Introduction: Discussing “civil society” and “liberal communities” in China

Abstract

The idea inspiring the present issue of China Perspectives is that there are certain communities - or groups, or fields - in Chinese that can be most readily expected to promote the strengthening of universal values underpinning human rights. These values include freedom of conscience and speech, freedom of association and the right to participation, and liberty of the person - basic liberties. (1)Civil and liberal democratic valuesIn different ways, communities of journalists, human rights defenders including in particular lawyers, religious communities, and nongovernmental organisations (NGO) involved in the provision of social services or advocacy can be especially important to the promotion of these values. Journalist communities, religious groups, and NGOs are also dependent on freedom of speech, (2) conscience, (3) and association, (4) whereas rights lawyers are engaged in the defence of the rights to due process, a fair trial, and access to justice. (5) In non-liberal, nondemocratic systems, support from international or transnational is an especially important further aspect. Accordingly, the contributions to this volume discuss these fields and aspects.Our project had to overcome some challenges, beginning with the controversial question of whether, even assuming that the idea of society makes sense, a can exist in (post-) authoritarian China. Addressing this question, this introduction argues for a liberal conception of and on the basis of this conception discusses the contributions on the particular Chinese fields contained in this issue. An insight emerging from all the contributions is that pressure on - and sometimes repression of - is met by the strengthening and diversification of resources to resist pressure, and often contributes to rising consciousness of the institutional safeguards needed for a genuine society.Conceptual issues: Civil in China between gongmin and minjianThere is no universally accepted definition of society, because to say a exists is to make an evaluative judgement. Interpretations have produced different conceptions ranging from the sociological to the (more explicitly normative) political.(6)These have different virtues. The classic, liberal conception is often traced back to Tocqueville's account of eighteenth century American characterised, in his view, by the prevalence of associations, formed freely and voluntarily for non-commercial purposes, to serve some aspect of the common good - formed, thus, in the civic or civil spirit to be found in democratic systems. (7) From the perspective of Tocqueville and those he greatly influenced, the existence of is clearly tied to a particular society's democratic organisation. This might hold the promise that a strengthening of could result in a strengthening also of the demand for democratic change. But it could also suggest that in politically hostile conditions, cannot emerge.Adam Michnik's Towards a Civil Society remains an important and, in China, also influential twentieth century reflection on the optimistic reasoning Tocqueville's account led to on the part of democracy activists in Eastern Europe. (8) Under the pressure of the systems they lived in, direct and in a narrow sense political opposition, e.g., through the formation of a party or underground movement aiming to gain government power or overthrow the system, was on the one hand not as eligible as a more diffuse, less direct, broader, and non-violent strategy. On the other hand, just because these systems were totalitarian (at least from the perspective of those who opposed them), the formation of communities resisting domination by the state was certain to be effective, even if such communities did not directly engage in struggles for power. …