DENGS CHINA - FROM POST-MAOISM TO POST-MARXISM

Ideological reorientation in China, which began in the late-1970s, was borne out of the need to invalidate the hitherto 'standardised' and ' immutable' Soviet socialist model, and to move beyond the limitations of classical Marxism. In emphasising subjectivity and moral-ethical in terpretation of humanism, which was found lacking in Lenin's theory of reflection, the post-1978 thinking undermined the centrality of class and ultimately the party's claim and authority as a representative en tity. Yet this intellectual reassessment failed at furnishing a new pe rsuasively and coherently articulated ideological framework since it d id not address the adverse long-term political and socio-economic cons equences of economic liberalisation. The post-Tienanmen period has see n a simultaneous emergence of neo-conservatism, a nostalgia for the Ma o era and the receptivity to New Confucianism, as an effort to address the loss of central authority and the consequent ideological and poli tical fragmentation by having recourse to a blend of selective western ideas and institutions with the traditional Chinese values. The post- Mao change of course illustrates the 'orientational crisis' that has e nveloped Chinese socio-economic cultural order after it can no more be contained by an official orthodoxy.