Yao Yang's Proposal for China's Future

Back in the saddle again after ten days in the land of the (mask-) free and the home of the brave (vaccine-resisters). God bless boring, civilized Canada.

New on the site this time, two texts by Yao Yang, whose apparent evolution from New Left to New Confucian I find interesting. The first text, “The Challenges Facing the Chinese Communist Party and the Reconstruction of Political Philosophy” is particularly fascinating because it was published on July 2, the day after the CCP’s 100-year birthday bash, and offers Yao’s vision for China’s future, a vision which makes no mention of Xi Jinping or Xi Jinping Thought. Yes, I suppose that everyone had heard quite enough about Xi by then, but still, the omission is striking.

Yao’s second text, “The Dilemma of China’s Democratization,” dates from 2009, and is interesting because Yao seems already to be moving away from his earlier New Left standpoint.

And finally, Freya Ge and I offer a text that speaks to both Youth Concerns and Women’s Voices: a piece on the female stand-up comic Yang Li, and the online male backlash to her gentle ridicule of the foibles of (Chinese) men.
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Enjoy!