologies in historical perspective. Most were published in the mainland media or on mainland websites between 2010 and 2015, with a few exceptions (one older article published in 2004 in Hong Kong, commemorating Li Shenzhi; one essay published in Taiwan). It is also flawlessly and elegantly translated, making for clear and enjoyable reading. The short introductions to each essay are very useful.
Many of the arguments made by Xu revolve around the dual concepts of culture and civilization, seen as the two frame ideologies that have been embraced in China and around the world in the modern era. Through this lens, China's century-old dilemma of how much to borrow from “the West” appears as less unique. As Xu sees it, after universal civilization emerged as an ideal of the French Revolution, Germany and other areas invaded by Napoleonic armies developed a discourse of (particularistic) culture, in which authenticity is opposed to universality (chapter three).
In chapter one, Xu envisages how universalism and particularism can be combined in original ways, for example by linking the “three traditions” of Confucianism, Enlightenment and Socialism (an idea he borrows from Gan Yang, p. 13), or through Habermas's constitutional patriotism (omitting to discuss however the issue of the implementation of China's constitutional principles). Pluralism is the guiding principle of these harmonious solutions to the dilemma of modernity (p. 92). Chapters two and three, by contrast show how, since the 1990s, particularist “historicism” has been brandished as a weapon by Chinese intellectuals against universal values. Chapter two – one of the most sparkling essays in the volume – retraces how the New Left's critique of the market and civil society combined with the neo-authoritarian proponents of the China model to produce a neo-sovereignist ideology of “statism” inspired by Carl Schmitt. Chapter three compares China's critique of the “ideal west” today to the critiques of “civilization” that appeared in 19th-century Germany. When universal values are lost, Xu argues, “the only remaining contents to be affirmed are a nation's wealth and power as measured by GDP” (p. 82), as in wartime Japan or among proponents of today's “China model.” Chapter seven further shows how, after the universalistic embrace of civilization during the May Fourth era, the Japanese invasion of 1931 marked the beginning of a return of particularistic culturalism and historicism, a cycle that was repeated in the universalistic 1980s and the historicist 1990s.
In a second set of chapters, Xu sets out the need to combine a principle of political organization with an ethical stance. In chapter four, he borrows Charles Taylor's notion of “great disembedding” to argue that the rupture between the family-state (jiaguo) and tianxia systems resulted in the rise of an unchecked state authority and an atomized modern self. He again borrows Habermas's concepts to propose a new connection between the systems-world (that must be prevented from colonizing personal lives) and the lifeworlds of individuals. Rights-liberalism needs to be complemented by a community (a space where people can “exchange emotions,” p. 111), which can be provided by a revised notion of tianxia, redefined as an enlightenment community, an example of Habermas's non-utilitarian lifeworld where people exchange feelings. We may also note, however, that the democratic texture of such a community or the role of elections in constituting it are not discussed. Confucianism, as argued in chapter five, can also represent a set of civil teachings that give meaning to people's lifeworlds. Chapter six argues that a revised tianxia, disburdened of centre and hierarchy, and redefined as a “universality based on recognition of the other” (p. 137) could also be used to re-establish a fairer international order that overcomes the limitations of Westphalian sovereignty. However, the concrete application of this principle to the peripheral territories claimed by China seems overly optimistic. Li Shenzhi, the famous establishment intellectual who evolved from Party loyalty to liberalism, is discussed in the last chapter (Xu's obituary after Li's death in 2003). Li's biography in some ways represents the adaptation of the ideal of the scholar-official in different historical contexts, for whom Havel's notion of “living in truth” could reconnect with Wang Yangming's concept of authenticity.
David Ownby's introduction provides very useful background about Xu Jilin and the context in which his thinking has evolved. He situates Xu as a liberal critic of political trends in China, grounded in a belief in the rule of law and a power-limiting constitutionalism (xi), but also as a member of a global community of thinkers and a participant in debates on global liberalism. While critiquing historicism and neo-Confucianism, Xu also re-appropriates parts of China's past for the liberal cause. In his view, China has its own claims to universal civilization, and can contribute a moral dimension to modern democratic systems. A small quibble is that Ownby's introduction may not distinguish sufficiently between establishment, public and citizen intellectuals. While Xu may play all three of these roles at different times, they might be more carefully discerned.
Finally, the most interesting question raised by the title and the introduction is: is Xu Jilin's critique of China's current political thinkers really liberal? Xu embraces a limited form of liberalism but argues that it should be complemented by new forms of community connections. Habermas, perhaps not a canonical liberal thinker, has clearly played an important role in the evolution of Xu's concepts. However, as Ownby underlines, Xu's preoccupation with ethics and his preference for grounding new community ties in shared moral values are also steeped in (liberal) Confucianism. His endorsement of the notion of tianxia and moral values may be a response to the rise of historicism and of the current “right is might” ideology of the China Dream; however, they also represent choices that are decidedly in tension with certain more democratic, egalitarian representations of society.
