Zhu Xueqin (born 1952) is a Shanghai-based Chinese historian and public intellectual. He is a major exponent of contemporary Chinese liberalism.

Background

Born in Shanghai, Zhu was, like so many others, shaped in his eventual outlook by China's Cultural Revolution, when he was sent to rural Lankao County, Henan as a "sent-down youth" in 1970. In 1972 he was transferred to factory work.

Taking an MA degree in history in 1985 from Shaanxi Normal University, from 1985 to 1991 he taught in the Air Force Politics Institute. In 1992 he graduated from Fudan University with a doctorate in history. From 1991 he has since been a Professor in the Department of History, Academy of Letters, Shanghai University.

An article entitled "1998: The Discourse of Liberalism," which spoke of a "resurfacing" of liberal thought, struck a particularly resonance, as it appeared in the widely circulated Nanfang Zhoumo [Southern Weekend].

Zhu Xueqin was among the those who found works of the brilliant but isolated and tragically persecuted social theorist Gu Zhun particularly inspiring when rediscovered in the mid 1990s.

He has participated in many public activities, such as circular letter campaigns, in support of human rights, freedom of speech, and political reform.

An interview with him entitled "For a Chinese Liberalism" is published in the book One China, Many Paths.

Works

• Daode lixiang guo de fumie [Downfall of the Moral Republic] Shanghai: Sanlian, 2004(《道德理想国的覆灭》,上海三联)
• Zhongguoyu ouzhou wenhua jiaoliu zhi [Annals of Sino-European Cultural Exchange] (《中国与欧洲文化交流志》)
• Shuzhaili de geming [The Revolution in the Library](《书斋里的革命》)

See also

• History of China
• Chinese philosophy
• Gu Zhun