Order and Stability in Social Transition: Neoconservative Political Thought in Post-China

Abstract

With the end of the Deng Xiaoping era, China is struggling to define its future. Ongoing socioeconomic changes, impelled by Deng's reform since 1979, pose an unprecedented challenge to the post-Deng political leaders in terms of how to govern an increasingly open and economically prosperous but tension-ridden and potentially unstable society. This question also concerns many Chinese intellectuals and has actually become a new locus of intellectual political thinking. Contrary to the conventional wisdom that expanded economic freedom would foster the demands of political liberalization, the view prevailing in current Chinese intellectual circles is that of so-called neoconservatism.1 This term is loosely used to label a body of arguments calling for political stability, central authority, tight social control, role of ideology and nationalism.2 Such calls are also made by the government, but neoconservatism distinguishes itself from the official statements by defending the current political order from somehow different approaches and with very different rhetoric.