China and the West

Davies, Gloria. Habermas in China [ID D24555].
In China, Jürgen Habermas is regularly described as a theorist of contemporary reason, an advocate of cultural pluralism and a defender of human rights. While many Chinese intellectuals regard Habermas as a prominent Leftist thinker and a 'descendant' of the Frankfurt School, they have nonetheless accorded to his repertoire of ideas a utility beyond the politics of Left and Right.
The work of Habermas first attracted the notice of mainland Chinese intellectuals during the initial phase of China's state-led transition from a planned to a market economy between 1979 and the early 1980s. By the early 1990s, Chinese intellectuals acquainted with Habermas's writings were already claiming that his concept of an ever-more inclusive public sphere was highly relevant to their own critical engagement with socio-economic and political injustices emerging out of China'makret reforms. Similarly, Habermas's theory of communicative rationality, originally conceived as a guiding principle for addressing essentially European ethical concerns withhin the multilateral framework of the present-day global exonomy, came to provide these intelleectuals with a handy paradigm for advocating inclusiveness as an ethical norm for Chinese critical inquiry.
Habermas's intellectual authority grew in China throughout the late 1990s as more accounts of different aspects of his work were published in the range of Chinese journals that appeared during this time. The diversity of topics addressed was often taken as a positive sign by Chinese intellectuals that mainland scholarship was on its way towards acquiring an international and professional standard. Tu put it in Sinophone terms, these publications on Habermas signaled to Chinese intellectuals that they were gaining strength in their production of 'xueshu' (methodical, systematic and properly referenced scholarship) and 'xueli' (academic theory) in addition to their already well-established capacity for 'sixiang' (thought of an expressive and independent nature).
At least three distinct approaches to Habermas can be discerned : one, Habermas is viewed as a 'theoretical resource' (lilu ziyuan for democracy via the concepts of the public sphere and communicative rationality ; two, he is a 'resource' for those who seek to defend and promote a uniquely Chinese modernity ; and three, he has served as theoretical legitimation for Pary ideology.