Dual Variation of Enlightenment and Emancipation: Pre-History of Chinese Socialism

After the 1989 Tiananmen incident, China has been deliberately promoting the effort to revive the Confucian traditions and values. The current efforts to reevaluate the Confucian tradition in China stemmed from the awareness on the part of the Chinese that denial of a11 things Chinese was not an effective means to overcome China’s crisis. With regard to is point, in order to grasp the sociopo1itical implication of the restoration of the Confucian tradition, the pre-history of modem Chinese socialism needs to be examined. This paper proposes at experiment of the early twentieth century, to overcome the Chinese national deterioration can be described as a dual variation of enlightenment and emancipation. This paper wi11 carry out this examination with regard to three historical periods: the period of the reformation movement in the latter nineteenth century, the period of the New Culture Movement in the 1910κ and the period of Sinicizing socialism by nascent Chinese Marxists in the early twentieth century For the past one century, China has promoted the pr이ect of Sinicizing socialism. Mao Zedong and Deng Xiaoping respectively conducted the experiment of Sinicizing socialism,. using their own methods. As a result, China presented a new model of “ socialism with Chinese characteristics. However, the future of this model is now facing a new challenge. China is currently confronting a period of a new dialectic synthesis between things traditional and modem. In lÌs regard, the future of “ composite innovation, which the current Chinese government espouses, is still obscure.