Chinese Emigre Intellectuals and Their Quest for Liberal Values in the Cold War, 1949-1969

By examining the life and thought of self-exiled Chinese intellectuals after 1949 by placing them in the context of the global Cold War, Kenneth Kai-chung Yung argues that Chinese intellectuals living in Hong Kong, Taiwan and overseas Chinese communities in the 1950s could not escape from the global anti-utopian Cold War currents. Each of them responded to such currents quite differently. Yung also examines different models of nation-building advocated by the emigre intellectuals and argues in his book that these emigre intellectuals inherited directly the multifaceted Chinese liberal tradition that was well developed in the Republican era (1911-1949). Contrary to existing literature that focus mostly on the New Confucians or the liberals, this study highlights that moderate socialists cannot be ignored as an important group of Chinese emigre intellectuals in the first two decades of the Cold War era. This book will inspire readers who are concerned about the prospects for democracy in contemporary China by painting a picture of the Chinese self-exiles’ experiences in the 1950s and 1960s.