Update 10/15/06: Wang is also the subject of a magazine piece in this morning’s Sunday NYT: “China’s New Leftist.”
Interesting article in the IHT today about Wang Hui, the Tsinghua University professor and editor of Dushu (读书) who is perhaps the most prominent of China’s New (New?) Leftist intellectuals. Wang’s basic argument is that even though the reform era has brought some good things to China this does not mean socialism has lost its viability or that the Left in China has abdicated its responsibility to protect people from the ravages of laissez-faire capitalism and globalization.
Wang can come across as something of a crank. He thinks the reform process reached its high point in 1985. He bemoans the inclusion of business people into the CCP. He prefers to call himself a “critical intellectual” rather than a leftist. (And given the legacy of “Leftism” in China, who can blame him?) But despite the change in terminology, Wang remains committed to socialism and feels that the excesses of the past are not an excuse to abandon socialist principles in a headlong rush for economic growth at all costs.
He may be on to something. Ronald Reagan would love Shanghai, and why