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Max Ko-wu Huang, The Meaning of Freedom: Yan Fu and the Origins of Chinese Liberalism, Hong Kong, Chinese University of Hong Kong Press, 2008.
Since being introduced into China in the late nineteenth century, liberalism has had a contentious relationship with the authoritarian state. At best, it has served as an alternative to the ruling ideology (e.g., the Chinese Democratic League in the 1940s); at worst, it has been a target of political campaigns to crack down on opposition (e.g., the Anti-Rightist Campaign in the 1950s and the Anti-Bourgeois Liberalism Campaign in the 1980s). In modern Chinese political discourse, liberalism [ziyou zhuyi) is like a ghost that haunts China's political leaders without having any direct impact on policies. For students of modern Chinese political thought, it is puzzling that although liberalism is often used as a yardstick for measuring the progress of Chinese political modernity, it has failed to take root in China.
Max Ko-wu Fluang has been a leading expert on Chinese liberalism over the last 15 years. Rather than taking the conventional view that liberalism does not suit Chinese political culture, he seeks to explain the failure of Chinese liberalism by examining the process by which liberalism was introduced into the country. In his first book, Yige bei fangqi de xuanze: Liang Qichao tiaoshi sixiang zhi yanjiu [The Rejected Path: A Study of Liang Qichao's Accommodative Thinking, 1994), he argues that since the turn of the twentieth century, mainstream Chinese intellectuals have rejected the gradual, accommodative, liberal approach to politics in favour of radical and revolutionary political ideologies (such as fascism and communism) to drastically overhaul Chinese political institutions. This sombre view of the fate of Chinese liberalism continues in Fluang's second book, Ziyou de suoyi ran: Yan Fu dui Yuehan Mier ziyou zhuyi sixiang de renshi yu pipan [The Raison d'être of Freedom: Yan Fu's Understanding and Critique of John Stuart Mill's Liberalism, 1998). Based on a careful comparison of Yan Fu's translation with John Stuart Mill's original writings, Fluang concludes that Yan (the first major Chinese liberal thinker) had a deep appreciation of Mill's notions of liberty and individuality, but that his understanding of liberalism was coloured by traditional Chinese learning. Missing Mill's epistemological pessimism, Yan could not develop an appreciation...