Introduction: The transformation of the relationship between Chinese intellectuals and the state

Abstract

China’s economic reforms from a planned to a market economy, after a short interruption in the aftermath of the bloody crackdown of the Tiananmen protest movement on 4 June 1989, have accelerated since 1992. The market transition evoked far-reaching changes in many aspects of China’s state-society relations in the 1990s. One of the most profound changes was the transformation of the relationship between intellectuals and the Partystate. For the first time, Chinese intellectuals appeared to be shaking off the model of both traditional literati and modern establishment intellectuals. As marketization proceeded, Chinese intellectuals opened up more space for their personal choices and career development than ever before, and gained more financial and intellectual autonomy from the Party-state. Globalization, facilitated by technological advances in communication across national boundaries, especially through the internet, further enlarged the Chinese intellectuals’ public space. Despite these changes, however, the freedoms of speech and association that most Chinese intellectuals desired and that China’s Constitutions have promised were yet to be institutionalized due to the authoritarian nature of China’s political system. Although the intellectuals gained a degree of financial and intellectual autonomy, the role of critical intellectuals was eroded by growing market forces and commercialization. Moreover, as also occurred in post-industrial societies in the West and postcommunist societies in Eastern Europe and Russia, China is entering an age of experts in which the relative importance of critical intellectuals to the public is declining while knowledge-based and profit-oriented professionals are becoming increasingly important.