1st Edition
Liberalism and Chinese Economic Development Perspectives from Europe and Asia
Liberalism and Chinese Economic Development brings international contributors together in order to consider economic, political, social and legislative aspects of China’s modernization. This volume explores how liberalism is received and perceived, and whether it is adapted or adopted upon the basis of centuries of Chinese civilization and decades of capitalism.
China’s role in the global economy is an undeniable force. This book examines both historical and contemporary dimensions surrounding the question of Chinese liberalism, exploring China’s economic development in a comparative context. In particular, this text explores differences with the Western model, and more specifically, the relationship between Chinese economic thought and European traditions. This text assesses China’s economic development at both a macro and a micro level, and also considers its relationship with its neighbours.
Campagnolo answers whether free-trade and capitalistic economic developments are long sustainable without other types of liberal developments? Or is the idea that political liberties and economic freedom are just Western ideologies? This is a uniquely wide ranging book, suitable for scholars of the Chinese economy, the history of economic thought, economic philosophy and international political economy.
1. General Introduction. In Search of the meaning of Liberalism in a China confronting crisis. Gilles Campagnolo Part I. History of Thought: Contributions to the reception and adoption/adaption of Western thought 2. The Reception Of Kant in China. Bo Xu 3. Yan Fu and Kaiping Mines: the Meaning of Economic Liberalism in Early Modern China. Qunyi Liu 4. Liberal Economic Thought in Republican China. Olga Borokh 5. Modernization Theory, Chinese Modernization, and Social Ethics Jean-Sébastien Gharbi Part II. Liberalization and individualization 6. The Essence of Individuality in Kitarō Nishida’s works: A Contribution from Eastern Asia to a Transcultural Understanding of the Meaning of Individualism Andrea Altobrando 7. Reject of Narcissism and Social Essentialism through the Anthropology of Masao Maruyama. Masataka Muramatsu 8. Dual Individualization in East Asia: Individualization in the Society and in the Family. Sang-Jin Han and Young-Hee Shim 9. Intensive Secularization of Engaged Buddhism to Heal Isolated People in East Asia: Active Listening by Monks in liberalized Societies of Eastern Asia. Yoshihide Sakurai Part III. Liberalism, universalims and pluralism 10. Self-Determination: What Liberalism is it? Zhao Lizhi 11. Slaughter’s Liberal Theory of International Law: Comments from a Chinese Perspective. Guimei Bai 12. Liberalization of Russian foreign economic relations in North-Eastern Asia: a viewpoint on Chinese and Japanese business Igor Botoev and Olga Tugulova 13. Talking Politics in China: Media and ‘Social Management’ in a China facing fast-pace Modernization. Santiago Pinault
Biography
Gilles Campagnolo is Research Professor at the National Center for Scientific Research and at Aix-Marseilles School of Economics, France. He is also the Global Coordinator for the European Union program “Liberalism in between Europe and China”.
'The book provides conceptual tools to reach an answer within a Chinese environment, both Confucian and firmly ruled by the Chinese Communist Party. The underlying tension among these factors makes the book’s analysis uniquely wide-ranging.' — Aix-Marseille School of Economics
‘Liberalism and Chinese Economic Development’ is a multidisciplinary and multi-sided book, centered on a number of questions that are rarely posed with respect to the future ‘destiny’ of such an extraordinary experience in industrialization and development. In her review of the book Stefania Jaconis analyses the connections brought out by the authors (economists and political scientists, philosophers as well as specialists in Eastern Studies) of the various chapters, which together construct a powerful portrait of contemporary China and of its multi-faceted transition. One of the connections is that between neo-Confucianism and democratization - the final point (perhaps) along the line of acceptance of economic liberalism. Jaconis notes how, like many others, this connection cannot be grasped without previous knowledge of what ‘individualism’ means in the historic and cultural context of Eastern Asia, and of its difference from the analogous Western concept. In her view, the book proves that disciplines like history and history of culture are necessary to evaluate events that are never purely ‘economic’, like China’s reaction to the recent global crisis.’ — Stefania Jaconis, Eticaeconomia, 15th February 2017, (http://www.eticaeconomia.it), Italy.
