1 Nathan, Andrew, China's Crisis (New York: Columbia University Press, 1990), chap. 7Google Scholar; Kelly, David and Baogong, He, “Emergent Civil Society and the Intellectuals in China,” in Miller, Robert, ed., The Development of Civil Society in Communist Systems (Sydney: Allen and Unwin, 1992), 24–39;Google ScholarRowe, William T., Hankow: Commerce and Society in a Chinese City, 1796-1889 (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1984);Google ScholarRowe, William T., Hankow: Conflict and Community in a Chinese City, 1796-1895 (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1989);Google ScholarStrand, David, Rickshaw Beijing: City, People and Politics in the 1920s (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1989);Google ScholarRankin, Mary Backus, Elite Activism and Political Transformation in China: Zhejiang Province, 1865-1911 (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1986)Google Scholar; McCormick, Barrett L., Shaozhi, Su and Xiaoming, Xiao, “The 1989 Democracy Movement: A Review of the Prospects for Civil Society in China,” Pacific Affairs 65 (1992), 182–202CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Whyte, Martin, “Urban China: A Civil Society in the Making?,” in Rosenbaum, Arthur Lewis, ed., State and Society in China: The Consequences of Reform (Boulder: Westview Press, 1992), 77–102;Google ScholarHalpern, Nina, “Economic Reform, Social Mobilization, and Democratization in Post-Mao China,” in Baum, Richard, ed., Reform and Reaction in Post-Mao China: The Road to Tiananmen (New York: Routledge, 1991), 38–59;Google Scholar and Chamberlain, Heath, “On the Search for Civil Society in China,” Modern China 19 (1993), 199–215.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

2 Pye, Lucian W., The Mandarin and the Cadre: China's Political Cultures (Ann Arbor: Center for Chinese Studies, University of Michigan, 1988)Google Scholar; Pye, Lucian W., “Tiananmen and Chinese Political Culture,” Asian Survey 30 (1990), 331–47;CrossRefGoogle ScholarFu, Zhengyuan, “Continuities of Chinese Political Tradition,” Studies in Comparative Communism 3 (1991), 259–79;CrossRefGoogle Scholar and Wakeman, Frederic, “The Civil Society and Public Sphere Debate,” Modern China 19 (1993), 108–38.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

3 Pye, Lucian W., Asian Power and Politics (Cambridge: Belknap Press, 1985), chaps. 3 and 7.Google Scholar

4 Goldman, Merle, , Perry Link and Wei, Su, “China's Intellectuals in the Deng Era: Loss of Identity With the State,” in Dittmer, Lowell and Kim, Samuel, eds., China's Quest for National Identity (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1993), 125ff.Google Scholar

5 Bai Hua's screenplay, Unrequited Love, is about a patriotic intellectual's devotion to his country and how this is repaid with repression and brutality from the regime and its officials. The punch line delivered by his daughter at the end reads: “You love the motherland, but does the motherland love you?” In a 1985 article, journalist Liu Binyan argued that loyalty to one's country, society and even the Communist Party does not require allegiance to the leaders and their policies. The regime's reaction to the relatively mild ideas of Bai Hua and Liu Binyan was hostile; both were severely criticized and held to be “unpatriotic.” In fact, Bai was the major target of a nationwide campaign against “bourgeois liberalization” launched in 1981 (see Goldman et al., “China's Intellectuals in the Deng Era,” 132ff.).

6 As Andrew Nathan argues, in terms of GNP per capita, industrialization, urbanization, education and communication, China is not necessarily more backward than some Western countries. See his China's Crisis, chap. 7. On the relationship between the availability of television and cultural change in China, see Lull, James, China Turned On (London: Routledge, 1991).Google Scholar

7 For illustration of this trend, see, for example, Rosenbaum, Arthur Lewis, “Introduction,” in Rosenbaum, , ed., State and Society in China: The Consequences of Reform, 24Google Scholar, and Kelly, and He, , “Emergent Civil Society,” 31.Google Scholar For similar analyses of Chinese students, a pivotal subgroup among young people, see, in particular, Rosen, Stanley, “Students and the State in China: The Crisis in Ideology and Organization,” in Rosenbaum, , ed., State and Society in China, 167–86.Google Scholar

8 See Goldman, , Link, and Su, , “China's Intellectuals in the Deng Era,” 125.Google Scholar

9 Inglehart, Ronald, Culture Shift in Advanced Industrial Society (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1990), 155–157.Google Scholar See also Rosen, , “Students and the State in China,” 168–83.Google Scholar

10 According to Andrew J. Nathan and Tianjian Shi, the Chinese State Statistical Bureau was conducting survey research on behalf of Ronald Inglehart at the time of writing of their article. See their “Cultural Requisites for Democracy in China: Findings from a Survey,” in Wei-Ming, Tu, ed., China in Transformation (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1993), 119.Google Scholar To the best of our knowledge, these data are not yet available.

11 Pye, Lucian W., “How China's Nationalism Was Shanghaied,” Australian Journal of Chinese Affairs 29 (1993), 127.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

12 See, for example, Zhu, Jianhua, Zhao, Xinshu and Li, Hairong, “Public Political Consciousness in China: An Empirical Profile,” Asian Survey 30 (1990), 995;CrossRefGoogle ScholarNathan, and Shi, , “Cultural Requisites for Democracy in China,” 95–123;Google ScholarRosenbaum, , “Introduction,” 9–11 and 17;Google ScholarWhyte, , “Urban China,” 85–96Google Scholar; Halpern, , “Economic Reform,” 38–59;Google Scholar and Walder, , “Urban Industrial Workers,” 103–20.Google Scholar

13 A critical exploration of the different uses of the term is to be found in Heath Chamberlain, “On the Search for Civil Society in China,” 199-215. See also Shils, Edward, “The Virtue of Civil Society,” Government and Opposition 26 (1991), 3–20.CrossRefGoogle Scholar The Chinese seem to take two divergent approaches to the issue of civil society. Theorists residing in China are concerned with the creation of a modern citizenry with “civic consciousness,” but this notion has quickly been coopted by the officials to stress the law-abiding citizen and “socialism with Chinese characteristics.” Exiled dissidents, on the other hand, are so disenchanted by the partystate that they are anxious for a private realm separate and independent from the state. See Ma, Shu Yun, “The Chinese Discourse on Civil Society,” China Quarterly 137 (1994), 180–93.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

14 See, for example, Sullivan, Lawrence, “The Emergence of Civil Society in China, Spring, 1989,” in Saich, Tony, ed., The Chinese People's Movement (Armonk: M.E.Sharpe, 1990), 129–44.Google Scholar

15 See, for example, Nathan, and Shi, , “Cultural Requisites for Democracy in China,” 95–118;Google ScholarPerry, Elizabeth, “Casting a Chinese ‘Democracy’ Movement: The Roles of Students, Workers, and Entrepreneurs,” in Wasserstrom, Jeffrey and Perry, Elizabeth, eds., Popular Protest and Political Culture in Modern China (Boulder: Westview Press, 1992), 146–60;Google Scholar and Cheek, Timothy, “From Priest to Professionals: Intellectuals and the State Under the CCP,” in Wasserstrom, and Perry, , eds., Popular Protest and Political Culture, 124–41.Google Scholar

16 See Whyte, , “Urban China,” 78.Google Scholar

17 Yang, Mayfair, “Between State and Society: The Construction of Corporateness in a Chinese Socialist Factory,” Australian Journal of Chinese Affairs 22 (1989), 31–60CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Miller, Robert, “Civil Society in Communist Systems: An Introduction,” in Miller, , ed., The Development of Civil Society, 1–10;Google Scholar and Chan, Anita, “Revolution or Corporatism? Workers and Trade Unions in Post-Mao China,” Australian Journal of Chinese Affairs 29 (1993), 31–61.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

18 Chamberlain, “On the Search for Civil Society in China,” 207-08.

19 Richard Madsen rightly criticizes civil society studies which indiscriminately label any separation of state and social activity as “civil society.” See Madsen, Richard, “The Public Sphere, Civil Society and Moral Community: A Research Agenda for Contemporary China Studies,” Modern China 19 (1993), 183–98, especially 189.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

20 Here is how Easton characterizes each of the objects of support (Easton, David, A Systems Analysis of Political Life [New York: Wiley, 1965]):Google Scholar “The Political Community … will refer to that aspect of a political system that consists of its members seen as a group of persons bound together by a political division of labour. The existence of a political system must include a plurality of political relationships through which the individual members are linked to each other and through which the political objectives of the system are pursued, however limited they may be” (177).

”The regime as sets of constraints on political interaction in all systems may be broken down into three components: values (goals and principles), norms, and structure of authority. The values serve as broad limits with regard to what can be taken for granted in the guidance of day-to-day policy without violating deep feelings of important sections of the community. The norms specify the kinds of procedures that are expected and acceptable in the processing and implementation of demands. The structures of authority designate the formal and informal patterns in which power is distributed and organized with regard to the authoritative making and implementing of decisions—the roles and their relationship through which authority is distributed and exercised” (193).

“… ‘authorities’… include members of a system who conform to the following criteria. They must engage in the daily affairs of a political system; they must be recognized by most members of the system as having the responsibility for these matters; and their actions must be accepted as binding most of the time by most of the members as long as they act within the limits of their roles. Specifically, we refer to such occupants of authority roles as elders, paramount chiefs, executives, legislators, judges, administrators, councilors, monarchs, and the like” (212).

21 Qi, Min, Zhongguo Zhengzhi Wenhua: Minzhu Zhengzhi Nanchande Shehui Xinli Yinsu [China's Political Culture: The Social Psychological Obstacles to Democratic Politics] (Kunming: Yennan Renmin Chubanshe, 1989).Google Scholar

22 Almond, Gabriel and Verba, Sidney, The Civic Culture (Boston: Little Brown, 1965).Google Scholar

23 Min, , Zhongguo Zhengzhi Wenhua, 240–45.Google Scholar

24 Nathan and Shi point out that Min Qi's data “severely undersampled women, older citizens, rural residents, and other key sectors of the population” (see their ”Cultural Requisites for Democracy in China,” 97). This is exaggerated. The proportion of women sampled is 38 percent, while the proportion of those sampled in villages, small towns and more remote areas is an equally acceptable 47 per cent.

25 Min, Zhongguo Zhengzhi Wenhua, 246,50, Tables 1 -1 and 2-1.

26 Ibid., 248,252, Tables 1-8,2-8.

27 Moreover, in China there is a rich archaic tradition of politeness in interpersonal relations, and intricate folkways designed to make and save the “face” of the other. Walder points out the tendency of Chinese people to attempt to be obliging and to attempt to comply with the perceived feelings of the other. He argues that this is almost “second nature.” See Walder, Andrew G., “Communist Social Structure and Workers' Politics in China,” in Falkenheim, Victor C., ed., Citizens and Groups in Contemporary China (Ann Arbor: Center for Chinese Studies, University of Michigan, 1987), 74, 83.Google Scholar Lucian Pye (The Mandarin and the Cadre, 31) makes much the same point. If these observations are even partially applicable to the manner in which the Chinese responded to the questionnaire, then they raise serious concerns about interpretation. At the very least we should be cautious.

28 Min, Zhongguo Zhengzhi Wenhua.

29 This is consistent with the study conducted by Godwin C. Chu and Yanan Ju. Their sample of 2,000 respondents was drawn from metropolitan Shanghai and surrounding area. See their The Great Wall in Ruins (Albany: State University of New York Press, 1993), 24-29,224-25.Google Scholar

30 Full details on the wording of the items as well as the full tables of results by individual item are available on request from the authors.