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48. Part of the information used in this section was obtained from personal interviews with a group of Chinese intellectuals in exile in Princeton, New Jersey, October 1991. I wish to thank the Associates of the University of Toronto Travel Grant Fund for providing financial support for the research trip to Princeton University, Lorraine Spiess (co-ordinator of the Princeton China Initiative) for arranging the interviews, and Martin He and Simon Wong for their assistance in the project.

49. A similar change of focus, according to Chamberlain, can also be found in the Western literature on China's civil society. This is his major argument in “On the search for civil society.”

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56. The strongest voice in this regard is that of Peng Wenyi, a Taiwanese intellectual who migrated to the United States some 20 years ago. According to him, the success of the newly industrializing countries in South-East Asia has demonstrated the ability of Confucian-type collective societies to achieve modernization. Endowed with the same cultural asset, China should also utilize this traditional advantage in its quest for development. Peng condemned the Chinese proponents of the Western individualistic concept of civil society for blind import of foreign ideas, just like the Communists’ introduction of Marxism into China several i. decades ago. See his “Zuqun shehui yu gongmin shehui” (“Collective society and civil society”), Jiushi niandai, June 1990, pp. 106–107; “Zai tan zuqun shehui” (“On collective society again”), Jiushi niandai, June 1991, pp. 69–71; and “Zhongguo bi wang lun zhi er” (“On the view that China will definitely perish, part 2”), Jiushi niandai, May 1992, pp. 88–S9. Peng's argument is not discussed in the main text because, as a Taiwanese, he is beyond the scope of this paper which is on the views of the mainland Chinese intellectuals. For a critique of Peng's opinion, see Chen Kuide, “On the misleading notion,” pp. 23–25.

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58. The assistance given by Triad Society in the escape of Su and other dissidents from China was featured in the British Broadcasting Corporation's television documentary Operation Yellowbird. I am indebted to Paul Ng for providing me with a chance to watch this film.

59. Su Xiaokang, “Dangdai Zhongguo,” p. 36; personal interview conducted at Princeton University, 18 October 1991.

60. Xiaokang, Su, “Ban diao zi de shimin shehui” (“A half-made civil society”), Minzhu Zhongguo, August 1992, pp. 1–3, at 3.Google Scholar

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65. Interview with Zhang Langlang at Princeton University on 16 October 1991.

66. Vladimir Tismaneanu, “Unofficial peace activism in the Soviet Union and East-Central Europe,” in Tismaneanu, In Search of Civil Society, pp. 1–53, at 4.

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68. Interview with Kong Jiesheng, conducted at Princeton University on 18 October 1991. The historian Philip Huang, however, argued that the Habermas’ notion of development of civil society from public sphere is basically a European formula that may not be applicable to China. According to him, the history of Ming-Qing China demonstrated a dissociation, rather than association, between expansion of public realm of life and assertion of civic power against the state. See Huang, Philip C. C., “The paradigmatic crisis in Chinese studies,” Modern China, Vol. 17, No. 3 (July 1991), pp. 299–341CrossRefGoogle Scholar, at 320–22.

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72. In Western literature there is also a tendency to conflate “civil society” with “society,” and make the term “civil” redundant. See Chamberlain, “On the search for civil society,” pp. ‘ 205–209; and White, “Prospects for civil society,” p. 66. it.

73. Tester, Civil Society p. 9.

74. Madsen, “Public sphere,” p. 190. I.

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