Conclusion

Abstract

The purpose of this book has been to trace the emergence and evolution of the Chinese conception of rights, and to outline some of the main sources of influence that constitute this conception. The basic thrust of my argument has been that while the idea of rights was essentially ‘imported’ into Chinese political discourse from the West in the mid-to-late nineteenth century, there has not been a simple duplication of the Western ‘model’. Instead, as one might expect, China’s understanding of rights has been fashioned by Chinese thinking and has been adapted to suit Chinese national circumstances. One of the most influential factors shaping the thinking of early Chinese rights theorists was the need to construct a strong and vibrant nation-state in order to counter the imperialist machinations of Japan and the West. Therefore, although these scholars learned about the concept of rights by reading the works of classical liberal scholars like Immanuel Kant, they rejected the traditional Kantian belief that rights were of intrinsic value to the individual in favour of the more instrumentalist view of rights as a means to the nation-building goals of the Chinese state. Similarly, many Republican scholars were familiar with the Lockean theory of natural rights, but rather than seeing rights as a necessary restraint on state power, as Locke had done, they understood rights to be a way of enhancing the omnipotence of the state in its quest to unite and strengthen the Chinese nation. The victory of the Chinese Communist Party and the subsequent