The Sinosphere left looks at rising China: Missed dialogues and the search for an ‘Asian perspective’

Anti-capitalist, anti-colonialist, but anti-China

For many left-wing intellectuals in mainland China, the United States represents the obvious target of anti-capitalist and anti-colonialist polemics. They argue that China’s economic and political rise over the past 30 years represents something different than Western-style capitalism, and to pigeonhole it into some capitalist developmental path ignores not only the continued vitality of its socialist and revolutionary traditions, but also the true centre of the world’s neo-liberal order in the United States. ³

A thorough summary of this argument can be seen in the writing of Dic Lo. ⁴ In the eyes of Lo and other like-minded mainland left-wing intellectuals, the fact that China bears the title of the ‘world’s factory’ does not reflect the entirety of its economic situation. State-owned enterprises still comprise a proportionally large segment of China’s economy. These enterprises treat their workers and staff in a manner not dictated by the market, and further, they take on numerous responsibilities for the state, such as infrastructure investment, technological development, and foreign investment strategy. Moreover, they hold that China’s reform and opening up over the past 30 years cannot simply be described as following a neo-liberal path. Instead, they contend China has contested the neo-liberal process, alternately following or rejecting its dictates. China has faced much pressure from the financial hegemons of global capital, but it has tenaciously resisted down to the present. In this way, China has achieved economic and social development not possible under a strict neo-liberal path. Lastly, they strongly assert that the Chinese government is not capitalism’s representative. From 1981 to 2010, China lifted 730 million people out of poverty, a development tied to its social and economic advances. This feat, for Lo and others, clearly shows that China has not followed a neo-liberal path. Calling China a centre of global capital is dangerous, Lo concludes, because it only caters to global capitalism’s self-justifying narrative. ⁵

Lo’s arguments were in response to Hong Kong and Taiwanese intellectuals critical of China’s socialist credentials. For them, China, especially over the course of its economic and political rise over the last few decades, has followed a capitalist and colonialist path. Such criticism of China’s left-wing credentials has drawn considerable negative reaction from mainland left-wing intellectuals, but such assertions from Taiwan and Hong Kong have only grown more vociferous over the past few years, and have come to define the terms of debate.

Lo’s article appeared in Groundbreaking (破土网), a web journal influential among Sinosphere left-wing intellectuals, which in early 2016 began publishing a series of essays that discussed the leftist identity of mainland China. ⁶ The first of these articles, ‘From a centre of people’s revolution to a centre of capital’, came from Pun Ngai. ⁷ Pun, representing the thoughts and opinions of many left-wing intellectuals in Hong Kong, argues that in the 30 years since ‘reform and opening’, China has fully embraced the processes of global capitalism, capitulating to the neo-liberal world order, and becoming capital’s global factory. ⁸ She asserts that while neo-liberalism has run its course in the West over these past 30 years, it is still in the prime of its life in China, and that China has become the biggest contributor to capitalist development even though it is a socialist country. Moreover, Pun continues, the Chinese government and state apparatuses play a leading role in setting the neo-liberal agenda. Chinese officialdom has degenerated into groups seeking benefit and profit, and the function of the state has fundamentally changed, as it no longer exists to ‘serve the people’, but to ‘serve the renminbi’. Regarding these developments, Pun rhetorically asks, ‘Without state approval, how could global capital have penetrated China? Without local government cooperation, how could China’s rural workers have so quickly flowed to factories on the coast, becoming those factories’ key labour power?’ ⁹ Pun’s questioning of China’s leftist social identity directly connects broader social and intellectual tensions within the mainland and surrounding Sinosphere.

Similar arguments can be found among the writings of Taiwanese left-wing intellectuals, although the historical trajectory of Taiwanese left-wing experience must be considered. From 1950 to the end of martial law in 1987, Taiwanese left-wing thinkers and social movements looked to the Chinese mainland as an example of the possibilities of social revolution. Moreover, at that time, Taiwanese left-wing socialism promoted cross-straits unification. Taiwan’s leftist parties were unification parties. This stands in contrast with current circumstances in which younger generations of Taiwanese, even left-wing intellectuals, would be hard pressed to ever hold such sentiments with such certainty again. The doubts younger Taiwanese leftist intellectuals hold toward China can be seen in the work of Huang Chi-Chun. In a recent article, Huang commented, ‘Following a capitalist model of development and gaining world recognition certainly is not the entirety of China’s rise, but it can be considered as both its external manifestation and essential core.’ ¹⁰ Huang further believes that for Taiwan’s continually depressed society and despondent youth, rising China’s path of economic developmentalism is a path that is increasingly distrusted. In their eyes, socialist China has lost much of its former ability to inspire emancipatory ideals, and with the exceptions of ethnic solidarity and economic development, it can offer little to Taiwan’s unsettled young. ¹¹ Huang’s implications are troubling indeed: when compared to prior possibilities, China’s rise offers scant hope for, let alone a path superior to, Western-style capitalist hegemony.

In the spring and fall of 2014, two student-oriented social movements, the Sunflower Movement in Taiwan and the Umbrella Movement in Hong Kong, erupted, stirring intense and heated debates that engaged leftist intellectuals in all three areas: mainland China, Hong Kong, and Taiwan. In many ways, the various and often conflicting strands of these movements (from anti-globalization and anti-colonialism, to liberal pluralism, radical democracy, civil society, and the demands of the poor, and further to isolationist and discriminatory ethno-nationalism and exclusionary localism, and even to Cold War attitudes of individuals or movements that seek to ingratiate with themselves with Western hegemonic powers) all contain the seeds of anti-China and separatist sentiments. ¹² For mainland observers, these movements seem to throw the thorny problems of China’s developmental path, democratic politics, and nationhood right in the face of the Chinese people.

The anti-capitalism and anti-colonialism of Hong Kong’s Umbrella Movement certainly targeted China, and in some extreme cases, became synonymous with anti-Chinese Communist Party (CCP) and anti-China rhetoric. However, for supporters of the Umbrella Movement, beyond its demands for ‘true electoral democracy’ (真普選) ¹³ there exist social and economic agendas far surpassing mere anti-China demonstrations, targeting what is seen as a conspiracy among mainland and Hong Kong higher-ups in the political domination of financial and real estate markets. Left-wing intellectuals in Hong Kong argue that even though true electoral democracy may constitute the core of the movement, the emphasis on political democracy does not encompass the entirety of the movement’s efforts. For them, apart from the calls for true electoral democracy, the Umbrella Movement fights against decades of political, social, and cultural degeneration. For Hong Kong’s left-wing intellectuals, their support of true electoral democracy is a means to keep electoral politics from devolving into the pursuit of seats; to strengthen the foundations of radical democracy; to develop and implement practices of equality, freedom, democracy, peace, and reason from historical experience; and to recover from the crises of cynicism and populist demagoguery, reconstruct a sincere political subject, and emphasize moral practice, conscience, and responsibility, so as to create a society that allows its inhabitants to live in truth. ¹⁴ More importantly, for many, the Umbrella Movement represents a struggle against the ghosts of colonialism, as represented in the mainland’s influence over the territory. Numerous Hong Kong left-wing intellectuals have argued that the task of political and cultural decolonization has remained incomplete since the 1997 handover. They believe that only through decolonization and autonomy-seeking social movements can Hong Kongese critically absorb progressive thought and evolve from slavish subjects to subjectively conscious and critically aware patriotic citizens. ¹⁵

One-sided dialogues

The Umbrella and Sunflower movements set off intense conflicts among intellectuals and the public at large – especially among younger generations – in the mainland, Hong Kong, and Taiwan. Most mainland Chinese, including left-wing intellectuals, diverged greatly with audiences in Hong Kong in their understanding of the Umbrella Movement. Consequently, the debates did not produce any mutual dialogue. In reality, many of the issues raised by the Umbrella Movement – from the widening disparity in wealth, to the ability of capital to manipulate politics, to increasing pressures of daily life felt by ordinary citizens, to the lack of any future for Hong Kong’s young – are issues felt in the mainland as well. In the mainland, especially the cities, Chinese citizens also experience a widening wealth gap, environmental degradation, increasing class conflict, political malfeasance, and a culture of cynicism created by the increasing pressures of making a living. However, these pressures, as expressed by the Umbrella Movement, carry no influence in the Chinese mainland. Very few Chinese see the Umbrella Movement as a progressive democratic movement. Even though mainland Chinese society has its own emancipatory strivings, its anti-capitalist and democratic potential has not joined together with that of Hong Kong society and the Umbrella Movement. Instead, people on the mainland only see the identity politics and exclusionist anti-Chinese rhetoric of the Umbrella Movement.

There are various reasons for these one-sided dialogues between the mainland and Hong Kong’s Umbrella Movement. Not all of these reasons can be attributed to the Chinese government’s censorship and guiding of public discussion. A deep ideological divide exists between intellectuals in the mainland and Hong Kong. Mainland intellectuals view China as navigating a socialist path and do not fully accept the bases for Hong Kong intellectuals’ critique of China’s perceived capitalist and colonialist practices. Rather, mainland intellectuals see Hong Kong and Taiwanese leftist critiques as misguided and veiled anti-China attacks. Such preconceptions underlie these one-sided dialogues.

Hong Kong and Taiwanese left-wing intellectuals, on the other hand, hold a particularly critical view of the Chinese government and the CCP’s role in the expansion of global capitalism. They argue that the party and government have degenerated into global capital’s lackeys, have become party to its vested interests, and have sold the country out to global capital’s despotism. Obviously, left-wing intellectuals on the mainland assert that the relationship between the state and capital is much more complex. They believe that in discussing the relationship between China’s nationhood and global capital, some important issues must first be considered: (1) that the CCP must be understood in terms of the different historical contexts of its existence, that is, today’s CCP and the revolutionary CCP of yesteryear, even though fundamentally different in policy and direction, still share distinct threads of commonality; and (2) that the globalization of capital has not yet ended the internal and external contradictions and conflicts over profit that occur as China enters the global market. At the same time, the relationship between the political system and the profits reaped by economic elites is difficult – sometimes they are in harmony, at other times they are in conflict. Under globalization, this internal conflict over profit between political authorities and economic elites is unsettled and constantly in flux. ¹⁶

For mainland left-wing intellectuals, the complex and difficult relationship among these three simultaneously existing phenomena – internal social contradictions in a nation, nation-to-nation conflicts over profit, and penetration of the transnational global market – demonstrate that China cannot be seen as a pure representative of capitalism. Mainland intellectuals still maintain a distinct nationalist bent and hold lofty expectations for the party and government. They argue that the party and government can simultaneously freely make use of and resist neo-liberalism. When these intellectuals survey global conditions, they further assert that only China can undertake this task of opposing neo-liberalism. ¹⁷

It is differing assumptions such as these that prevent left-wing intellectuals from the mainland and Umbrella Movement from coming together to share in any sustained anti-capitalist critique. These differences reach an even more extreme condition when considering issues of anti-colonialism. Differences between the mainland and Hong Kong are daily deepening, not only in terms of social contradictions, but also in terms of the consequences of the Cold War and long-term colonization. Hong Kong’s extended period of colonization occupies a site of intense emotional response in the Chinese historical memory. Hong Kong represents both the humiliation China endured at the hands of Western colonial aggressors and a beginning of China’s rise and revival. However, mainland Chinese lack awareness of Hong Kong’s historical and cultural experiences, and they lack understanding of the daily lives, psychologies, and sentiments of Hong Kong’s people. They find it hard to understand the frequent outbursts of ‘anti-mainland, anti-China’ rhetoric that predated the eruption of the Umbrella Movement. They have no means by which to produce a sympathetic response to the movement’s concepts of citizenship, civil disobedience, true electoral democracy, autonomous governance, social movements, and decolonization.

For most Chinese, China is Hong Kong’s mother country, while England is Hong Kong’s colonizer. In this sense, decolonization means returning to the motherland, China. To equate China with England is therefore incomprehensible. That people in Hong Kong would use decolonization as a means to oppose China is seen not as decolonization, but as nostalgia for colonization. Quite simply, Hong Kong appears to pine for England’s colonial system. Added to this is an environment in which Chinese government propaganda against the Umbrella Movement appears as national security alerts and news censorship. In such an environment, mainland audiences only receive the anti-China aspects of the movement’s message. Hence, the concept of a democratic, civilized, and civic society the Umbrella Movement champions as a ‘universal value’ is understood in the mainland as merely a tool of Western hegemony. Consequentially, this only provokes a simplistic response of nationalism and anti-Western hegemony that imperceptibly strengthens identification with China’s current national structure and party-state.

Left-wing intellectuals from the mainland also have a similarly critical attitude toward Taiwan’s Sunflower Movement. Wang Hui, ¹⁸ a leading leftist intellectual on the mainland, contends the anti-capitalism of the Sunflower Movement is anti-capitalism in name only, and instead is the continuation of Cold War consciousness. He explains that Taiwan’s anti-Cross-Straits Service and Trade Agreement (hereafter Service and Trade Agreement) movement’s main target is the government’s inability to address a growing wealth gap. ¹⁹ However, because Taiwan lacks any discernible political vision or clear social objectives, the students’ political mobilization is influenced by older anti-China fear-mongering, which reflects Cold War attitudes and nativist movements. Wang concludes this argument by posing two questions: (1) when one believes, as participants in the Sunflower Movement do, that Taiwan’s economic troubles come from China’s rise, that the wealth gap exists because powerful players pocket the fruits of cross-straits trade, and that Taiwan’s economic dependency on the mainland comes from mainland plots to economically undermine and annex the island, is it any wonder that this logic sweeps under the rug both the unequal division of labour between the two and the huge profits Taiwan harvests on the mainland?; and (2) why is it that Taiwanese protesters only speak of opposing mainland capital rather than discussing how to unite workers and strive together for a more equal society? ²⁰

Wang further argues that it is difficult to evaluate the extent and breadth of the influence of neo-liberal thinking in China over the past 20 years. In his view, mainland policies toward Taiwan are an unstable mixture of hard-line political rhetoric on Taiwan’s status and neo-liberal-derived economic trade deals that are detrimental to Chinese workers. Such tactics, he concludes, ought to be changed, especially because only Taiwan benefits greatly from this current co-dependency with its profit-sharing trade agreements. Further, he asserts, Taiwan’s president Ma Ying-jeou’s push for the Service and Trade Agreement was not only to obtain economic benefits from the mainland, but also to use the agreement as a pretext to enter regional economic organizations, such as the ASEAN-led Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership and the US-led Trans-Pacific Partnership Agreement (hereafter Trans-Pacific Agreement). Lining the events up as such, Wang concludes his argument by emphasizing that should the student-led Sunflower Movement be brave enough to extend its criticism of neo-liberalism to the Trans-Pacific Agreement, and should the occupation of Taiwan’s Legislative Yuan develop into a reflection of the current crisis of democratic politics, then the movement would be worthy of leftist support from the mainland.

A critical juncture in this argument is Wang’s contention that since the dissolution of the Soviet Union, the United States and its allies have positioned themselves as the world’s military power. In making this point, Wang follows Giovanni Arrighi’s arguments from The Long Twentieth Century. Wang then continues Arrighi’s argument that the centre of global capital accumulation has shifted from America to East Asia, creating an imbalance between political-military influence and economic-financial power. For Wang and Arrighi, this new world order, split between political-military influence and economic-financial power, serves as the background for China’s rise. But for Wang, this geopolitical order also explains why China cannot become a new hegemonic power. Wang, taking America’s ‘pivot to Asia’ policy as emblematic of an intent to return to a Cold War order, sees the Trans-Pacific Agreement as clearly intended to isolate China. Armed with such logic, Wang thus asserts that even though the Sunflower Movement has broached serious demands for equality, and has unearthed important social problems in Taiwan, it, with its nominal anti-Service and Trade Agreement, anti-neo-liberal rhetoric, in reality, supports Taiwan’s entry into the Trans-Pacific Agreement. It opposes the Chinese mainland and cross-straits policies, but not the American Asian pivot strategy, and the creation of an American-Japanese sphere of hegemony. As such, even though the young Taiwanese students are idealistic, they are merely recreating present tensions over unification and independence. Ultimately, in Wang’s opinion, the movement does not expose the links between the process of capitalist globalization and hegemony, and, more importantly, it cannot open a way forward for workers on both sides of the straits. ²¹ Yet, in criticizing the failures of the Sunflower Movement, Wang’s argument, much as the arguments of the Sunflower Movement and Umbrella Movement, elides the possibilities of self-reflection and foregoes a chance for shared dialogue.

In search of dialogue: Reflections on the ‘self’ and ‘other’

Dialogues among Sinosphere intellectuals on China’s rise seem to exist in their own echo chambers. However, present historical conditions challenge left-wing intellectuals from the mainland, Hong Kong, and Taiwan to reflect on not only China’s past and present, but also East Asia’s historical, cultural, and social trajectories, as well as the globalization of capitalism. Indeed, a small number of left-wing intellectuals from the mainland, Hong Kong, and Taiwan have been exploring the possibilities of transcending these national barriers to discussion.

Influential mainland-based critical intellectual He Zhaotian is one such figure. ²² In his estimation, mainland intellectuals must constructively engage left-wing intellectuals from Hong Kong and Taiwan over why anti-capitalism is equated with anti-CCP and anti-China critiques. They should also contemplate why, even though China builds its interactions and connections with the surrounding world, miscommunication and alienation from its neighbours does not diminish. Further, according to He Zhaotian, mainland intellectuals must ask themselves three important questions: (1) why does a rising China, which portrays itself as representative of a unique civilization, not give new hope but rather deepen fear and enmity among its neighbours?; (2) why does China’s self-perception differ so greatly from that of its neighbours?; and (3) if simply appealing to national security and strength is not enough, how are mainland intellectuals to reflect upon China’s role in East Asia and its political consequences?

In the July 2014 issue of Open Times (开放时代), He published an article entitled ‘As China enters the world’ (当中国开始深入世界). In the article, He observes that in 30 years of breakneck development following the implementation of the policies of reform and opening, China has become deeply integrated into the outside world, and has begun to become wealthy and strong after a century of weakness. However, China’s newfound wealth, strength, and connection to the world also pose many new theoretical issues for mainland intellectuals. He asserts that addressing these issues requires careful analysis of how mainland intellectuals understand concepts of ‘self’ and ‘other’. For He, such analysis not only helps clarify how mainland intellectuals approach the relationship of self and other, but also provides a key to opening new spaces for thought and practice. ²³

He begins his discussion from this simple recognition: were one to ask mainland Chinese – be they intellectuals or ordinary citizens – whether China could become the world’s new hegemonic power, the answer would be an unequivocal no. For most mainland Chinese, China is a peace-loving, agricultural civilization. Further, it has suffered over a century of Western capitalist aggression and has for decades bravely followed a path of socialist-inspired anti-capitalism, anti-colonialism, and anti-Western hegemony. How could China ever become a hegemonic power? However, should this question be posed to intellectuals living in countries and regions surrounding China – Japan, Korea, India, Hong Kong, Taiwan – then the answer would be less certain. In fact, in recent years, numerous progressive intellectuals in China’s neighbouring countries have expressed similar doubts.

He utilizes the thought of Ashis Nandy, one of India’s most important public intellectuals and post-colonial theorists, to discuss changes in how China knows and feels about itself and the world, as well as to reflect upon the difficulties China has experienced internationally over the past two decades. ²⁴ He has noted that over the past few years China, as a nation and people, has felt an increasing sense of anxiousness and unease with the outside world. This partly comes from government propaganda efforts. Moreover, the increasing number of Chinese who travel abroad frequently endure unfriendly and unreasonable encounters with locals in foreign countries. When they return to China, they take to the Internet to describe their unpleasant experiences, creating a kind of aggrieved forum demanding further bolstering of the nation’s security and strength. ²⁵ This internal dialogue, in turn, only increases anxiety, fear, and the possibility of misunderstanding with China’s neighbours and the world.

He argues that for China to build communicative and responsive relationships with its Asian neighbours, it should reflect on the remorseless, developmentalist, might-makes-right logic that guides its actions. Moreover, it must reform its present reality of a ‘harmonized society’ in which the weak and powerless are bullied by the government officials and the elite. Finally, China must engage all its empathetic abilities to understand its neighbours’ historical and cultural experiences. To this effect, He references Nandy, who, while speaking at the 2012 Asian Intellectual Circles Shanghai Forum, cited the economist Joan Robinson’s remark that ‘the only thing more terrible than having been colonized is not having been so’. He, shocked by this statement, was forced to consider that because mainland China had no experience of colonization, it had great difficulty in understanding the social, cultural, and psychological impacts of its neighbours’ colonial experiences. ²⁶ The mainland has not been able to understand ‘the other’ through the other’s experiences, and instead filters the other through its own perspective. Moreover, for the past 20 years, under the influence of developmentalist logic, the mainland’s understanding of ‘ourselves’ has been so constrained that when Chinese attempt to transcend their own historical-cultural community so as to ‘consider others’ – such as Hong Kong, Taiwan, Japan, Korea, and other countries – they find their attempts often meet not with accord but with greater conflict.

Once intellectuals understand this point, they can then return to examine Hong Kong and Taiwan and appreciate that while Hong Kong and Taiwan are certainly not outside China, neither are they simply inside it. They, especially Hong Kong after its return in 1997, are China’s internal others. He argues that it is not only beneficial but necessary for China to regard Hong Kong as an internal other with its own distinct viewpoints, history, culture, and politics. Further, as China has already embedded itself within a world historical framework, it is obliged politically and socially to open spaces in which to produce new understandings of itself and the world. This process can create an Asian perspective that will aid China in acknowledging and understanding its neighbours. By treating the other as truly other, one can ‘truly enter into the historical and cultural currents of one’s counterpart, and from within those currents feel, understand, and grasp one’s counterpart’. ²⁷ Only by thoroughly understanding what it is to be the other, can China and its others clearly and truly understand what the other means when it speaks of ‘win-win’ and ‘harmony’. ²⁸

An Asian perspective? New thoughts on peace and democracy

He Zhaotian’s ruminations on the relationship between the mainland and its other, Hong Kong, exist in a spectrum of similar thought. The relationship between the mainland, Hong Kong, and Taiwan is complicated by each one’s particular experience of colonialism, the Second World War, the Cold War, as well as anti-imperialist and independence movements. During the early years of the Cold War, these shared experiences served as a unifying force. However, in many respects, these experiences are distinct enough to serve as barriers to joined conversation. Yet these colonial experiences, along with the recognition of some kind of broader Asian identity, remain as catalysts for cooperation for certain left-wing intellectuals in the Sinosphere. Over the past few years, a small number of progressive and left-wing intellectuals in the mainland, Taiwan, Japan, Korea, and other Asian countries have begun to ponder the possibilities of an ‘Asian perspective’ that would transcend national divisions, and would embark upon a self-reflective, self-critical search for new ways of ensuring peace and democracy in the region. Two of the leading intellectuals of this movement are Chen Kuan-Hsing from Taiwan and Sun Ge from the mainland. Their efforts, along with those of Hong Kong’s Johnson Chang and other intellectuals, have led to the founding of the Inter-Asia School, an organization dedicated to furthering this intellectual task. ²⁹

Chen Kuan-Hsing is one of East Asia’s dynamic activists. He is also a core contributor to one of Taiwan’s most important left-wing scholarly quarterly, Taishe (台社), the shortened name of Taiwan: A Radical Quarterly in Social Studies (台灣社會研究季刊). ³⁰ In the 1990s, Chen participated in organizing and editing the international journal Inter-Asia Cultural Studies (亞際文化研究). ³¹ The journal encouraged the establishment of a long-term forum for cooperation among Asian intellectuals, and from this forum Chen developed his arguments for ‘Asia as method’. In the beginning, Chen set the following tasks: (1) take Asia as the core for the production and circulation of critical knowledge; (2) gradually connect and correspond with intellectual societies and groups originating outside Asia, and promote dialogue between different groups; and (3) provide an intellectual platform so that scholarly production and social movements can act together. At its base, their goal was to construct an Asian perspective outside that of the West. Through this intermediary of an Asian perspective, Asia’s regions and societies could find new reference points in each other, and from this re-envision their own self-knowledge, illuminating hidden trouble spots, and creating a realm of new possibilities. The Inter-Asia School, founded in 2012, with offices in Taiwan, Hong Kong, the mainland, Singapore, Japan, and Korea, is an institutional outgrowth of the journal’s intellectual activities. Its emancipatory agenda aims to create, at the level of knowledge production, a new collaborative space for Asian theoretical circles, to find a new mode of knowledge, and to overcome obstructions and theoretical difficulties created in Asia by colonization, war, and the Cold War. Through joint research, collaborative curricula, scholarly translation, and other means, it seeks to encourage synergetic knowledge production within Asia.

Towards De-Imperialization: Asia as Method (去帝國: 亞洲作為方法), first published in 2006, and translated into English in 2010, is regarded as Chen’s major work, laying out his political and intellectual mission. ³² In this book, Chen contemplates, from the vantage point of East Asia’s historical forces, the residual manifestations of colonialist, Cold War, and imperialist mentalities that colour Taiwan’s history and current-day disputes. It argues for decolonization, ‘de-Cold War-ization’, de-imperialization, and the refashioning of Taiwan’s historical self-perception and subjective imagination. Chen defines decolonization not merely as the process by which a colonized territory establishes itself as an independent nation state. It is the process by which those previously colonized reflect on how, at the deepest cognitive levels, their spirit, culture, politics, and economies are linked to their colonial past. He calls for intellectuals of previously colonized territories to simultaneously, on the level of culture, spirit, and knowledge production, engage once more in a thorough decolonization movement and to contemplate the meaning of moving past Cold War categories, what Chen calls de-Cold War-ization. ³³

Chen asserts that the tasks of de-imperialization, decolonization, and de-Cold War-ization across the nations of East Asia are incomplete. Japan’s occupation by the United States in 1945, turning it from colonizer to colonized, was a missed opportunity to reconsider its imperialism and war crimes. In 1956, after the Korean War and the establishment of the Cold War order in Asia, America inserted itself subjectively in Asia. Obviously, America physically established its military and political presence throughout the region. More importantly, as Chen argues, American social and cultural consciousness became the lens through which Asians thought about themselves and the surrounding world. ³⁴ This process formed a long-term ‘pro-United States, anti-communist’ capitalist structure in East Asia. This historical structure successfully demonized the socialist world and created lasting divisions and enmity within the region that along with histories of warfare and accumulated hatreds have stymied the work of regional reconciliation down to the present. Further, because de-imperialization and decolonization were never fully contemplated, former colonial territories, in the process of establishing themselves as independent nation states, have continued imperialist cultural practices. Essentially, these new nations, in their own minds, oppose imperialism and demand independence. However, in their hearts, they want to participate in the glories of empire, taking themselves as ‘successor empires’. An example of this can be seen in the appearance of Taiwan’s 51 Club, a political group that since the 1990s has advocated for Taiwan to become the United States’ 51st state. ³⁵ Such notions reflect how within former colonial societies, there exist conscious desires to become imperial subjects. This attitude of seeking refuge in a hegemonic power is the result of protracted colonial histories, and displays a gross lack of true subjectivity.

Chen calls for reflective intellectuals throughout former imperial nations to begin a broad movement for de-imperialization so as to renew reflection and critical inquiry into the harm imperialism has done to the world. This is the prerequisite for reconciliation between former imperialists and colonized subjects, and it is only in this way that there can be the advent of a global movement for peace and democracy. For Chen, the difficulties in Taiwan’s and East Asia’s history lie in a dual internalization of the ideas of colonization and empire. After the Cold War ended and the centre of global capital gradually shifted from Europe and North America to East Asia, the Asia-Pacific region became an important site of global economic contention. Neo-liberalism created new opportunities in East Asia, allowing for China’s economic take-off as well as providing a favourable international environment for Taiwan’s and South Korea’s democratic opposition movements. However, because efforts to decolonize and de-imperialize had stagnated, the accumulated historical consciousness of colonization and the Cold War still influenced politics in the region. The CCP was demonized as communist bandits, while the American political model became perceived as the only feasible model of democracy. Latent imperialist desires, jealousies, and intense, myopic feelings of ‘it is our turn, at last’ pervaded East Asia. ³⁶ In each and every country, hatreds accumulated throughout history do not go away, and new enmities fester in the background. In 21st-century East Asia, even as it has seemingly returned to being a world centre, considerable pride fills the region and a new imperialism is taking form. ³⁷

Politically, Chen’s Asian methodology points to two paths of practice: (1) a political discourse of popular democracy; and (2) a new consultative and allied internationalism. On the political level, these practices will oppose all hegemonies, while on the theoretical level, these will pay heed to the other, do away with nationalism’s blind alleys, and liberate social subjectivity. The concept of ‘popular democracy’ (人民民主), which dates to the late 1980s and early 1990s, emerged when Taiwanese intellectual circles contrasted it with the concept of ‘civil society’ (民间社会). Today, among activist left-wing Taiwanese and Hong Kongese scholars, the idea of popular democracy still holds currency among such supporters as Chen Kuan-Hsing, Fifi Naifei Ding, Karl Yin-Bin Ning, Josephine Chuen-juei Ho, and Fred Chiu. ³⁸ According to Chen, the difference between popular democracy and civil society lies in ideas of party, hierarchy, and order. Proponents of civil society hold that in order to topple the Kuomintang and take power, an outside opposition party, the Democratic Progressive Party, must arise to organize Taiwan’s various ethnicities and groups and bind Taiwan’s disparate social movements to its leadership. Popular democracy, on the other hand, aims to safeguard free spaces for social movements and their allied groups, so as to deepen the possibilities of Taiwan’s burgeoning democratization and to prevent political parties from co-opting this process. It argues that maintaining social space also protects the momentum of Taiwan’s long-term democratization. ³⁹ Popular democracy theory argues for social and cultural movements to break away from the rigidities of ethno-nationalist imaginings, to veer away from expressing opinions regarding unification or independence, and to refrain from taking sides in debates over ethnicity and native place. This is because such issues obstruct social autonomy and harm the construction of a critical Taiwanese cultural subjectivity.

In Chen’s estimation, a transforming world needs a new imaginary. What his argument means for a rising China is the necessity of an Asian perspective that aims to induce a new kind of self-reflection that will open China’s understanding of its neighbours’ history and present, and free Chinese intellectuals from egocentric viewpoints, in order to ask just what a rising China can bring to the world. But it is not just China that requires such a perspective. It is something for which all left-wing Sinosphere and Asian intellectuals should strive. For Chen, an Asian perspective points to a new understanding of the world, one that departs from the past centuries of Western imperialism, its oppression, militancy, and mentality of survival of the fittest, in the hope of imagining a world that values difference, respects the weak, and values peace for late-developing countries, as well as global equality.

Opening an Asian perspective is not merely to create an Asian universalism, but to use Asia as an intermediary, as a method to break through Western universalist narratives and explore the plurality of world history. It is an attempt to go beyond the logic behind 19th-century Eurocentric narratives and 21st-century new imperialist orders. Sun Ge, a mainland scholar who is key in defining an Asian perspective, ⁴⁰ has outlined the following key points:

This is the self-consciousness of Asian intellectuals. Sun argues that Asian intellectuals should not be satisfied with the comparativism or cultural exceptionalism with which the West regards the histories of the non-West. Rather, they should have faith that Chinese and Asian histories are pregnant with undiscovered insights through which they can gain self-understanding and contribute to universal principles.

With this purpose in mind, Sun utilizes Japanese historian Yuzo Mizoguchi’s ⁴² scholarship on the Ming dynasty thinker Li Zhi to point to a new understanding of the relationship between the universal and the particular, which can be summed up as equality that values difference, and universalism that accepts plurality in oneness. Specifically, Sun Ge is arguing that the universal is not one unified, undifferentiated body, not the emphasis on ‘magnified unity’ within traditional Chinese thought. The universal, or, for all intents and purposes, the world, is made up of a variety of particulars that come together. It is comprised of different people, living their own lives, coming together in a shared community. Acknowledging that distinct peoples, places, and things can come together and exist in mutual harmony is what Sun means when she discusses universalism. In terms of history and culture, all culture is historical, is particular. There is no such thing as a single, universal culture. Humans can understand different cultures only through the particularities of historical experience. But through these distinct currents of historical experience, humans can also understand how they fit together into something larger. If Chinese intellectuals only look to the West, or only look to China, there is no chance of realizing this kind of equality in difference. To this effect, Sun has stated, ‘Equality that values difference can only come through placing oneself inside other cultures and societies. This is especially so when building equal relationships with those weaker, late-developing countries. Only when “there is a place for everyone” can such a goal be achieved.’ ⁴³

Sun’s efforts, along with those of Chen Kuan-Hsing and He Zhaotian, aim to find a shared space in which Asian intellectuals can weave together fragments of colonial, Cold War, and national experiences into a unified, mutual, and open-ended vision of Asia. This is what it means for contemporary Sinosphere left-wing intellectuals to search for a shared Asia dialogue. Sun has asserted:

In these past few centuries, first Europeans, then America, have invaded and occupied much of the world. In Asia, only Japan has followed this trend. But, will this trend continue? We hope not. Humanity should live a more moral life, and not be so self-centred or vicious. Because humans are equal, it is only through difference that humans can understand each other. Understanding is not only a capability, but also a kind of sincerity. Only though a consciousness of true equality can this faith come to pass. ⁴⁴

Humanity’s historical fate and its historical responsibility are the same thing. Sun’s call is an idealistic plea for humanity to join together in world history, not for humanity to enter world history under the sway of some hegemonic principle. Surely, it is an idealistic and utopian project, but it is a distinct, meaningful, and indispensable component of contemporary Chinese left-wing thought. It, together with the efforts of He Zhaotian, Chen Kuan-Hsing, and others, represent certain alternatives to the missed and one-sided dialogues occurring in the Sinosphere left.

Conclusion

Overall, He Zhaotian, Chen Kuan-Hsing, and Sun Ge and their attempts to promote more emancipatory, inclusive, and self-reflective visions of exchange among left-wing Sinosphere intellectuals remain in the minority. As much as left-wing rhetoric in the Sinosphere has been shaped by ideals of Third World unity, both past and future, in the face of Euro-American political and cultural hegemony, it has also been shaped by very keenly felt historical processes. Criticisms of China’s seemingly capitalist turn from Hong Kong and Taiwanese intellectuals come from concrete examples of economic and political pressure from the mainland. Mainland left-wing intellectuals rightly see the continued vitality of revolutionary goals in the face of neo-liberal opposition. The one-sided dialogues we have seen from the intellectuals surveyed in this article are as much the result of deafness to the other as they are the result of very tangible political and national restraints. Even Chen Kuan-Hsing’s and Sun Ge’s probing of possible Asian perspectives is subject to these forces. It is all too easy for any Asian perspective to be co-opted by a singular party. Consequently, these debates, one-sided and shared, will go on, and as China’s rise continues to challenge what it means to be left-wing, Sinosphere intellectuals will continue to contest these definitions and will continue to press for emancipatory alternatives.