The Transformation Of Chang Fo-chuan's Political Thought

This Master's thesis deals with the transformation of Chang Fo-chuan's political thought from 1931 to 1971. In my opinion, Chang's political thought can be divided into two stages by 1948 and the two stages focused on state authority and individual freedom respectively.In the former stage, Chang Fo-chuan was worried about the national survive of China and people's political apathy. Additionally, he was greatly affected by the nationalism that originated from the late Qing Dynasty as well as new liberalism of T.H.Green, Bernard Bosanquet and others. He called for the establishment of modern nation-state, that's to say, on the one hand to establish powerful state authority, on the other hand, to mobilize and unite the people. He was very dissatisfied with individualism that emphasizes the tension between state and individual. Thus, he tried to reconcile state authority with individual freedom. The theory of state organism emphasizing the integration of state with people and the idea of positive liberty the core of which is self-government were chosen for this purpose. Although Chang concentrated on state authority, individual freedom played an important role in his thought. His idea of liberty was mainly positive liberty, but it contained negative liberty.In the latter stage, Cold War, totalitarianism study, the rise of neo-Liberalism, the KMT's defeat and other international and domestic events made a great impact on Chang. Since totalitarianism presented itself as a serious threat to individual freedom, Chang abandoned the efforts to reconcile state authority with individual freedom. Many pages in his writings were devoted to deconstruct the myth of state. The state organism that he formerly insisted on became fully untenable and the instrumentalist view of the state then occupied his mind. He insisted that state was just a tool and its only purpose was to protect individual rights. In order to defend individual freedom, he made a sharp distinction between 'political freedom' and 'inner freedom', legal sphere and moral sphere as well as society and state. By this way, individual freedom and social autonomy were emancipated from state authority which was strictly limited. In short, the latter stage of Chang Fo-chuan's political thought was typical of neo-Liberalism character, keywords of which were 'limitation of power' and 'individual freedom'. However, as shown in this thesis, although Chang held to limit state authority, great importance was attached to state authority, which was in one continuous line with his former thought.This Master's thesis holds that through Chang Fo-chuan we can understand better the transformation of Chinese political thought in the 20th century. Chang's intellectual transformation is due to the change of historical context and problematic. Undoubtedly, since the emphasis has shifted, there were many differences even self-contradictory points between Chang's two stages of thought. Nevertheless, consistency still can be found in his thought, most important of which is that he stressed state authority on the one hand, and never gave up individual freedom on the other hand. Such a dialectical unity of state authority and individual freedom should become a helpful suggestion to us: we want both individual freedom and state authority; there are both conflict and harmony between individual freedom and state authority; we need both efficient government and limited government; an incompetent government has no ability to protect our freedom, while an omnipotent government must threaten our freedom.