Conceptualizing Intellectual-State Relations in China: With a Focus on the Contemporary Era

Abstract

Historically, Chinese intellectuals have maintained a very close relationship with the state. Despite China`s recent history of revolution and modernization, this close alignment between the state and intellectuals remains, to a large extent, a reality today. This paper is an attempt to understand the underlying dynamics that sustain such an alignment. Using an inductive approach as well as building upon the works of previous scholars, I have come up with two models: the two-continuum model and the patron-client model. I also comment on Edward Gu`s complementary plural institutionalism model and show how these models form a synthetic conception of the intellectual-state relationship in contemporary China.