Mark Leonard “China's new intelligentsia” Prospect March 2008 http://www.prospect-magazine.co.uk/article_details.php?id=10078
康慨編訳「馬克・莱昂納徳：中国在想甚麼？」（『東方早報』2008年３月５日）という記事にて知る。最近What Does China Think?という著書をFourth Estateから上梓したEuropean Council on Foreign Relations のexecutive directorの Mark Leonard氏が中国知識人世界を紹介している。What Does China Think?及びこの記事は2003年以来の中国大陸知識人へのインタヴューの成果。少し抜き出すと、
ただ、ここで言及されているのは、経済、政治、外交関係に関わる知識人であって、人文系の知識人ではない。
We are used to China's growing influence on the world economy—but could it also reshape our ideas about politics and power? This story of China's intellectual awakening is less well documented. We closely follow the twists and turns in America's intellectual life, but how many of us can name a contemporary Chinese writer or thinker? Inside China—in party forums, but also in universities, in semi-independent think tanks, in journals and on the internet—debate rages about the direction of the country: "new left" economists argue with the "new right" about inequality; political theorists argue about the relative importance of elections and the rule of law; and in the foreign policy realm, China's neocons argue with liberal internationalists about grand strategy. Chinese thinkers are trying to reconcile competing goals, exploring how they can enjoy the benefits of global markets while protecting China from the creative destruction they could unleash in its political and economic system. Some others are trying to challenge the flat world of US globalisation with a "walled world" Chinese version.Paradoxically, the power of the Chinese intellectual is amplified by China's repressive political system, where there are no opposition parties, no independent trade unions, no public disagreements between politicians and a media that exists to underpin social control rather than promote political accountability. Intellectual debate in this world can become a surrogate for politics—if only because it is more personal, aggressive and emotive than anything that formal politics can muster. While it is true there is no free discussion about ending the Communist party's rule, independence for Tibet or the events of Tiananmen Square, there is a relatively open debate in leading newspapers and academic journals about China's economic model, how to clean up corruption or deal with foreign policy issues like Japan or North Korea. Although the internet is heavily policed, debate is freer here than in the printed word (although one of the most free-thinking bloggers, Hu Jia, was recently arrested). And behind closed doors, academics and thinkers will often talk freely about even the most sensitive topics, such as political reform. The Chinese like to argue about whether it is the intellectuals that influence decision-makers, or whether groups of decision-makers use pet intellectuals as informal mouthpieces to advance their own views. Either way, these debates have become part of the political process, and are used to put ideas in play and expand the options available to Chinese decision-makers. Intellectuals are, for example, regularly asked to brief the politburo in "study sessions"; they prepare reports that feed into the party's five-year plans; and they advise on the government's white papers.
尚、この記事でも言及されている汪暉についてはhttp://d.hatena.ne.jp/sumita-m/20061016/1161019732も参照。
