The Chinese Liberal Spirit

The Chinese Liberal Spirit: Selected Writings of Xu Fuguan collects several published works of 20^th-centory Confucian philosopher Xu Fuguan. Largely unknown to Anglophone publics, and comparatively lesser-known among his contemporaries in Sinophone intellectual circles, this volume marks the first attempt to introduce Xu’s works to English-language readers. As translator and editor David Elstein notes, despite Xu’s lack of influence or ambition, and having “virtually no impact on the political situation of his time” or significance in contemporary philosophical debates (18), he is nevertheless an important thinker whose ideas are worth grappling with, particularly for his reflections on the interdependency between liberal democratic institutions and Confucian ethics. 

Following a brief preface by Hsu Woochun (Xu Wujin), Xu’s son, and an introduction by Elstein, the volume is divided into two sections comprising Xu’s essays in translation: “Autobiographical Essays” and “Ethical and Political Thought.” Elstein’s introductory chapter helpfully sets the stage for readers to appreciate Xu Fuguan’s oeuvre against the political backdrop of early 20^th-century China. Born in 1903 and educated at the burgeoning academies in the Republic of China, Xu joined the Nationalist Army in 1926, encountering modern political works such as the writings of Sun Yat-Sen and Karl Marx, with two stints studying in Japan. He then worked through the ranks of the Nationalist Army (1931-1946), including as a wartime liaison with the Chinese Communists, making him one of few individuals with personal relationships with the top-level leadership of the Chinese Nationalists and Communists.

Notably, amid the Nationalist government’s wartime retreat to Chongqing, it was Xu’s encounter with the Confucian philosopher Xiong Shili that prompted the general to retire from his military career and return to scholarship. Indeed, the mid-century political tumult in China, which included Xu’s own experience of exile from China—in Hong Kong and Taiwan—indelibly shaped his own intellectual formations, while providing new platforms such as Democratic Review (published in Hong Kong), where many of Xu’s ideas were circulated. In addition, this experience shaped Xu’s lifelong goal of “defending and promoting Chinese tradition” as he saw it, both against the anti-traditionalism of communists on mainland China, and liberals in Taiwan who favored Westernization. 

As a historian, I found that the three autobiographical essays in the volume offered a fascinating portrait of Xu as an exiled intellectual grappling with questions of identity, culture, and the Chinese nation, under the conditions of exile and estrangement from both Nationalist and Communist Chinas. “The End of Democratic Review” deserves special mention, since this was the platform that most of Xu’s subsequent essays, including those in this volume, were published. There, the sentiments of refugee intellectuals in Hong Kong and their existential crisis— that they were “sowing a few seeds of the culture” before their moment of extinction—comes through poignantly (33).

Students of Chinese philosophy, government, or political theology will find Xu’s reflections in the thirteen essays that make up the “Ethical and Political Thought” section especially interesting, as they contain Xu’s reflections on democracy and its centrality in Ruist (Confucian) political thought. Mostly published in Democratic Review in the early 1950s, they reflect his varied approaches to the question of Chinese culture in modern democracy and his aspirations for a democratic China underpinned by Confucian moral foundations. Given the volume’s title alludes to the Chinese “Liberal Spirit,” it is worth singling out Xu’s essay “Why Oppose Liberalism?,” which nuances our understanding of liberalism through a dialogue with an adjacent group of intellectuals in Taiwan, with whom Xu shared commitments to liberal democracy, but advocated different means to achieve it. Published as part of SUNY Press’ “Translating China” series, this volume promises to be a useful teaching resource and introduction to intellectual debates in the 1950s and 1960s Sinosphere, especially among Chinese Confucian scholars who were writing from a place of exile. Xu’s interventions into debates surrounding Free China, Chinese culture, liberalism, and democracy in the Chinese context have strong resonances with contemporary politics, especially in light of subsequent debates—in philosophical circles and beyond—on the possibilities of Confucian democracy. While his diatribes against communism, colonialism, and totalitarianism must be placed in their appropriate Cold War context, this volume makes a fine contribution in introducing Anglophone audiences to an overlooked thinker and his attempts to synthesize various philosophical traditions at a moment of seismic geopolitical transformations.

Joshua Tan is a postdoctoral fellow in the department of history at the National University of Singapore.

Joshua Tan

Date Of Review:

August 16, 2024