This book analyzes the 'intellectual political culture' of post-Tiananmen China in comparison to and in conflict with liberalism inside and outside the P.R.C. How do mainland politics and discourses challenge �our' own, chiefly liberal and anti-�statist' political frameworks? To what extent is China paradoxically intertwined with a liberal economism? How can one understand its general refusal of liberalism, as well as its frequent, direct responses to electoral democracy, universalism, Western media, and other normative forces? The author argues that the Party-state poses a challenge to our understandings of politics, globalization, and even progress. To be illiberal is not necessarily to be reactionary and vulgar but, more interestingly, to be anti-liberal and to seek alternatives to a degraded liberalism. In this way Chinese politics illuminate the global conjuncture and may have lessons in otherwise bleak times. The book uncovers new insights on the ongoing Chinese polity and its distinctiveness; reconciles theory
and material analyses and brings an interdisciplinary and multifaceted approach to a complex subject; and controversially reassesses the Chinese polity even as the Chinese model becomes more and more relevant around the world.