학술논문

Wang Hui: Contemporary Pan-Asianist in China?
Document Type
Chapter
Author
Source
Pan-Asianism and the Legacy of the Chinese Revolution, 2023.
Subject
Asian History
contemporary China
Chinese Revolution
Wang Hui
Chinese New Left
Belt-Road Initiative
Language
English
Abstract
“Wang Hui: Contemporary Pan-Asianist in China?” explores the future of pan-Asianism in the midst of leftist melancholy and continues to trace the dialogue between pan-Asianism and Marxism that pan-Asianists from Okakura to Takeuchi had begun. Chapter 6 asks how such ideas might fare in China today. To answer this question, the chapter presents an examination of the political writings of Wang Hui. Wang Hui revives Third Worldism, Asian unity, and revolution in an unfavorable historical context, namely when the Chinese Revolution and socialism in general appear to have been a failure. Wang attempts a double maneuver where, on the one hand, he uses the Chinese revolutionary past to criticize the present, and on the other, he points out the links between Mao’s China and China today. Considering China’s rise, one wonders whether pan-Asianism—especially the Chinese Revolution—has won a pyrrhic victory. Two decades into the twenty-first century, one can again speak of the rise of Asia and a China that invokes Mao’s legacy. However, given the extent to which capitalism mediates everyday life in China, this victory seems fraught with paradoxes at best.

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