Xu Zhangrun’s Fears & Hopes, July 2018-July 2020

Viral Alarm

 

On 26 July 2018, Xu Zhangrun (許章潤, 1962-), a well-known professor of law at Tsinghua University published an essay titled ‘Imminent Fears, Immediate Hopes’ 我們當下的恐懼與期待. Written in a succinct and powerful form of literary Chinese, Xu’s jeremiad analysed the authoritarian revanchism of what the Chinese media were hailing as the New Epoch of Xi Jinping Thought.

Following a lengthy analysis of China’s political woes, Xu also offered concrete policy suggestions aimed at ameliorating what many liberal thinkers and constitutional activists in China see as being a systemic crisis. ‘Fears and Hopes’ was an extension of arguments that he had been making since at least 2016, and it was followed, in December 2018 and January 2019, by three interconnected essays in which Xu further outlined his view of modern Chinese history, the role played in it by the Communist Party, and the threat that it now poses not only to the continued modernisation but to the international community as a whole.

Here we pause to commemorate the second anniversary of the publication of ‘Imminent Fears, Immediate Hopes’ and to celebrate Xu Zhangrun’s contribution to a debate about modern China and its civilisation that has raged for well over a century. We do so by offering a series of links to audio-visual versions of speeches and articles by Xu Zhangrun published online over the last two years. For more details and translations of Professor Xu’s work, see our Xu Zhangrun Archive.

— Geremie R. Barmé
Editor, China Heritage
26 July 2020

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Further Reading:


2018

許章潤, ‘我們當下的恐懼與期待’,2018年6月26日

This audio version was published on 26 March 2020

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許章潤演講,‘憲政與王道政治’

A lecture from 2014; this video was published online on 28 July 2018


2019

許章潤,‘中國不是一個紅色帝國’,2019年1月12日

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‘清华精神要死了’——自墙不吸独立精神,厚得再无自由思想,《美国之音》,2019年4月20

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清華教授許章潤的演講為何讓中共緊張萬分 看完就明白了

An excerpt from an old lecture re-published online on 3 July 2019


2020

許章潤,‘憤怒的人民已不再恐懼’, 《雋言雋語》,2020年2月6日

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許章潤, ‘世界文明大洋上的中國孤舟’,2020年5月22日

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許章潤,‘踐踏斯文必驅致一邪魅人間’,《隽言隽语》,2020年7月7日

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許章潤再發公開信:‘只要活著就會發聲,極權必敗,自由終將降臨我的國土’, 《華爾街電視》,2020年7月20日