Civic Discourse, Civil Society and Chinese Communities

Abstract

The contributors to the book each define civic discourse in their own terms, and the differences in establishing the locus of Chinese civic discourse lead to various, and even conflicting, conclusions. For example, Kluver claims that China s educated elite will play an essential role in the formation of a truly civic discourse (p. 12), while Powers, as based on memoirs of foreign correspondents in China, argues that the influence of the political elite is quite limited in shaping the life and mind of common people (pp. 23-24). George Xu s essay emphasizes the ubiquitous role of traditional Chinese rhetorical topics in providing stability and continuity to the public discourse that constructs social the fabric (p. 42). Other contributors, however, are more positive in detecting the emergence of civil discourse in the context of the freedom to worship and rights of grassroots political groups. The confusion in the central conception of civic communication also contributes to one of the obvious weaknesses of the book. The text fails to address societal differences between civic communication within personal channels and that in the public domain. The formation and expression of society could be understood and examined discursively. However, civic discourse embodies and enacts different concerns and significance whether it is represented in argumentative conversations among individual citizens; public discussions in movies, television, and radio; or political dialogues between and among various government factions, constituencies of diasporic Chinese communities, and the outside world. It is rather difficult to fathom the significance that the genre of private conversation kan dashan (informal chatting) attains in relation to public discourse and civil society, as one of the authors (Shuming Lu) contends (pp. 181-194).