Just some bits about my never-ending (hopefully ending soon) PhD research

Revising various parts again and again as that’s normal for PhD life. It’s certainly much more demanding to do it part-time over years while being tied up with various stuff. Although I have already spent so much time on it, I’m determined to continue it and will not give up until I can get myself happy with the draft. And, here’s a summary of what I have been working on over the years….

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I have been revising my draft thesis on “Universalism” and “Cultural Relativism” of “Freedom of Expression” and Internet Activism in “Chinese” Societies.

I focus on two representative figures, Liu Xiaobo (late Nobel Peace Prize laureate) and Professor Benny Tai, a law professor of the University of Hong Kong, who was among the leaders of the Umbrella Movement and who initiated the primary election among pro-democracy politicians and activists in Hong Kong.

Based on Castoriadis concepts of social imagination and Prof. Gregory Lee’s argument on social imagination of the concept of “China”, I extended my arguments on how social imagination was established in the “Chinese” societies, and in particular in my research, on how “freedom of expression” is always presented by the “Chinese” regimes as Western concepts, while Marxism and Socialism, which were introduced in the West, are presented as part of contemporary “Chinese” culture with the so-called “Chinese characteristics”.

My argument is that the concept of “freedom of expression”, despite not fully present in any cultures, is a universal concept and the “Chinese” cultures have always been part of it. Chinese stakeholders, including academics, politicians and other stakeholders, have never been excluded from formulating the concept of “freedom of expression”. So, it is problematic and logically incorrect to claim that “freedom of expression”, like democracy, is merely a Western concept. Therefore, it’s also normatively incorrect to claim that “freedom of expression” does not exist in contemporary Chinese culture with the cultural relativist perspective.

The cultural difference between China and Hong Kong might seem significant in terms of the social imagination of “Chineseness”. However, if we focus on the case of Liu Xiaobo, who resided in Beijing, the exposure to universal concepts and other “Western” concepts, would be more or less similar to that of Hong Kong. While one can claim that as Beijing has been the Chinese capital in contemporary China, it’s not normative to merely claim that Beijing is more “Chinese” than Hong Kong as many intellectuals in both cities have also been educated overseas or exposed to “Western” concepts. As such, it would also be problematic to claim that people in Hong Kong would be more exposed to the concept of “freedom of expression” than the people in Beijing, just simply because of the difference in political systems.

My argument is that the concept of “freedom of expression” has never been alien to contemporary “Chinese” cultures. If “Chinese” culture would have been the major reason, why would there be “freedom of expression” in Taiwan, which is predominantly a “Chinese” culture, while arguably preserving more “Chinese” culture than that in China, such as the use of traditional Chinese characters (and so as the case of Hong Kong). Both contemporary China, Hong Kong and Taiwan societies still promote the study of traditional Chinese history, literature and philosophy, while Communist China suppress Confucianism during the Cultural Revolution and ironically promote “Confucianism” and “Chinese” culture through the various Confucian Institutes 孔子學院. So, the question is how the cultural relativist concept of “Chinese” culture can be the justification of not embracing freedom of expression in contemporary society in mainland China, while Confucius in fact promoted dialogue and encouraged intellectuals to have certain degree of “free expression”, which was called critique (諫言) to emperors and there were even officials that offer critique to emperors, who were called 諫官?

In conclusion, “Chinese” cultures have always been hybrid and blended with many other cultures and it was the case in contemporary “Chinese” societies as well. The concept of “freedom of expression” is always a universal concept instead of a cultural relativist concept.