- Title Pages
- Dedication
- Author’s Preface
- Editorial Note
- Abbreviations
- Chronology of Dynasties
-
1. Some Preliminary Observations on the Rise of Qing Confucian Intellectualism -
2. Dai Zhen and the Zhu Xi Tradition -
3. Dai Zhen’s Choice Between Philosophy and Philology -
4. Zhang Xuecheng Versus Dai Zhen -
5. Qing Confucianism -
6. The Two Worlds of Honglou meng (Dream of the Red Chamber) -
7. Sun Yat-sen’s Doctrine and Traditional Chinese Culture -
8. The Radicalization of China in the Twentieth Century -
9. Neither Renaissance nor Enlightenment -
10. Modernization Versus Fetishism of Revolution in Twentieth-Century China -
11. The Idea of Democracy and the Twilight of the Elite Culture in Modern China -
12. China’s New Wave of Nationalism -
13. Democracy, Human Rights, and Confucian Culture -
14. Changing Conceptions of National History in Twentieth-Century China -
15. Reflections on Chinese Historical Thinking -
16. Modern Chronological Biography and the Conception of Historical Scholarship -
17. The Study of Chinese History -
18. Confucianism and China’s Encounter with the West in Historical Perspective -
19. Clio’s New Cultural Turn and the Rediscovery of Tradition in Asia - Acknowledgments
- Appendix
- Index
The Idea of Democracy and the Twilight of the Elite Culture in Modern China
The Idea of Democracy and the Twilight of the Elite Culture in Modern China
- Chapter:
- (p.234) 11. The Idea of Democracy and the Twilight of the Elite Culture in Modern China
- Source:
- Chinese History and Culture
- Author(s):
Ying-shih Yü
, Josephine Chiu-Duke, Michael S. Duke- Publisher:
- Columbia University Press
This essay surveys the history of how the idea of democracy came to China and demonstrates that from the late 19th century to 1919 leading advocates of democracy, both reformers and revolutionaries, came almost invariably from the intellectual elite with a strong background in Confucian culture. The article sees the waning of elite culture in 20th-century China as one of the main factors explaining why China has not made much headway toward democracy. With the marginalization of the intellectuals during the revolution led by the Chinese Communist Party, democracy lost any powerful intellectual elite to champion it. The Tiananmen democracy movement in 1989, however, is seen as proof that hopes for democracy have not completely disappeared.
Keywords: Democracy, Confucianism, minzhu, people’s rule, minquan, junmin gongzhi, junmin gongzhu guo, constitutional monarchy
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- Title Pages
- Dedication
- Author’s Preface
- Editorial Note
- Abbreviations
- Chronology of Dynasties
-
1. Some Preliminary Observations on the Rise of Qing Confucian Intellectualism -
2. Dai Zhen and the Zhu Xi Tradition -
3. Dai Zhen’s Choice Between Philosophy and Philology -
4. Zhang Xuecheng Versus Dai Zhen -
5. Qing Confucianism -
6. The Two Worlds of Honglou meng (Dream of the Red Chamber) -
7. Sun Yat-sen’s Doctrine and Traditional Chinese Culture -
8. The Radicalization of China in the Twentieth Century -
9. Neither Renaissance nor Enlightenment -
10. Modernization Versus Fetishism of Revolution in Twentieth-Century China -
11. The Idea of Democracy and the Twilight of the Elite Culture in Modern China -
12. China’s New Wave of Nationalism -
13. Democracy, Human Rights, and Confucian Culture -
14. Changing Conceptions of National History in Twentieth-Century China -
15. Reflections on Chinese Historical Thinking -
16. Modern Chronological Biography and the Conception of Historical Scholarship -
17. The Study of Chinese History -
18. Confucianism and China’s Encounter with the West in Historical Perspective -
19. Clio’s New Cultural Turn and the Rediscovery of Tradition in Asia - Acknowledgments
- Appendix
- Index