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China’s First Revolution

Wang Chaohua on Qin Hui, Zou chu dizhi. Sources and consequences of the Revolution of 1911 for China’s history, in the telling of one of its most original political thinkers. Could changes of state ever be separated from transformations of culture?

The Party and its Success Story

How should the balance-sheet of Chinese Communism be assessed? In a rejoinder to Perry Anderson’s comparison of the Russian and Chinese revolutions, Wang Chaohua delivers a critical verdict on the record of Mao’s utopianism and Deng’s pragmatism, and the bleak legacy of the crushing of popular aspirations in 1989.

A Tale of Two Nationalisms

As tensions are ratcheted up across the Taiwan Strait, Wang Chaohua analyses the distinctive trajectory of national consciousness on the island. Contradictions of identity, as the legacies of KMT and Cold War confront local particularities and democratic impulses, and possibilities for an exit from the impasses of geography and history.

A Dialogue on the Future of China

“How do you think the June 4th movement of 1989 will be remembered—as another May 4th 1919, the threshold of a period of general political awakening and turbulence, or instead as a Chinese version of 1848 or 1968 in Europe: a last spontaneous explosion of idealistic revolt, followed . . .” read more