Contemporary Chinese social and political thought

In the last four decades, Chinese intellectuality has developed new outlooks. One salient difference between the intellectuality of the Maoist time (1949-1978) and that of the post-Maoist era (1978-the present) is that the latter saw the rise of intellectuals as a leading group in mainland society. Whereas it was the Party leadership that had previously set the tone of cultural and intellectual life, academics and independent scholars now guided the production of Chinese social and political thought. The post-Maoist intellectuality as it has developed since the 1980s form the object of critical examination in this chapter.