book report about China

CHINESE POLITICAL CULTURE : 1989-2000

Book report

The book CHINESE POLITICAL CULTURE relates to political culture in significantly different ways from the approaches used in other books with similar content . This book touches on many aspects of Chinese political culture as a result , reading the book gives one a better comprehension of China 's complexity . This collection of essays manages to achieve this aim without losing its unity

The first section of the book explores the modern transformation of Chinese traditional culture and its effect on contemporary political culture . It speaks

to the complexity of the issue that the three essays do not agree on whether neo-Confucianism always provides the foundation on which contemporary Chinese political culture can rest . Kam Louie examines the role of Confucianism 's dichotomy between wen [man of letter] and wu [warrior] to emphasize continuities in the patriarchal nature of Chinese society . Roger Ames , from a different perspective examines the continued relevance of Confucianism among intellectuals in his presentation of the creative use of Kant by noted scholars Mou Zongsan and Li Zehou in their effort to reassert the relevance of the Confucian heritage . Godwin Chu , however , shows that although there are striking continuities between the ways in which the concept of zhong [loyalty] was used in traditional China and during the Maoist period the individual assertiveness he observes today marks a major break with the past

The second section of the book proceeds to socialization and observes official ideologies . The chapter on nationalism , by Edward Friedman reminds us that despite the use of a sometimes strident nationalist rhetoric by its leaders , the existence of a Chinese "nation " protected by the Party-state remains a long way off , as evidenced by the inability of the government to establish institutions such as the welfare state The chapter by Zhu Jianhua and Ke Huixin , which addresses the construction of Hong Kong in the minds of Chinese in Gungzhou and Shenzhen , suggests that despite greater exposure to a diversity of opinions , people living next door to Hong Kong still hold distorted views about that territory . Misra Kalpana 's chapter on the transition from neo-Maoism to neo-conservatism offers to explain this paradox . She argues that the state has successfully shed its orthodox Leninist ideology in favor of neo-conservative nationalism thanks to the recuperation of the neo-conservative discourses emerging in diverse milieus of society . Peter Moody addresses cynicism and indifference to politics in China in his chapter on anti-political tendencies . Moody also warns that the anti-political trends may end up tacitly endorsing the unjust , corrupt political system they claim to reject

The third section enriches these nuances with an additional layer of complexity , by looking into the different variants of Chinese political cultures found among different social strata and regions . Cheng Li looks at the emergence of pluralism among entrepreneurs Alan Liu at provincial identities Shih Chih-yu at elections in minority areas of the PRC and Taiwan Tang Wenfang at religion in China and Taiwan and ChuYun-han and Chang Yu-tzung at regime legitimacy...