Thinking China

Thinking China is an attempt over time to document Chinese thinkers and thinking, scholarship and intellectual enquiry. Our aim is to feature Chinese voices, arguments and accounts that allow English-language readers better understanding the many (often conflicting) strands that make up The China Story.

Key Articles contains summaries, explanations and links to texts of interest. It introduces readers to some of the significant writers and thinkers in the Sinophone world today. Dealing with topics that crystallize the thought of these writers – many of whom will be in the People’s Republic of China, although some will be writing in Chinese in Hong Kong, Taiwan and internationally – this section is aimed at providing insights into how the Chinese world’s voices of concern are responding to Chinese predicaments within the global context.

Many Chinese intellectuals have written about what they regard as the indiscriminate embrace of ‘imported ideas’ characteristic of twentieth-century Chinese thought, but few have articulated ways in which the productive assimilation of such ideas can over time contribute to ways in which Chinese ideas can circulate more widely in the global context – and how the international currency of Chinese thought may well contribute to the ways we all think about and inhabit a world culture of which China is a constituent and central part.

We believe that, whereas, many Western-trained Chinese academics have found a voice (or a niche) in global English-language discourse, in that context writings tend to reflect academic concerns, in particular American-centric academic concerns. We hope that, by casting the net wide and working with leading younger and established writers and thinkers throughout the Sinophone world the section Key Intellectuals will become a database of Chinese thinkers that can, in some small way, help redress these distorting imbalances.

Key Intellectuals

Sima Nan (司马南)

We thank Emile Dirks for this contribution. Emile is a PhD student in Political Science at the Unive…

Steven NS Cheung 张五常

Steven Ng-Sheong Cheung 张五常 is an internationally noted Hong Kong-born economist best known for his …

Wu Jiaxiang 吴稼祥

Wu Jiaxiang 吴稼祥 is a prominent mainland social commentator and author. After graduating from Peking …

Li Yining 厉以宁

Li Yining 厉以宁 is one of China’s most noted economists. He is the director of the Department of Socia…

Currents of Thought

Jiang Shigong on 'Philosophy and History: Interpreting the "Xi Jinping Era" through Xi’s Report to the Nineteenth National Congress of the CCP’

An Introduction by David Ownby and Timothy Cheek This essay by Jiang Shigong 强世功 (b. 1967), publi…

Ai Weiwei on Art, Activism and Human Rights

An Interview with Ai Weiwei by Zeng Jinyan Ai Weiwei 艾未未 is renowned for making strong aesthetic sta…

Rong Jian 荣剑 on Thought and Scholarship in China

Translator’s Preface  It takes some nerve to title one’s essay ‘A China Bereft of Thought’ 没有思想的中国 …

Reading and Writing the Chinese Dream: introducing a project

As of January 2016, the Thinking China section of The China Story has introduced several aspects of …

Reading into the Past

Dossier

Lexicon

The Environment 环境

This Lexicon item was contributed by Isabel Hilton, founder of Chinadialogue.net and The Third Pole.…

Labour 劳工

Back to Lexicon main menu By Ivan Franceschini This lexicon item consists of the following sub-sec…

Human Rights 人权

Back to Lexicon main menu Susan Trevaskes and Elisa Nesossi Australian Centre on China in the World …

Renminbi 人民币

Back to Lexicon main menu Jane Golley The Australian Centre on China in the World   This lexi…