What does it mean to be a conservative in Republican China? Challenging the widely held view
that Chinese conservatism set out to preserve traditional culture and was mainly a cultural
movement this book proposes a new framework with which to analyze modern Chinese conservatism.
It identifies late Qing culturalist nationalism which incorporates traditional culture into
concrete political reforms inspired by modern Western politics as the origin of conservatism
in the Republican era. During the May Fourth period New Culture activists belittled any
attempts to reintegrate traditional culture with modern politics as conservative. What
conservatives in Republican China stood for was essentially this late Qing culturalist
nationalism that rejected squarely the museumification of traditional culture. Adopting a
typological approach in order to distinguish different types of conservatism by differentiating
various political implications of traditional culture this book divides the Chinese
conservatism of the Republican era into four typologies: liberal conservatism antimodern
conservatism philosophical conservatism and authoritarian conservatism. As such this book
captures - for the first time - how Chinese conservatism was in constant evolution while also
showing how its emblematic figures reacted differently to historical circumstances.
