Book Title

China's Conservative Revolution: The Quest for a New Order, 1927-1949

Publisher

Cambridge University Press

Year of Publication

2018

ISBN

9781107196230

Introduction

In this ambitious examination of the complex political culture of China under Guomindang rule, Brian Tsui interweaves political ideologies, intellectual trends, social movements and diplomatic maneuvers to demonstrate how the Chinese revolution became conservative after the anti-Communist coup of 1927. Dismissing violent struggles for class equality as incompatible with nationalist goals, Chiang Kai-shek's government should, Tsui argues, be understood in the context of the global ascendance of radical right-wing movements during the inter-war period. The Guomindang's revolutionary nation-building and modernization project struck a chord with China's reformist liberal elite, who were wary of mob rule, while its obsession with Eastern spirituality appealed to Indian nationalists fighting Western colonialism. The Nationalist vision was defined by the party-state's hostility to communist challenges as much as by its ability to co-opt liberalism and Pan-Asianist anti-colonialism. Tsui's revisionist reading revisits the peculiarities of the Guomindang's revolutionary enterprise, resituating Nationalist China in the moment of global radical right ascendancy.

• Proposes a new way of understanding the Guomindang as a Chinese revolutionary state by exploring topics of international significance such as conservatism, Pan-Asianism and the radical right
• Utilizes a diverse collection of source materials that will appeal not only to historians but also to scholars of literature and political science

• Uncovers little-known ties between the Chinese Nationalist state and the Indian National Congress

Table of Contents

1. Introduction
2. Orthodoxy: purifying the revolution
3. The masses: a youth movement for the conservative revolution
4. State comes first: wartime spiritual revolution
5. Convergence: liberal sentimentalities and the conservative revolution
6. World revolution: China, Pan-Asianism and India

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