Evolution of Chinese intellectuals' thought over two decades

• Source: The Global Times
• [23:54 May 31 2009]
• Comments

Reform and opening-up

While the launch of reform and opening-up in 1978 kickstarted a socialist planned economy into transforming itself into a more vibrant State-controlled market economy, the Chinese government during the first 10 years of this transformation found itself groping to resolve the endemic intellectual, political and economic contradictions of its new and controversial policy.

Ordinary people’s life failed to fully improve, partly because bureaucrat profiteering and some other negative sides of the society made the way obscure, said Shen Dingli, a professor at Fudan University.

The concept of a socialist market economy was not “finalized” and Chinese society was “in transition”, according to Jin Canrong, deputy director of School of International Studies at the Renmin University of China.

People were less confident about China’s future in the 1980s, explained Zhang Yiwu, a Peking University literature professor.

Irritated by China’s pathetic economy and the ultra-left thinking left over from the Cultural Revolution (1966-76), many Chinese intellectuals shared a common pursuit of freedom and democracy in the 1980s, “an era of enlightenment on democracy for intellectuals”, Xiao Gongqin, a major spokesman for cultural nationalism and a history professor at Shanghai Normal University, wrote in his Chinese book Thoughts Differentiation among Modern Chinese Intellectuals and Its Political Influence.

“The youth in universities were all drinking in a variety of knowledge and reading various books,” Zhang Liping, researcher at the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences told the Global Times.

At that time, information on different societies and lectures on new concepts filled every corner of campus noticeboards. Books and debates circulated among students. Especially popular were arguments over “isms” including existentialism, humanitarianism, liberalism, capitalism and Marxism.

“Uncertainty was the most obvious characteristic of that period,” said Zhang Yiwu. He noted that the intellectuals at that time chose Western thoughts “at random”.

“It [the ’80s] was the age of enlightenment and almost a turning point for China’s political transition,” said Chen Zhigang, former Washington bureau chief of Hong Kong-based Sing Tao Daily.

June 4 Incident broke out in 1989 and after that intellectuals in China “switched to silence”, according to Zhang Liping.

“Intellectuals no longer discussed ‘isms’ publicly, and shifted their focus to academic issues,” she said. “Some people worried that China might slip backward.”