STUDIES OF THE WEAI BOOK SERIES
Brian Tsui
(Cambridge University Press, 2018)
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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.
“In this incisive volume, Tsui conclusively demonstrates that the Nationalists’ quest for ‘capitalism without capitalism’ – or fascism – was the central feature of the ideology and organization of the politics of conservatism in China’s Republican period. This study is a meticulous work of history; it is also indispensable for our contemporary moment.”
– Rebecca E. Karl, New York University
Brian Tsui is assistant professor at Hong Kong Polytechnic University
