‘Wild Intellectuals’ In ‘COVID-1984’: Liberalism, freedom, and ‘normal lives’ in Contemporary China
This thesis focuses on contemporary Chinese liberal intellectuals, and the problems, paradoxes but also possibilities that :low from their commitments to liberal ideals in a context where those ideals clash with official ideological control and nationalist sentiments in the public sphere. Adopting an ethnographic approach, it aims to highlight how the deceptively familiar concepts of ‘liberalism’ and ‘freedom’ are encountered in these contexts, as a set of personal aspirations, ideologies, ethical commitments and dilemmas. It will shed new light on the lived reality of liberalism, at a time when the very idea is newly in question in a range of global discourses. ‘Liberal intellectuals’ here denotes individuals who exhibit a favourable evaluation of freedom and the individual, hold a critical stance towards the official ideology in China’s context, and who are engaged in knowledge production as part of their professional activities. This research examines what challenges and opportunities these individuals encounter in both their professional and personal lives, how they navigate them, and how these experiences, in turn, shape their understanding of and commitment to liberalism. Guided by these questions, I conducted 20 months of fieldwork in Chengdu, China, primarily from June 2021 to December 2022, with two follow-up trips in 2023. This period was marked with stringent Zero-COVID policies and heightened ideological control, underscored by the 100th anniversary of the Communist Party of China and Xi Jinping’s unprecedented third presidential term. The term ‘COVID-1984’, coined by Chinese netizens, aptly describes the tangible atmosphere on both mobility and ideology, resulting from top-down regulations and bottom-up patriotic sentiments. This thesis hence examines how liberal intellectuals responded to the ‘COVID-1984’ context, relocated themselves, and explored new possibilities. The study focuses on Dunbar, a pub that hosted over 200 public events during its brief 580-day existence. These events, initiated by liberal intellectuals, served as a platform for public dialogue and engagement. Many involved expressed that they did not intend to be dissident or revolutionary, but just wishing for ‘a normal life’. Their desired ‘normal lives’, however, were deeply rooted in their understanding of liberalism from the western tradition, particularly emphasising a life with freedom. This thesis explores the endeavours those individuals invested to pursue freedom, especially freedom of speech, as well as the consequences and risks of doing so. Central to this exploration is the concept of ‘wild/wildness’, an ethnographically situated understanding of freedom. Many individuals in this study self-identified as ‘wild intellectuals’, a term that denotes their independent thoughts and social status. They also employed various ‘wild’ approaches to pursue their ‘normal lives’, such as ‘public practices of secrets’—a paradoxical but (temporarily) effective strategy for balancing freedom with safety in China. Drawing on scholarship from within and beyond anthropology, this thesis contributes to the understanding of liberalism, freedom, and ‘normal lives’ in the context of contemporary China. It is an exploration of lived liberalism within an illiberal context, the paradoxes faced by individuals whose knowledge sustains their livelihoods yet endangers their freedom, and the everyday experiences of life in Zero-COVID China. At a time of profound uncertainty and escalating challenges, the question of how to live in alignment with one’s liberal values under adverse conditions has become increasingly timely and urgent.
contemporary China, freedom, intellectuals, liberalism, normal life, 'Zero-COVID'
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